Thursday, October 17, 2002 by The Brown Daily Herald

T H U R S D A Y OCTOBER 17, 2002

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXXXVII, No. 93

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

Smeal kicks off ‘Never Go Back’ campaign for women’s rights

U.will decide on pluses, minuses by semester’s end

BY OLIVER BOWERS

Women’s rights are in greater jeopardy now than they have been in 30 years, said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, in a Wednesday presentation that kicked off the Never Go Back campaign for reproductive rights in Rhode Island. Never Go Back aims to defend the female right to abortion against the growing threat by a potentially antagonistic Supreme Court, Smeal said. “Right now, we are in the longest period of no appointment in a hundred years,” Smeal said, speaking to the potential appointment of a justice who could overturn the Supreme Court’s tenuous support of abortion rights. Five justices now support the Roe v. Wade ruling, and four oppose it. “The nation will likely (see new appointments) in January or at the latest June,” she said. According to Smeal, the primary strategy of Never Go Back is to petition the Democratic Senate to filibuster all attempts by President George Bush to appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court. “We are not going to get a majority,” Smeal said, calling the filibuster a necessary last ditch effort given the potential precariousness of the situation. “Some people think it’s impolite to filibuster. But I say we’re fighting for young women’s lives.” For decades, Smeal, a renowned women’s activist, grassroots organizer and strategist, worked to win women’s rights legislation for a litany of causes. She spearheaded battles for women’s rights in the state, national and international arenas, from challenging the oppression of women under Afghanistan’s Taliban to opposing the appointment of past Supreme Court justices. In her address, Smeal spoke out passionately against the Bush administration and what she termed the “right wing drift of our nation.” “Fight now” Smeal urged, scanning her eyes across the audience. “If we lose Roe v. Wade, we’re not going to get it back in your generation … (and again) we’ll have back alley abortions and young women dying.” Since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, Smeal said, right wing forces have steadily chipped away at women’s freedoms, she said. Bush “hasn’t appointed any Supreme Court justices, but we’ve seen his appointments in the lower courts. If these people become the core of our judicial system, the entire structure (will erode)” she said. “How many of you are aware that 8 out of the 12 circuit courts have majority antiabortion support?” Conservative forces are also taking away the right of a woman to have an abortion outside of the United States, she said. Smeal cited a gag order reinstated by Bush to deny federal funds to any internasee SMEAL, page 11

The College Curriculum Council voted in a nearly split decision to put the grading system back on this year’s agenda BY AMY RUDDLE

Beth Farnstrom / Herald

Kyle Diggins, the Democratic candidate for Ward 1, made his pitch to students last night in Wilson Hall, at a meeting sponsored by the Brown College Democrats.

Seeking City Council, Diggins makes his pitch to students The Democratic candidate outlined his position on issues ranging from crime to corruption, calling the administration of former Mayor Vincent Cianci “an embarrassment” BY GEORGE HAWS

Kyle Diggins, the Ward One Democratic candidate for city council, outlined his position on crime, the minimum wage, corruption within city government, affordable housing and street parking at the College Democrats’ meeting Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Wilson 101. “Lot’s of changes need to come about,” he said about the current East Side police presence. “There’s an answering machine in (the police station) and they check it every few days or so . . . Police are not doing what they should be doing.” Diggins addressed corruption in the administration of former Mayor Vincent Cianci. “It was an embarrassment. It showed everything that was wrong with (this) city government that can go wrong — the way deals were struck, the way people lied to the FBI . . . Not the message we want to send to children,” he said. He proposed an ethics contract that

every city employee would sign. After signing it “if you do lie to the police, you’re fired,” he said. Diggins told the crowd of Democrats that the East Side must have overnight parking. His Green Party opponent David Segal has also made parking reform one goal of his campaign. Segal’s proposed system would allow off-campus University students to purchase street parking passes. Diggins agreed, and said that reform should aim to improve convenience for parkers. “Parking problems have always been bad in the city and especially Ward One,” he said. Diggins said “it doesn’t make sense to have the people who need” overnight parking unable to get that privilege. Continuing, Diggins criticized absentee landlords who charged their renters exorbitant fees. “I would have no problem with rent control for the city of Providence,” he said. When asked what he thought set him apart from Segal, Diggins emphasized his status as a native resident of the Fox Point area. “I’ve lived in this neighborhood my whole life,” he said. “There’s been good change and there’s been bad change. I think that does set you apart a little bit from everybody.” Segal did not attend the meeting, but his campaign materials were displayed at the event.

I N S I D E T H U R S D AY, O C T O B E R 1 7 , 2 0 0 2 Young America’s Foundation indicts 12 Brown classes for liberal bias page 3

www.browndailyherald.com

Even amid bombings, students stick with study abroad at Israel’s Hebrew University page 3

Only one student shows at forum to discuss new online course registration page 5

The College Curriculum Council is currently debating proposed changes to Brown’s grading system that could allow for pluses and minuses. The CCC is set to decide on the issue late this semester or early next semester, said Dean of the College Paul Armstrong. A recent survey found that 82 percent of faculty members favored the addition of pluses and minuses. The CCC’s decision to debate the issue is a reversal of last year’s closure of the topic. The CCC voted in a nearly split decision to put the issue back on this year’s agenda, Armstrong said. New members of the council wanted a chance to discuss the issue, Armstrong said. “I feel of two minds about this, and I think the CCC does as well,” Armstrong said. “As a faculty member ... I see a big difference between a B+ and a B-,” Armstrong said. The current system is not “conveying as much information as I would like it to when I give a final grade,” Armstrong added. Changes to the grading system were discussed last year at the Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning in response to concerns about grade inflation. When a committee from the center surveyed faculty from all fields of study last year, 60 percent indicated that they felt pressured to inflate grades. Of those surveyed, 82 percent favored the implementation of pluses and minuses to combat grade inflation. “Most faculty are in agreement that the grading system needs to be more fine-grained,” said Bernard Reginster, associate professor of philosophy and chair of last year’s survey committee. “There is grade inflation due to the lack of grading options available to professors. (Pluses and minuses) give professors more flexibility,” said Sean Yom ’03, a CCC representative. “Professors feel pressured to increase the curve,” Yom added. Professor of Education Luther Spoehr, a participant in discussions at the Sheridan Center last year, noted the presence of an “upward see GRADES, page 11

TO D AY ’ S F O R E C A S T Sarah Green ’04 suggests the benefits of war with Iraq aren’t worth the risks column, page 15

Women’s tennis reaches semifinals at annual ECAC tournament sports,page 16

partly cloudy high 62 low 44

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THIS MORNING THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 2 Pornucopia Eli Swiney

W E AT H E R TODAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

High 62 Low 44 partly cloudy

High 57 Low 39 partly cloudy

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GRAPHICS BY TED WU

A Story Of Eddie Ahn

CALENDAR LECTURE — “Economic Justice for None: Rural Women Challenge the Role of the Global Economy,” Eve Weinbaum, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Petteruti Lounge, Faunce House, 4 p.m. LECTURE — “The Digital Image Database: A New and Powerful Tool for Libraries and Museums,” David Rumsey, Cartography Associates. Room 168, Barus & Holley, 4p.m. LECTURE — “Political and Social Developments in the Balkans,” Fatos Tarifa, Ambassador of Albania. McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute, 4:30 p.m.

Inappropriate Touches Deepu Murty and Zara Findlay-Shirras

INFORMATION SESSION — about various fellowship programs. Room B2, Pembroke Hall, 4:30 p.m. INFORMATION SESSION — Question and answer concerning off-campus housing. Sharpe Refectory, dining room 6, 5 p.m. PANEL DISCUSSION — “Where to Fish When the VCs are not Biting,” Peter Gray, WhyDataWorks; Charlie Cameron, Hub Angels Investment Group, LLC; Paul Harden, Rhode Island Economic Development Corp; Thorne Sparkman, Slater Center for Interactive Technologies; Terry Feeley, Triton Systems. Room 202, Bio-Medical Center, 6 p.m. FILM — “Xica da Silva,” in Portuguese with English subtitles. Room 112, Watson Institute, 7 p.m. THEATER — “The Seagull,” by Anton Chekhov, directed by Lowry Marshall. Stuart Theatre, 8 p.m.

Hopeless Edwin Chang

C Ry O S S Wy O R D ACROSS 1 Hindu courtesy title 5 Impulse 9 Informed 14 Black, to Blake 15 Cartoonist Peter 16 Trickster 17 MEAN 20 Symbol of strength 21 Lab technicians 22 Interview about a mission 26 “Phooey!” 29 In a bit 30 Muscle spasm 36 Flea market warning 38 Church aisle 40 Molokai bye 41 MEDIAN 44 Royal headgear 45 Sty fare 46 Author Rice 47 Catch, as in a net 49 The same as before, in footnotes 51 NC, ND and NE 52 Like reference books 55 Dispel, as doubts 60 Ewe kids 64 MODE 68 Mosaic technique 69 Depression era migrant 70 __ cost 71 Period in Wilson’s presidency 72 Carter of “Gimme a Break” 73 Route showers DOWN 1 Harry’s beloved 2 Watch for the watchman, maybe 3 Tree trunk 4 Hungry, most likely

5 “What __ that?” 6 Regal initials 7 __ rut 8 Game with a 40card deck 9 Parts of esses 10 St.-John’s-__ 11 Chills and fever 12 Penitent 13 Conger and moray 18 Dots in la mer 19 Adroit 23 Pro __ 24 Dappled horses 25 Void 26 Moisten in the pan 27 “The Addams Family” actor 28 Longtime Hawaiian senator Fong 31 Struggle 32 Columnist Chase 33 Some municipalities 34 Unison cheer 35 President before Garfield

37 Royal address 39 Lyric poem 42 Faux __ 43 Summit 48 Audio system 50 Sitcom diner 53 Chute material 54 Spreadsheet entry 55 Polish partner 56 “Judith” composer

57 Conference beginning 58 “Terrible” tsar 59 Claims 61 Avian mimic 62 Brief upturn 63 There may be three in a match 65 Clanton gang leader 66 Zilch 67 Hair goo

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CAMPUS WATCH THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 3

