The Brown Daily Herald M onday, O ctober 6, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 85
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
U. to finish projects by next weekend
Economists: doom and gloom ahead
Corp. members to tour completed buildings
By Connie Zheng Staff Writer
is powered entirely with local New England wind power,” Payson said. Cunard said that he hopes the new cafe “will not only be a cafe with food and beverages; it will be a new campus venue” for activities like acoustic music, art showings and poetry readings. “Ideally, we’d like to find a Brown student organization to help run the events,” Payson said. “We want to be very much a part of the community and have Brown students involved and the faculty involved.” Margaret Watson ’11 said she’s pleased about the change. “I used to live on Pembroke last year and went to Blue State all the time,” said
Students and faculty filled Salomon 001 to maximum capacity — and then some — on Friday afternoon to hear four Brown economics professors and a former Lehman Brothers quantitative researcher sound off on the current financial crisis and the recently passed $700 billion government bailout. During the “Roundtable on the Current Financial Crisis,” the panel of five explained the origins of the crisis, warned the audience not to scapegoat Wall Street bankers and expressed its concerns about the ability of the bailout to resolve the problem. Economics professors Peter Howitt, Ross Levine, David Weil ’82 and Ivo Welch shared the spotlight with Matthew Rothman, the former global head of quantitative equity strategies at Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. Rothman now works in the same position at Barclays Bank PLC in the wake of Lehman’s collapse. Welch introduced the panelists. Each spent about 10 minutes discussing his views on the economic turmoil and bailout. They opened the remaining 30 minutes of the roundtable to questions from the audience, which ranged from specific questions about mortgages to broader inquiries about the global effect of the crisis. The audience members greeted the roundtable with frequent, vigorous applause and laughter at the speakers’ jokes. The economics department and Department Undergraduate Group hosted the event. Students’ curiosity was met by a panel with primarily bleak opinions to share. Among the grim words of Levine’s peers, his were the most optimistic. “I think we’re going to be okay,” Levine said. “Just a little poorer.” He added that he foresaw neither a depression nor a “financial Armageddon.” Howitt and Welch painted far less rosy pictures. “This is perhaps the most dangerous crisis since the Great Depression,” Howitt said. “Ultimately, the position of the U.S. dollar is at risk.” Howitt also predicted a global recession and the shrinkage of the world economy. Welch echoed Howitt’s concerns, adding that the current crisis is an “incredibly difficult mess to untangle.” The entire panel expressed doubt — or at least ambivalence, on Rothman’s part — in the ability of the government bailout to completely resolve the issue. The prospect of increased gov-
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By George Miller Senior Staff Writer
Following a summer of frenzied construction, two capital projects are nearing completion. Pembroke Hall, occupied just two weeks ago, and the new glass entrance for J. Walter Wilson Hall, should be finished in time for the Corporation meeting next weekend, said Director of Project Management Paul Dietel. Administrators wanted to complete renovations in time for the meeting so that they could give members tours of the completed projects, Dietel said. Pembroke boasts a restored facade and brand-new interior following a “full gut” renovation, Dietel said. The previously dark space — brightened by glass walls and bamboo flooring — has recently been occupied by the Cogut Center for the Humanities and the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women. It also houses a single classroom on the second floor, which has both a
Kim Perley / Herald
Workers are hurrying to finish J. Walter Wilson in time for the upcoming Corporation meeting. restored 19th-century plaster frieze and a brand-new projector, as well as a multi-purpose loft space on the third floor. “It’s gorgeous,” said Elizabeth Weed, director of the Pembroke Center, adding that the previously interior was “Victorian.” Alumnae Hall
had housed the Pembroke Center since it was established in the 1981, and some offices will remain there, Weed said. Pembroke Hall — along with all new buildings built by the University — will aim for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
silver certification, said Chris Powell, director of sustainable energy and environmental initiatives. On top of LEED requirements, all new buildings and renovations are subjected to internal “high performance” rules recontinued on page 4
Grad’s sex Bookstore to include Blue State-run cafe and parenting sites flourish By Kelly Mallahan Contributing Writer
By Jyotsna Mullur Contributing Writer
The economy is in a slump. Job opportunities are scarce. What’s a Brown graduate to do? Start a sex Web site, of course.
FEATURE Rufus Griscom ’91 graduated into a floundering economy. He says many of his classmates were faced with the reality that their ambitions of landing a lucrative job would have to be sidelined, at least for the time being. Griscom, however, found the dismal financial forecast liberating. “It was a great thing,” he says. “It reduced the pressure to get a highpaying job.” After hopping from Washington to Little Rock, Ark., and then back north to New York City, Griscom, a concentrator in the now-extinct Literature and Society Program, found himself taking literature in a different direction. In 1997, with a staff of three, he started Nerve — a Web site devoted to sex. At first glance, the site seems more like a blog than an erotica site, but Nerve is unabashedly sex-centric: “We think sex is beautiful and absurd, remarkably fun and reliably trauma-inducing,” reads its mission statement. continued on page 4
Starting in January, students will have a new place to get coffee, study and hang out: the Brown Bookstore. Renovations will be completed in early January, according to Bookstore Director Manuel Cunard. A new cafe, to be managed by Blue State Coffee, will be the centerpiece of the revamped bookstore. The new cafe “won’t be officially called Blue State Coffee,” said Alex Payson ’03.5, co-owner and manager of Blue State. Instead, “it will be the College Hill Cafe, operated by Blue State Coffee.” Cunard said that calling the cafe “The Bookstore Cafe” was also a possibility. Blue State Coffee, which currently has a store located three blocks north of the bookstore at 300 Thayer St., beat out several other vendors, including Au Bon Pain and Brown Dining Services, for the bookstore contract, according to Payson. Blue State Coffee donates 10 percent of all sales to progressive causes and local charities, as voted on by customers. The store also sells “Bush’s last day” counters and Obama-Biden bumper stickers. Cunard recognized that “Blue State is a company that has a political agenda, but Blue State in the bookstore will not be driven by that.” “They have given us a philosophical commitment, and are really committed to sustainability and student activism,” Cunard added. Payson agreed. “The political aspect is definitely going to be toned
Pixilerations Activate! Futuristic art exhibition, cosponsored by Brown, brings ARTS & CULTURE new media to the public
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The renovated bookstore will include a cafe, run by Blue State Coffee. down a bit,” he said, adding that anti-Bush merchandise will not be included in the new cafe and that eco-friendly merchandise, such as sustainable shopping bags, will be emphasized. The new cafe will have an expanded menu, which will include soups and sandwiches along with Blue State’s signature coffee and breakfast offerings. Payson said that Blue State is “very much committed to buying locally,” as well as offering organic goods and supporting sustainability. Blue State, which plans to open a store on Yale’s campus soon, creates very little landfill trash, as it composts coffee grounds and serves food and drinks in containers that can also be composted. Additionally, “the store
Climate change clues Geological Sciences professor and graduate student investigate CAMPUS NEWS craters on Mars
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Monday, October 6, 2008
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We a t h e r
Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim
TODAY
TOMORROW
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Menu Sharpe Refectory
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Savory Chicken Stew, Dal Cali with Yogurt, Middle East Bar, Vegan Brown Rice Pilaf with Mushrooms
Lunch — Bacon Ranch Chicken Sandwich, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Italian Marinated Chicken
Dinner — Macaroni and Cheese, Creamy Rosemary Polenta, Spice Crusted Chicken, Glazed Baby Carrots
Dinner — Italian Meatballs with Pasta, Pizza Rustica, Broiled Stuffed Tomatoes, Ricotta Bread, Rotini
Brown Meets RISD | Miguel Llorente
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Epimetheos | Samuel Holzman
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C r o ssw rd Los Angeles Times Daily oCrossword Puzzle Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Request to a waiter 6 Bad time for Caesar 10 Rural roof topper 14 Circle lines 15 Musical finale 16 Like fine wine 17 Medical transplant need 19 Central church section 20 Dessert in the sky? 21 Trait transmitter 22 Motivated to succeed 24 State north of Nev. 25 Ones who lose on purpose 26 Cornucopia 31 Thief thwarter 32 Made unctuous 33 Big bird from Down Under 36 Clothing tag datum 37 Bumpkins 38 Penned, to Shakespeare 39 Garden tool 40 Church dogma 41 Give off light 42 “Phooey!” 44 Astrological diagrams 47 “Overhead” engine part 48 Opposed (to) 49 Close to one’s heart 51 Pampering place 54 Wide-angle or zoom 55 Truck stoppers 58 Once, once 59 “I’d like to get a word in?” 60 Live 61 Fr. holy women 62 __-poly 63 River mouth formation DOWN 1 Field yield 2 Mata __ 3 Nervous, after “on”
4 Hush-hush gp. based in Langley, Va. 5 “... my __ for a horse!”: Shak. 6 Revered symbol 7 Ready to dish out 8 It became Tokyo in 1868 9 Fish in a crowded-subway metaphor 10 Narcissist’s trait 11 Tequila plant 12 “Fat chance!” 13 Idyllic settings 18 Not able to hear 23 Collecting Soc. Sec., maybe 24 Memo intro 25 Take out, as text 26 Greasy spoon vittles 27 Mishmash 28 Use a wrecking ball on 29 Canterbury currency 30 Defamation in print 33 Idle of Monty Python 34 Otter relative 35 Versatile vehicles
37 Clothes chest wood 38 Bit of spontaneity 40 Spanish aunts 41 Took the lead role 42 Noteworthy events 43 Picket line crosser 44 Popular mall jewelry store 45 In plain sight
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A rts & C ulture Monday, October 6, 2008
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Faculty impress with ‘Pixilerations’ experiments with new media recital of French melodies By Ben Hyman Ar ts and Culture Editor
Though it is an acceptable trick for most classical vocalists to sacrifice word clarity for musical expression, it is not the case for the art songs of late 19th-centur y French composers like Claude Debussy and
