The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, F ebr uar y 21, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 20
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Michelle Obama stumps in Warwick Iraqis must unify to keep
peace, former minister says
By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staff Writer
WARWICK — Americans facing social and economic challenges should look to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as the presidential candidate who can best understand their plight, the senator’s wife told about 2,000
By Anne Simons Contributing Writer
METRO supporters at a rally in Warwick Wednesday night. Michelle Obama came to Rhode Island for a private fundraiser in Providence and to campaign on behalf of her husband before the state’s March 4 primary. Obama was introduced by her brother, Craig Robinson, head coach of the Brown men’s basketball team, at the Community College of Rhode Island’s Knight Campus. It’s not often that “a guy who lives on the East Side of Providence continued on page 4
Adam Robbins / Herald
Michelle Obama told about 2,000 supporters that her husband could empathize with their concerns Wednesday night in Warwick.
A new spin Students attend discussion on ‘political sections — in their dorms One couple awoke to climate’ find a section going on By Marisa Calleja Staff Writer
Growing up outside Washington, D.C., Dan Ehlke GS relished the occasional snow days in his hometown and marveled at the powerful
FEATURE precipitation that could shut down an entire city. Now, at 29, Ehlke has turned his childhood fascination into a lifelong pursuit. A seventh-year graduate student in political science, Ehlke’s passion for weather forecasting has gained him notoriety as a teaching assistant and course administrator for POLS 0220: “City Politics.” By checking a number of Web sites several times a day, he draws conclusions from disparities between different readings of the weather, and presents them to his classes — “each and every section.” “I find that people generally respond positively to it,” said Ehlke. “Many are surprised, and some find it random, since not it’s directly connected to what I do. On the other hand, weather is such a universal experience. Everyone likes to have some working knowledge on what it’s going to be like. It’s part of how people connect themselves.” Though his passion for all things meteorological runs deep, Ehlke said it is mainly a hobby and serves as a break from his numerous teaching duties, both at Brown and at Stonehill College. He refers to it as “an oasis” and an escape from his day job — academia is very much his calling. continued on page 8
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METRO
FIVE YEARS LATER Half a decade after the Station fire, a concert and play help commemorate the West Warwick tragedy
www.browndailyherald.com
By Kyla Wilkes Contributing Writer
Some students in Professor of Comparative Literature Arnold Weinstein’s lecture course, COLT 1420T: “The Fiction of Relationship,” can go to class without ever leaving their dorms. Because of a shortage of rooms, Weinstein has decided to hold some of his course’s Thursday discussion sections in various dormitor y and house lounges across campus.
Since his course meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1 p.m., which is a popular hour for classes, a shortage of classrooms makes the lounge sections necessar y, Weinstein said. He added that he actually prefers the informal atmosphere of the lounges or living rooms because lounges often facilitate better discussions. “Brown classrooms are awkward learning situations. I have a lot more relaxed give-and-take — which is what you want sections to be — in students’ own living arrangements,” continued on page 6
Iraqis must prove that they can run their government “without a policeman,” a former senior minister in the interim Iraqi government told a moderately full Salomon 101 Wednesday night. Ali Allawi served as minister of trade, defense and finance in the interim Iraqi government created after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. He gave listeners an insider’s perspective on the nature of the Iraq state, the war in Iraq and the situation in the Middle East at the inaugural Peter Green Lecture on the Modern Middle East. After leaving government in May 2006, Allawi wrote a book about U.S. involvement in Iraq. Titled “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace,” it was recognized by the Washington Post as one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2007, according to a University press release. Success in Iraq depends on the Iraqi people, Allawi told his audience. “If Iraqis cannot solve their problems, the rest of the world is not going to do it for them,” he said. Allawi laid out a few preconditions for “salvaging” the situation in Iraq, including establishing a political center before the 2009 elections and reducing regional tensions. Quoting Abraham Lincoln, Allawi said of sectarian issues in Iraq, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” If Iraqis can’t live with fellow Iraqis of different religions, their house will fall down around them, he added. The mood in Iraq is “guardedly optimistic,” Allawi, who was last in Iraq two months ago, told The Herald. He said he would like to
Suman Karumuri / Herald
Former Iraqi minister Ali Allawi spoke Wednesday in Salomon 101.
see a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces over about 18 months with a residual force left for diplomatic purposes. On the subject of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, he said all of the American presidential candidates “seem to be on the right track” on Iraq policy. Dubbing the U.S. the “midwife” of the second Iraqi state, Allawi told the audience the U.S. toppled what he said he believed to be a terrible dictatorship and changed the dynamic of Middle East power relationships. In February 2006, when the previously underground insurgent war spilled over into the general population, the country dissolved into a civil war between undefined sides. He said the war ended in the summer of 2007 because the insurgents realized they could not win and had to figure out how to exist in the new state, but they looked unstoppable until the U.S. deployed additional troops. He also said the role of the U.S. in the Middle East should be to foster mutual recognition and respect and to bring modernization continued on page 4
With more students using Macs, Ruckus tries to tap in
Online service will offer streaming music for Macs
By the numbers • Students using
PCs: 70% Macs: 30% By Melissa Shube Staff Writer
• Freshmen using
Next month, after years of Mac exclusion and a need to expand its reach, Ruckus will begin offering a streaming music service compatible with Apple computers. At the same time, the number of Mac users on campus is rising rapidly, with just under half the freshman class using Apple computers. Students with Macs are still in the minority at Brown, said John Brougher ’06, computer education specialist at Computing and Information Ser vices. For ever y 70 students with PCs, there are 30 with Macs, Brougher said. “But that’s really changing fast,” he said, adding that the freshman class has a 55-to-45 PC to Mac ratio.
• Students using
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CAMPUS NEWS
PCs: 55% Macs: 45% Ruckus: 2,663 • Tracks downloaded as of Monday:
1,217, 634 • Tracks available:
Over 3.5 million
Meara Sharma / Herald
• Disciplinary cases for illegal downloading in 2006-07: 512
Come March, Mac users will be able to listen to streaming music on Ruckus. As that ratio has changed, Ruckus is moving to capitalize on Mac users’ music demand. In March, the company plans to unveil a service that will allow Mac users to stream — but not download — music. “You’ll be able to
SCI-NON-FI Former New York Times science reporter speaks about the challenges of her craft
11
OPINIONS
build playlists, profiles, and it will be stored on the site,” said Chris Utah, Ruckus’s director of campus sales. “We use Windows’ (digital rights management) to secure our files, and Apple just doesn’t recognize it,” Utah said.
Presidential pals Tyler Rosenbaum ‘11 doesn’t want the president to be his buddy
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
As of now, the service is only compatible with PCs, leaving Mac users without any free and legal way to download music. Using the Windows version of continued on page 6 tomorrow’s weather Snow spreads quickly. Just like the gossip on juicycampus.com
Snow, 35 / 28 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com
T oday Page 2
Thursday, February 21, 2008
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Sudoku
Dunkel | Joe Larios
Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.