IN BRIEF

Even amid blasts, some stay on at Hebrew U. BY BRIAN BASKIN

Foundation indicts 12 U. classes for demonstrating liberal bias Need an extra class for next semester? The Young America’s Foundation has some suggestions of what to avoid. “Philosophy and Star Trek,”“Cultural History of Rap,”“Who is Black?” and Brown’s own course “Seeing Queerly: Queer Theory, Film, Video,” are four out of a “dirty dozen” courses the YAF thinks American taxpayers need to know about. The youth organization named 11 other courses at Brown, though not among the 12 worst offenders,in its annual survey of “eccentric,bizarre and ‘politically correct’”courses. The survey highlights courses at 58 schools that expose an overwhelming liberal bias on college campuses — courses indirectly made possible by taxpayer money through government funds given to private universities for financial aid, said Rick Parsons, the survey’s author. Parsons said his organization evaluates courses based on their descriptions in course announcement bulletins. Mark Nickel,director of the Brown News Service,dismissed the survey’s methodology as little more than classifying courses as easy or biased based on their provocative titles and descriptions. “I don’t worry about it much,” Nickel said.“These courses have very stiff requirements and to fence off any area of inquiry is an impediment to a broad based education.” Most of the courses included in the survey deal with race, gender, sexuality and the environmentalist movement. Others are simply offbeat. But YAF doesn’t want any of these topics shut out of academia, Parsons said. “We’re not calling for a ban on these courses or anything like that,” Parsons said.“What we call for is a balance of ideas, to allow all ideas to be discussed on campus rather than just one small ideology.” Most schools lack opportunities for students to be exposed to the conservative perspective, said Parsons, who is a student at George Mason University. Besides “Seeing Queerly,”Brown’s courses YAF also named include “Black Lavender: A Study of Black Gay and Lesbian Plays, and Dramatic Constructions in the American Theatre,” “U.S. Feminist Theories of Motherhood,”“The Psychology of Race, Class, and Gender,”“Environmental Stewardship,” “Environmental Justice:The Science and Political Economy of Environmental Health and Social Justice,”“Race and Language in the United States,”“Jews,Whiteness, Ethnicity, and MultiCulturalism,”“Feminism/Poststructuralism/Materialism,” “American Heritage: Democracy, Inequality, and Public Policy,” and “He, She, or it? Sociological Perspectives on Gender.” — Rohan Monga, with Herald staff reports

Ariella Hanker’s introduction to Jersualem came with a muffled explosion. On July 31, the day after Hanker arrived at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a bomb went off in the school’s cafeteria, killing seven, including five Americans. For some students spending their semester abroad in Israel, it was time to go. But not for Hanker, who had only been in Israel for two days at the time of the blast. “I never thought about not coming to Israel or about leaving after the bomb,” Hanker, a junior at the University of Virginia, wrote in an e-mail from the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “I don’t want anyone or anything to keep me from what I want to do, which is be in Israel.” On April 2 the State Department issued a travel warning for Israel that prompted dozens of American universities, including Brown, to cancel their study abroad programs. Some schools chose to continue to send students to Israel, and a small but dedicated core of students take personal leave to earn credits at Hebrew University and

other Israeli schools. Those willing to brave the travel warning and increasingly pessimistic news reports are in for a surprise, said Sareet Jacob ’04, who took personal leave to study at Hebrew University’s science campus. “A university campus is a place where all the tensions that Israel is famous for are often overcome,” Jacob wrote in an e-mail. “It’s a special environment where interactions are simplified because of the great equalizer of hard work.” Jacob wrote that she lives with Americans and Europeans but takes classes in quantum mechanics and physical chemistry with Israeli students. The specter of terrorism is unavoidable — Jacob wrote that she loves the public transportation system but cannot forget that her dorm was partially built by an U.S. family whose daughter died in a bus bombing. Jacob wrote that she never thinks about bombs. “If it’s your time to die, you die,” she wrote. “In New York or Providence or Jerusalem. We all know it deep down.” see ISRAEL, page 4

Pro-union undergrads protest arrests at Yale BY JOANNE PARK

Thirty-five pro-union undergraduates surprised Yale University President Richard Levin outside his office Tuesday with a short demonstration calling attention to the arrests of 67 students at a Sept. 25 civil disobedience staged by a coalition of Yale’s employee unions. The protest was the latest development in a ninemonth standoff between Yale and the Federation of Hospital and University Employees, an alliance between employees at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Locals 34 and 35, which represent close to 4,000 custodial, dining hall and technical workers employed by Yale. When the six-year contracts for Locals 34 and 35 expired in February 2002, the unions asked for improved benefits and a more stable pension plan. The two unions also advocate recognition for Yale’s Graduate Employees and Students Organization. The unions’ mandate has expanded from negotiating new contracts to obtaining Yale’s recognition of all four labor groups. Tension rose with the arrests in early September of workers distributing pro-union leaflets at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. The tension between Yale and labor union groups cul-

minated in a recent civil disobedience demonstration this September. Close to 800 union members and supporters crowded the streets. They were subsequently arrested in what the police said was the largest mass arrest in Connecticut history, said Deb Churnoff, FHUE Public Relations Organizer. Two students were also briefly detained by police last weekend for handing out pro-union fliers in a university building. “Apparently, Yale has decided that (free speech laws) do not apply to labor unions, and we feel that this exception is not tolerable,” Churnoff said. Churnoff said the Sept. 25 protest was “a very strong statement about standing up for change at Yale. There needs to be a fundamental change in the way Yale deals with employees of New Haven.” Approximately 25 percent of the workers in New Haven are employed by Yale and the Hospital, making it the largest employer in the area, she said. The debate at Yale for unionization of graduate students was spurred in November 2000 by a NYU graduate student vote conducted by the National Labor Relations see YALE, page 4

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002

Yale continued from page 3 board. The NLRB is currently considering a unionization vote conducted at Brown last December. Members of the local clergy in New Haven also protested Yale’s labor union policies after Reverend W. David Lee’s candidacy for a position in the Yale Corporation failed. Reverend Lee supported labor unions in his campaign. “Labor relations at Yale are the worst, not just within the Ivy League, but among other universities,” Churnoff said. “In 60 years, there have been 11 planned strikes.” Labor groups count the need for a defined benefit and pension plan among the major issues. Churnoff

cited the fluctuating stock market as a primary reason for the unions’ efforts to ensure a more stable plan for workers and potential retirees. Churnoff said workers face a predicament concerning retirement, especially as Yale’s terms of contract have not been modified since 1984. Workers do not feel comfortable retiring on a plan of a few hundred dollars a month, Churnoff said. Locals 34 and 35 are also pressing for a change in the current work force pay distribution under which a majority of the higher paying jobs go to white people. Churnoff said most of the people within the maintenance units are black, whereas the skilled trades units have very few people of color. Although a program for training maintenance workers to be eligible for higher paying jobs exists, Yale

only trains one person each year. “Considering that there are 800 to 900 people who’d like the training, it’s a bit of a joke,” Churnoff said. Churnoff said the unions are hoping to achieve success at the bargaining table through continued negotiations. She said that a future strike could be possible, depending on Yale’s response to the unions’ recent financial proposals. Churnoff said the labor unions are frustrated by the feeling that “there is no progress until there is immense upheaval. “We would like to have dialogue and change without having to go through this,” she said. Meanwhile, the Yale administration is stressing the need for union groups to limit their focus to the contracts, rather than pushing for the rights of other union groups. “(Labor unions) have been focusing on efforts elsewhere to unionize other workers, and we think that we can negotiate new contracts if they could turn their focus exclusively to (negotiations),” said Thomas Conroy, deputy director of public relations at Yale. “We believe that there is no substitute for the bargaining table. The only way for Yale and labor unions to agree on a contract is at the bargaining table,” he said. Conroy said Yale hopes for an eventual resolution to the labor conflict, especially through the use of a federal mediator in negotiations. Churnoff reiterated Conroy’s hopes of reaching a satisfying conclusion to the long-standing dispute. “Like most Ivy League universities, Yale is big on tradition — but this is one tradition that has to change,” she said.

Israel continued from page 3 That attitude, spurred by the sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, is part of the reason why Washington University in St. Louis has kept its Israeli program open, said Professor Henry Berger, the faculty coordinator for the year abroad program. “We felt it would be sending the wrong message not to keep our program going,” Berger said. In more peaceful times Wash. U. typically sent a dozen students to Israel each year, Berger said. This spring only one student will go. Those numbers reflect a nationwide decline, said Amy Sugin, director of the office of academic affairs for Hebrew University of Jerusalem in New York. In an effort to boost flagging enrollment, Hebrew University has partnered with one Israelithemed program that’s found success during the Intifada. Birthright Israel, a program that offers a free trip to Israel for any Jew between the age of 18 and 26, has garnered increased interest since its inception three years ago while many other programs struggle to find students, said Rabbi Michael Melchior, deputy foreign minister of Israel and chairman of the Birthright Israel steering committee in a conference call. One version of the birthright

“We felt it would be sending the wrong message not to keep our program going.” Henry Berger Faculty Coordinator, Israel Abroad Program at Washington University trip will have students spend 10 days in an intensive field study course worth three credits at Hebrew University in lieu of a semester abroad, Sugin said. Birthright Israel has already received 9,000 applications for its winter trip, more than it had at this time last year, Melchior said. Many who sign onto the program now do so in defiance of terror and anti-Israeli sentiment on college campuses as well as to experience Israel, Melchior said. Hanker wrote that the Intifada has given her trip to Israel an added importance without compromising her safety. “I really don’t feel scared at all on a day-to-day basis,” she said. Since so few Americans visit Jerusalem now, those that make the trip are rewarded with more opportunities to interact with Israelis , Hanker said. Herald staff writer Brian Baskin ’04 edits the campus watch section. He can be reached at bbaskin@browndailyherald.com.

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CAMPUS NEWS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 5

One student shows up to discuss web registration BY MONIQUE MENESES

Beth Farnstrom / Herald

DUBLIN DANCING Interested students were invited to Olney House lounge Wednesday night to get some exercise and some pointers in the art of Irish dancing.