REVIEW Gabriel Faure. In these works — set to brilliant texts by poets such as Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and others — listeners must be able to understand ever y word. On Friday night in a packed Grant Recital Hall, three faculty musicians presented “The Art of the French Song: Debussy, Faure and the Poets.” This recital showed how effective French ‘melodie’ can be when the words get as much attention as the music. Dean of the College and mezzosoprano Katherine Bergeron performed “La Chanson d’Eve” (“The Song of Eve”), a set of 10 songs by Faure. Baritone Fred Jodry, senior lecturer in music and director of choral activities, opened the program with works by Debussy. Assistant Professor of Music Dana Gooley accompanied both singers and performed solo piano pieces, also by Debussy. Faure and Debussy’s overlapping careers ser ve as important milestones in music’s historical development from Romanticism to Modernism. Debussy’s works made radical use of unusual scales and modes, producing textures that did not conform to traditional tonality. The older Faure was more conser vative, but his works became more harmonically adventurous as his career progressed. The “Chanson d’Eve,” composed between 1906 and 1910, is an example of Faure’s later, more unconventional style. Set to poems by Charles van Lerberghe, the song cycle depicts the beginning of the world as seen through the eyes of Eve. It begins with a surprising musical gesture. On the words “C’est le premier matin du monde” (“It is the first morning of the world”), the singer leaps her voice up an inter val of a fifth to enter into a tight, dissonant minor second with the piano. The ef fect of this movement is a discord that resonates with the biblical narrative as Faure, in only a few bars of music, seems to foreshadow humanity’s expulsion from Eden. With a full spectrum of tempo, the “Chanson d’Eve” makes enormous emotional demands of the singer, who must portray ever ything from exuberance and joy to desperation and disillusionment
over the course of the 25-minute cycle. Bergeron was strongest in the second half of the set, as Eve’s naivete turns into fear and melancholy. In those songs, Bergeron emphasized the darker shades of her voice and allowed the longest notes to fade into a questioning silence. Throughout the piece, her diction was impeccable, making Lerberghe’s poetr y clearly understandable. For Bergeron, this clarity of text is essential to French ar t song. “Singing any art song requires that the performer develop a close relationship with the language,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Herald, “but with the melodie, the connection is even more important.” She continued, “The emotion is contained not inside the notes of the melody, but inside the words, and in the way they are pronounced.” Bergeron wrote that she is planning to collaborate with Gooley on a recording that will accompany her forthcoming book, “Voice Lessons,” a cultural histor y of turnof-the-centur y France and the art song. The book is scheduled to be published in 2009. “Because this cycle is so centered on text,” Gooley wrote in an e-mail, “and Katherine’s connection to the text is so powerful, I found myself listening less to her notes than to her declamation, and tr ying to support that with my accompaniment.” “I really enjoyed working on this song-cycle,” he added. Singing Debussy’s song sets “Trois chansons de France” and “Fetes galantes,” Jodr y, like Bergeron, seemed to delight in the expressive potential of the French language. In this respect, “Fetes galantes,” with poetry by Verlaine, provided particularly rich material. In the first song of the set, “En Sourdine” (“Muted”), Jodry turned the word “langueurs” (“languors”) into a kind of musical sigh, and in “Fantoches” (“Puppets”), he highlighted rapid-fire declamations of text, foregrounding the song’s playfully sinister character. In his three Debussy piano preludes, Gooley elicited unexpected elements that reflected his jazz piano background, In “Bruyeres” (“Heathlands”), he brought out the improvisator y quality of the runs and never got in the way of the piece’s disarming simplicity. For “La cathedrale engloutie” (“The sunken cathedral”), which depicts the legend of a church that rises from the ocean, Gooley drew a bright, clear tone with no trace of harshness, just right for mimicking the sound of bells. Throughout, he showed complete control over the piano’s dynamic range.
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By Anita Mathews Contributing Writer
Take a tour of the galler y at 191 Westminster St. this week and you’ll find yourself in the midst of robots, holograms, motion sensors and an interactive video projection. A science fair, you ask? Not quite. The art exhibit “Pixilerations [v .5]: Fragments and (W)holes” opened last Thursday and will run from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. each night through Sunday, Oct. 12. Pieces are displayed in two galleries: 191 Westminster St. and the Rhode Island School of Design’s Sol Koffler Graduate Student Galler y at 169 Weybosset St. Designed to bring new media to the public, Pixilerations is part of Providence’s FirstWorks Festival. The idea for the exhibit began at RISD, said the school’s provost, Jay Coogan, and has developed through contributions from faculty and students from Brown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford and the University of Michigan. Brown co-sponsors the event, and Ed Osborn, assistant professor of visual art, is part of the steering committee that coordinated the exhibit. The term “new media” refers to artists’ integration of science and technology into their pieces and encompasses everything from video art to holography to kinetic sculpture. Maya Allison, the exhibition’s director, said that the defining aspect of new media is its ability to engage the viewer, and that the artwork “forces people to interact” and “brings a sense of play to the galler y.” A sense of play is right. One of the first pieces in the Westminster Street gallery is an arm wrestling arena built by Andrew Ames titled “Mano a Mano.” It forces mere spectators to become active participants and is even equipped with a voice recording to egg players on by yelling phrases like “This ain’t no tug-o-war! Put some muscle in it!” Jamie Jewett’s “Melt,” a more tranquil work, has pebbles frozen in suspended panels of ice hang over a bronze bowl, a wooden box and taut strings. As the ice melts, the water drips onto the objects
below, with an occasional pebble kerplunk-ing together creating a variance in percussion. Heather Freedman, a RISD junior, said she found “Melt” to be an interesting concept and obser ved that the entire exhibit is “viewer-friendly.” Another featured piece is “Protest” by Heidi Kumao, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A pair of robotic legs mounted to the wall are fitted with a pair of girl’s dress shoes and stomp loudly atop a coffee table. In the artists’ panel during the opening reception, Kumao said that she was seeking to defy the conventional portrayal of robots as masculine and productive. Kumao said that she has been inspired by people who use creativity to survive living in confinement. This influence is evident in her other exhibited piece “Correspondence, ” which consists of animation projected through a bell jar that periodically reveals an inmate as he draws. Kumao is one of two guest artists that Pixilerations is hosting, along with Gail Wight, a professor at Stanford. This is the first time in its five-year run that the exhibit has had the resources to bring guest artists to Providence. Wight’s works feature more biological influences, and she said that she is most interested in working with living media. Her palette includes slime mold, mice, flatworms and plants, and she said that often such live media guide the artwork and as the artist she must relinquish control. Wight has two pieces at this year’s exhibit, one at each gallery, and both feature pinned-down butterflies made of silk paper. One is titled “J’ai des Papillions Noirs Tous Les Jours,” a French idiom for depression. The bodies of the butterflies glow in an alternating pattern, and according to Wight’s Web site, are meant to resemble the stars in a night sky. The other piece is “Pin Up,” featuring larger butterflies with wings fluttering intermittently as if trying to escape. Wight said that she hopes viewers will take away from her work “an empathy for the fragile and vulnerable aspects of life.”
Both Wight and Allison told The Herald that it can be difficult for the general public to understand the unconventional nature of new media, but that there is definite suppor t for the movement. “Young people tend to be much more open to looking at new media as art,” Wight said. Allison pointed out that 80 years ago, movies were considered new media, as was photography half a centur y before that. She hopes that people will not be scared to see familiar technology used as artwork, and that such new media might portray the technology it utilizes in a new light. Keeping Allison’s idea in mind is key to enjoying Pixilerations. The exhibit ser ves as a cross between an art gallery and a science museum, and has the potential to intrigue Brown’s RISD-wannabees and engineering majors alike. Blending the artistic and the technological in one exhibit, however, can make it hard for viewers to fully appreciate the dual dimensions of each work. “Melt,” for example, seems to retain more elements of traditional art and utilizes less technological media. On the other hand, pieces like Matthew Williamson’s “Video Analyzer,” a machine which determines whether DVDs are boring or not, might fit in better at a science fair. To the untrained eye, this combination can be intimidating and invite initial disapproval, but it is important to recognize that new media ser ves as a harbinger of the future direction art will take. As technology becomes more intertwined with our daily lives, it is only logical that artists are beginning to integrate it into their work as well. On the whole, the Pixilerations exhibit does a great job of presenting experimental new media in an inviting way. Equipped with an interest in art and an open mind, virtually ever y viewer can find something to enjoy. And, if this non-traditional art doesn’t pique your interest, you may want to explore the concerts held throughout the week that also incorporate electronic and interactive elements.
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Monday, October 6, 2008
Bookstore contracts out to Blue State Coffee
Babble.com natural result of Nerve.com, alum says
Page 4
continued from page 1 Margaret Watson ’11. “I think it’s great that they’ll have a store closer to main campus.” Students will not be able to use meal credits or FlexPoints at the cafe. “We are in the process of working to include the Brown Card as an access option,” said Cunard, which would allow students to use their declining balances at the cafe. Payson said that the plans for the cafe allow it to “blend seamlessly” into the bookstore. The cafe will feature a six-foot bar with stools, seating for 28 and laptop outlets. “We wanted the cafe and the bookstore to be study-friendly, and more of a place where students will go to hang out,” Payson said. Cunard said he hopes the renovations and the addition of the cafe will “create a space that is more efficient and more responsive to the contemporary needs of students.”
Revamped bookstore to be ‘in essence two stores’ The renovations to the Brown Bookstore will be finished in time for second semester, according to Bookstore Director Manuel Cunard. According to Cunard, the redesigned bookstore will be “in essence two stores, an early store and a late store.” The early store, or South store, will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and include a new cafe (to be operated by Blue State Coffee) and the general books section. The late store, or North store, will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and include the apparel, textbooks and technology departments. Two “Your Spaces,” or mock rooms displaying relevant
merchandise, are among the planned additions to the bookstore. One will feature a bedroom area, while the other will be a common space. Two mannequins, who were recently named Buck and Special K, will inhabit the mock rooms. “Buck and Special K will have different positions and dispositions every week,” Cunard said, adding that he hopes that Buck and Special K will become campus icons. Though construction will continue into January, Cunard said that “by the 20th of October, the textbook department will have been finished and relocated to its new space.”