War and Peas | Linda Zhang and Eli Jaffa
RELEASE DATE– Thursday, February 2008 © Puzzles21, by Pappocom
Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle C r o sDaily sword Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 1 Objector 5 Early survival aid 8 Actress Mulgrew et al. 13 Old Dodge 14 Carp from Kyoto 15 Illusion 16 Questionable rebate 18 Two-time Grammy winner __ Lee Jones 19 Low-down joint 20 Tethered flier 22 Cause wrinkled noses, perhaps 23 Proverb ending 25 Stock holders? 27 Story in Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” 33 Batman cocreator 34 Wheat beard 35 Everest is on its border 36 Hirsute TV cousin 37 Military allotment: this puzzle’s is 30 “units” 40 The Hartford logo 41 Moved to a better fishing spot, maybe 43 “Messenger” molecule 44 St. Petersburg’s river 45 Humor named for its opening words 49 Spy 50 Flare, perhaps 51 “The Bridge on the River __”: 1957 film 53 “This bodes ill” 56 Hopscotch need 60 Tacked item 62 Big name in soy sauce 64 Performs the role of 65 Cooler 66 Aroused 67 Born __ 68 Ticker tape, briefly? 69 Distort
51 Heat amt. equal DOWN 37 Pioneering 1 “My Way” to 4,184 joules Pittsburgh radio songwriter 52 City SSW of station 2 Ruhr rejection Dallas 38 Ltd. cousin 3 Half time? 54 Dust Bowl 39 Mighty growers 4 Dark and fluid migrant 42 Surpass 5 Dossier abbr. 44 They didn’t make 55 Rube 6 Music with many 57 Crazily it subgenres 58 Vacation spot 46 Masseur’s 7 Baseball Hall of 59 Raised one’s targets Famer Cuyler hand, ostensibly 47 One high degree 8 Chiang __-shek 61 Word with mark or another? 9 Grow together or muff 48 Multiple 10 Cheats, in a way 63 It may be tapped letterman 11 Adams of ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: Broadway’s “Wonderful Town” 12 Try to find 15 Extremely unlikely 17 Schnoz 21 Shaming syllable 24 “You’re making this up!” 26 Sawyer’s pal 27 Expose 28 Airing today and tomorrow, say 29 Grounded flier 30 Emcee’s job 31 Trumpet part 32 “Past Imperfect” memoirist Chase 33 Michael’s dad 2/21/08 xwordeditor@aol.com
Gus vs. Them | Zachary McCune and Evan Penn
Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins
Dreaming in Focus | Max Abrahams
By Don Gagliardo (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
2/21/08
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M etro Thursday, February 21, 2008
Dems open local offices for campaigns By Dana Teppert Staff Writer
With the March 4 primaries just around the corner, both the Democratic and Republican campaigns have bolstered their efforts in Rhode Island. For the Democratic contenders from Illinois and New York, Sens. Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, Rhode Island’s 32 delegates are important for a race in which every delegate counts. Sen. John McCain, the Republican front-runner, is expected to get the nomination, said Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science, adding that he does not need to win Rhode Island or the 20 delegates that are at stake in its Republican primary. Both Democratic candidates have opened up local operation centers in Providence within the last week. Obama’s headquarters opened last Thursday, while Clinton’s headquarters opened Feb. 19. Clinton’s opening drew some of the state’s top Democratic politicians, including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Rep. James Langevin, Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts ’78 and Mayor David Cicilline ’83, said Jennifer Bramley, deputy communications director of Clinton’s local headquarters in Providence, prior to the event. Former Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty and Attorney General Patrick Lynch ’87 attended the opening of Obama’s headquarters, according to a Feb. 14 article in the Providence Journal. Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75, who endorsed Obama, was not in attendance. The Democratic candidates are doing more than opening up offices in the state. Several members of the Clinton family will soon come to the state to campaign. This Sunday, Clinton is scheduled to appear in Rhode Island for a fundraiser and open press events, said campaign spokesman Blake Zeff ’99. Bill Clinton will campaign in Rhode Island this Friday evening on behalf of his wife, according to a press release from the Clinton Campaign. Chelsea Clinton is expected to visit Providence soon after her mother’s visit on Sunday, said Craig Auster ’08, one of the co-leaders of Brown Students for Hillar y. The group is pushing for Chelsea to come to Brown, he said. Michelle Obama held a “Stand for Change” rally in Warwick last night at the Community College of Rhode Island’s Knight Campus. Cameron Monagle, an intern at the Obama for America Providence office, was unable to confirm whether Obama would be visiting Rhode Island before the primary. He said the office hoped for a visit from the senator but, “to be honest, his schedule isn’t done that far in advance.” In the meantime, the campaign is focusing on calling voters and canvassing, “because we found that was the most effective way to get to the voters,” Monagle said. Last Thursday, McCain attended a rally in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick before a crowd of more than 1,000 people. Clinton has been stronger than Obama in her fundraising efforts in Rhode Island and New England. To date, she has raised $467,206 in Rhode Island and $251,998 in Providence, according to CNN data released Feb. 1. Obama has raised only $150,866 in Rhode Island and $86,582 in
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Providence. However, in January, Obama’s campaign took in $32 million nationally while Clinton’s campaign raised only $13 million, CNN reported. While Rhode Island’s primary is not as crucial as those in Ohio or Texas, which offer 161 and 228 delegates respectively for the Democrats and 88 and 140 delegates for Republicans, it still matters, Schiller said. “Every single delegate counts from now on,” she said, adding that Clinton needs to make up delegates if she hopes to win the nomination. “She needs Rhode Island more than Obama needs Rhode Island.” Schiller predicted that Clinton would make more visits to the state than Obama, who would try to pitch his campaign through more television commercials. Obama’s campaign, she noted, has emphasized his healthcare plan in local television advertisements to compete with Clinton, who does well among lower-income voters. While Clinton is expected to do well with native Rhode Islanders, Obama’s campaign will count on students who are registered in Rhode Island, she said. A new poll released by the Taubman Center for Public Policy indicates the margin between Obama and Clinton in Rhode Island is narrowing, The Herald reported Feb. 15. Schiller predicts that Clinton will “squeak out a win in Rhode Island” because she has done well in the East Coast so far. Student groups on campus are gearing up to muster support for their candidates. Brown Students for Hillary hosted a “Hillary Hour” at Spats last night and are hosting another event aimed at undecided voters at Blue State Coffee tonight, Auster said. The group will continue to canvass on weekends and will be doing a “big get out the vote push”
the last weekend before the primary, Auster said. The group is working closely with the staff at Clinton’s Providence headquarters. Brown Students for Barack Obama is also actively campaigning in conjunction with Obama’s Providence office, said Max Chaiken ’09, head of the group and a Herald opinions columnist. They will be making phone calls and knocking on doors, he added. “Campaigns are won by people reaching out to other people,” Chaiken said. Brown College Republicans will not be doing a get-out-the-vote initiative since McCain appears to be the presumptive nominee, said Marc Frank ’09, the head of the group. Though the senator does not have an office here, Frank said, he does have a good volunteer network in Rhode Island. Frank said he was excited about the March 4 primary and expressed approval that it had not been moved to Feb. 5, when it would not have mattered as much. Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 vetoed a bill to move the primary to Feb. 5. Though the College Republicans will not endorse any nominee, Frank said, if McCain becomes the Republican nominee the group will support him. Within the group, there has been some talk of McCain not being “a good conservative,” Frank said. “I’m very wary of John McCain. I’m personally not happy he’s our nominee, but I will support him.” Sean Quigley ’10, a member of the Brown College Republicans executive board and a Herald opinions columnist, said he was “getting tired of this McCain-isn’t-a-conservative jumbo.” All three groups expressed excitement about the upcoming primary. “Rhode Island matters,” Schiller said.
Metro
i n
Brief
Five years after Station, state remembers Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the fire that took 100 lives at the Station nightclub in West Warwick. The fire, caused by a pyrotechnics show put on by the band Great White, also injured around 200. Several memorials and events, including a concert and a documentary about the fire’s youngest victim, will commemorate the fire. On Feb. 25, the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence will host the Phoenix Rising concert, a commemorative show featuring various country and rock acts, including Gretchen Wilson and Twisted Sister, whose frontman Dee Snider once performed at the Station. Plans were unveiled Feb. 17 for a revamped Station fire memorial at the former site of the club. The memorial park’s features are set to include a sculpture garden, a ripple pool and a 100-string wind harp, according to a Feb. 18 Providence Journal article. “They Walk Among Us,” a play written by Nicholas O’Neill, who was 18 when he died in the fire, was broadcast on Cox Cable channel 71 last night. O’Neill was 16 when he wrote the play, which is “about teenagers who die and come back as angels,” according to his father, Dave Kane. The play has been performed locally in West Warwick in honor of O’Neill since 2004. O’Neill’s brother, Christian O’Neill, also co-produced a documentary called “41,” which will air at the Cable Car Cinema and Cafe in Providence March 3 - 13. The documentary focuses on “Nicky’s life, the fire and the aftermath,” Kane said. It premiered at the Woods Hole Film Festivalin August 2007. On Feb. 13, Clear Channel Broadcasting settled to pay victims’ families $22 million, according to a Feb. 14 Providence Journal article. Clear Channel owns the local radio station WHJY, which co-sponsored the Great White concert, and was held partially responsible for allowing the use of dangerous pyrotechnics, the Journal reported. — Simon van Zuylen-Wood
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Thursday, February 21, 2008
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Ex-minister describes Iraqi politics
Q&A with Ali Allawi Ali Allawi, a former minister in the interim Iraqi government, sat down with The Herald before he spoke in Salomon 101 Wednesday evening to discuss presidential candidates and Iraq’s future.
continued from page 1 to the region. Many attendees told Allawi during the question-and-answer period that they appreciated his lecture. One questioner spoke angrily about the war and its related Iraqi casualties. Brenna Carmody ’09 said she thought Allawi “presented a really objective stance” on the situation and its future, adding that a glimpse into Iraq’s internal politics was interesting. Allawi now plans on returning to the United Kingdom. He will have two more books coming out in the next two years, according to the press release.
Herald: How do the candidates positions on Iraq resonate with you? Allawi: I think (Sen. John) McCain’s position about the presence of Americans for a hundred years ... is a kind of residual involvement over a long period of time which I don’t have any problem with. I think both (Sens. Barack) Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (DN.Y.) have relatively similar (positions), although Obama seems to be calling for an immediate withdrawal. I think in practice it will probably be a kind of gradual pull-down.