Only one student attended the forum about online course registration Wednesday night. The forum aimed to give students the opportunity to voice their opinions about features they would like included or excluded in a Web-based registration system and issues that would be raised during the transition. Robert Shaw, associate dean of the college, said Brown must decide what is wrong with the present registration system and what a new one should do. “We need to be asking what it is we care about,” he said. “How do we make what we don’t like about the Brown system and keep what we do like?” Shaw and University Registrar Michael Pesta recently facilitated two student focus groups to get student input on the online registration issue. One of the students’ primary concerns was how the system would address limited-enrollment courses, Shaw said. The only student at the forum, Pamela Dubyak ’04, voiced similar concerns. “If you cap a class to 20 students, and see REGISTRATION, page 6

UCS looks to build on plans for student center Vehicle damage, larcenies, theft reported to DPS

BY JONATHAN ELLIS

Held at a different time and place than usual, Wednesday night’s meeting of the Undergraduate Council of Students featured discussions on a new student center in Faunce House and a tightly contested election for a representative position. In a packed Wilson 101, council members met with Francesca Lo ’97, coordinator of leadership programs and BOLT coordinator. Lo, along with Student Life Coordinator Myles McPartland is launching a new Student Activities Resource Center in Faunce House Room 202. The resource center, which will be open Mondays through Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m., will provide a place for members of student groups to seek advice and plan events, Lo said. The center hasn’t seen much activity in its early stages, and Lo asked UCS members for advice on how to disseminate promotional information. Student group leaders have received emails, Lo said, but representative Ian Siu ’03 said the center would be a useful resource for all students and thus should be publicized widely. Use of the center’s resources could be restricted to categorized groups because it receives its funding from the Undergraduate Finance Board, said Sarah Buchwalter ’05, Student Activities Committee chair. But Representative Tarek Khanachet ’03, who called the center “long overdue,” said its long-term funding from UFB is “not secure” and called for the Office of Student Life to provide financial support. The resource center provides student groups with technical resources such as computers and a photocopier free of charge, Lo said. But newly-elected Representative Tim Bentley ’04 said that more important offerings could include leadership consulting and assistance in organizing meetings and events. On the other hand, representative

Thilakshani Dias ’05 said staple guns should be made available at the center to student groups looking to post information around campus. Lo called Brown unique because “students have a large voice in this school.” But because organizations are highly student-driven, sometimes it’s hard to get a group to accept support and advice, she said. UCS President Allen Feliz ’03 called for collaborative efforts and said the resource center should make sure its purposes don’t overlap with preexisting campus groups. Associate member Yara Lorenzo ’05 suggested the center could offer a place for student organizations to network. The center might initiate a centralized calendar of events, Lo said. Representative Sonia Gupta ’06 recommended she collaborate with the Daily Jolt on such a project. Lo said she is also planning a leadership committee and a leadership summit to be held Nov. 12. Council members heard speeches from eight candidates vying for a single open representative position. They selected Bentley, who was a member of the Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee last year and said he’d like to work with the Campus Life Committee this year. After a discussion of Robert’s Rules of Order, the council used its improved efficiency to quickly give the Brown Spectator, an emerging conservative publication that has yet to print its first issue, Category II status. And after much confusion and debate last week over the Hourglass Café’s purposes, a representative from that organization convinced the council this week to unanimously upgrade it to Category III. At a breakfast with the Corporation Friday, E-Board members discussed the possibility of a new athletic center and improved student spaces in dorms, Feliz

reported. “As a group, we definitely feel that Brown’s number one priority is obviously academics, but knowing fully well that (President Ruth) Simmons’s academic enrichment plan is going to be phenomenal, that’s pretty much taken care of, so now it’s our responsibility to address … campus life issues,” he said. UCS continued preparations to expand its outreach to the University community. It created a Webmaster position, slated office hours to start Monday, and assigned each council member a handful of student groups with which to correspond. The admission office incorporated a list of impoverished high schools into its visitation schedule, Rahim Kurji ’05, Admission and Student Services Committee chair reported to the council. Meanwhile, associate member Diana Jeffery ’04 is planning a Halloween event in which students would meet and get candy from Brown Police officers. The committee is also writing a proposal for an Academic Concentration Fair that would group undergraduate concentrators and faculty members in each department, Kurji said. Contrary to earlier reports, Dias said Fall Ball is now scheduled for Friday, Nov. 22. Wellness Week will occur in early November, she added. Communications Co-Chair Joel Payne ’05 formed the council’s Communications Committee. But the council held off from selecting a second Co-Coordinator of Communications pending an amendment to its code that would allow an associate member to assume the position. Next week, UCS will meet with Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning. Staff writer Jonathan Ellis ’06 covers the Undergraduate Council of Students. He can be reached at jellis@browndailyherald.com.

BY SAM SHULMAN

Vehicle damages, minor larcenies and a missing motor scooter were among the crimes reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 27 and Oct. 15, according to DPS reports. A parked motor scooter was stolen from a driveway on Hope Street between 8 p.m. on Oct. 6 and 9 a.m. on Oct. 7. The missing scooter is white with a blue trim. On Oct. 9 between 11 a.m. and 6:15 p.m., the front passenger side window of a car parked on Lloyd Avenue was smashed. A compact disk player and CDs were taken from the dashboard of the car. The rear driver’s side window of a car parked in Lot 2 at the Athletic Center was smashed between 7 a.m. on Oct. 13 and 12:15 a.m. on Oct. 14. The car’s glove compartment had been opened and all the contents had been emptied on to the front seat, although nothing had been stolen. Another vehicle with smashed windows was reported at Lot 88 near the stadium. Again, nothing had been taken. On Oct. 14 at 2:30 p.m., a woman parked and left her car at the corner of Barnes and Prospect streets. She returned ten minutes later to find that the car had been entered and various items had been stolen, including a backpack, books, a notebook and a cellular phone. The woman had left her car unlocked during the ten-minute interval. A woman working at the Rockefeller Library at 11 p.m. on Oct. 2 left her 2000 Sony Vaio laptop on a desk for approximately 15 minutes. Upon returning she found that her laptop had been taken. The value of the computer is $3,000. see CRIME, page 6

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002

Registration continued from page 5 300 students enter hoping to persuade the professor to let them into their course, and the professor can’t say, ‘Those who aren’t registered in the course should leave,’ what happens in that case?” Administrators suggested various recommendations including junior and senior preference for higher level courses, lotteries and student course preference lists. “I think the limited enrollment course problem will be approached by a multiple ways,” Pesta said Participants in the focus groups discussed the University’s current registration system. Shopping period often entails insanity and noise, Armstrong said. “Students spend a lot of time scurrying around, where if they could see the availability in choice online, it would make this period less crazy.” During the first two weeks of each semester, there are about 12,000 adds and 11,000 drops, Pesta said. “All the negotiation takes place in the two weeks of the shopping period. We need to tell students you really need to choose between those two weeks,” Pesta said. Josh Greenwald ’04 sent an e-mail to Dean of the College Paul Armstrong earlier Wednesday to be read in the forum. Greenwald suggested including a savable student profile, an online viewable student schedule and a waiting list for limited enrollment courses. Greenwald also discussed the operational side of the proposed online system. The new system should “not be like BOCA,” which Greenwald said lacks a fast operational system, aesthetic appeal or

ease of use. Students in the registration focus groups worried that the new system would take control away from them. Students said they want to maintain the flexibility to persuade faculty to let them into their classes. But Shaw said the proposed system would not take power from students because the faculty could override the system. Dubyak said she worried that an online registration system would crash when thousands of students tried to register simultaneously. “There are capacity issues we will have to deal with and planning is key,” Pesta said. Dubyak also asked what would happen if a student tried to “hold on to a course” without intending to enroll in it. In the end, Pesta said, whether the system works or not will be up to students. Students have to be straightforward in their choices, Pesta said. Armstrong said the current system forces students and advisors to spend too much time figuring out how to “play the system” — by registering for all the limited enrollment courses first and dropping the courses they didn’t want during shopping period. The implementation of a Web-based system would solve this problem, he said. Armstrong, Shaw and Pesta told The Herald that they were disappointed in the student turnout because they hoped to hear student suggestions and concerns. There will be more opportunities for students and faculty to give input, Shaw said. In the meantime, if students have any suggestions, they can e-mail advising@brown.edu. Herald staff writer Monique Meneses ’06 can be reached at mmeneses@browndailyherald.com.

Crime continued from page 5 Two Israeli flags were stolen from different rooms in Marcy House on different days. The first was taken between 3 p.m. on Sept. 28 and 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 29. The second was stolen between 10 p.m. on Oct. 5 and 2 a.m. on Oct 6. Both flags had been hanging outside their former owners’ windows. On Oct. 10 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., a bike was stolen from outside Champlin Hall. The blue mountain bike had been secured to a bike rack with a cable lock. A woman left a traveling bag and a purse unattended underneath a desk in Plant Operations between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Sept. 27. When she returned to retrieve the bags, both had been stolen. The bags were found later and returned to the owner, although several items had been taken including two credit cards. Another purse was stolen from Harambee House at approximately 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 29. The purse had been left briefly unattended when the owner stopped by a party occurring at the house. Between noon on Oct. 4 and that midnight, a sterling silver Tag Hauer watch was stolen from a room in Bronson House. The door to the room had been left unlocked during that time. A man living in Goddard House who left campus for the long weekend reported that, upon returning on Oct. 15, the lock on his door had been jammed. It was determined that someone had tried to forcibly open the door by trying to kick it down.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

WORLD & NATION THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 7

IN BRIEF Vigil finds few Bali victims identified DENPASAR, Indonesia (Washington Post) — Made Sujana’s wife awoke Sunday morning to the news of a massive bombing in the heart of Bali’s nightclub district and the grim realization that her husband had not come home from work as a security guard at the Sari Club bar. Eka dashed to the scene and found the explosion had left little trace of the bar and none of her husband, she said. She and her children headed immediately to the main hospital in Bali’s capital, Denpasar, a half-hour drive away. Since then, they have camped in a weedy yard outside the morgue, sleeping on thin woven mats, eating box meals of chicken and rice, and awaiting some word that Sujana has been found—either alive or dead. Doctors and forensics specialists have not yet been able to identify any of the bodies as that of Sujana, 30, father of three.“We are only waiting and crying,” Eka said. Four days after a car bomb devastated the heart of Kuta, gutting a strip popular with foreign tourists, more than three-quarters of the 181 corpses packed into Sanglah Hospital’s makeshift morgue remain unidentified, according to hospital officials. Family members have come from Australia and New Zealand as well as around the corner in Denpasar to search for missing relatives. But progress in identifying the dead has slowed, according to hospital officials. Officials at Sanglah Hospital said Wednesday they have identified 39 bodies, including 12 British, 11 Australians and eight Indonesians. A U.S. Embassy official said two Americans are confirmed dead, though only one body has been identified. A U.S. diplomat said the number of American deaths could rise by five or six. Another 80 Americans are listed as missing in Indonesia, but officials say they believe many of them are fine.