Profs. speak at packed econ roundtable continued from page 1 ernment regulation in particular worried the economists. “Yes, there are market failures,” Levine said. “But there are a lot more government failures. … I am not confident about relying on the angelic interests of government systems.” He concluded that the bailout would fail, adding that he had “no idea” how the government calculated the $700-billion sum required for the bailout. He predicted that the money would be insufficient for the government’s plans, which he said may require at least an additional $700 billion. Welch said that the idea of leaving politicians to untangle the mess was “scary” and that “what we want is efficient or good regulation,” which he said was “very hard to come by.” But the panelists agreed that enacting the bailout, however flawed, was still better than doing nothing. “The freezing up of the financial system would be economic Armageddon,” Weil said, noting that one of the lessons from the Great Depression was that the monetary system must stay intact. “We all agree that keeping the credit systems functioning should be vital.” The professors spent most of their time untangling the reasons behind the current fiscal woes. Levine, Howitt and Weil attributed the current crisis to excessive borrowing, particularly in the mortgage sector. Weil cited the debt from risky mortgages, the housing bubble in the 1990s, the contraction of the financial sector, banks’ solvency and liquidity
problems (and consequent lack of trust in banks) as reasons for the financial crisis. Weil discussed companies’ “massive extension of credit” and “ridiculously lax lending standards” that allowed people who should not have been receiving mortgages to take them. Many were sub-prime mortgages — risky mortgages, some made without documentation requirements — that should not have even been lent out in the first place. Thousands of home buyers defaulted on their mortgages and were unable to pay back their loans. This is a particularly tricky problem to remedy, Welch said, because it is not clear how these debts have been divided up in the market. “I don’t know who owns my mortgage.” This uncertainty may contribute to a “cascade effect,” which Levine explained as a situation in which banks are first reluctant to loan, forcing owners of firms, short of funds, to sell their equipment and ultimately to fire workers. “We have failed to make adequate provisions for the future,” Howitt said. He blamed the current problem on excessive expenditure of income and not enough saving, and added that “in order to accumulate capital, you’ve got to produce it.” The implications of actions taken today can affect students’ lives for the next 10 years, Levine said. But panelists warned against solely blaming Wall Street for the current crisis. Levine added that people must “drop the distinction between Wall Street and Main Street,” calling each “two sides of the boulevard called the economy,” a metaphor that elicited laughter
from the audience. “We kill Wall Street; we kill Main Street,” Levine said. “Save the cheerleader; save the world. Something like that.” As a former head of Lehman, Rothman said he had “a lot of emotion, not a lot of perspective.” He said that the mistakes leading to the current troubles were made by “people, not by villains,” as he mentioned that it was easy to vilify hedge funds and “the ex-CEO of my company.” When a student hesitantly asked Rothman about the atmosphere at Lehman during the crisis, Rothman answered, “There was disbelief that this was actually happening.” “There was sadness, anger,” he said. “No one really believed that was happening.” Students said they were drawn to the event for a variety of reasons. Because the economic crisis is such a “focal point” in the upcoming election, Joel Cohen ’10 said he hoped the roundtable would give him more insight and a better understanding of the presidential candidates’ views and prescriptions for the economy. Lured to the event by Howitt’s announcement in his macroeconomics class, Cohen, an economics and philosophy concentrator, said he decided to attend the event because he wanted to receive an “overview from someone who’s studied the economy for many years.” Prachi Jalan ’11 said she hoped to leave the roundtable with a better understanding of the crisis, an idea of possible solutions and information on how it would affect the job market. Jalan was not alone in her interest: Many of those who arrived a minute late to the event were forced to sit in the aisles.
continued from page 1 But Griscom is keen to point out that the online magazine is not pornography. “My view of porn is that it’s fine, but it’s kind of like picking lampshades: It’s not very interesting,” he says. And Nerve’s founders are unafraid to flaunt their attitudes toward fornication — Griscom and co-founder Genevieve Field posed nearly nude for Newsweek as the site was starting up. Griscom argues that popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Maxim try to hide behind the veneer of covering lifestyle issues while actually being about sex, but Nerve bares it all. “It’s a thoughtful magazine about sex and culture,” Griscom says, adding that “Literate Smut” was the title of one of Nerve’s anthologies. Griscom recalls writing long and flattering letters to his favorite authors and photographers asking them to contribute to the magazine in its early days. The end product was a site that today hosts blogs, photos, videos and essays to facilitate an open, mature sexual environment. “We were different because we took a lot of risks,” says Jack Murnighan ’90, former editor-in-chief of Nerve. He says that during the magazine’s formative years, they were not afraid to publish “provocative and intellectually challenging” pieces. So why a Web site about sex? “Sex is interesting because of so many taboos around it,” Griscom says. “It’s a very complicated and conflicted human experience.” The Web site’s mission statement, composed by Griscom and Field, echoes the sentiment: “We still have a smelly-fingered fascination with our shame and desire.” The Web site says it seeks to uncover those cultural ironies that permeate the way we think about sex — from forbidden desires to sexual obsessions. Read by nearly 1.2 million people a month, Nerve caters mostly to “overeducated people who have a liberal leaning who live in cities,” Griscom says, people not unlike himself. There is a three-to-two demographic split between male and female readers, a statistic that makes Griscom proud.
Though pornography is geared mainly to men, Griscom says Nerve was created specifically for men and women. But one demographic was not so easily seduced. Griscom recalls that his parents, especially his father — Rufus Griscom Sr. ’66 AM’69 P’91 P’92 P’96 — were less than thrilled. A newer generation of parents, however, found a niche in Nerve Media. “If you follow instructions on Nerve, you may find yourself with children,” Griscom acutely observes. And so, the spawn of Nerve caters to Nerve users with spawn. Babble, a Web site about parenting and culture, was the natural reflection of Griscom’s life. He and wife Alisa Volkman — and many Nerve staffers and users — began having children, and thus Babble arose from the need for a forum to discuss the reality of parenthood. And Babble, “the graduating class of Nerve,” maintains its own edge. Eschewing traditional parenting magazine models of a sunshine filled, cookie-baking household, Griscom says, “Babble is about the reality of the parenting experience — and the reality is that it’s hard, but that it’s also very funny and joyful.” Since its launch in December 2006, Babble has grown into a forum for young parents in urban settings, drawing in nearly 1.5 million visits per month. Babble features discussion boards, personal blogs and articles that look at raising children from the perspective of a new generation that has been influenced by a scientific and technological revolution and is skeptical of parenting cliches, according to the site’s mission statement. It also recently won the Silver Eddie Award for best consumer website presented by Folio Magazine, edging out Newsweek.com and finishing just below Time.com. Griscom credits his classes in the Modern Culture and Media Department for helping to make his studies relevant in the outside world, especially as the Internet and online communications grew. He describes himself as “extremely privileged” to live the life he does, and would like to “write a beautiful novel” and immerse himself in creative work, photography and writing.
U. works to conserve energy with building projects continued from page 1 quiring a minimum of 25 percent less energy use than required by Rhode Island code. These rules began applying to projects in January, after Pembroke was already underway, though the building should still use 19 percent less energy than allowed by code, he said. Participation in LEED is voluntary, Powell said, pointing out that it costs money to hire LEED professionals for design. The certification is based on a point system that takes into account energy use, water use and materials, he said. The bamboo flooring used in Pembroke, for example, is considered a sustainable material and therefore counts toward LEED certification, Dietel said. Historic buildings such as Pembroke — built in 1897 — pose particular problems for energy efficiency, Powell said. In Pembroke’s case, the slate roof couldn’t be replaced by state-of-the-art materials because designers wanted to preserve the original look. Old windows and thin
walls cause similar problems for insulation, he said. J. Walter Wilson had historical problems of its own: Because of the building’s use for laboratories, it had to be decontaminated before renovations could begin, Dietel said. Now, however, the renovated space has been occupied for weeks by the mail room, registrar and other student service offices, and the permanent glass entranceway is slated to be completed by the weekend. The decision to add the new entrance was made late in the process, from a desire to “do something special” for the new student services building, Dietel said. Meanwhile, the mail room’s move into the basement didn’t only cause headaches for its employees and students. It also created an engineering challenge for the chill plant, which had to be moved into the building’s attic, lowered through a hole in the roof. Equipment there had to be dampened by springs to cut down on the noise, especially since Psychological Services is just beneath the plant.
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Egyptology department looks to hire new prof By Andrew Sia Contributing Writer
Sydney Ember / Herald
Students play inside the gym at J. Hope settlement house (above), and girls from the after school program are all smiles (below).