What would be one thing you would advise a U.S. leader about the situation? The situation is that you can’t apply force to the problem. You have to act wisely. You have to act constructively. And not see it always as a source of tensions or just oil. Will Iraq be the beacon of democracy? No, it won’t be a beacon of democracy. I don’t want it to be. I want it to be a place where people feel secure, safe and with the potential of improving their lives and live with a reasonable degree of freedom and comfort. How do you feel about the Iraq War? Was it worth it? If we deal with (the effects of the invasion) positively, we could still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Obama understands Americans’ plight, wife says continued from page 1
www.browndailyherald.com
gets to introduce the next first lady of the United States,” Robinson said, prompting supporters to cheer and clap loudly. “And it’s even more humbling when that person is your little sister,” he said to the supporters, some of whom held signs that read “Yes We Can,” “Change We Can Believe In” and “Michelle for 1st lady.” At the beginning of the senator’s presidential campaign, critics said he would not be able to raise enough funds or garner sufficient political support to win, Obama said. But she said her husband has proved them wrong by winning several state primaries. Speaking for almost an hour at the “Stand for Change Rally,” Obama narrated anecdotes from her and her husband’s lives, emphasizing that their experiences have been similar to those of average Americans. “We’re still living in a nation where sometimes the bar is set. And then you work hard, do whatever is
possible to reach the bar, and you reach it. You think you’re there, and then they move the bar,” she said. “What was once possible is impossible because the bar is moving.” Obama used the bar metaphor to explain the challenges Americans face today when, in spite of working hard, they have difficulty in securing good education, steady employment, healthcare and overall economic stability. “(Barack and I) are three years outside of paying down our student loan debt,” she said. “Imagine that. Imagine a president of the United States who is three years out of paying down his debt.” Her husband’s grounded upbringing and varied life experiences set him apart from other politicians, Obama said. “Barack didn’t have it easy. He is the product of a single-parent household,” she said. “Imagine an 18-year-old white woman raising a black boy in the ’60s.” Obama said her husband, who lived in Indonesia for part of his
childhood, “understands and respects other cultures and traditions” — an attribute America’s next president must have. The senator can empathize with Americans because he has shared some of their experiences while working as a community organizer in Illinois, his wife said. While there, he worked “with real people who had a reason to be fearful and cynical because they had been forgotten.” At the same time, the Harvard Law School graduate can use his top-notch education to give back to Americans, Obama said. “He is trying to live by the simple principle that to whom much is given, much is expected,” she said. Obama supporters said they enjoyed hearing his wife speak. “It was a very good rally,” said Shirley Mitchner, an Obama supporter. “She did an excellent job. We would vote for her!” Mitchner said she hopes Obama’s speech convinced some undecided voters to vote for the senator. “When you look around the crowd, not everyone’s clapping, but you can see that they’re listening, so hopefully they got it,” Mitchner said. Members of Brown Students for Obama present at the rally said Michelle Obama’s speech inspired them. “What was particularly striking in her speech was that she had an ability to interweave the substantive policy with the more rhetorical ... lofty ideas,” said Ben Mishkin ’08, membership coordinator for Brown Students for Obama. “She really was able to inspire and tackle the critical issues facing our country,” said Max Chaiken ’09, chapter coordinator for Brown Students for Obama. “I thought she was wonderful and eloquent, and she had a commanding presence.” Chaiken said Obama’s speech showed Americans that she and her husband had worked hard to attain their goals. “They’re trying to inspire a new generation of Americans to work hard and fulfill their dreams,” he said. Harrison Kreisberg ’10 said the Obamas are trying to reach different demographic groups across the country. “I really think we’re going to unite this countr y behind someone like Michelle and Barack,” he said.
C ampus n ews Thursday, February 21, 2008
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News in Brief Prof. to study nursing home quality Assistant Professor of Community Health Zhanlian Feng MA’99 PhD’02 has received a $10,000 medical research grant for his work on the quality of life in American nursing homes. The grant is awarded by the Rhode Island Foundation and funded by 11 medical research funds that are pooled and awarded annually as seed funding to junior researchCourtesy of brown.edu ers, said Jean Cohoon, the foundation’s Zhanlian Feng MA’99 PhD’02 senior communications officer. This year, Feng is the only Brown recipient out of 11 award recipients. He will be examining the results of a survey on the quality of life of all the certified nursing homes in the United States. He will also be investigating how nursing homes in Rhode Island fare in comparison with the national average. “People have a very bad, negative impression of nursing homes,” Feng said about why he chose to research nursing homes. “They are always (associated with) scandals and poor quality of health in the mass media,” he added. “If people had alternatives, they wouldn’t send their parents there.” Feng said, as he researched, he discovered a large amount of literature on “the quality of care in nursing homes.” But, he said, “there’s very little literature on the quality of life — if residents feel at home and if they feel comfortable.” Feng aims to finish his research by the middle of the year and has already submitted abstract results to AcademyHealth, a professional society for collaboration between health researchers and policy experts. Though Feng is still working on completing his research, he has set his eyes on a more ambitious project for next year — nursing homes in China. He has applied for a grant and is waiting for a decision. But Feng said he is grateful to the Rhode Island Foundation for their support on his research in America. “(The grant is) small, but it’s nice,” he said. “Hopefully it will lead to bigger projects and external funding in the future.” — Jing Yi Hon
New site provides gossip outlet What do students write online when they don’t have to sign their names? The Brown forum on the new gossip Web site JuicyCampus.com, which allows students to leave anonymous posts, shows the myriad topics, from “Best Professor Ever” to “Biggest Hipsters on Campus,” that students want to discuss online. By last month, the Brown forum had been added to the site, along with those for 50 other schools, such as Cornell, Yale and Boston University, according to the site’s founder, Matt Ivester. Looking to create a place for students to share their college stories, Ivester and his team initially launched JuicyCampus at seven trial schools across the country in Oct. 2007. Although JuicyCampus has attracted media attention — including critics at Cornell, Yale and Loyola Marymount University — many Brown students have yet to hear of the site. Graham Browne ’08 hadn’t even heard of JuicyCampus before a friend mentioned that Browne was listed as one of the University’s “hottest guys” on the site. He said he was initially “really nervous,” and wondered who posted it and what purpose JuicyCampus served. “I felt kind of embarrassed. I felt kind of weird. … Eventually I laughed it off,” said Browne, who also said he thought the Daily Jolt forums provided a similar outlet for students and that he would continue to visit the Jolt rather than JuicyCampus. According to one of the Jolt’s administrators, Amy Chang ’08, the differences between the two sites lie in what they offer. Though both sites provide a space for students to post anonymously, the Jolt also serves up dinner menus, contests and news links, among other features. Furthermore, the Jolt has a “pretty strict policy about attacking people by name,” said Adam Cambier ’09, a Herald opinions columnist and another one of the Jolt’s administrators. On the Jolt’s forums, with rare exceptions, potentially defamatory posts are reported and deleted, Chang said. JuicyCampus, however, will not delete a post unless it is spam. The site will fully cooperate with police when public safety is a concern, Ivester said. But a student’s name can be specifically mentioned without the moderator removing the comment, which has led students at other campuses to complain about the site to their schools’ administrators, according to the Yale Daily News. Neither Chang nor Cambier expects JuicyCampus to rival the Jolt in terms of popularity, as the Jolt has “cornered the market,” Cambier said. Brown is the Jolt’s most popular campus, Chang said. Still, Cambier said, “they stand to do well for their niche.” Other students, such as Frankie Martinez ’10, heard of JuicyCampus through Facebook advertisements. Although Martinez said he is a frequent user of the Jolt, he said he would use JuicyCampus more if it had more posts. “The Jolt will always do better,” Martinez said. “There’s a small subset of people here who just want gossip.” Nevertheless, Ivester said he believes that, because JuicyCampus has not pursued much marketing and has relied primarily on word of mouth, it is only a “matter of time” before it becomes a more recognized name on campuses. — Connie Zheng
Science journalist speaks on exploring the esoteric By Alex Roehrkasse Senior Staff Writer
Award-winning science journalist and author Dava Sobel spoke about the challenges and pleasures of writing about science yesterday in Salomon 001 in the third installation of the Great Nonfiction Writers Lecture Series. Sobel, a former science reporter for the New York Times, interspersed readings from her work with personal anecdotes and advice about the difficulties and rewards of science writing. “The major challenge is finding a story that you really love,” Sobel said. “Especially in book writing, it’s a long time to sit alone in a room. If you don’t have a real feeling for the subject, it gets very lonely in there.” With frank humor that garnered many laughs from the audience of about 80, Sobel spoke on the challenges of relating esoteric topics to the average reader. Sobel’s first book “Longitude” chronicled the work of 18th century clockmaker John Harrison, who first devised a method for determining ships’ longitudes at sea, a perennial humdinger that had plagued the likes of Galileo and Isaac Newton. Sobel recalled publishers, family members and strangers alike discouraging her from tackling such a strange subject. “Everyone turned me down on the grounds that it sounded boring, weird and esoteric,” she said. “Longitude” later went through 29 hardcover printings. Sobel’s next project was based on
Kim Perley / Herald
Former New York Times science writer Dava Sobel spoke on the challenges of her craft.
the letters sent by Galileo’s eldest daughter — a Catholic nun — to the scientist. Sobel was struck by the discord between her childhood knowledge of the famed champion of secular science and the pious figure her archival research uncovered, so she decided to take a unconventional approach in “Galileo’s Daughter” by examining the relationship between Galileo’s discoveries and his beliefs. “It seemed like it would be very interesting to look at Galileo’s science in the light of his Catholic faith,” Sobel said. Sobel talked about the year she spent translating more than one hundred letters from classical Italian and the subsequent frustration of being told by her publisher that most of them would have to be cut from the book.