N. Korea admits to nuclear program WASHINGTON (Washington Post) — The North Korean gov-

ernment has acknowledged for the first time that it has been secretly developing nuclear weapons for years in violation of international agreements and has built “more powerful” weapons, as well, Bush administration officials said Wednesday night. The North Koreans, who notified U.S. officials of the nuclear program during talks in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, earlier this month, said its existence nullifies a 1994 deal with the United States to halt their nuclear weapons effort in return for foreign help. One senior U.S. official said the new weapons project is a “very serious material breach” of the accord. The Bush administration, stunned by the admission, dispatched envoys to the region Wednesday to consult with allies and called on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to halt the weapons project. The administration also has begun consultations with Congress about what to do next, officials said. “The United States is calling on North Korea to comply with all of its commitment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable manner,” a U.S. official said. “What we seek is a peaceful resolution of this situation.” The revelation from the isolated Stalinist country thrust the Bush administration into an unexpected foreign policy crisis at a time when it is seeking to build intenational support for confronting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and threatening to launch a military strike against Iraq if he refuses to disarm. The administration has said Saddam already possesses stockpiles of chemical and biological and is trying to develop a nuclear capability. Administration officials Wednesday night offered mixed assessments of the implications of North Korea’s announcement, with some predicting it could lead to a possible miltary confrontation on the Korean penninsula

and others saying it could be a sign of a bid by North Korea to create an opening to the United States. President Bush in January named North Korea a member of an “axis of evil,” along with Iraq and Iran. Yet the announcement by the North Korean government comes amid a string of surprising moves by Kim, long criticized for peddling dangerous weapons and oppressing an impoverished population. In recent weeks, the Pyongyang government apologized for a naval battle with South Korea in the Yellow Sea and for the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s. Briefing reporters by conference call, administration officials said North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Joo offered no apologies when he informed U.S. officials of the covert nuclear weapons program during an Oct. 3-5 visit to Pyongyang. He was “assertive, aggressive about it,” one administration official said. “It’s a very serious development if a country we had thought had entered into a serious and credible negotiation to retreat from a nuclear program in exchange for generous assistance” has violated that agreement, said Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “This is going to require a reassessment of our our commitments to North Korea.” American envoys were told of the project near the end of their visit to Pyongyang. They departed North Korea, shortened their scheduled visits to Seoul and Tokyo and returned to the United States. Since then, the administration has been engaged in intensive strategy sessions, officials said. Despite the North Korean announcement, the administration says it does not know the full extent of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, nor do experts know for certain what Kang meant when he referred to more powerful weapons. Wednesday night, they said they assume he meant weapons of mass destruction, which typically include biological and chemical weapons.

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002

Experts look for link between sniper attacks, Al-Qaeda WASHINGTON (Washington Post) —

Counter-terrorism experts this week have begun to ask whether the Washington-area sniper is part of a deadly wave of smallerscale attacks from a weakened al-Qaeda, although federal investigators say most of their leads do not point to international terrorism. Government officials including President Bush, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and local law enforcement officials have publicly broached the subject gingerly, not wanting to provoke more fear. “I don’t think we can foreclose that,” Ridge said of a terrorist link. “Certainly the FBI and no one in the White House has foreclosed it.” About 400 FBI agents, trainees and counter-terrorism agents have been assigned to track the sniper who has killed nine people and wounded two others since Oct. 2. The CIA has offered assistance, but so far the agency’s only contribution has been bomb-sniffing dogs. The investigation remains under the FBI’s violent crime division, which means officials

believe they are probably looking at an unaffiliated killer or killers, most likely white, with military training that would include setting up, shooting and escaping without detection. Law enforcement officials say they have no evidence linking the case to terrorists and that the tactics do not parallel al-Qaeda’s history of trying for many deaths in one strike. Still, several aspects of the case intrigue former CIA and FBI terrorism experts. Among them is the lack of clues from a community that the sniper apparently knows well. It is now well understood that the Sept. 11 hijackers were taught to blend into American life and live without drawing notice. “One of the troubling things is that it’s been two weeks now and there hasn’t been that really good tip,” said I.C. Smith, former head of the FBI’s analysis, budget and training section of the National Security Division. “Someone who doesn’t have an established presence in this area—that tends to lead into the terrorism area.”

Smith, like other terrorism experts, said he does not rule out that a lone gunman could be working in sympathy with alQaeda and its aims. “This could very well be a single individual who says, ‘I’m going to answer the call,’ “ he said. Recent suicide bombings and plots against Westerners in Indonesia, Kuwait, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, Pakistan and ships near Yemen and in the Straits of Gibraltar show that alQaeda loyalists are heeding their leadership’s call to continue smaller-scale strikes. The attacks were followed this week by statements attributed to Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, congratulating the attackers and calling for more action. Bin Laden’s purported statements caught Larry Johnson’s attention. Johnson, who spent much of his career tracking terrorists for the CIA and State Department, was struck by a passage from a previous bin Laden statement: “Millions of innocent children

are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq without committing any sins, and we don’t hear condemnation or a fatwa (religious decree) from the rulers,” said the statement released Oct. 7, 2001. “May God show them His wrath and give them what they deserve.” The sniper shooting of a 13year-old boy in suburban Bowie, Md., occurred Oct. 7, exactly one year after bin Laden’s statement. “It’s the eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth teaching that may explain why (a sniper) shoots a 13-year-old walking into school,” Johnson said. But the most concrete similarity between the sniper operation and those of al-Qaeda, experts said, appears to be the meticulous planning associated with the Washington-area killings. To escape the dragnet that has descended after each of the more recent shootings, the gunman has probably planned well ahead of time his shooting location, escape route and way to hide. Likewise, he had to understand the capabilities and limitations of law enforcement

tactics and equipment. Documents seized from training camps in Afghanistan and from the al-Qaeda safe houses around the world indicate that individuals learned military techniques and doctrine and were familiar with their enemies’ tactics. Federal and state agencies also have discussed the possibility that the sniper killings may be a diversion, intended to siphon off police attention and resources as a prelude to a new, more serious terrorist attack. “Is this your typical guerrilla warfare tactic, where you draw your enemy to being so focused on one particular issue, they don’t see the big picture?” said one official. But for every clue that might lead to the possibility that the shooter is a terrorist, there are 10 that lead in the opposite direction. “Terrorism without any sort of way to make political mileage out of it is almost useless,” said Rusty Capps, president of the Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies and a former FBI official.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

Not a single vote is cast against Hussein, Iraq reports Iraqi officials claimed that Hussein garnered 100 percent of Tuesday’s vote — up from 99.96 percent of the vote during the last referendum seven years ago Baghdad, Iraq (L.A. Times) — Every one of Iraq’s 11,445,636 eligible voters turned out for a national referendum this week and every one of them voted in favor of keeping Saddam Hussein as president, Iraqi officials said Wednesday. The results were announced at a news conference in a government hall by Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. The longtime ally of Saddam did not bristle at the suggestion that a 100 percent tally might not be perceived by everyone in the international community as

credible. Instead, he smiled. “Someone who does not know the Iraqi people, he does not believe this percentage. But it is real,” Ibrahim said. “Whether it looks that way to someone or not, we don’t have opposition in Iraq.” The victory claim, which bested Iraqi insistence seven years ago during the last referendum that only 0.04 percent of voters then opposed Saddam’s rule, was particularly audacious as it came on a day the United Nations met to debate how to force Iraq to surrender any weapons of mass destruction it might possess. In Washington, the White House had discounted the Iraqi vote Tuesday when it was held. “Obviously, it’s not a very serious day, not a very serious vote and nobody places any credibility on it,” press secretary Ari Fleischer said. Voters were asked Tuesday to participate in the second referendum on Iraq’s leadership. Saddam, 65, has been president since 1979. He rules by decree and by

fear, and when Ibrahim says there is no opposition, he is right that none has been permitted. But even this authoritarian regime has tried to dress itself up with a veneer of democracy, in hopes of earning a greater degree of legitimacy here and abroad. Though Ibrahim insisted that the voting was not aimed at trying to prove anything to the United States, he did say the message should be unmistakable. “If there is an aggression, the United States will have to face these people who said `yes’ to Saddam Hussein,” he said. “If they come, we will fight them in every village, and every house. Every house will be a front, and every Iraqi will have a role in the war.” But a European diplomat here who requested anonymity saw a far different message aimed at the United States and the world. “The message was, `Look, we are still able to control all the population, and if you think it will be easy to control, you might be wrong,’ “ he

said. The first referendum confirming Saddam to a seven-year term as president took place in 1995, when he claimed a victory of 99.96 percent. This time, at least one European diplomat based here had placed a bet with a colleague that Saddam would receive a more credible figure. He said the regime’s recent diplomatic maneuvers in the high-stakes game with the United States had been very smart and he calculated that the same thinking would extend to the vote. “I made a bet saying the regime will be clever and the final result will not be 97 percent but will be 75 to 80 percent,” said the diplomat, who asked for anonymity and did not disclose how much he will have to pay out. With only one candidate on the referendum, there was little doubt about the results. Still, Ibrahim said, “This is a unique manifestation of democracy which is superior to all other forms of democracy.”

Another European diplomat based here said the country, and the regime in particular, are so isolated that they have begun to believe their own propaganda. “The logic here is sometimes so difficult to understand,” the diplomat said. “They start believing in it.” The lead-up to Tuesday’s vote had the feel of a great national celebration, and the authorities declared Wednesday a national holiday even before the votes were fully counted. Thousands of foreigners were flown in and put up at government expense. The city, always decorated with murals, mosaics and statues of the president, had even more posters, pictures and displays in his honor. The scene at polling places was frenzied, at least while foreign journalists were present, with some people going so far as to mark their ballots with their own blood. The vote, which was all done on hand-marked paper ballots, was somehow tallied overnight.