Across town, Swearer program mentors young By Sydney Ember Contributing Writer
The gym at the John Hope Settlement House is full of kids sitting quietly on wooden bleachers. But when Peter Boyer ’09 and Riaz Gillani ’09 — coordinators of the John Hope Mentoring Program — walked through the double doors along with the rest of the mentors, kids jumped from their seats, hugging each of their mentors enthusiastically. It was a typical Friday afternoon for the mentors, who had boarded a bus at Kennedy Plaza downtown for the two-mile trip to the Settlement House, a community organization dedicated to subsidized children’s services and after-school programs. Located in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Rhode Island in the inner-city neighborhood of Providence’s West End, the Settlement House provides a stark contrast to
College Hill. The mentoring program, which Boyer called a “phenomenal way” to escape college life, provides a direct relationship with the city’s most disadvantaged children through these weekly one-on-one sessions. The kids in the neighborhood -- an area with one of the highest levels of children in poverty in the country -- “are lacking some things
that we have taken advantage of … like meaningful mentors,” said Gillani, who began volunteering with the program as a first-year. “Hopefully, we can be that extra older role model.” The close relationships forged through the program are apparent as the mentees greet their mentors, continued on page 6
The Department of Egyptology and Ancient Western Asian Studies is looking to hire a tenure-track professor to teach Mesopotamian language and cultures. The new professor is expected to teach Akkadian and Mesopotamian history and culture, said Professor of Egyptology James Allen, chair of the department. The position, currently filled by a visiting professor, would allow the department to expand permanently into the field of Western Asian studies. Plans for expansion also include creating an undergraduate concentration and doctoral program in ancient Western Asian studies. Allen is currently working on proposals for these programs to the College Curriculum Council and the Graduate Council. The new professor is expected to help with this project. The department, one of the smallest at the University, has expanded since 2005 to include ancient Western Asian studies as part of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, The Herald reported in November 2005. It currently consists of five permanent, and one visiting, professors. There are eight student concentrators in the department — up from between two and five in any given year. The department was founded in 1948 as the Department of Egyptology and consisted of one professor, until 1991 when a second
Courtesy of brown.edu
Professor of Egyptology James Allen
was added. It has since merged with the Department of History of Mathematics, which consisted of one faculty member specializing in Mesopotamian History, Allen said. Allen said he hopes to expand the department to six permanent faculty members, with three specializing in Egypt and three in Western Asia. The addition of a sixth professor will mark the end of the department’s expansion, Allen said. “This may be the last hiring,” unless the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World hires someone specializing in Egyptology or Western Asian studies, Allen said. The deadline for candidates to submit applications is Oct. 31, but the search will remain open until the position is filled. The department plans to have a candidate selected for the position sometime in January, Allen said.
Martian craters point to large climate change By Etienne Ma Contributing Writer
Craters on the surface of Mars may hold the key to discovering patterns of drastic climate change in the planet’s recent history, a Brown-led research team found recently. Seth Kadish GS, a graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences, and Professor of Geological Sciences James Head presented their findings Sept. 24 at the European Planetary Science Congress in Munster, Germany. Nadine Barlow of Northern Arizona University, with whom Kadish started his work as an undergraduate, and David Marchant of Boston University also contributed to the research. Evidence has long been scarce for researchers trying to document climate changes on Mars, but Kadish said the group’s research on craters has provided signs that the planet has undergone “extreme climate change” in the last 100 million years — including an ice age. Mars is a planet with an obliquity — or a tilt on its axis — that varies much more than the Earth’s. Earth’s obliquity rests at a relatively constant 23.5 degrees, stabilized by the gravitational pull of the moon. Mars’ obliquity, however, has varied from approximately 25 degrees to at least 60 degrees within the past 100,000 years, changes that severely impact the planet’s climate. Even the comparatively mild fluctuations of Earth’s axis have triggered ice ages and other significant shifts, leading scientists to believe
that Mars’ climate fluctuations must have been even more dramatic. For example, while global warming debates on Earth have focused on slowly melting ice caps, scientists believe that at times when Mars’ poles pointed directly at the sun, ice caps there sublimated — evaporated directly into gas — and dispersed across the face of the planet. Even such drastic changes are undone by the cyclical axis fluctuations as sublimated ice retracts back to the poles, leaving little evidence on the surface that anything ever changed. But Kadish and Head’s research may have uncovered a current physical marker of the variations, they said — pedestal craters, geological features unique to the planet that get their name from the 10- to 100-foottall mounds the indentations sit on. A normal crater is formed when a meteorite or other projectile strikes a planet’s surface. But a pedestal crater is formed when the impact hits an elevated surface, like a plateau. That surface, Kadish suspects, was a mixture of ice and dust that would have covered the planet during an ice age. Now, while the ice has receded, sites where pedestal craters formed have preserved the ice underneath it, Kadish believes, because debris from the impact would settle into a hardened layer of armor protecting the ice. At the edges of some pedestals, where the armor begins to taper off, Kadish and his fellow researchers found tiny pits near the pedestal’s
base. The material in the pits appears to have sublimated, Kadish said, which suggests it was in fact ice, since dust would have eroded. These “marginal pits” are critical to the theory of climate change on Mars, Kadish and Head said. They are the “window into (what lies) below the pedestals,” Head said. Next, Kadish plans to determine more conclusively what lies underneath the craters by using radar to penetrate their surface. The amount of ice underneath the pedestals will reveal a great deal of information on Mars’ history of climate change. Head, who teaches GEOL 0050: “Mars, Moon and the Earth,” said the work has immediate relevance, calling it “cutting-edge research that goes right into an intro course” and noting that he will incorporate the findings into his class this semester.
Courtesy of nasa.gov
Researchers find ‘marginal pits’ in pedestal craters important to theory of climate change.
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Undergrads mentor kids on other side of town continued from page 5 many of whom have had the same mentee since they began the program. Boyer said that he and his mentee, Ethan, usually play sports like soccer or basketball. Nearby, Nabeel Gillani ’12 and his mentee take a seat together on the bleachers to catch up on the week’s events, while Jaleesa Jones ’11 tosses around a green handball with some girls. “You don’t know it, but they actually wait for you to come,” said Emily Eng ’09, who began mentoring during the spring of her freshman year. The kids who don’t have mentors run around the gym, jump rope or sit quietly on the bleachers doing homework while they wait for their parents to pick them up after work. “I want to be in college!” announced Mariely, a fifth-grader, when she realized the mentors were in the gym, adding that she had heard college students didn’t have to go to class if they didn’t feel like it. Though she said she didn’t like spelling the long words on her spelling tests, she soon admitted, “Sometimes, I’d rather be in school than at my house, especially when it rains.”
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“You kind of get caught up with your day-to-day life,” Riaz Gillani said. He added that the mutual exchange with the kids allows each mentor to see another side of the Providence community firsthand. Especially rewarding, he added, was talking to his mentee every week and realizing “there’s actually someone listening.” “It’s a breath of fresh air to get off the hill,” said Josh Drago ’09, another mentor in the program, adding that many of the programs run at Brown are “really detached from the community.” But the leaders of the program, which is currently run through the Swearer Center for Public Service and sustained by the coordinators, are working on revamping the recruitment effort. Despite interest — the program currently has about 15 members — the senior mentors all shared the desire to make the program more cohesive and increase its visibility on campus. On the ride back to campus, Gillani, a biomedical engineering concentrator, said he hoped to continue working with kids in the long run, though he plans on pursuing a career in medicine. “In the long term, I’ve become more humanitarian in my outlook,” he said. “Definitely reach out. You’ll be glad you did.”
Judge stops last-minute Wachovia takeover By E. Scott Reckard Los Angeles T imes
A judge has temporarily blocked Wells Fargo & Co.’s eleventh-hour takeover of Wachovia Corp., allowing Citigroup Inc. to argue that its offer for the troubled North Carolina bank should prevail. Ruling late Saturday, Judge Charles Ramos in New York state court put the Wells-Wachovia deal on hold until a hearing this week. Ramos ruled over objections from Wachovia, which accepted Wells Fargo’s $7-a-share of fer Friday for the entire bank, brushing off Citigroup’s earlier agreement in principle to buy most of Wachovia’s operations for $1 a share. In a statement e-mailed to the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, Wachovia indicated it would continue to stand by the Wells Fargo deal— unless a better proposal emerged. “Wachovia believes its agreement with Wells Fargo is proper, valid and is in the best interest of shareholders, employees and the American taxpayers,” it said. “Under that agreement, Citigroup is always free to make a superior offer to Wachovia.” The dispute clouds the outcome of one of the hasty shotgun marriages imposed by the Federal Reserve and bank regulators, who say they are acting to prevent a meltdown of the U.S. financial system. What is emerging as a classic takeover battle also can be seen as a vote of confidence in the long-term prospects for that system. Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia has been socked by losses, especially on exotic mortgages acquired in its 2006 purchase of Oakland, Ca-
lif.’s World Savings. Wachovia was put up for sale just over a week ago by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which feared other banks would no longer do business with it, triggering a collapse. New York’s Citigroup and San Francisco’s Wells Fargo, coveting Wachovia’s sprawling retail operations in the East and Southeast, were the leading suitors, poring over Wachovia’s books to evaluate the toxicity of its mortgages, loans to home builders and securitized commercial real-estate loans. But Wells Fargo walked away from the auction, saying it needed more time to analyze the data. Wachovia’s board tentatively accepted Citigroup’s offer Monday, with details to be worked out and a final agreement signed later. The agreement, wor th $2.2 billion to Wachovia shareholders, called for Citigroup to purchase Wachovia’s banking operations, but not its national brokerage firm, mutual funds and certain other assets. Citigroup agreed also to assume the first $42 billion in losses on the bank’s loans. The FDIC, in return for accepting any additional losses, was to receive $12 billion in Citigroup preferred stock and warrants to buy shares. Thursday, Wells Fargo returned with its all-stock offer, worth about $15 billion, which involved no exposure to losses by the government and would have maintained the tight relationships among the various parts of Wachovia. Citigroup said the offer was prohibited under an exclusivity pact Wachovia signed. “As indicated by Citi in court filings, the exclusivity agreement,
while in effect, unconditionally bars Wachovia from negotiating or entering into a merger/acquisition agreement with any party other than Citi,” the company said in a news release late Saturday. However, legal and takeover experts who reviewed the agreement at the request of the Times said the agreement, although strictly banning any conversations about a deal with a third party, did not bar another bidder from making an offer or Wachovia’s board from accepting it. Such a “fiduciary out” is common in “no shop” agreements during takeover talks, Columbia University law professor John C. Coffee said. In a call with analysts Friday, Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovacevich said his bank had not been given any additional information by Wachovia after it walked away from the FDIC auction. Instead, Kovacevich said, Wells Fargo completed its analysis with no further input from Wachovia and then returned with an offer that Wachovia’s board preferred. Citigroup and Wachovia have been ordered to appear before Ramos on Friday, Citigroup said in its news release, adding: “Citi has made clear it is prepared to resume negotiating in good faith to complete the transaction contemplated by the agreement in principle.” Wells Fargo countered with a statement Sunday saying, “We have a definitive merger agreement with Wachovia Corp., and it is a compelling value for, and in the best interests of, Wachovia’s shareholders, team members, customers, communities and the American taxpayers.”