Reading from the letters, Sobel elicited from the audience several sentimental sighs at the eloquent reverence Maria Celeste expressed for her famed and troubled father. Departing from what she called her previous “narrative stories about heroes,” Sobel intended her most recent book “The Planets” as “a book about the planets for people who were not interested.” Sobel said she was inspired to take on the planets when her agent, whom she described as “highly intelligent,” asked her the difference between the solar system, the galaxy and the universe. This incident, Sobel said, highlighted the way that most people can get by without a well-developed science literacy. For this reason, guiding continued on page 8
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Mac users comprise nearly half of freshman class continued from page 1 Ruckus, students can legally download an unlimited number of songs for free. They can keep the songs until they graduate; after graduation, the songs expire unless students pay monthly for an alumni account. Ruckus is Brown’s second attempt to provide an alternative to illegal downloading of music. The University became affiliated with Ruckus two years ago, after funding for Napster ran dry, said Rosario Navarro, project manager for the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services. The service is free to Brown. In turn, Brown agrees to market Ruckus, which is supported by advertising, to students. Navarro said she tells students about Ruckus by sending out mass e-mails and talking to Residential Peer Leaders, who are supposed to advertise the service to students in their units. “I certainly do think that if the institution is telling students that copyright violations are not acceptable then we ... have a responsibility to provide alternatives and options,” Navarro said. “I think it is a great service, and I think it has a lot of kinks to work out, but it’s a great start.” Providing ser vices for Apple users is just part of the company’s efforts to reach more students. On Wednesday, the company sent an e-mail to all its members. “We need
more members to continue to offer the music for free,” the e-mail read. “Help us save your music.” But Utah denied that there was any immediate danger of the company shutting down, saying that the drive for numbers was more important for the non-af filiated schools. “This campaign is more to get the numbers up so we can keep it free for affiliated schools,” Utah said. “In the worst case, we’re going to cut off open access for the unaffiliated schools. Brown is fine.” Utah said that as of Monday, Brown students have downloaded 1,217,634 tracks. Navarro said that 2,663 Brown students are registered to use Ruckus. Several students interviewed by The Herald in the Sciences Librar y said they don’t use the ser vice, and many were unfamiliar with the service. “I think I got something about it in my Brown Morning Mail,” Molly Hawksley ’09 said. “Most of the people that I know that download music use Limewire,” Michael Lezcano ’09 said. Compatibility issues aside, students cite advertisements and ease of use as reasons they don’t use the software. “I appreciate being able to access music without paying for it, but I prefer free music services without so many advertisements,” Alex Campbell ’10 said. “I use iTunes ... usually because it’s more familiar. It’s more convenient,” Helen Segal ’10 said.
“I do think that any resource for students to have free access to things is a good idea,” said Assistant Dean of Student Life Yolanda Castillo-Appollonio. “I don’t know how much students know about it, so I’m not sure how much students are using it.” Students are still downloading digital content illegally, though. Castillo-Appollonio, who deals with the non-academic discipline system, said that 512 instances of illegal downloading, including movies, TV shows and music, were brought to her attention last academic year — more than double the number of people that received Emergency Medical Services attention for alcohol and drug abuse the previous year. A first offense can result in a letter of warning, and second and third offenses in hearings or sanctions, which could result in probation and temporar y internet loss, among other things, Castillo-Appollonio said. The consequences outside of Brown are more severe: Several Brown students have been sued by the Recording Industr y Association of America for copyright infringement. “There are so many legal ways to get music and movies, and the consequences can be beyond what happens at the University. The consequences can be so great that it really isn’t worth that one more song or one more movie,” CastilloAppollonio said.
Prof. relocates some sections to lounges continued from page 1 he said. Signe Christensen GS, a teaching assistant for the class who holds a section in a Machado House lounge, agreed with Weinstein. “The lounge is actually quite perfect,” said Christensen, because the lounge’s fireplace and armchairs fit the literar y nature of the conversation. “It’s more oriented to stimulating discussions.” Christensen said Weinstein generally attracts large numbers of students to his classes and has held discussion sections in lounges for a number of years. Students in Weinstein’s course had var ying opinions on the sections. Stephanie Buss ’08, who has section in the Zeta Delta Xi fraternity’s lounge in Marcy House, said that sections in lounges are not better or worse — just different — because students sit on comfortable furniture. She said she felt students generally don’t seem to have a strong preference one way or the other. But Jacob Johnson ’08 disagreed. “I think people talk more (in lounges),” he said. “People feel more comfortable.” Dan Rosenberg ’09, president of Zeta Delta Xi and a member of the section held in his house’s lounge, also said students seemed to prefer the lounge spaces. “It encourages a more open exchange of ideas, rather than a one-way lecture,” he said. According to Christensen, however, these more relaxed sections often come at a price. About a quarter of the students in her section in the Machado lounge sit on the floor, she said, and there are no available desks or tables. Another TA, Mariah Isely GS, also experienced the downside of having section in a lounge last semester when she led a section
for Weinstein’s COLT 1420O: “Proust, Joyce and Faulkner” in a Caswell Hall lounge. Noisy pipes in the room, which is in the building’s basement, made it difficult for students to hear each other, Isely said. Weinstein has more experience than most faculty members with residence halls. During the 1970s, when his children were young, Weinstein was a residential fellow, living with his family in a residence hall on Pembroke College and also at 67 George St., which now houses the Taubman Center for Public Policy. Students would frequently come to his home for sections and study breaks, he said. Residents generally don’t mind the temporary use of their lounges for sections, both Christensen and Weinstein said. “It’s in the afternoon, and most people are out of the house,” Christensen said. Weinstein said he told his students that they must check with Residential Peer Leaders and other residents before offering the space. Rosenberg, who volunteered Zeta Delta Xi’s lounge for his section, said it is not a space that gets used much during the day. “We usually think of it as a good thing,” Rosenberg said. “We like having new people and new faces.” Weinstein said, though residents don’t seem to mind, he has had a few incidents in which his sections have disrupted residents’ use of the lounges. Once he was holding a 10:30 a.m. section in a dorm lounge and happened upon a couple asleep on a couch, he said. According to Weinstein, the couple was shocked to wake up to find a professor and 20 other students staring at them. Both Senior Associate Registrar Robert Fitzgerald and Weinstein were unaware of other professors holding classes in lounges or living
rooms around campus. But Mark Cladis, chair of the Department of Religious Studies, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that though it wasn’t the norm in his department, he sometimes held class in non-traditional settings. “I often tr y to match the meeting ‘place’ to the text or theme that we are discussing,” Cladis wrote. For example, he took his class RELS 0260: “Religion Gone Wild: Spirituality and the Environment” on a winter hiking excursion and a subsequent fireside chat at his house, he wrote. Nancy Jacobs, an associate professor of Africana studies and histor y, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that she once held a section in a residence hall lounge because the assigned room had fixed row seating, and students preferred to sit in a circle. Since the Office of the Registrar’s main concern is scheduling conflicts, it is not necessar y for them to be contacted about discussion sections that professors choose to hold in lounges, Fitzgerald said. “We can’t dictate where professors hold classes,” he said. “Professors have to realize potential consequences.” While residence hall doors are often propped open to give students in the section access to the building, Christensen said safety has thus far not been an issue in any of her sections. Weinstein said he did realize there are potential risks associated with holding sections in lounges. In one lounge section, he said, he was addressing his students when part of the ceiling fell on his head. Despite these risks, Weinstein said he thinks students often prefer lounges to classrooms. Christensen agreed. “It is an unexploited resource,” she said. “Students enjoy the whole proximity thing.”
W orld & n ation Thursday, February 21, 2008
Obama campaign spotlight shifts to candidate’s wife By Robin Abcarian Los Angeles T imes COLUMBUS, Ohio — It is one of Barack Obama’s most reliable laugh lines. Coming to the close of his stump speech, he often says, “I am reminded by every day of my life — if not by events, then by my wife — that I am not a perfect man.” These days, after catching grief for calling her husband “snore-y and stinky” and speaking about his bad habits in the manner of a loving but exasperated wife, Michelle Obama only sings his praises. “You go, OK, I’ve got to be careful not to be the story,” she said during an interview recently aboard her campaign bus. “Because it becomes a distraction to the broader issues.” Unwittingly, Michelle Obama became the story this week again, after telling an audience in Wisconsin on Monday that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” It might have been nothing more than a little hyperbole in a season that has seen plenty. But as the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has narrowed to Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the spotlight is shining much brighter on Michelle Obama, a 44-year-old hospital administrator. While Clinton’s husband, the former president, has been in hot water regularly for his verbal jabs at Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, whose tongue can be as barbed as Bill Clinton’s, has received less scrutiny. With her husband’s increasing success, that has changed. And with so much at stake, even minor gaffes are being blown into full-fledged campaign issues. Wednesday, according to the Associated Press, she clarified her Monday remarks in an interview with a Rhode Island TV news station. “What I was clearly talking about was that I’m proud in how Americans are engaging in the political process,” she said. “For the first time in my lifetime, I’m seeing people rolling up their sleeves in a way that I haven’t seen and really trying to figure this out — and that’s the source of pride that I was talking about.” Still, her comment was in keeping with the generally bleak view of the country that is the heart of her stump speech. There have been rumblings in the chattering classes about her portrait of a man who is lowering himself to politics. She talks about how brilliant he is and often implies that voters would be crazy not to vote for her husband, calling him “the only rational choice.” She calls his candidacy a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to be graced with a man like him.” “The question,” she often says, “is not whether Barack Obama is ready. ...The question is, are we ready for him?” Her impolitic statement in Wisconsin was not the first uncomfortable moment for Michelle Obama on the campaign trail. Last week, she was criticized after telling ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she would have to think about whether to support Hillary Clinton if she became the nominee. A transcript provided by the Obama campaign, however, showed that the second part of her quote, in which she said she would support the former first lady, had been edited out.