PAGE 10 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002

Court debates race in Texas death case WASHINGTON (Washington Post) — A

lawyer for a Texas death-row inmate told the Supreme Court Wednesday that his client’s 1986 Dallas capital murder trial was unconstitutional because prosecutors in the case systematically excluded African Americans from the jury. Seth Waxman, a former U.S. solicitor general, said prosecutors employed trick questions during jury selection to disqualify some blacks and excluded others through automatic “peremptory” challenges — leaving Thomas Joe Miller-El, who is African American, to face a jury that included only one black member. There were 20 blacks in the 108member jury pool. The prosecutors’ conduct was especially suspicious, Waxman argued, because it came against the backdrop of a well-documented history of discriminatory jury selection by Dallas County. “Whatever this court decides, this case is going to be a benchmark,” Waxman said. “Either these are extreme facts that can’t be tolerated, or even these extreme facts are going to be tolerated under (the court’s precedent).” The case has attracted attention from civil rights and legal reform groups who say it is not only about Miller-El’s fate, but also public faith in the criminal justice system. A group of former judges and prosecutors, including former FBI director William Sessions and former deputy attorney general Eric Holder, told the justices in a friend-of-the-court brief that “even the perception that racial bias is tolerated weakens public confidence that our courts can guarantee equal justice.” Representing the Texas authorities, Gena Bunn, chief of the

state’s Capital Litigation Division, argued that the trial judge correctly found that prosecutors had a race-neutral reason for using peremptory challenges more often against black prospective jurors: Blacks’ answers to questions during jury selection showed they had misgivings about the death penalty. She urged the justices Wednesday to remember that higher courts generally defer to the factual findings of trial judges, because those judges are closest to the case. The central legal issue in the case is whether a lower court that rebuffed Miller-El’s appeal failed to apply properly a 1986 Supreme Court ruling intended to eliminate racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection. The 1986 ruling dealt specifically with peremptory challenges, which an attorney can use to ask the court to exclude jurors without giving a reason. Usually, each side is entitled to a limited number of such challenges following the questioning of jurors. But, under the 1986 ruling, known as Batson, if a defendant can make a plausible case of racial bias by the prosecution, the prosecutor must show that he or she had a race-neutral reason for each peremptory challenge. Then it is up the judge to decide, after hearing the defense’s counterarguments, whether the prosecutor’s reasons are valid. Miller-El’s supporters say that enforcement of Batson is spotty, however, because local trial judges are often reluctant to question the motives of prosecutors in their community. Some of the Supreme Court justices seemed to agree with Waxman’s concern that it was unclear whether either the trial

judge or any of the other courts, state and federal, that have reviewed Miller-El’s case, had really looked at a broad enough range of evidence, including the history of alleged discrimination in the Dallas County prosecutor’s office, when they evaluated the prosecutors’ claims. “If (the inquiry) begins and ends with the prosecutor’s reasons, then you could never have a successful Batson challenge,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg observed. “The trial judge found the prosecutors’ reasons to be credible, and he’s got a record here that supports him,” Bunn replied. The New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has sided with the Texas authorities, holding that “this issue would not be debatable among jurists of reason.” Miller-El was convicted of shooting two motel employees during a robbery, leaving one man, Doug Walker, dead, and another man, Donald Hall, paralyzed. Hall fingered Miller-El at the trial. Miller-El has maintained his innocence. Shortly before Miller-El’s trial began, the Dallas Morning News reported that local prosecutors had consistently excluded African Americans from juries in criminal cases during much of the tenure of Henry Wade, who served as Dallas County district attorney from 1951 to 1987. A 1963 internal memo in Wade’s office advised that peremptory challenges should be used against “Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race, no matter how rich or well-educated.” A 1969 manual advised that minorities “almost always empathize with the defendant.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 11 inflation,” said Adam Lewis ’03. The addition of pluses and minuses to the grading system will also impact Brown graduates’ admission to graduate schools. For students applying to graduate schools, “the whole system of grades is somewhat pressurized,” Spoehr said. Although the grading system currently doesn’t effect students’ admission into graduate schools, “it does affect our reputation as a school,” Yom said. Grade inflation, which Yom said is common in the Ivy League, can have an adverse affect on the reputation of an undergraduate institution. “If our professors do feel that they should bump a B+ to an A, it affects our reputation,” Yom said. But some are concerned that the addition of pluses and minuses to the grading system will diminish the ideals of the University’s New Curriculum. The Brown curriculum is based on the view that “students are not competitive — they try to do the best they can as individuals,” Armstrong said. The CCC said last year that adding pluses and minuses would

fuel competition about grades, Armstrong said. “We don’t want to make a big deal about grades,” Armstrong added. Some students are also apprehensive that pluses and minuses could increase competitiveness. “If you already have students who are really competitive for an A, then they’ll be even more competitive for an A+. It would get to a point where learning’s not fun anymore,” said Pam Dubyak ’04. “I never had (pluses and minuses) in high school. I think that people who care about the fact that they get a B instead of a B+ care about the wrong thing,” said David Zehngut ’06. Other students said that while the use of pluses and minuses may have some merit, it would make Brown students more grade-conscious. “(Pluses and minuses are) a good thing in a sense that it allows for a more well-defined measure of how you did,” said Anna Goldman ’04. “It would make people more grade-conscious, though ... it creates a different atmosphere as far as people see how they work.”

Cropp

Smeal

continued from page 16

continued from page 1

Sports are usually a cause for celebration, but in some cases can be a symbol of struggle. The recent Asian games were a partial success, as they brought the two nations temporarily together and continued the painstakingly slow peace process. Complete reconciliation may not come for a while, but it does seem a lot closer when the two nations come together to celebrate and not to make war.

tional family-planning group that provides counseling on abortion services. “That gag law is costing young women their lives,” she said. On numerous occasions her comments sparked a small chorus of applause from audience members. Smeal led off her speech with a jarring comparison of the looming situation in U.S. politics with the oppression that exists in Afghanistan, both of which she fought against in past years. “The whole experience in

Afghanistan, in my opinion, can show what would occur if the right took over” she said, referring to extremist, religious opposition to individual rights. “If you look at what they’re (both) writing, it’s so similar it’s shocking.” A portion of the pro-life contingent is vested in extremists who want the establishment of a “theocracy (where) they will outlaw abortion, they will outlaw divorce, they will outlaw incorrigible children.” “But the good thing” she said, “(is that) now we have women’s movements everywhere.” Smeal’s visit to Brown was one of 12 speeches in U.S. cities to initiate the nationwide Never Go Back campaign.

Grades continued from page 1 pressure ... especially in the humanities” to give higher grades. Professors are “forced to give students the same grade with wildly varying performances,” said Samuel Brenner GS, a CCC representative. Professors are also uncomfortable giving similar grades to students with varying academic performances. “Students often complain to me that their B’s are much better than the B’s of other people — you see the injustice of this,” Reginster said. Reginster said he supports adding plusses and minuses to the grading system. Professors would not be forced to use pluses and minuses under a new system and could still only use A, B and C grades. But “it’s nice to have the option,” Reginster said. One possibility to combat inflation is adding only B+ grade options, Spoehr said. “I think if professors could give a B+ instead of A’s, it would stop grade

Ian Cropp ’05 hails from Buffalo, NY and is a die-hard Bills fan.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

OPINIONS EXTRA THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 12

Brown students don’t know anything about their city From local cuisine to Gallery Night, Providence is a treasure waiting for everyone IT HAPPENED AGAIN: A FUNNY LITTLE tion home with an open mind. Ask yourmisunderstanding indicative of a larger self the following questions: social trend here at Brown. A friend told me he would be “home” all weekend, and I natu- 1. Have I ever been downtown? rally assumed that we could get together and I don’t mean the mall. I don’t only mean the catch up over a cup of tea. Nope, not at all. He many fine pubs and nightclubs. How about the riverwalk? How about the spent the weekend in New outdoor ice-skating rink? How Jersey at his parents’ home! about the Providence Public This makes me sad (and I’m Library? Local theaters? Local not just talking about my feelbands? ings regarding New Jersey). Why am I surrounded by tem2. Do I drink coffee milk? porary residents? Why don’t The official state drink of Rhode Brown students consider Island is the nectar of the gods. Providence their home? An inferior version is available at I understand that home is a the Ratty, but you can mix your larger concept than residence. own with whole milk (or soy) Geography and mailing BILL TORTORELLI and Autocrat coffee syrup. Your address do not make you feel at DIARIO MINIMO mouth will thank you (but it gets home. People need to connect a bit gross after one glass). with the place at a deeper level. But Providence has so many opportunities for such connections that I’m 3. What is Waterfire? sure people must be resisting its efforts to Smell the smoking oaken pyres stretching make you feel at home. Will today’s Brown upstream, mixing their skyward-rising students continue the isolated-to-College- embers with the leafy autumn air. Stroll with Hill trend that has made the rest of the city friends or sit with one, arms linked and shadsee us as “other,” to be sneered at, harassed ows dancing across each other’s faces as the roaring fire’s glow transports you to a primiand even assaulted? I hope my love for this little (self-pro- tive state of wonder. claimed) Renaissance city can rub off on you a bit. I hope I can show you some of 4. Have I been to Newport? Pawtucket? what is out there. But approach this invita- The various parts of this state offer diverse and unusual local styles. We are a part of New England — but a part apart. Get chowda in Bill Tortorelli GS lives in Providence, RI.