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Wo r l d
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Brief
Pope begins marathon reading project
Courtesy of PNOC Energy Development Corp.
The main geothermal plant on Leyte Island in the Philippines. Geothermal now produces about 28 percent of the electricity generated in the country.
Filipinos draw power from buried heat By Blaine Harden Washington Post
ORMOC, Philippines — Ferdinand Marcos, the despot who ruled here for 21 years, is remembered mainly for the staggering quantity of his wife’s shoes. But there is another Marcos legacy, and it is drawing new attention at a time of high oil prices, global warming and urgent questions about the role of government in alternative energy development. Reacting to the early 1970s oil shock, Marcos created a major government program to find, develop and generate electricity from hot rocks deep in the ground. Since then, the Philippine government has championed this form of energy. Geothermal power now accounts for about 28 percent of the electricity generated in the Philippines. With 90 million people, about 40 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day, this country has become the world’s largest consumer of electricity from geothermal sources. Billions of dollars have been saved here because of reduced need for imported oil and coal. “Goes to show that things aren’t always the way we might expect,” said Roland Horne, a Stanford University expert on geothermal power who has visited this country more than 20 times. “The Philippines
would be in hugely worse shape without geothermal as an indigenous energy source.” In installed geothermal power capacity, the country ranks No. 2 in the world, narrowly trailing the United States, which has far more geothermal potential, far more engineering talent and far greater demand for clean sustainable power. But unlike in the Philippines, government policy in the United States has been inconsistent. In 2006, the Bush administration cut most geothermal spending — federal programs that received as much as $100 million a year in the 1980s shrank to $5 million. Research projects were dismantled. Scientists in the field had to find other jobs. “Most of the federal infrastructure, the laboratories and the researchers are now gone,” said Karl Gawell, executive director of the Geothermal Energy Association in Washington. As oil and coal prices soared in the past year, and as popular demand increased for alternative energy sources, the Bush administration rediscovered geothermal. It has proposed spending $90 million over three years on research. “That’s the goods news, but the bad news is that we are going to have to relearn a lot of what the people who we just let go learned over the past 20 years,” Gawell said. “The problem with our gov-
ernment’s approach to alternative energy is that it is too short-term. You need a sustained commitment to reach this huge energy base.” At early stages of development, geothermal energy has historically been dependent in most countries on high-risk, long-term investment made by governments, not private companies. While Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, has said little about geothermal energy, Sen. Barack Obama, his Democratic opponent, has said renewable energy — which includes wind, solar and geothermal — should generate 10 percent of the country’s electricity within four years. The figure now is about 4 percent, of which less than 1 percent is geothermal. But geothermal offers reliability advantages over solar and wind, mostly because geothermal fields do not stop producing power at night or when the wind stops blowing. In a report released last week, the U.S. Geological Sur vey reassessed the potential for this kind of energy in the United States. It examined 13 Western states, from California to Colorado, Washington to New Mexico, that sit atop a hot geologic zone that is often called the Pacific Ring of Fire. It encircles the Pacific Ocean and includes the
ROME — In the beginning Pope Benedict XVI read these words: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” And the pope and millions of viewers watching him on Italian television Sunday night saw that it was good. The pontiff launched a marathon reading of the Bible, from Genesis to Apocalypse, broadcast live on state television. It will last seven days and six nights. The roster of about 1,300 readers features former Italian presidents, current Cabinet ministers, soccer stars, foreign diplomats, cardinals, intellectuals, actors and opera singers as well as ordinary citizens. The Vatican invited a multi-faith, multiethnic cross-section of participants to the event in the Holy Cross in Jerusalem Basilica here. They include Orthodox clergymen; an Algerian writer and five other Muslims; and the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, along with a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp and 14 other Jewish readers. Organizers wanted to make it clear, the Vatican said in a statement, that “the Bible belongs to everyone without any discrimination or cultural or ideological barrier.” The message was underscored by the pope’s decision to take part, as the pontiff explained in comments to the faithful after Sunday Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. “In this way the word of God can enter homes to accompany lives of families and individuals,” Benedict XVI said. “A seed that if wellreceived will not fail to bring abundant fruits.” — Los Angeles Times
Simpson may face life in prison LOS ANGELES — Thirteen years to the day after a Los Angeles jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty in the murders of his former wife and her friend, he rose from his chair in a Las Vegas courtroom late Friday to hear jurors declare him guilty of 12 felonies, including kidnapping and armed robbery. He faces two years to life in prison when he is sentenced next month. Simpson bit his lip and bobbed his head resignedly as the verdicts were announced an hour before midnight at the Clark County courthouse in Nevada. The jury took 13 hours to decide that he and codefendant Clarence “C.J.” Stewart, along with four men who had previously pleaded guilty, held a pair of memorabilia dealers at gunpoint last September in a hotel room filled with mementos from Simpson’s football career and murder trial. Bailiffs led a wincing Simpson out of the courtroom in handcuffs after District Judge Jackie Glass denied bail pending his sentencing. “He’s extremely upset, extremely emotional, but it is something that was expected,” Simpson’s longtime attorney Yale Galanter told reporters outside the downtown Las Vegas courthouse. “I wasn’t surprised.” The three-week trial rose directly from the nimbus of notoriety, distrust and shabby opportunism that enveloped the onetime football great after his 1995 trial, and it showcased the gallery of rogues who ran with Simpson. But the prosecution case was cemented by the audiotapes secretly recorded by several of the accused in the hope of making a buck. The strongest evidence was a 26-minute tape made the night after the incident, by the man who testified he brandished a .45-caliber pistol in a room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino at Simpson’s specific request. “I kept that thing in my pocket till we got inside that room,” Michael McClinton says on the tape, after Simpson has asked whether he pulled “the piece” in the hotel hallway, where security cameras were mounted. “There ain’t nothing on that video, ain’t nothing he can see,” Simpson says, sounding relieved. “It’s a tabloid story.”
continued on page 8
— Washington Post
Nebraska to be an unlikely battleground By Peter Slevin Washington Post
OMAHA, Neb. — With a month to go before Election Day, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, touched down here Sunday for an unexpected rally in a state that President Bush won by 22 percentage points in 2004. In early September, even as it was shifting resources out of other traditionally Republican states to key electoral battlegrounds, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign sent 15 paid staffers to Nebraska, a state that has backed a Democrat for president just once since 1936. Despite the overwhelmingly Republican nature of the state, Obama and the national mood are forcing Sen. John McCain to focus more on Nebraska’s biggest city.
Both camps have their eyes on the same reward: a single electoral vote that could prove pivotal in determining the next president. Nebraska is one of only two states that award electoral votes by congressional district, rather than on a winner-take-all basis. Obama strategists see an opportunity in the 2nd District, where disaffection with Washington and strong Democratic voter-registration efforts are narrowing the Republican advantage. If Obama pulls an upset in this district, regardless of what happens in the rest of Nebraska, he will pick up one electoral vote toward the 270 needed to win. Among the scenarios that strategists have spun out, both sides see the possibility of an unprecedented tie in the electoral college. If Obama won Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico,
for instance, and the rest of the map remained the same as in 2004, the race would be knotted at 269 to 269. The same would be true if Obama won Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado while McCain picked up New Hampshire. Obama’s Nebraska strategy is perhaps the most extreme manifestation of his campaign’s determination to expand the electoral map to open as many paths as possible to win the White House. The approach has had mixed results: Traditionally Republican states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Colorado appear within reach, while efforts in North Dakota, Montana, Alaska and Georgia have fizzled. “One of the keys is going to be stretching the map. If we can put continued on page 8
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Filipinos looking to geothermal power continued from page 7 Philippines, as well as Indonesia, Japan and several other countries in East Asia. In the American West, power production from already identified geothermal fields could increase more than 2 1/2 times, the report said. But new geothermal technology — which injects water into fractured rock to mine heat — raises the possibility that small geothermal power plants could be built all over the West. If this technology continues to advance, the Geological Survey report said, there is enough accessible public and private land in the 13 Western states to supply about half the electricity now generated in the United States. “Geothermal resources have the potential to play a much more significant role in our nation’s energy mix,” the report concluded. For nearly three decades, the Philippine government has been acting on a similar assumption, despite revolutions and widespread corruption. The showcase for the Philippine government’s long-term commitment to geothermal energy is here on the rural island of Leyte, where a government-created company, now privatized, has carefully transformed a vast geothermal field into the linchpin of the country’s electricity grid. The Leyte field, as engineers describe it, is one of nature’s most perfectly designed geothermal resources. Located about 1 1/2 miles underground, it is a great pot of boiling water that covers about
all of these states into play, that will make a difference,” said Jon Carson, Obama’s national field director. The more competitive Obama can be, he said, the more traditionally Republican territory McCain will be forced to defend, at a cost in time and money. The McCain campaign announced its own one-vote strategy Thursday when it said it would move field organizers to Maine in a last-minute attempt to win the largely rural 2nd Congressional District. The move to the only other state that splits its electoral votes came as McCain gave up on Michigan, one of a handful of Democratic states that he had hoped to win. Republicans have scoffed at the notion that Obama can pick off a congressional district in Nebraska, which has never split its vote. “Ain’t going to happen,” said Dave Boomer, campaign manager for Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., winner of five straight 2nd District races. Boomer predicted that, late one mid-October night, Obama state director John Berge “will call his staff in and say: `We’re pulling out. We’re going to Scranton.’ “ The Obama campaign insisted it’s in town for the duration, and it announced Friday that it will open a second Omaha office this week. Where Republicans see folly, the Obama camp spots an opening. Unlike most of Nebraska, the 2nd District has a significant minority population, with a population that is 10 percent black and 6 percent Hispanic — groups that strongly back Obama. The median household income
Palin says Obama would ‘pal around with terrorists’ By Robin Abcarian Los Angeles T imes
416 square miles. Molten rock heats the pot but is kept separate from the boiling water by a thick layer of impermeable rock. The pot’s lid is made of a much softer, more porous rock, which is easy to drill down through. About 90 wells bring up steamy water to run turbines. Thirty-two re-injection wells shoot cooler water back into the pot to be heated and repeat the cycle. Water filtering down naturally through a mountainous rain forest atop the reservoir also recharges it. “Leyte is ver y blessed in the sense that the resource is not common to any other part of the world,” said Ruperto R. Villa Jr., a
geothermal engineer and a longtime supervisor here. Villa and other engineers here have made the most of their natural blessings, inventing the world’s first large-scale re-injection system. After 25 years of operation, this system has conserved nearly all of the field’s heat and steam pressure. Experts say Leyte, if it continues to be well managed, should produce electricity for centuries. “Once the Philippines government gave its edict to develop geothermal, it was implemented with good management and intelligent engineering,” said Horne, the Stanford professor who has traveled often to the Philippines.