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Like her husband, Michelle Obama is a masterful public speaker who can easily talk for an hour without notes. But unlike her husband, she tends to dwell on the negative. America, in her telling, is a place where regular folks can’t get ahead, because, as she said at Ohio State University, “Folks set the bar, and then you work hard and you reach the bar, sometimes you surpass the bar, and then they move the bar!” Americans, she says, have become “cynical,” “mean” and have “broken souls.” For “regular folks,” meaning the working class, life is bad and getting worse. People can’t raise a family on one salary anymore, she says. They can’t afford to get sick, even if they have insurance, because of deductibles and premiums and the high cost of medicine. They can’t confidently send their kids to neighborhood public schools, because so many of them are so bad. Young people can’t afford to attend college to become teachers or nurses or journalists, because those jobs don’t pay enough to repay college loans. “We don’t need a world full of corporate attorneys and hedgefund managers,” she told a crowd in a Baptist church in Cheraw, S.C., last month. “But see, that’s the only way you can pay back your educational debt! “The life that I am talking about that most people are living has gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl. And this is through Republican and Democratic administrations. It doesn’t matter who was in the White House. ... So if you want to pretend there was some point over the last couple of decades when your lives were easy, I want to meet you!” Her rhetoric is jarring given that the Obamas themselves are a stunning embodiment of the American Dream. Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson, who now coaches basketball at Brown University, attended Princeton. Both Obamas earned law degrees from Harvard and are looking at the none-too-remote possibility of raising their two daughters in the White House.
g oodni g ht moon
Meara Sharma / Herald
Students take a break from studying in the SciLi to watch the lunar eclipse at 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Supreme Court decisions favor businesses David G. Savage Los Angeles T imes
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave business two big wins Wednesday by shielding companies from lawsuits and state regulations. In one ruling, the court said makers of medical devices, such as heart valves or pacemakers, cannot be sued by injured patients if the Food and Drug Administration had approved the devices for sale. In the second, the court freed shippers and delivery services such as UPS from state regulations that require them to check that an adult was the recipient of cigarettes delivered to a residence. In the medical device case, the court threw out a lawsuit against Medtronic over a balloon catheter that burst in the chest of a New York man. He underwent emergency surgery and eventually died. His wife sued Medtronic, saying the catheter was defective. But the court rejected her suit in
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a 8-1 decision, saying juries may not second-guess the FDA on whether these devices are safe. In the delivery case, the court had been urged by the Bush administration and 38 states to uphold a Maine law that required shippers to check that the person receiving the cigarettes was an adult. In this era of Internet commerce, state officials want to make sure minors are not ordering illegal products for themselves. In the past, retailers had the duty not to sell certain products to minors. These days, shippers and delivery services need to enforce those rules, the states said. But in a 9-0 ruling, the court said a federal law that deregulated trucking industry sweeps aside all such state rules, even those designed to protect health and safety. “You can’t have 50 states setting different rules for shipping services. It would result in higher costs and slower service,” said lawyer Beth Brinkman, who represented the shipping industry. In both decisions, the court read
federal law broadly to protect companies from juries or state regulators. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the lone dissenter in the Medtronic case, said the court read too much into the law. She said Congress did not intend to shield makers of medical devices from being sued when it adopted federal oversight in 1976. She called the ruling “a radical curtailment” of the right to “seek compensation for injuries caused by defectively designed ... medical devices.” Ginsburg also urged Congress to pass a law restricting cigarette sales to minor. There is a “large regulatory gap left” by Wednesday’s decision voiding the state laws, she said. Wednesday’s rulings are the latest from the Roberts Court shielding companies from suits and regulations. They also might signal what is coming next in drug suits. In the fall, the court will consider whether to shield the makers of prescription drugs from most lawsuits.
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Sobel relates science to common reader Weatherman-TA gives continued from page 5 the interests of the general public toward science can be a challenge. To help readers relate to the solar system, Sobel tried to connect each planet to an Earthly cultural theme that captured its character. Mars was science fiction culture. Pluto’s mysterious qualities and ambiguous posi-
tion in the solar family made UFOs and immigration the most effective lenses for connecting the distant planet with our own, Sobel said. “Pluto got admitted to the solar system only to have its citizenship questioned,” she added. Sobel also noted that she always writes for a target reader. For “Longitude,” Sobel said she had her mother,
a navigator, in mind. “I have all these memories with her sextant and charts,” she said, “and I know she didn’t know the history of the subject.” Citing what she sees as a disconnect between science literature and the general public, Sobel said she hopes to communicate science to nonscientists. She remembered her agent complaining that most science books “either assume too much prior knowledge or talk down” to the reader. Sobel also said she was glad she had the opportunity to visit a course on science writing offered by the English Department while she was on campus. Laura Kerber GS, who studies geology, said Sobel’s writing aims at filling an essential void — the stories behind great scientists and great scientific discoveries. Kerber said scientific ideas must be understood along with the history from which they arise, something she keeps in mind in her own studies. Aaron Weinblatt, a research assistant in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, described “Longitude” as a book his dad would read on the porch. But it was just that quirky, mundane character, he said, that he found so engaging. “It was this weird, esoteric, boring thing that I’d never really thought about, that turned out to be a huge, history-making thing,” he said. The next event in the Great Nonfiction Writers Lecture Series on May 5 will address the documentary film genre and feature Davis Guggenheim ’86, director of “An Inconvenient Truth.”
students weekend forecast continued from page 1 But occasionally his side interest and his academic pursuits intersect. Ehlke cites the story of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, who died of pneumonia shortly after giving the longest inaugural address in American history — on an extremely cold and wet day without wearing an overcoat. “History and politics are very contingent on conditions,” he said. In class, he is enthusiastic, often waving his hands and enunciating excitedly to emphasize points. His passionate reading of the day’s weather carries through to an equally animated discussion of the course material. “He definitely has enthusiasm, which is refreshing on a Friday morning when most people are usually pretty lackluster,” said Herald Contributing Writer Sara Sunshine ’11, a student in City Politics. “Normally when you go to section you don’t expect to come away with a knowledge of what to wear that weekend.” “I was impressed by his knowledge. He really knows what he’s talking about, but it’s also a fun a way to open up section,” said Sophie O’Connell ’09, a student in Ehlke’s section. “He just jumped up and started gesturing and talking about the cold front in a unique way.”
Afterward, O’Connell said, he provided a synopsis of multiple movies currently playing in theaters. “It was very entertaining,” she said. Following the weather has endowed Ehlke with a keen sense of geography, and he can draw intricately detailed maps on the blackboard to supplement both his forecast and his area of academic expertise. He collects maps and travels extensively throughout the United States for “weather tourism,” something he very much enjoys. Ehlke said weather was a contributing factor in his decision to come to Brown, where he is working on a dissertation on comparative health politics that he hopes to finish in time to graduate this May. After attending the College of William and Mary in his home state of Virginia, he wanted to experience the cool, snowy and rainy southern New England weather. If all goes as planned, the next few years will see him teaching political science at a smaller college or university. “Teaching and weather forecasting are very similar. It’s all about communicating and interacting,” Ehlke said. “I find that there is a close relation there, and the more I hone presentational skills in teaching or with the weather, the sharper my general presentation skills are. The two are tied together rather intimately.”