Newport and hot wieners in Woonsocket. See the great Pawtucket Red Sox (affectionately called the Pawsox), the area’s local professional baseball team. Find glorious troves of antique hardwoods in Barrington or Bristol. No car? No excuse. RIPTA even has a ferry taking commuters between Providence and Newport for $4, weaving through the islands of the loveliest bay I know. 5. Have I been to the Athenaeum? One of the country’s oldest libraries, the Athenaeum, founded in 1753, is where Edgar Allen Poe fell in love with Sarah Helen Whitman. Their star-cross’d romance and the city’s customary gloom left their traces in Poe’s darker works and wrote themselves into the very walls of that lovely building on Benefit Street. And it is said of the fountain in front that a Brown student who drinks its water gets to live in Providence after graduation. I highly recommend the dew that sprinkles out of those lead pipes. 6. What is Gallery Night? Do you really have to ask? Now I’m shocked. When I first heard about Gallery Night, I felt like I was truly home, truly in a Renaissance city. And it’s happening again tonight! Gallery Night (www.gallerynight.info) is the third Thursday of each month. Two dozen art galleries throughout Providence will be open from 5 to 9 p.m. Everything is free, including the trolleys that run continuously from gallery to gallery. Hop on and off

wherever you like. You can even start right here on campus: one trolley stops at List, another at the RISD museum. (The RISD museum with its impressive collection is free all year with your Brown ID card.) This month’s Gallery Night will feature some excellent shows. Hopefully you’ve already seen “Commitment to the Struggle: The Art of Sue Coe” at the David Winton Bell Gallery in List. Even if, as I, you feel that there is an essential contradiction in her anthropomorphizing of animals to protest their use in saving human lives, you will find Coe’s images powerful and disturbing. Be sure to catch “El Dia de los Muertos” at the Peaceable Kingdom, and “Artifacts of War: Art and Politics in a Globalized World” at the Bannister Gallery. AS220 will feature several exhibits, including Raku pottery by Amanda Wright and paintings by Kim Kazan and Ron Bianco. Over the Top, in the historic Providence Arcade, will show the freaky work of artist Bob Rizzo. I’ll see you all there. But Providence is not about things to see and do. Providence is an attitude that says, “We don’t have New York’s filth or Boston’s traffic. We’re just living a beautiful life in our artistic earthly paradise.” Now I charge you, Brown student, to get out there and explore your city before you dismiss it as beneath you and your isolated hill. If you feel, after exploration, that it is too big, too small, too dreary or whatever, you are more justified than those who never try to get to know their homes.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

OPINIONS EXTRA THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 13

Distinguishing ‘The Real Thing’ from the right thing Despite its rhetoric, the Coca-Coca Company is currently not providing for its African employees AT THIS MOMENT AROUND THE WORLD, web of subsidiary and affiliate relationmillions of people are drinking a Coca- ships. This limited system has left many Cola product. If you’re in the Ratty right now, take a look over your shoulder. employees vulnerable to a pandemic that You’re probably drinking a Coca-Cola kills nearly 8,000 people a day. AIDS — a product. With that one sip, you’re con- tragedy of discrimination, economic inequality, and political nected to a company and its injustice — is ravaging the actions. And because of this, social fabric of Africa. Further you have the right and the ERIC NOBLE GUEST COLUMN inaction and neglect will responsibility, to know a little result in otherwise preventastory. ble infections and needless The Coca-Cola Company has claimed to be a leader on HIV/AIDS, illness and death. What can Coca-Cola do positioning itself as a poster child for about this? Financially speaking, Coca-Cola is UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. In Africa, the more than able to provide treatment to company has agreed to pay for full med- the estimated 15,000 system workers ical coverage, including treatment with who are HIV positive. Considering the antiretroviral drugs, for all of its 1,500 company had a $261 million African direct corporate employees. However, an profit margin in the 2001 fiscal year — estimated 100,000 people are employed double that of North America — the cost under the auspices of Coca-Cola, includ- of therapy would be 1.44 percent of opering fully or partially owned businesses ating profits in Africa, or in other words, and other companies that bottle Coke 2.2 percent of the annual advertising under exclusive licensing agreements. budget alone. From a legal standpoint, though, Coca-Cola has refused to provide coverage and treatment for its 98,500 “indi- Coca-Cola has no obligations. Its botrect” workers, hiding behind a complex tling partners are independent companies, responsible for providing health care for their own employees. There also Eric Noble ’05 wrote this column in conjunction with Oxfam at Brown and in association seems to be little precedent in the United States for any such requirement. with the Student Global AIDS Campaign. Much information was provided by Professor But while these are important angles to Brook K. Baker of the Northeastern School of consider, they miss the point completely. First of all, there are no rules that Law.

bind Coca-Cola to such practice, because such “rules” were established by the heads of multinational corporations with little, if any, popular input. Loopholes in outsourcing, and other ownership strategies have become key business strategies of multinational corporations seeking to avoid environmental and labor responsibilities. Second, Africa is in a dire situation that requires action above and beyond any precedent. AIDS is the crisis of our generation, and unless we make outstanding efforts, we will watch a huge portion of the population die needlessly. The fundamental question is not about legal issues like corporate control, strategic outsourcing and licensing agreements. The issue is whether the corporate sector has the responsibility to respond to an HIV pandemic that it has historically neglected at best and intensified at worst. Coca-Cola has made huge, even disproportionate profits in Africa. As global citizens, they are morally obligated to give back to a community from which they have gained so much. The answer to the problem lies in the Coca-Cola Promise: “The Coca-Cola Company exists to benefit and refresh everyone who is touched by our business.” In his report entitled “Keeping Our Promise — Citizenship at Coca-

Cola,” CEO of Coca-Cola Douglas Daft states, “Our business is about building relationships. These relationships must be based on mutual benefit, trust and shared values…Together with our local bottling partners, we strengthen communities by giving with our hands and our hearts, as partners in the promise of a better life.” Coca-Cola has set wonderful standards for itself. If we want the company to take responsibility and show leadership on the issue, we should not attack them for the advances they’ve already made, as small as they may be. Boycotting the company only seems counterproductive. The Coca-Cola Company must be applauded for having already taken steps to fighting AIDS in Africa. But something else must be done. The Coca-Cola bottle, like the golden arches of McDonald’s, is a symbol of the United States. The actions of the CocaCola Company reflect our values and concerns worldwide. As citizens of the United States, we must recognize and take responsibility for this. We must monitor its actions and speak out when there is a problem. Right now there is a crisis. Today you can take responsibility. Look for opportunities on campus to sign a letter and show your support for full medical coverage for all Coca-Cola employees.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL/LETTERS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 14 S T A F F

E D I T O R I A L

Judging Brown The Young America’s Foundation, a Virginia-based conservative student activist organization, recently named 12 courses at Brown as classes students should avoid. One course, MC150 “Seeing Queerly: Queer Theory, Film, Video,” is at the top of to organization’s “dirty dozen” list of “eccentric, bizarre, and ‘politically correct’” courses. While we appreciate the Virginia organization’s interest in the Brown education, the methodology behind and purpose of the YAF’s study is questionable. Rick Parsons, the survey’s author, told The Herald that he based his decisions on what courses “promote leftist ideology, while ignoring the conservative viewpoint” by looking at the course descriptions in Brown’s Course Announcement Bulletin. The course announcement book, while it may be useful to students looking to decide what classes to shop or pre-register for, should not be used as the basis for judging classes as “the most outlandish and politically biased courses on today’s campuses.” Parsons has never attended a class at Brown. He goes to George Mason University and probably decided to go there based on more than the contents of that school’s course announcement catalog. Parsons and his conservative organization claim that the writings of “left wing authors” and “ideologues” are all that is taught at Brown and other institutions of higher education. This is clearly not true to anyone who has ever attended a course at Brown. If Parsons and the other authors of the YAF’s attended a class here, they would see that this is not the case. Even MC150’s course description indicates that the course is anything but one-sided. “How do we, as sexual subjects (gay and straight), ‘look’ in the cinema?” it asks. “This course addresses questions of sexuality and representation as it considers both ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ productions.” These portions of the course description are conveniently left out of the YAF’s description. Even more troubling are the organization’s goals. If they do indeed want to promote the free exchange of diverse ideas — from both the right and the left — then it is questionable how publishing a poorly researched list of courses that are allegedly biased and one-sided will help them achieve this goal. Prior to publishing a list of courses it disapproves of, the YAF’s most significant achievement, according to its Web site, was when it “stepped in to save President Reagan’s Western White House, Rancho del Cielo, in the spring of 1998 to preserve it as a living monument to Reagan’s legacy.” We encourage anyone looking to take MC150 or any other course on the YAF’s list to ignore everything the organization says. Furthermore, we invite Parsons to visit Brown, attend classes here and then pass judgement.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL Seth Kerschner, Editor-in-Chief David Rivello, Editor-in-Chief Will Hurwitz, Executive Editor Sheryl Shapiro, Executive Editor Beth Farnstrom, Senior Editor Elena Lesley, News Editor Brian Baskin, Campus Watch Editor Carla Blumenkranz, Arts & Culture Editor Stephanie Harris, Academic Watch Editor Juliette Wallack, Metro Editor Victoria Harris, Opinions Editor

BUSINESS Stacey Doynow, General Manager Jamie Wolosky, Executive Manager Joe Laganas, Senior Accounts Manager Moon-Suk Oh, Marketing Manager David Zehngut, National Accounts Manager Lawrence Hester, University Accounts Manager Bill Louis, University Accounts Manager Hyebin Joo, Local Accounts Manager Jungdo Yu, Local Accounts Manager Tugba Erem, Local Accounts Manager Jack Carrere, Noncomm Accounts Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti, Sr. Advertising Rep. Genia Gould, Advertising Rep. Kate Sparaco, Office Manager

Sanders Kleinfeld, Opinions Editor PRODUCTION Marion Billings, Design Editor Bronwyn Bryant, Asst. Design Editor Julia Zuckerman, Copy Desk Chief

P O S T- M A G A Z I N E Kerry Miller, Editor-in-Chief Zach Frechette, Executive Editor Morgan Clendaniel, Film Editor Dan Poulson, Calendar Editor Alex Carnevale, Features Editor Theo Schell-Lambert, Music Editor

Jonathan Skolnick, Copy Desk Chief Andrew Sheets, Graphics Editor Kimberly Insel, Photography Editor Allie Silverman, Asst.Photography Editor Brett Cohen, Systems Manager

SPORTS Joshua Troy, Sports Editor Nick Gourevitch, Asst. Sports Editor Jermaine Matheson, Asst. Sports Editor Alicia Mullin, Asst. Sports Editor

Bronwyn Bryant, Night Editor Yafang Deng, Hanne Eisenfeld, Copy Editors Staff Writers Kathy Babcock, Brian Baskin, Jonathan Bloom, Carla Blumenkranz, Chris Byrnes, Jinhee Chung, Maria Di Mento, Jonathan Ellis, Nicholas Foley, Neema Singh Guliani, Ari Gerstman, Andy Golodny, Daniel Gorfine, Nick Gourevitch, Stephanie Harris, Victoria Harris, Shara Hegde, Brian Herman, Brent Lang, Elena Lesley, Jamay Liu, Jermaine Matheson, Monique Meneses, Kerry Miller, Alicia Mullin, Crystal Z.Y. Ng, Juan Nunez, Melissa Perlman, Caroline Rummel, Emir Senturk, Jen Sopchockchai, Anna Stubblefield, Jonathon Thompson, Joshua Troy, Juliette Wallack, Julia Zuckerman Pagination Staff Bronwyn Bryant, Jessica Chan, Sam Cochran, Joshua Gootzeit, Michael Kingsley, Hana Kwan, Erika Litvin, Jessica Morrison, Stacy Wong Staff Photographers Josh Apte, Nick Mark, Makini Chisolm-Straker, Allison Lauterbach, Maria Schriber, Allie Silverman Copy Editors Anastasia Ali, Lanie Davis, Marc Debush, Yafang Deng, Hanne Eisenfeld, Emily Flier, George Haws, Daniel Jacobson, Eliza Katz, Blair Nelsen, Eric Perlmutter, Amy Ruddle, Janis Sethness

SHANE WILKERSON

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Marshall, Gubata misrepresent 24-hour waiting period bill

idea for the promotion of their abortion campaign, it is filled with vapid reasoning and superficial innuendo rather than substantial arguments.