Campaigns expect Nebraska to be tight continued from page 7
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in the district is about $45,000. A recent Washington Post poll showed that Obama leads by 54 percent to 41 percent among all U.S. voters with household incomes under $50,000, although McCain holds a similar advantage among white voters in that category. Democrats point out that a political newcomer — 30-year-old businessman Jim Esch — won 45 percent of the vote against Terry in 2006. Esch is running again this year, and party leaders like his chances well enough that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is contributing to his effort. The Obama campaign also hopes to benefit from the retail politicking of Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who has found ways to win statewide, and the influence of Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., a war veteran who has criticized McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. And while the Obama campaign only recently arrived in force, residents have seen a year’s worth of Obama advertisements directed at voters in nearby Council Bluffs, Iowa, that also air in Omaha. Obama drew 10,000 people to a Feb. 7 rally here, shortly before he swamped Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, DN.Y., by 35 percentage points in the Nebraska caucuses. There are potential signs of progress for Democrats. A large Republican registration advantage in Douglas County, which makes up the bulk of the 2nd District, has nearly evaporated. As of Sept. 1, Democrats had added 8,500 voters this year, while Republican registration had grown by just 108,
closing the gap to around 4,000. About 58,000 voters in the county consider themselves as independents. Those figures were recorded before the Obama campaign opened its Omaha office — 1,113 people showed up to volunteer on the first day — and do not reflect the recent registration efforts. “We’re certainly seeing more registrations coming in as we get closer and closer to the election,” said Dave Phipps, a Republican and the election commissioner in Douglas County, who is predicting record turnout. Phipps is the rare Republican who says publicly that Obama has a shot in the district. “It’s going to be a tough battle,” he said. “Swaying Republicans in Nebraska is pretty hard, but there is a significant number of nonpartisans who are up for the taking.” Phipps added that grass-roots groups not connected to Obama are mobilizing voters in Democratic precincts, particularly student enclaves and largely black neighborhoods in north Omaha where turnout is typically low. Nonetheless, experts expect it will take a dramatic pro-Obama turnout in Omaha and its inner suburbs to overcome the expected strong Republican advantage in more rural and conservative Sarpy County, which lies partly in the 2nd District. There, Republicans outnumber Democrats by 10,000. Boomer, Terr y’s campaign manager, also thinks the increasingly visible Obama effort will motivate Republicans, especially social conservatives, to turn out against him.
CARSON, Calif. — You can’t say she didn’t warn them. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin introduced herself to the countr y with a now-famous joke about lipstick as the only difference between a certain dog breed and a hockey mom. On Saturday, the Republican vice presidential nominee unleashed her inner pit bull, accusing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of being someone who would “pal around with terrorists.” Her accusation -- made before an overflow crowd of about 10,000 in the tennis stadium of the Home Depot Center, and earlier in the day at a Denver fundraiser -- signaled an increasingly abrasive stance toward Obama on the part of her running mate, Republican nominee John McCain. In Carson, she signaled her intentions early in her 23-minute speech. “One of my campaign staff said as I was walking out here, `OK, the heels are on, the gloves are off,’ “ Palin said. The “terrorists” to whom Palin referred is Chicago education professor William Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical leftist group the Weather Underground and a sometime acquaintance of Obama. Palin introduced the attack with a wry observation about her disastrous inter view with CBS’ Katie Couric on Monday. During the inter view, Palin seemed to draw a blank when asked by Couric which newspapers and magazines she reads. Palin, who told Fox News Channel on Friday that she reads the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, among other publications, said she was annoyed by the question. Buoyed by a well-received performance against her Democratic opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, in their debate Thursday, she playfully apologized for what she described as her “impatient” response to Couric. “Evidently there’s been a lot of interest in what I read lately,” she added. “I was reading today a copy of the New York Times. And I was really interested to read in there about Barack Obama’s friends from Chicago. Turns out one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, was a domestic terrorist, that quote `launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the United States Capitol.’ “ Saturday’s New York Times story, an investigation into whether Obama had a relationship with Ayers, concluded that the men were never close and that Obama has denounced Ayers’ radical past, which occurred when Obama, who was born in 1961, was a child. It also found that he has downplayed their contacts. “This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America,” Palin said of Obama. “We see America as a force for good in this world. We see America as a force for exceptionalism. ... Our opponents see America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who would bomb their own countr y.” The Obama campaign respond-
ed forcefully. “Governor Palin’s comments, while of fensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign’s statement this morning that they would be launching Swift Boat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation’s economic ills,” Obama-Biden spokesman Hari Sevugan said. “In fact, the very newspaper stor y Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less `pals,’ and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was 8. What’s clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy.” Republicans have long been expected to raise this issue. In August, a major fundraiser for McCain spent $2.8 million on an ad, by the American Issues Project, attacking Obama and raising questions about his relationship with Ayers. (The contributor, Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, also helped fund Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group that damaged Democratic Sen. John F. Kerr y’s 2004 presidential campaign when it called his militar y record into question.) The anti-Obama ad aired in Ohio and Michigan last summer. This past week, the McCain campaign pulled its operations out of Michigan, a tacit admission that it expects Obama to carr y the state. Palin, who did not know about the Michigan decision until she read about it Friday, according to McCain aides, implied Saturday in Denver that she regretted the decision. “Well, as I said the other day, I would sure love to get to run to Michigan and make sure that Michigan knows we haven’t given up there,” Palin said, as she left a diner after visiting with mothers of soldiers. “We care much about Michigan and ever y other state.” California is a reliably Democratic state in the presidential race, but it is also a reliable source of cash for Republicans. After the Carson rally Saturday, Palin attended a fundraiser in Costa Mesa. On Sunday, she was scheduled to headline a fundraiser in Burlingame, then head to Florida, while McCain takes time to prepare for his debate with Obama on Tuesday in Nashville, Tenn. In Carson, Palin was interrupted at least 10 times by protesters, who were in turn shouted down by the crowd. She said that her father, Chuck Heath, was born in North Hollywood and that her grandfather was a Los Angeles photographer who specialized in shooting boxers. “I learned a few points about fighting from him,” she said. “I have a connection with L.A. and I’ll milk it as long as I can,” she added, as the crowd roared its approval. Many people compared Palin favorably with President Reagan, a conser vative icon. “What’s wonderful about Sarah is that she’s liberated without being liberal,” said LaDell Jorgensen, 42, a telecommunications program manager. “She really connects with the old Ronnie Reagan patriotic people who love America.”
Herald eye exam.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Page 9
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
W. soccer moves on despite ball dispute Bulldogs bite, leaving continued from page 12 From this point on, however, the Bears could not put the game away. The team stayed on the offensive with several close attempts by tri-captain Lindsay Cunningham ’09 and Sarah Hebert-Seropian ’12, but the second half concluded with the score tied. The teams took the field minutes later for over time, but the game was brought to an abrupt close when Columbia scored the winning goal about five minutes into the period. A cross from the right sent the
ball to the box, where Lions’ forward Ashiln Yahr collected it and scored. Despite Brown’s competitive play throughout the 95-minute game, their record receives another tally in the loss column. Pincince said he was “ver y proud of how the team played. They left ever ything out on the field.” “We played a good game and things just didn’t go our way,” Hogue said. Such sentiments may derive from a controversial non-call that ultimately had an impact on the result of this match between conference rivals.
Some on the field said that prior to the final cross by Columbia’s for ward, the ball had gone out of bounds. “The ball was out of bounds,” Pincince said, while gesticulating a distance approximately a meter wide. “The goal wouldn’t have been scored. I can’t wait to see the tape.” No matter what the tape shows, the women’s soccer team is moving on, focusing on its next opponent. The Bears will host Br yant on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. with the hopes of closing their three-game stint at home with a win.
After win, m. soccer offense comes to life continued from page 12 bia tied the game,” Noonan said. “They stayed resolute and didn’t panic.” The team is off to a good start in conference play this year and hopes to play its conference games as well as they did last season. The Bears finished 7-0 in conference last year and pulled away with the league title. One tie could cost Bruno the conference championship. “Teams are going to come to play against us,” Walls said. “They’re going to give it everything they have with breakaway goals and solid defense. We need to be patient and take our time; chances will come.”