The Herald. Conveniently truthful.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
W. icers will finish season this weekend continued from page 12 in for the last three games of the season, or we could try to turn it around right there and just end on a positive note and go into St. Lawrence and tr y to pull off an upset. We ended up losing 3-2, but it was probably the best game we played all year.” Brown struck first on a power play with 4:23 remaining in the first period. After taking a pass from Jenny Cedorchuk ’10, Olewinski took a shot from the blue line that St. Lawrence goalie Meaghan Guckian deflected out to Andrea Hunter ’10, who capitalized for her fifth goal of the season. The Bears were pleased to take a lead into the first intermission. “Any time you can do that against a good team, it makes you feel like you can stay in the game,” Olewinski said. “We tried to rally around that and keep up our energy.” But the Saints came roaring back to post a 24-6 advantage in shots in the second period. At 6:02, Lisa Batchelor got the puck near the crease after Stock made a diving save and tied the game. 6:43 later, Karell Emard knocked home a rebound to give St. Lawrence the lead. But the Bears refused to give up. “When they came up 2-1 on us,
we knew we could either roll over and that would be it, or we could pick up our energy and keep going at it,” Olewinski said. With 1:54 left in the period, Olewinski knotted the score at two with her seventh goal of the season. “Erica Kromm (’11) took a good shot from the point, and I went in for the rebound from the boards,” Olewinski said. “My initial shot actually just came right back out to me. When I got it I just had a little more patience and waited and got it over the goalie.” Going into intermission tied gave the Bears confidence. “In between the second and third periods, we talked about doing something really great,” Murphy said. “‘Let’s beat a topten-ranked team. We can do it.’ And, unfortunately, we didn’t, but we came close enough to have a lot of self-respect.” Indeed, it was the Saints who pulled away. On a power play 7:11 into the third period, Alison Domenico redirected a shot by Brittaney Maschmeyer past Stock to give St. Lawrence a 3-2 lead. The Bears kept battling but never notched the equalizer, though they came tantalizingly close. With 1:23 remaining, a shot by Hayley Moore ’08 appeared to slip under Guckian and cross the goal line, but the referee had already blown
the play dead. “Hayley Moore took a great shot from the bottom of the circle,” Olewinski said. “We all thought it went in, (but the) goal judge and referee denied us that.” Still, the game was no occasion for bitterness. Even though the Bears didn’t pick up a win, Murphy was pleased with how well the players hung tough. “It’s their heart that gets them through the weekend, when a lot of other teams would have quit,” she said. The Bears will finish their season with a pair of games at Meehan Auditorium, where they are 0-8-2 this season. Brown hosts Rensselaer (6-10-4 ECAC) on Friday at 7 p.m. and ECAC doormat Union (0-18-2 in conference play) on Saturday at 4 p.m. The games will mark the conclusion of the careers of four seniors: Moore, Olewinski, Heather Lane ’08 and Emilie Bydwell ’08. Murphy cited many reasons that make this a big weekend. “Playing in Meehan for the seniors’ last game is important,” she said. “I think Brown pride is on the line. I know we’ve struggled in our own building. I think there are a lot of great things that can come out of this weekend. If we play well in the first game and the second game we could sweep, which we haven’t done all year.”
Gruener ’11 upsets UConn’s top rider continued from page 12 second place finish in Open Fences, and then Bogdonoff stepped up to take first place in Intermediate Fences, pulling the Bears to within three points of the Huskies. Griffith took fourth place in novice fences to end the scoring for Brown, pointing out of the Novice division and qualifying for Regionals in that event as well. But the highlight of the day for Brown may have come from a non-point rider. After taking blue ribbons in both Novice Flat and Intermediate Fences, Gruener went
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up against UConn’s Tara Lynch, the current Open Rider Point Standings leader in Region 1, in a ride-off for High-Point Rider honors. Gruener was able to upset the favored Lynch, making a statement as the Bears head into the final few shows of the season. “The ride-off didn’t count for points, it’s more just for bragging rights at the end of the day,” Gruener said. “I was up against the star from UConn, and I didn’t really watch her ride because I was focused on doing my own thing but I heard her horse acted up or something and I ended up winning it.”
Brown’s next show is this Saturday, hosted by Wesleyan. After the Wesleyan show the Bears only have two more regular season shows. They must maintain their 19-point lead over UConn if they want to compete in Zones, a postseason competition, for the chance to go to Nationals. “We know Wesleyan’s horses pretty well, so it’s definitely a show we want to win,” Gruener said. “And we really want to beat UConn. Our goal for the remaining shows is to maintain our lead so we can have that chance to go to Zones and Nationals.”
Divers perform smoothly in weekend contest at Yale continued from page 12 followed just over eight seconds behind for a second-place finish. The Bears continued swimming well, with Ricketts snagging first place in the 200 free. The men could not hold on to this momentum, however, and Yale went on to win the next eight events. Kelly almost succeeded in upsetting Yale’s winning streak in the 50 free when he finished his race just 0.04 seconds behind his opponent. David Koweek ’09 wasn’t far behind, finishing less than half a second later in third place. Diving followed, starting with the one meter, where Jonathan Speed ’11 and CJ Kambe ’10 placed second and third, respectively. Speed went on to place second in the threemeter dive as well. “Yale has one of the strongest divers in the eastern league,” said diving coach Guy Pollino. Pollino added that he expected Speed and Kambe to compete well against Yale and was pleased with their ability to remain consistent in this meet. Despite the Bulldogs’ lead, the men finished strong. In the 500 free, Volosin picked up his second win of the day, while Chandler was again just seconds behind him to claim third. In the final event of the day, the 400-free relay, the Bears came in at both first and third. The teams consisted of Koweek, Hug, Ricketts and Kelly in first, followed by Zack Levko ’10, Chandler, Rob Glenn ’08 and John Bailey ’11 in third. The women also got off to a good start against Yale, picking up second
place in their first event of the day, the 200-medley relay. The relay team was made up of Sage Erskine ’11, Ally Wyatt ’08, Lauren Zatorski ’08 and Candice Sisouvanvieng-Kim ’11. Ainsley McFadgen ’09 and Natascha Mangan ’11 each earned a secondplace finish for their team in the 1000 free and 200 fly, respectively. Despite high finishes in these early events, the women’s team went on to win only five of the 16 events. Sarah Goodman ’09 picked up the Bears’ first win of the day in the 100 back. Goodman earned a second in the 50 free, with Sisouvanvieng-Kim just a hundredth of a second behind her to snag third. The divers on the women’s side came out steady. Katie Olko ’10 placed second in the one-meter dive. And Jessica Williams ’09 earned a second in the three-meter dive, while Olko took third place just three points behind Williams. The women’s second win of the day came from Kelly Wisinger ’11 in the 200 back. Mangan followed with another first-place finish, this time in the 100 fly. The girls finished off the meet in the same fashion as the boys — by winning the 400-free relay. The winning team was made up of Sisouvanvieng-Kim, Susannah Ford ’10, Goodman and Stephanie Pollard ’11. Despite Brown’s losses, Kelly described Yale as a “very beatable team.” Hug echoed his sentiments, saying that the team’s main focus is the Ivy League Championship meet next weekend at Princeton.
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S t a ff E d i t o r i a l
Less ruckus, more music Ruckus, Brown’s chosen provider of free and legal music downloads, is finally going to be at least somewhat compatible with Macs. With more students using Macs, this is great news — but there’s more the University could be doing to prevent music piracy. For those who haven’t used it yet — and, since according to Ruckus’ director of campus sales, only 2,663 Brown students have registered, you’re likely among those who haven’t — Ruckus is an advertisementsupported online service that provides free music downloads for college students. Brown partnered with Ruckus in September 2006 to attempt to reduce the frequency of students downloading music illegally. For those students with PCs, Ruckus presents a reasonable way of getting music legally, easily, quickly and free. Brown’s affiliation with Ruckus, though, seems unnecessary. Ruckus is available, for free, to anyone who registers with a valid .edu e-mail address — Ruckus makes its money through online advertising, not by charging Brown a membership fee. While we understand the University’s interest in preventing students from using its network to download music illegally, this formal affiliation does little more than provide free promotion for Ruckus. Furthermore, as a replacement for illegal downloading of music, Ruckus is only partially successful. Its main weakness concerns the digital rights management scheme tied to all downloaded songs — which prevents users from burning those songs to a CD or putting them on an iPod. Most consumers want to own their music, and the restrictive model that Ruckus follows, which is more like a music rental system, can’t meet that need. If University officials are serious about getting students to stop downloading music illegally, they shouldn’t present Ruckus as the only option. Instead, they should inform students of all the legal alternatives for downloading music — including Ruckus, Napster, the iTunes Music Store, Amazon.com and others — and then, in the typical Brown spirit, let students select the ser vice that best meets their needs. It may even be financially viable, in the long run, for the University to offset the costs of the administrative wrangling that results from online music piracy by subsidizing these legal alternatives. It could even consider paying for a ser vice that would allow students to actually own music they download. If students can put music on their iPods and burn CDs for their friends, they wouldn’t need to illegally download at all. Record companies and music ser vices should also better accommodate students’ changing computing habits, creating new options to which universities can subscribe. Some of us want to own full albums and listen to them over and over; others want instant access to individual songs but don’t care as much about putting that music on an iPod. Some will settle for streaming audio; others want pristine, CD-quality sound. We’re a diverse student body, and our media downloading options should reflect that.