To the Editor: I found Rachel Marshall’s ’04 and Kate Gubata’s ’03 column, “Never Go Back and the threat to abortion worldwide” (10/16) unimpressive and misleading. The lazy discussion of what the column calls the “‘Women Are Stupid’ bill” — officially known as the Women’s Right to Know bill (31-16 in RI Senate) — seemed especially poorly presented. The column cynically mentions the bill’s 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, the distribution of various informational materials and the penalty faced by a physician who refuses to comply with the conditions of the bill. Marshall and Gubata believe that the bill has a “blatant anti-choice agenda.” I find this point especially surprising. Is a 24-hour waiting period “anti-choice?” Perhaps Marshall and Gubata do not realize the life-changing effect of an abortion. Decisions of such magnitude, with such well-documented psychological effects before and after the surgery, are no simple walk in the park. I do not know why Marshall and Gubata are so intimidated by a short time period to think about a life-changing action. Is the distribution of information “anti-choice?” Is knowing the name of the physician who is to perform the abortion, the possible medical complications of the surgery and the age and state of the child that is about to be aborted a harmful breech of “choice?” The government has a long history of protecting its citizens by providing this type of information: cigarette packages tell of the link between smoking and cancer and wine bottles warn of complications of pregnancy. And is punishing a physician who does not follow the law “anti-choice?” The world would be a radically different place if the people in charge of the health and well-being of patients did not have to follow standards. While Marshall and Gubata’s column is a nice

Writing proficiency can be fostered by peers in the classroom

Tom Reuland ’05 Oct. 16

To the Editor: While the University needs to reexamine the rigor of writing standards for all Brown students, there has to be a better way than deeming students “writing deficient.” (“U. to overhaul system of measuring students‚ writing proficiency,” 10/15) At a progresive learning institution, we should have a better word than “deficient” to describe students who have probably received inadequate attention to their writing in high school and college. In addition, an intervention program only for students with limited training ignores the lack of training for students with middling writing skills. Professors who mandate many writing assignements in their courses ought to be obligated to push their students through the writing process. One way to do this is to make students hand in drafts of their work. However a less work-intensive way for a professor to do this is to foster peer-editing within the class, a process which also builds classroom community. Writing classes ought to be offered on a departmental basis, thereby assuring students of their right to choose the subject matter they study, as provided by the open curiculum. However, fulfilling one such course ought to be a mandatory graduation requirement. Unfortunately, without such a requirement, there will be no way to ensure that all Brown graduates are competent writers. Lydia Pecker ’03 Oct. 16

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO AND IF YOU FOR SOME REASON DECIDE THAT YOU WON’T MY SISTER WILL EAT YOU

CO M M E N TA RY P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns and letters reflect the opinions of their authors only. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. ADVERTISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement in its discretion.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

OPINIONS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 15

The potential U.S. war with Iraq: What is it good for? With words of wisdom from sage Sun Tzu, weighing the pros and cons of attacking Iraq LET’S TALK ABOUT SADDAM HUSSEIN. writing about ancient China, his advice To toughen up his sons, he brought them remains relevant to this day. I don’t like to watch prisoners being tortured. He’s war, but if war is the only effective way of had advisers who disagreed with him shot dealing with the threat posed by Hussein, in the hallway outside his office. To intim- then the United States and its allies should idate his political opponents, he’s had resort to war. their wives raped. He gives Tzu writes, “If not in the $25,000 to the families of interests of the state, do not Palestinian suicide bombers. act. If you cannot succeed, do Imagine a spider the size of a not use troops. If you are not house: that’s terrorism. You kill in danger, do not fight.” it by pulling its legs off one at a Removing Hussein from time, because it’s too big to power is in the interests of the tackle head-on. Hussein is a state, and the United States is very important leg. capable of doing so. I used to Let’s talk about Iraq. Iraq think President George Bush was implicated in an assassiwas pushing this war for purenation attempt on former ly political reasons: cheap oil, SARAH GREEN President George H. W. Bush. U.S. economic stimulation, BETTER THAN ‘CATS’! Iraq may have helped train the political legacy of his some of the Sept. 11, 2001, father and himself, and a hijackers. Iraq definitely sponguaranteed second term. But sors Palestinian terrorist groups, in viola- given the current political climate of the tion of the treaty ending the Gulf War. Iraq Middle East and Hussein’s track record, has effectively starved its own populace in there are more urgent reasons pushing order to build weapons by exporting the Bush toward war. If the president is a chef, food received under the U.N.’s “oil-for- I still suspect that his fundamental motives food” program, which was put in place to are simmering on some back burner — but ease the effects of sanctions on the Iraqi that’s not impinging on my ability to see people. Iraq also kicked out the U.N. the smoke pouring out of the stove. weapons inspectors in 1998, and despite What exactly is going on in the stove? 16 different resolutions in the 11 years The president says that Hussein is trying since the Gulf War, continues to possess to get a nuclear weapon. (Actually, the and develop weapons of mass destruction president says that Hussein is trying to in direct violation of the treaty ending that get a “nucular” weapon, but stay with war. me here.) We know Hussein has all kinds Now let’s talk about war. “War is a mat- of nasty biological and chemical ter of vital importance to the State; the weapons, and if he gets a nuclear province of life or death; the road to sur- weapon he would be very nasty to deal vival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be with indeed. thoroughly studied,” begins “The Art of As for Tzu’s third stipulation, are we in War,” a 2,000-year old treatise on armed danger? Well we don’t really know, because conflict. Although the author, Sun Tzu, was Hussein is being willfully opaque when it comes to weapons inspections. Iraq conSarah Green ’04 sometimes finds it hard to tinually refused to accept the regulations laid out by the U.N. for such inspections stay within her word count.

until the United States started pushing the U.N. to authorize military action. Iraq says it will comply with the old (read: ineffective) regulations, but only if the U.N. promises not to let the mean ol’ United States hurt it. At the same time, Iraq claims that the terms of the agreement need to be “clarified.” Tzu states, “When the enemy’s envoys speak in humble terms, but he continues his preparations, he will advance.” Tyrants don’t build weapons just to have them. Tyrants build weapons to use them. Sooner or later, Hussein will use his weapons. He’s already had 11 years since the Gulf War and four years since he kicked out the U.N. inspectors. If we give him any more rope, he can make a nuclear weapon out of macramé. “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill,” Tzu contends. Taking an extreme stance at the beginning enables the White House to be seen to compromise, when in fact it never wanted nor expected to hold onto its original position. It’s like those $48 J.Crew “city sweats” pants — they eventually mark them down to $39.99, and it seems like a good deal until you realize you’re still paying 40 smackers for sweatpants. Tricky, very tricky. So Bush starts out by saying that the United States is willing to attack Iraq alone if it has to. The international community is outraged! The French cry, “Sacre bleu!” the Germans, “Verboten, dumkopf!” and the Russians add something long in Cyrillic. And now the bargaining begins. France, Russia and China are all hoping the U.N. will enact two separate resolutions, one to tell Iraq to allow inspections and a second to authorize military action if Iraq does not comply. Britain and the United States

want those two resolutions condensed into one and also want the weapons inspections to be more stringent. This plan has the twin benefits of being more efficient and more enforceable than the two-step plan. A swift resolution with some teeth to it might convince Hussein to allow inspections, and war could be avoided. Tzu urges, “Unite with your allies.” Russia may be willing to compromise. The compromise would endorse a single resolution demanding that Iraq allow revised weapons inspections to go forward or face undefined “consequences.” Finding common ground with Russia is key; if the White House can reach an agreement with Russia, other countries are likely to follow suit. I’d rest easier with at least verbal support from China. (If France doesn’t come around, c’est la vie.) The proof is in Afghanistan. If the United States can point to a peaceful, prosperous Afghanistan as a successful example of our success, other countries will have a harder time painting us as a neo-colonialist bully. Although we can defeat Iraq alone, we cannot rebuild it without help. The help of Britain and even Russia won’t be enough to guarantee longterm success in a new Iraq; the United States will need the support of Middle Eastern countries such as Iran and Pakistan. If we act with allies, a military strike will be less likely to be seen as U.S. avarice. “A sovereign cannot raise an army because he is enraged, nor can a general fight because he is resentful. For while an angered man may again be happy, and a resentful man again be pleased, a state that has perished cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life,” Tzu says. The stakes are high. And how we take action is just as important as that we take action.