With his four th consecutive game-winning goal of the season, Bernstein currently leads the team in scoring. Howerton leads the Ivy League in assists with five, four of them to Bernstein. Howerton’s assist moved him to second all-time in Brown’s career assist leaders with 25 in total. Jarrett Leech’s ’09 record in goals now stands at 5-0-1 for the season with three saves in the game. He leads the league in save percentage (.952) and goals against average (0.16). The Bears’ offense has come to life in the past five games, scoring seven goals. The defense has supported the offense, allowing only one goal in that span, to Co-
lumbia. “People are chipping in to help out. We’re trying to find our rhythm a little bit,” said captain Dylan Sheehan ’09. “Most of our goals come off of set pieces. We’re beginning to combine the forwards and attacking the field.” With the offense coming around with a strong and consistent defense, the Bears are slowly coming together for the toughest part of their season, according to Noonan. Brown hosts Br yant on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. before traveling to Princeton next Saturday for the team’s second Ivy League matchup.
volleyball to look ahead continued from page 12 compared to three blocks by the Bears. The Bears reviewed Friday night’s game video before they faced the Bulldogs again on Saturday at Yale. The team hung with the Bulldogs in all three games, but never had the final kick to finish a game, and the Bulldogs took three straight to grab the second win. Despite the loss, the Bears learned what it needs to do to take on a team at Yale’s level. “We realize we can contend with a team like Yale,” Gliottone said. “We took a game away from them on Friday. We do a lot of good things, but we need to do ever ything good.” But the team will not keep thinking about what happened in the last week. “We had a couple of close games,” Shor t said. “Now we
“We realize we can contend with a team like Yale. ... We do a lot of good things, but we need to do everything good.” Annika Gliottone ‘12 just need to move on and prepare ourselves for Har vard and Dartmouth.” The Bears will host both matches at the Pizzitola Sports Center this weekend. The team will first face of f against Har vard at 7 p.m. on Friday and then take on Dartmouth on Saturday at 4 p.m. The team has some extra fire going into these two matches. “We have a lot of frustration from this week,” Gliottone said.
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E ditorial & L etters Page 10
Monday, October 6, 2008
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Staf f Editorial
Editor’s notebook: going to the fair Could I really afford to leave campus? It was Friday afternoon and I had voicemails to answer, e-mails to send, maybe a few hours to nap after what had been a sleepless, normal week. I probably couldn’t afford to leave campus. But on last Friday, I was dozing and waking along with the bumps my friend’s SUV made while going toward Massachusetts. I had made the facile promise in the beginning of the semester to go to a fair in Topsfield with my housemate, and now I was in for 24 hours away from all that I needed to get done. Half-asleep and half-rescheduling my mental to-do list, I tottered out of the car among photo-snapping friends. I could hear the liveliness of the fair, the clucking of chickens and chatter of families. But I was not yet allured by the recreated country charm nor convinced that this was the best way to spend $10. Really, kettle corn and clowns and prize-winning jams? I traveled away from my bed and my inbox for this? And then, somewhere between the pig barn and the cake stand, I fell for it all. “Let’s go to the honey show!” Yes, a tent full of bees and beekeepers and beeswax. I inclined my ear to the screen of a cage to listen to their buzzing. Where else could I stick my head so near a swarm of stinging insects? Where else could I ignore all pressing responsibilities other than in the middle of Nowheresville, Massachusetts? I was unstoppable, ecstatic. I bought baked goods from the 4-H Club, watched a chick try to hatch out of its egg, pet an ox bigger than a Prius. My housemate and I had identical reactions: “Now I can see why this can take you across the Oregon trail.” For the first time in weeks, I was seeing something new, and was in awe. Rhode Island is small, and my physical sphere of living, even smaller. It had been a month since I’d been farther than Stop-n-Shop, three years that I’ve passed rarely going outside Prospect, Wickenden, Cushing and Blackstone. A study by Northeastern University tracked people’s whereabouts based on their cell phone usage. It found that nearly three-fourths of the subjects spent half a year in a 20-mile radius, and that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from their homes. The study’s authors’ wrote in the journal “Nature” that “human trajectories show a high degree of temporal and spatial regularity,” and that individuals show “a significant probability to return to a few highly frequented locations.” Or simply, we leave little. We stay put. Our minds may be on international conflict resolution or supernova stars galaxies away, but our eyes are staring at SciLi walls, our feet planted in our favorite corner of the Friedman. I could really afford to leave campus for a Friday. It might have been the only way to remember the curiosity that brought me to it in the first place.
— Taylor Barnes
T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier
Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang
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editorial Ben Hyman Hannah Levintova Matthew Varley Alex Roehrkasse Chaz Firestone Nandini Jayakrishna Scott Lowenstein Michael Bechek Isabel Gottlieb Franklin Kanin Michael Skocpol Ben Bernstein James Shapiro Benjy Asher Amy Ehrhart Megan McCahill Andrew Braca Han Cui Katie Wood
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P atricia chou
Letters January term needs credit To the Editor: I was disappointed to read The Herald’s recent editorial (“Time to junk J-term?”, Oct. 2) and news article (“J-term in peril from low enrollment,” Oct. 1) about the current status of January@Brown, Brown’s J-term pilot program, which began as an almost entirely student-run initiative in 2006. Students who have taken part in January@ Brown over the past two years have called the program “amazing,” “eye-opening” and have positively noted the program’s community-based focus. I personally believe that an ideal January term can reflect typically Brunonian characteristics, such as an emphasis on individuality, “learning for learning’s sake” and a recognition of peer and community-based study as a goal in and of itself. However, January@Brown will only be at its strongest when the program can offer credit for the courses students give their January to complete. UCS representatives
who dangle the possibility of a “transcript mention” if enough students sign up for J-term make a fundamental mistake about the nature of student representation. It is UCS’s job to proactively advocate for a better J-term, including credit, in order to draw more students to the program. UCS cannot hope for a sudden influx of students without first working on students’ behalf to ensure that J-term is a program worth attending. I have no doubt that UCS hopes that January@Brown continues and thrives — I do as well. However, hope alone will not fulfill January@Brown’s incredible promise. Only hard work and successful advocacy by the representatives students elect will. Tristan Freeman ’07 Former Vice President Undergraduate Council of Students Oct. 2
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Correction A photo of last week’s Farmer’s Market in The Herald (“Pumpkin season begins,” Sept. 25) was incorrectly credited. The photo was taken by Donald Kendall. C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. C ommentary 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, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. L etters to the E ditor P olicy 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 P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.
O pinions Monday, October 6, 2008
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Page 11
Undercover girl ADAM CAMBIER Opinions Columnist It’s not much of a secret: Saudi Arabia is a pretty crummy place to be a girl. You can’t drive a car, and your table in a restaurant is pretty much guaranteed to be segregated from everyone else in the joint. If you get gang raped, you’re liable to be charged for going out with unrelated men while your assailants get off with little more than a slap on the wrist. That’s not to say that Saudi women don’t make their own fun. A New York Times profile published last May on the love lives of Saudi women detailed all the trouble women will go to just to get a glimpse of the world of men. Engaged women are increasingly able to talk to their fiances before marriage, although it’s still forbidden in more conservative families. Saudi men beam their phone numbers to passing girls via Bluetooth, and the most enterprising members of the fairer sex have taken to disguising themselves as men as a game. As reported in another Times article last month, Saudi women even idolize Oprah Winfrey — her show is the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and under, and the most popular women’s magazine in the country has a regular section detailing the activities of the media mogul. But watch out, ladies. All this gallivanting about hasn’t gone unnoticed. Sheik Muhammad al-Habadan, an influential conservative
cleric, has caught on to what you’re up to, and he’s none too pleased. Tradition requires women to wear an abaya, a black, full-body garment that obscures everything except the face, feet and hands. Saudi women also wear the niqab, a veil that only leaves a small slit remaining through which women can see. Al-Habadan, however, has pointed out that by allowing women to show their eyes, the Saudi authorities have encouraged women to wear eye makeup in an attempt to seduce
ing into poles all over the country; considering that the last thing Saudis want is to draw attention to their women, a legion of ladies clunking into stationary objects seems rather counterproductive. Even worse, if women are only allowed to have one eye showing at a time, every time a girl blinks a passing man might be inclined to think that she’s winking at him. That kind of sauciness simply cannot be tolerated, and consequently the one-eye niqab proposal will fail to make it out of the starting gate.
Clerics don’t have to worry about acts of ocular strumpetry, and women get the chance to express themselves for the first time by dressing as a variety of inanimate objects. unwitting men. The cleric goes on to suggest that women be required to wear veils that only reveal a single eye, thus reducing the incentive for Saudi women to tart themselves up. Unfortunately, al-Habadan hasn’t thought his proposal through very well. Allowing Saudi women the use of only one eye robs them of more than just their personal freedom — it takes away their depth perception as well. It’s not a stretch to imagine women walk-
Fortunately, the answer to al-Habadan’s problem exists, and in one of the unlikeliest of places. To solve our dilemma, we must go all the way to Tokyo. There we find Aya Tsukioka, an avant-garde fashion designer who looks out for women in a dangerous world. In an effort to protect Japanese women from would-be assailants, Tsukioka has designed a line of clothing that can be converted
into urban camouflage at the drop of a hat. More specifically, she has created a line of skirts that, when unfolded, make their wearers look just like Coca-Cola vending machines. Alright, so the solution isn’t foolproof yet, but we’ve got the right idea: What we need to do is distribute a garment to Saudi women that draws no undue attention to them and makes them as far from being sexually attractive as possible without extensive plastic surgery. The vending machine model is a good start but isn’t feasible for Saudi Arabia. Not only would hordes of walking Coke machines raise a few eyebrows, but I’m reasonably certain the last thing al-Habadan wants is for men to try sticking quarters in a woman’s coin slot. What, then, might make for an effective disguise? Saudi designers could experiment with camel outfits (or, for those of us who want to see Saudi Arabia turned into a reallife Tatooine, outfits that make women look like dewbacks). Perhaps richer women could invest in clothing with moving parts that resemble pumping oil wells. The potential exists to break into a vast untapped market, all while solving the problem of Saudi women with sexy eyes: Clerics won’t have to worry about acts of ocular strumpetry, and women get the chance to express themselves for the first time by dressing as a variety of inanimate objects. So, ladies, break free! Now’s your chance to get out and see the world, unnoticed and unhindered by your male counterparts. And please grab me a Diet Coke while you’re out.