A lexander sayer gard - murray
Letters A new track To the Editor, The recent article on overcrowding at the OlneyMargolies Athletic Center (“Busy OMAC frustrates students,” Feb. 13) points out once again the need for a track in the Nelson Fitness Center. The lack of availability of the OMAC track is just one of the reasons the entire Brown community needs a dedicated track for walking and jogging. Meanwhile, Brown is contemplating spending large sums for an addition to the
recently renovated lobby at Meehan Auditorium, and the evisceration of the historic Dexter wall along Hope Street. Let’s get our priorities straight and use our finite resources for program needs inside the new Center. Peter Mackie ‘59 Sports Archivist Edward North Robinson Collection of Brown Athletics Feb. 13
T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier editorial Arts & Culture Editor Robin Steele Asst. Arts & Culture Editor Andrea Savdie Higher Ed Editor Debbie Lehmann Features Editor Chaz Firestone Asst. Features Editor Olivia Hoffman Metro Editor Rachel Arndt Metro Editor Scott Lowenstein News Editor Mike Bechek News Editor Isabel Gottlieb News Editor Franklin Kanin News Editor Michael Skocpol Opinions Editor Karla Bertrand Opinions Editor James Shapiro Sports Editor Whitney Clark Sports Editor Amy Ehrhart Sports Editor Jason Harris Asst. Sports Editor Benjy Asher Asst. Sports Editor Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Megan McCahill
Senior Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang Stu Woo Business Darren Ball General Manager General Manager Mandeep Gill Susan Dansereau Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Manager Lily Tran Sales Manager Public Relations Director Emilie Aries Jon Spector Accounting Director Claire Kiely National Account Manager University Account Manager Ellen DaSilva Darren Kong Recruiter Account Manager Credit Manager Katelyn Koh Ingrid Pangandoyon Technology Director photo Rahul Keerthi Meara Sharma Min Wu Ashley Hess
Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor
post- magazine production Steve DeLucia Production & Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Asst. Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Catherine Cullen Adam Robbins Graphics Editor
Matt Hill Rajiv Jayadevan Sonia Kim Allison Zimmer Colleen Brogan Arthur Matuszewski Kimberly Stickels
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O pinions Thursday, February 21, 2008
Page 11
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Lantos’ legacy ZACK BEAUCHAMP Opinions Columnist On Monday of last week, the most impressive Congressperson you’ve never heard of, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., died. The only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress, Lantos was one of the precious few members of Congress committed equally to human rights at home and abroad, both to the rights of Chinese dissidents and gays and lesbians at home. His firm commitment to the universality of human rights stands in stark contrast to Republicans who insist on the need to promote liberal democracy globally while working to deny rights to women and gays at home. Unfortunately, some elements of the Democratic Party have the reverse problem. While they acknowledge that the government ought to rectify fundamental inequalities at home, this wing of the party displays a disturbing willingness to ignore worse manifestations of those same injustices abroad in the name of “multiculturalism” or “anti-imperialism.” This perspective is characterized by condemnation of American or, more broadly, Western “imperialism,” a vicious hatred for the State of Israel and a willingness to excuse human rights violations in third world countries by appealing to cultural relativism or by referencing the “crimes” of the United States during the Cold War and today. While a cursory examination of Congressional vote counts and statements of Democratic Party leaders shows that this view is only held by a microscopic portion of the party’s official representatives, its prevalence among the so-called “left wing” of Democratic voters and intellectuals demands that it not be ignored, a fact of which Lantos was well aware
as the representative of one of the most liberal districts, the 12th California Congressional district, in the country. Indeed, Lantos could hold his views on foreign policy and remain politically viable only because his views on domestic policy were precisely in line with his constituents, indicating that his views sprung from a deep moral conviction rather than political expediency. Giving voice to this firm moral conscience was Lantos’ greatest gift to the Democratic Party, and if Democrats work to ensure that his views stay enshrined in American policy, it may also be the most
risking the second attempt despite being savagely beaten after he was caught the first time. After the second escape, Lantos found refuge in a shelter run by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (who used his diplomatic powers to save thousands of Jews over the course of the war), where Lantos used his Aryan physical features and a stolen military uniform to procure supplies for Jews in hiding. After the war, he received a scholarship to study economics in the United States, a subject that he taught for 30 years before winning his House seat in 1980.
Tom Lantos is a shining example of how left-liberal principles, when they aren’t arbitrarily applied only at home or abroad, have the potential to improve the lives of people around the world. important gift a member of Congress has ever given to the country. To understand where this strong commitment to human rights at home and abroad came from, one need only look at Lantos’ remarkable life story. Born in 1928, Lantos was 16 when his native Hungary was occupied by Nazi troops, after which he joined the Hungarian Resistance. He escaped twice from a forced work camp near his hometown,
Lantos’ tenure in the House was remarkable for how consistently he stuck to his views about human rights in a chamber known for turning seemingly principled people into political animals. His voting record was rated 100 percent by both the Human Rights Campaign and NARAL Pro-Choice America, meaning Lantos had perfect records on both gay rights and reproductive choice. Unlike most American politicians, Lantos was open about his support
for legalizing same-sex marriage and his opposition to the “war on drugs.” He sponsored legislation legalizing medical marijuana and was rated very highly by National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a prolegalization lobby. More remarkable than his domestic record are his foreign policy initiatives. Lantos was active in efforts to end the genocide in Darfur, even allowing himself to be arrested for protesting illegally outside the Sudanese Embassy in an attempt to raise visibility for the issue. He was responsible for pushing legislation through the House placing economic sanctions on the ruling military junta in Burma for its suppression of recent pro-democracy movements, and he was crucial in getting the Japanese government to apologize for its use of many thousands of women as sex slaves during World War II. Lantos took many actions to assist Taiwanese and Tibetan dissidents against the Chinese government, including inviting the Dalai Lama to meet with the Congressional Human Rights Caucus (a group that he founded made up of members of Congress committed to addressing human rights violations). These and many other such examples in his 28-year career in the House prove Tom Lantos a shining example of how left-liberal principles, when they aren’t arbitrarily applied only at home or abroad, have the potential to improve the lives of people around the world. Barack Obama, upon Lantos’ passing, described him as a man who “never wavered in his defense of freedom and opposition to tyranny” and served as “a voice for all who are oppressed around the world.” If Democrats are willing to shoulder the burden of Lantos’ legacy, then maybe, just maybe, the United States can be a country that does the same.
Zack Beauchamp ‘10 sends his condolences to the family of Tom Lantos
The lamentable relevance of likability BY TYLER ROSENBAUM Opinions Columnist One of the primary advantages of democracy is that it lets voters replace bad and unpopular leaders. Zimbabweans can’t oust their president, Robert Mugabe, even though he has been running their country into the ground for decades. In contrast, Americans are set to punish Republicans at the ballot box for a few years of mismanagement. But Americans have been taking democracy’s gifts for granted. As the Onion quips, “bullshit is the most important issue for 2008 voters,” as it has been for all other elections. The media regularly shirk their responsibility to provide serious discussions about candidates’ policy positions. From my limited experience, media coverage surrounding elections tends to be filled with frivolities that, by most accounts, should have no bearing whatsoever on the contest itself. An article by Tom Frank in a prominent European newspaper, Le Monde Diplomatique, observed prior to the 2004 presidential election that Europeans “assume that politics works the same way in the US as it does elsewhere — that material issues are important, that reason matters,” not realizing that the “US is the land of militant symbolism.” This symbolism has only intensified in the current election with Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. When it became evident that a woman had a serious chance of becoming president, airwaves and television sets across the country were filled with all sorts of vacuous drivel. Is
America ready for a first gentleman? Is Hillary too feminine to be president? Or is she too cold and unfeeling? Did you see that pink suit she wore? After campaigning for more than a year and then losing the first primary, Clinton shows some emotion and everyone in America knows within hours. Rush Limbaugh asked his listeners whether they were prepared to watch a female president get older before their eyes. Sexist hecklers tell Hillary to “iron
this quaint American disposition. As a fresh new face, he symbolizes reconciliation, renewal, competent oratory and all sorts of other positive things America sorely wants. But we more often hear vague promises of change and exhortations to hope than any concrete explanation of exactly how he plans to effect change and what it will look like. What makes his change any different from Mrs. Clinton’s or Mr. Richardson’s? Does his
It’s unfortunate if the candidate seems boring or cold, but ultimately that will have little bearing (if any) on his or her success as president. my shirt” or “make me a sandwich.” None of these are substantive concerns, and yet they play a big role in our political discourse. We do ourselves a major disservice by focusing not on material reasons that Hillary shouldn’t be president but on superficial trifles. Conversely, Barack Obama benefits from
rhetoric excuse his almost complete lack of relevant experience, and did Mr. Biden’s age nullify his formidable record? In early 2004, Howard Dean saw the Democratic presidential nomination fall through his fingers because of a small burst of enthusiasm. The media latched onto this slip and handed
John Kerry the nomination. The Democrats then lost the election partly because John Kerry symbolized the wealthy, intellectual elite that much of America resents, and was ‘boring’ to boot. While trivial, nonpolitical issues might not always decide elections, there is at least one time in recent memory when they have drastically altered this country’s course. George Bush won the presidency because he officially had about 500 more votes than Al Gore in Florida. For Gore to have won, then, 0.0086 percent of the 2,912,790 Floridians who voted for Bush would have had to switch sides. A Pew Research Center poll found that before the 2000 elections, “three-in-ten [Bush voters] pointed to the vice president’s personality” as the reason they disliked Gore. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that the generally negative view of Gore’s personality put off enough swing voters to sway the election and pave the way for the disastrous Bush presidency. When you’re voting for president of the United States, you’re not choosing a drinking buddy, and you’re not electing a friend. You’re helping to put someone in an office where he or she will have no time for anything but politics and policy. It’s unfortunate if the candidate seems boring or cold, but ultimately that will have little bearing (if any) on his or her success as President. If the last seven years have taught us anything as a nation, I hope that they have illustrated vividly the dangers of opting for likability over substance and competence.