Science demands we reach out and touch someone A direct connection between emotion and physicality dictates touch need neither be abstract nor lonely IN A RECENT COLUMN, HANNE touch by reading about touch, by watchEisenfeld ’06 writes on the emotional ing touch on the television or hearing significance of touch (“Touch: the the sound of things touching each other loneliest and most abstract sense,” is absolutely absurd. One can be moved 10/15). While it is intriguing to anoint by something that one sees, and helped and separate touch from the other sens- to gain an intangible understanding of it through that sight. Eisenfeld es, there doesn’t seem to be seems to be arguing that much evidence with which to intangible understanding support such a procedure. In BARRON YOUNGSMITH must be a prerequisite for fact, it may be harmful to GUEST COLUMN touch: don’t touch what you treat touch like some sort of don’t already love. But how untouchable, autistic child can one discover love, save because touch has special bearing on the rest of our emotional through the senses? Every sense is a window to the world. well being. Eisenfeld contends that “touch is a It would be a romantic but quixotic symptom of love,” the implication being approach to life if everyone decided to that human touch cannot and should not wear blindfolds all the time, to be occur until after two people have estab- removed only for their true lovers. For lished an intangible platonic or romantic each sense that one denies, one loses a emotional basis for that touch. She dimension in the overall perspective of describes touch as the odd man out of the love. To refrain from touch, taste, hearsenses, corollary and abstract, the weird ing and sight would leave anyone with a uncle in the family of physical perception. one-dimensional perspective on love: Ostensibly, she argues that one must be love based on smell. There is no reason completely and absolutely sure of the that one should apply a different stanemotional significance of touch before dard in judging whether to touch or not one ever attempts it, lest that touch to touch. In fact, touch is actually more imporbecome a wasteland. However, people must touch each tant to emotional well-being than any other to learn what touch is. To assume other sense. Hanne speaks of babies that that one can somehow gain an under- die if they are never touched, but then standing of the emotional significance of implies that this is just “kid stuff.” While it is true that “most college first-years This is Barron Youngsmith’s ’06 first column will not die or suffer serious long-term developmental effects” from a lack of for the Herald.

It would be a romantic but quixotic approach to life if everyone decided to wear blindfolds all the time, to be removed only for their true lovers touch, that does not mean that touch bears no concrete relation to emotionality. Instead of indicating the unimportance of touch, this shows that people do in fact grow more emotionally callous and independent as they get older — so much so that they do not die from a prolonged lack of human contact. But college first-years are also less sensitive to visual representations of graphic violence and to bodily harm. Does this mean that these things have no emotional impact? This is almost certainly not the case. Beyond mere speculation, however, there is concrete research to prove the medical connection between touch and emotion. The Washington Post published a July 29, 2002 article about a joint SwedishCanadian study that uncovered a separate system of nerves responsible for relaying touch information to the emotional centers of the brain, totally sepa-

rate from those nerves that sense touch and pressure. The experiment was performed on a 54-year-old woman from Montreal who had lost her normal pressure-sensing nerves to nerve disease. She could feel nothing below the bottom of her nose, except for heat, cold and itching. When researchers ran a feather over her arm, however, she had a clearly pleasurable sensation which she could vaguely locate as moving up her arm. When this procedure was coupled with a brain scan, researchers found that there was no nerve information passing to her somatosensory cortex. However, the touch did activate parts of the insular cortex, which “intriguingly, during visually evoked romantic love and sexual arousal.” This section of the brain also activates, for both humans and animals, when mothers rock children and when chimpanzees bond with surrogate parents. Touch forms a valuable biological impetus to nurture and express tenderness, so much so that the developing human being cannot survive, in its earliest stages, without touch. This system of nerves represents, and indeed comprises, the ultimate unity of touch and tenderness in every human being. Contact is a direct conduit to a greater emotional understanding. Sensory input is the last, greatest hope for any human being trying to learn about the external world. To deny that seems cold and abstract.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

SPORTS THURSDAY OCTOBER 17, 2002 · PAGE 16 ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

Two-sport star Pierpont ’04 scores big for f. hockey North, South Korea together through sports BY LILLY RAYMAN-READ

RARELY DO THE WORDS NORTH Korea and sports ever appear together in a sentence. You are more likely to read a news story about Jerry Falwell announcing his plans to tour the Middle East or a column on how unimportant it is for the Red Sox to win the World Series. This past week, however, North Korea paired itself with two unsuspecting partners: sports and IAN its southern CROPP neighbor. In a CROPPAGANDA last-minute decision, North Korea decided to enter the Asian Games, which were held in Busan, South Korea. For the first time ever, North Korea participated in an international sporting event in South Korea. North Korea opted not to cross the most heavily armed border in the world for the 1986 Asian Games, the 1988 Olympics or the 2002 soccer World Cup. The recent politically driven decision drew slightly less media attention than a Michael Jordan comeback, but the implications are a bit more meaningful, at least to those people who are more concerned with peace than watching a legend return to mediocrity. Not only did the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea send 184 athletes, but the country lived up to its professed name and sent a 300 member female cheering squad to support the athletes. Wow, what a great and benevolent nation. I mean the United States doesn’t give paid vacations to fans and some nations like England prohibit foreign travel to certain hooligan fans on days when their team plays abroad. Well unless you’ve been in another biosphere for the past 100 years, North Korea isn’t exactly peaches and cream. Nevertheless, the fans who were lucky enough to make the trip were accommodated on a 8,000-ton ship along with journalists, musicians and other delegates. Clad in all-white outfits, the fans clapped, chanted, whistled, sat and stood in near perfect unison. Such decorum and order has rarely been seen among fans before. Then again, these fans weren’t treated to the cold refreshments that usually elicit slightly different behavior. The head of the North Korean cheering contingent, Ri Myong Wong, told the media, “we’ve proudly showed the world that the North and South achieved reconciliation and unity by cheering in unison.” I’m sorry but that seems like an awfully bold statement to make concerning a simple cheer. Maybe I’m wrong and the name Ri Myong Wong will be paired up there with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, but I think it may take a bit more than a well coordinated “Three cheers for Korea!” to bring about reconciliation. see CROPP, page 11

Laurel Pierpont ’04 is the consummate athlete. Not only does she play field hockey in the fall, but she also plays lacrosse in the spring, and excels at both. Growing up in Jacksonville, Fla. she had a lot of family support, with her mom and dad at home and a brother in the air force. During her childhood, Pierpont participated in various sports and played three varsity sports during high school: field hockey in the fall, ice hockey in the winter and lacrosse in the spring. She is very dedicated as an athlete and continues to seek to improve in every sport she plays. Pierpont started playing field hockey when she was in seventh grade and continued playing because, she said, “I could not ask for a better experience.” At Brown she is the center forward, and has scored numerous goals and set up a lot of assists in her three years here. The transition from high school to college was not so easy. “I had to go from grass to turf, and start a new position which involved completely different skills and mindset, so it was difficult,” Pierpont said. Despite the tough transition, she has become an amazing center forward, and is consistent in her playing ability. Every athlete has that one game or experience that she will remember forever as the best moment in her sports career. For Pierpont this moment was last year when Brown beat the University of Connecticut. “We had not beat them for a long time, and Coach Carolan Norris is an alumni at UConn, so it was a big upset, and possibly the greatest feeling ever,” she said. And while this might be Pierpont’s favorite moment, she has had many impressive ones, especially this past year. This season she achieved a lot. Pierpont was named All-Ivy Field Hockey Player of the Week in September, and is one of the leaders on the team in terms of goals and assists. She scored three goals against Columbia University, as well as two assists to tie the Brown record of eight points in a single game. As of Sept. 25, Pierpont was ranked 17th in the country for assists, with an average of .75 per game. She also ranked

dspics.com

Athlete of the week Laurel Pierpont ‘04 excels on the field hockey team, which currently holds a 5-6 record. 6th in the county for goals, with an average of 1.125 per game. Pierpont is also a dedicated studentathlete and is impressive in the balance she has achieved, which she says is partly owed to sports and good “time-management.” She is an Environmental Science major and is very enthusiastic about her academic pursuits. Having survived all the basic lower level classes, Pierpont is enjoying her classes this year, and is considering focusing on marine biology or oceanography because she enjoys working on the water. She has worked at the Canaveral Seashore in Florida, where

she studied sea turtles. As for the present, Pierpont looks to a successful continuation of the season. “The team has yet to reach its full potential as a unit,” she said. “Everyone on the team is on the same page, where we know we did well, but we could do better, and we encourage one another to reach the highest level of play we are capable of”. Laurel and the entire field hock team face Princeton University on Saturday in Princeton, N.J. Lilly Rayman-Read ’06 writes athlete of the week feature articles and covers the volleyball team.

W. tennis reaches semifinals at ECACs BY ADAM STERN

On Oct. 12 and Oct. 13 Brown’s women’s tennis team was in New York playing in the annual Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) tournament. This team-oriented tournament featured a number of competitive schools including six of the other seven members of the Ivy League. Despite tough competition, Bruno made the semifinals before eventually falling to Princeton. In the first round, Brown easily defeated George Washington University (GW) 4-1. Victoria Beck ’04, Stephanie Falconi ’06 and Rachel Williams ’06 all enjoyed singles victories against GW. Alex Arlak ’05 and Kerry Meath ’05 teamed up to win in doubles, as did Falconi and Yelena Klurfeld ’06. Bruno found more intense opposition against Cornell University in the second round. Falconi, Klurfeld and Williams as well as the teams of Arlak/Meath and Falconi /Klurfeld contributed hardfought victories which enabled Brown to advance to the semifinals. A number of

Bruno’s players commented that the team’s effort was the factor that enabled victory against Cornell’s squad. “The tremendous amount of team spirit was crucial in our victory against Cornell,” Falconi said. Other members of the team agreed with Falconi’s sentiment. “I believe this weekend was simply a test of the capability of the team. We made it to the [semifinals] with three starting freshman and an immense amount of team spirit,” Klurfeld said. “Imagine what we can do with a little more practice and determination.” With the exception of the doubles victory by Arlak and Meath, Brown was swept by Princeton in the semifinals. Bruno’s Head Coach Norma Taylor is proud of the effort given by her team and attributes the loss partially to exhaustion. “The team performed well. I think they were a little worn out by Saturday night. Princeton played very well,” Taylor said. “I have to give them a lot of credit.” In general, the team was satisfied with its effort and hopes to improve in the

future. “The ECACs were a great success for the team and we showed a lot of tenacity and fight to beat a tough Cornell team in the quarterfinals,” said Caroline Casey ’03. “The team really started to come together over the weekend and even though we lost to Princeton, we all felt that we fought hard and will be ready to beat them during the Ivy season.” Taylor agreed with Casey’s assessment and added that some work in the weight room and in other preparation areas may help the team succeed in the future. She remains proud that her team held its seed and came in fourth out of sixteen competing teams. She also looks forward to playing Princeton in the upcoming months. “I feel that with some work, we can hopefully avenge that loss,” Taylor said. Bruno plays again from Oct. 25 to Oct. 29 at the ITA Regional Championships held at Harvard University. Adam Stern ’06 covers the men’s tennis team.