Tyler Rosenbaum ‘11 is electing friends and choosing drinking buddies
S ports T hursday Page 12
Thursday, February 21, 2008
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
W. hockey comes up just short in bid to upset No. 6 By Andrew Braca Assistant Spor ts Editor
The players on the women’s hockey team faced a crossroads Friday night. After suffering a 5-0 loss to No. 9 Clark0 Brown son in PotsClarkson 5 dam, N.Y., which eliminated Brown 2 Brown from playoff St. Lawr. 3 contention, the Bears had to decide how they would finish the season. Facing No. 6 St. Lawrence the following afternoon in Canton was a stiff test, but the Bears took the Saints to the wire before losing, 3-2. The losses dropped Brown’s record to 3-19-5 (2-14-4 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference), but the Bears were pleased with the improvement leading to the near upset. “The Clarkson game was … probably the worst game we played all year collectively,” said co-captain Rylee Olewinski ’08. “The effort really wasn’t there and nothing was clicking for us. But we came back, and I thought we played really well against St. Lawrence. … I was glad to see that our team could rebound from such a poor showing on Friday night and come back with all that energy on Saturday.” Things didn’t start out so badly for Brown against Clarkson. The
Bears held their own until they were whistled for a penalty in the 13th minute of the first period. At 13:03, Genevieve Lavoie beat goaltender Nicole Stock ’09, a Herald contributing writer, through her legs. The rout was on. “It’s just a momentum changer when a team goes on a power play and you can’t kill it off,” Olewinski said. “It hurts to go down like that. … That was just the start of it for the Clarkson game — the one goal. Obviously, power play goal or not, our effort wasn’t really there that game, and I don’t think we could have done much about it.” The Golden Knights tacked on another goal 2:26 later, then took a 3-0 lead with 6:16 remaining in the second period. Katie Morrison collected a turnover, broke alone down the ice and beat Stock with a nifty deke. After two periods, Clarkson held a 25-4 advantage in shots and Brown had not had a power play. “They got out ahead of us early and we couldn’t fight through it,” said Head Coach Digit Murphy. “I think our penalty kill wasn’t as organized as we wanted it to be. You live and die by your forecheck and penalty kill at some level, because if you’re successful at executing those two parts of the game, then you can change momentum.” The Bears recovered to fire nine shots in the third period, but
Swimming falls to Yale over weekend By Anne Deggelman Contributing Writer
Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo
Captain Rylee Olewinski ’08 had a goal and an assist in the women hockey team’s 3-2 loss to No. 6 St. Lawrence. could not find the back of the net. After such a poor showing, the Instead, it was the Golden Knights Bears needed to take action. “We had a team meeting in the who tacked on two goals in the first nine minutes to complete locker room after the game on Frithe 5-0 thrashing. Stock made 34 day,” Olewinski said. “(Players) saves, but was bested by Clarkson got up, said what they needed to goalie Lauren Dahm, who earned say and tried to pull together and the shutout with 13 saves. Britney realize that we could either pack it Selina collected a goal and three assists for the Golden Knights. continued on page 9
Swimming and diving fell short this weekend against Yale in their last meet of the regular season. There was a crowd of fans cheering the Bears on as they faced the Bulldogs Saturday in a “home” meet hosted at Roger Williams University. As the last home meet of the season, the day was dedicated to the seniors. Both the men and the women came out strong, but Yale finished ahead in the end, beating the men 178-122 and the women 183-116. “There were some good swims,” said Brian Kelly ’08. According to Kelly, the team is tapering their workouts in preparation for the upcoming championships. “In the middle of a taper, it’s hard to judge how you are going to swim week to week,” he said. Despite the changes to their routine, the Bears started off strong. The men kicked off the meet with a second-place finish in the 200-medley relay with a team of Kevin Hug ’08, Conor Carlucci ’11, Daniel Ricketts ’09 and Kelly . Things were looking good for the Bears in the next event, the 1000-yard freestyle, as Peter Volosin ’08 captured first place, while Wallace Chandler ’11 continued on page 9
Riders hold a shrinking lead in region Men’s squash finishes 14th nationally at Hoehn Cup
By Megan McCahill Assistant Sports Editor
The equestrian team made a strong return to competition in its first show since winter break, coming in second place at Competition UConn on Saturday. The results 1 UConn 37 Bears nearly knocked off 2 Brown 35 the Huskies, 3 URI 34 missing out 4 Roger 33 on a first Williams place finish by only two points, with a score of 37-35. “We did very well,” said Dakota Gruener ’11. “We would have loved to have won, but it is always tough to win against the host team because they’re familiar with the horses, so for us to have come so close to beating UConn was great.” While playing on the road is certainly hard for any athletic team, it is especially difficult for the equestrian team because the host school provides the horses. The visiting riders are given horses that they are unfamiliar with, and must compete without any chance to practice or get comfortable with the horses. “It was tough for us to go to UConn for our first show back from break because UConn has some really funky horses,” Gruener said. “We had to figure them out and we did a good job of it overall.” The Bears came into the show as the Region 1 leaders, but their early season lead in the standings has been diminishing since Thanksgiving, so it was important for the team to have a strong showing to open the spring season. Bruno’s point riders — the riders selected before the competition to count towards the teams score — got off to
By Lara Southern Contributing Writer
Courtesy of Amy Lowitz
Rachel Griffith ’10 earned ten points for the equestrian team to help Brown to a close second-place finish against Region rival UConn. a slow start, as Open and Intermediate Flat competitors Whitney Keefe ’08 and Emma Bogdonoff ’10 both finished in fourth place. But Brown bounced back after a strong performance by Rachel Griffith ’10, who took first place in Novice Flat. She also pointed out, qualifying her for
regionals. In Walk Trot Canter, Katie Eng ’11 finished in fourth place, but when Kona Shen ’10 took the blue ribbon in Walk Trot, the Bears regained momentum. Keefe followed with a continued on page 9
The Bears traveled to Harvard last weekend for the Team Nationals Squash Tournament, playing in the B division, and emerged with a placement of 14th in the country, two places higher than their No.16 ranking in mid-January of this year. Although losing their match on Sunday against Bowdoin, 6-3, the Bears won the day before against a tough Franklin and Marshall team, 6-3. At the end of the Tournament, the Bears’ record dropped to 9-5 for the season, but Head Coach Stuart leGassick said that the team “left everything on the courts.” Nationals started off poorly for the Bears, who fell shor t against 10th-ranked Bates, losing 9-0 on Friday afternoon. The match extended far beyond the average playing time with five of the nine matches going to four or five games. Despite the tough competition, No. 4 Adrian Leanza ’11 and No. 6 North Whipple ’08 both pushed their opponents into close fifth-game deciders in narrowly lost matches. But the team was able to turn it around on Saturday, winning 6-3 against 14th-ranked Franklin and Marshall. Against the Diplomats, captain Ed Cerullo ’08 led by example. Battling through a tough four-game match against the Diplomats’ first seed, Cerullo came out on top 10-8, 7-9, 9-6, 9-7. Four of the Bears’ six wins came in three quick games from Leanza,
Evan Besser ’11, Whipple and Pat Davis ’10, while Alex Heitzmann ’10 won in four games. The big match of the weekend arrived on Sunday, with Brown and Bowdoin playing for the 13th ranking. The highlight of the day — the Bears’ last match of the season — belonged to Ross Harrow ’11, who narrowly lost his match at No. 3, 10-8, in the fifth game of a marathon, 3-9, 3-9, 9-2, 9-2, 8-10. Cerullo, Besser and Davis brought in the only three Brown wins of the day, with Davis’ coming in five games. Both Besser and Davis had strong performances despite having to play through tough circumstances — the former with a sprained ankle and the latter a stomach flu. “I was feeling terrible prior to the match and was very wary of playing,” said Davis. “But as soon as I stepped onto the court I felt a lot better. This being the last match of the season, ever yone was giving it their all.” Despite eventually losing 6-3 against Bowdoin, the Bears came away from the weekend with a ranking two spots higher than they held a mere month ago. “On the whole, a young team gained a lot of experience at Nationals and we look forward with optimism for the next season,” leGassick said. Although the Bears’ next season doesn’t start until November, Cerullo has one more match to play in the Brown colors, as he will represent his team at the Individual Intercollegiates at Navy over the first weekend of March.