Adam Cambier ’09 would like to buy the world a Coke.
Get those stakes up higher BY william martin Opinions Columnist John McCain is a gambling man through and through. In a Sept. 27 story, the New York Times catalogued his labyrinthine connections to American casino interests, along with legislative efforts that have earned him a place among “the founding fathers of Indian gaming.” These ties are a sardonic reflection of McCain’s consistent penchant for risk-taking. It’s a habit that impelled both his climbing poll numbers in early September and his more recent slump. McCain’s distaste for the safe choice has been on central display throughout this presidential race. After anemic fundraising nearly scuttled his campaign last summer, McCain chose to soldier on with a decimated political team. He also cultivated a uniquely antagonistic relationship with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, lashing him as a political opportunist who “changed (his) position on even-numbered years.” Both of these gambles paid off handsomely. The senator’s scrappy, low-budget operation allowed him to cash in on his reputation as a maverick and an outsider even as he merged into the Republican herd — signing off on waterboarding and embracing a more enforcement-oriented approach to illegal immigration. McCain’s bouts with Romney also increased his visibility while giving him an easy target: a newly minted conservative who never overcame the credibility gap built up by his wooden performances, corporate background and record of liberal stances. Over the past few weeks McCain has rolled
the dice on an unprecedented scale — likely motivated by his earlier successes and the recent ascendance within the campaign of Steve Schmidt, a protege of Karl Rove whose instinct-driven approach complements his boss’s impulsiveness. McCain’s surprise vice-presidential nominee was initially a smash hit — a woman to woo wavering Clintonites, a staunch conservative to offset McCain’s tense relationship with the religious right and an iconic ruralite to reinforce the campaign’s indispensable undercurrents of xenophobia and cultural populism.
McCain’s next gamble was a series of caustic and highly inaccurate advertisements. The most notorious of the lot claimed that Obama had supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners. The bill had actually aimed to protect young children from pedophiles by teaching them what constituted molestation. The backlash was severe. Even Karl Rove, a man not noted for his honesty or restraint, declared that McCain’s onslaught had “gone one step too far.” But McCain is an addict, and his habit once again cost him dearly. With financial
Over the past few weeks McCain has rolled the dice on an unprecedented scale But Sarah Palin has proven to be her own worst enemy. Her slew of scandals continues to generate headlines, and her claim to foreign policy expertise based solely on Alaska’s proximity to Russia is an enduring embarrassment. America has taken notice, and Palin’s unexpectedly non-cataclysmic performance last Thursday is unlikely to help her case: Viewers of the debate were twice as likely to say that Joe Biden is qualified for the vice presidency.
markets roiling, he declared a suspension of his campaign and called for delaying the first presidential debate so that he could return to Washington and help hammer out a bailout deal. Ideally, this would have framed McCain as an unselfish leader, ready to let his political fortunes suffer in order to spearhead a critical piece of legislation. But McCain made little attempt to shape the financial bailout plan: Barney Frank, the House’s lead negotiator for the legislation, called him “irrelevant to
the whole process.” On top of that humiliation, McCain was forced to go ahead with the debate, in the face of massive public opposition to his proposed postponement. Now, after a fleeting few weeks ahead in the polls, he is down by a larger margin than ever, thanks to his own gambles as well as Wall Street’s. Barack Obama has provided a stark contrast to his opponent’s wild flailing, with a prevailing strategy of caution and reaction. Sometimes it hurts him, as when he knuckled under to conventional wisdom and declared that the influx of troops into Iraq in 2007 had “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.” Sometimes it benefits him: He was able to sneak in a barrage of inaccurate ads largely under the media radar after McCain’s more extravagant mid-September smear binge. Beyond personal style, caution is a luxury that Obama enjoys as the nominee of this cycle’s favored party. His rival is fighting the odds as a Republican and has dug himself into a hole with his latest wagering spree. McCain has already returned to his signature tactic: raise the stakes and damn the torpedoes. His campaign is renewing its emphasis on character attacks, hoping that mistrust can wear down Obama’s current advantage. In light of Americans’ more concrete concerns, this isn’t likely to work. But it’s surely not the last card up McCain’s sleeve. So for the next month — and just maybe the next four to eight years — look out for more reckless, audacious and even desperate high-profile maneuvers from John McCain. Expect the unexpected. With McCain, that’s the only safe bet.
William Martin ’10 is in the tank.
S ports M onday THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Monday, October 6, 2008
Tale of two halves for m. soccer; first Ivy win
Lions devour w. soccer in spite of Bruno’s best efforts
Page 12
By Katie Wood Assistant Spor ts Editor
The men’s soccer team (6-2-1, 1-00 Ivy) opened up Ivy League play against Columbia (2-6-1, 0-1-0) this past weekend at Stevenson Field, winning a tight Columbia 1 2-1 match. The game was a tale 2 Brown of two halves as the Bears came out a little slow in the first half, according to Head Coach Mike Noonan. “Columbia had a game plan to play solid defense,” said Rhett Bernstein ’09. “They were playing for a tie — that would have been a win for them.” After the slow start in the first half, the Bears came out ready to attack the Lions game plan. They began to move the ball around more giving them some scoring opportunities. They also set the pace of the game in the second half with their more up-tempo offense. In the 53rd minute of play, Evan Coleman ’12 put in a diving header from a crossed ball by Jon Okafor ’11 to put the Bears up 1-0. David Walls ’11 also assisted on the goal. In the 65th minute, the Lions came back and tied the game up with a goal by Ronnie Shaban. But Brown didn’t panic and finished out the game on a strong note. For the fourth game in a row, Bernstein scored the game-winning goal in the 73rd minute off a corner kick by Darren Howerton ’09. The kick from Howerton came from the left side to the low right corner where Bernstein was waiting. The Bears finished out the game on top, 2-1. “I’m happy that the team displayed a very good attitude in the second half, especially after Columcontinued on page 9
W EE K E N D SCOREBOARD FRIDAY, OCT. 3 W. volleyball: Yale 3, Brown 1
SATURDAY, OCT. 4 Field hockey: Harvard 2, Brown 0 football: Brown 13, URI 37 M. soccer: Columbia 1, Brown 2 W. volleyball: Brown 0 , Yale 3 W. soccer: Columbia 2, Brown 1 (OT) KICKBALL: Indy 5, Herald 6
S C h e dul e MONDAY, OCT. 6 No games scheduled TUESDAY, OCT. 7 FIELD HOCKEY: at Sacred Heart, 4 p.m. M. SOCCER: vs. Bryant, 7 p.m.
By Jason Wade Spor ts Staf f Writer
Justin Coleman / Herald
Led by captain Dylan Sheehan ’09, the men’s soccer team rallied for a dramatic 2-1 win over the Lions on Saturday.
Following last week’s victory over Holy Cross, the women’s soccer team once again failed to clinch a consecutive win. Brown fell to the Columbia Columbia 2 Lions, 2-1, in over time on 1 Brown Saturday night at home. With the arrival of Ivy League competition, losses come at a higher price and effect greater disappointment. That disappointment is highlighted by the fact that the Bears were competitive throughout the entire game. But coming out of this weekend’s game, Brown is 1-1-0 against its fellow Ivy Leaguers. “It’s a shame because I was happy with the way we played,” said tri-captain goalkeeper Brenna Hogue ’10. The Bears were put into a 1-0 hole early in the game. With just 18:34 elapsed, the Lions scored on a deceiving shot from the left of the box. The goal came when Columbia forward Sophie Reiser bent a cross through the box so that it hit the far side of the net. Less than two minutes later, Bruno nearly capitalized on a corner kick by Sylvia Stone ’11, but the resulting header was unsuccessful. The rest of the first half proceeded in much the same fashion. Brown failed to capitalize on its opportunities after holding a 9-4 advantage in first half shots, which culminated in only a 2-2 tie in shots on goal going into halftime. “I think the team showed a lot of character in battling back from 0-1,” said Head Coach Phil
Justin Coleman / Herald
Lindsay Cunningham ’09 nearly scored the game-winning goal in women’s soccer’s 2-1 loss to Columbia.
Pincince. The team managed to not put their “head in the sand.” This perseverance continued into the game’s second half. While Columbia’s of fense had more chances at Brown’s net, Hogue made six of her seven total saves in the second half, the first of which came fewer than three minutes into the half on a diving one-handed save to keep the score at 1-0. Hogue left her feet to keep the Lions from scoring again twice more before the end of the game. It was not until the 72nd minute that the Bears knotted the score at 1-1 with a goal by Kate Scott ’11. Alex Michael ’09 took a corner kick that could not be cleared and when the attempt by Melissa Kim ’10 was blocked, Scott got the rebound at the top of the box and scored. continued on page 9
Volleyball takes down Yale last weekend for Ivy opener By Han Cui Assistant Spor ts Editor
The volleyball team has had a tough time since Sept. 26 when it swept St. Francis in the Stony Brook Invitational. The Bears (8-6, 0-2 in Ivies) have lost five games since, the last three coming this past week, with a loss on Oct. 1 to URI, the other two this past weekend in back-to-back matches against Yale. They lost at home against the Bulldogs on Friday in four games, 16-25, 25-22, 18-25 and 15-25; then on Saturday they were swept in New Haven 12-25, 18-25 and 19-25. To star t the Ivy League season against the “best team in the league is a little bit unfortunate,” according to Head Coach Diane Short, but the players did not come out of the matches empty-handed. Going into the game, the players knew they were up against one of the top two teams in the league from last year (the other being league champion Princeton). “Going into the game, we knew we had nothing to lose,” said Annika Gliottone ’12, who played in both matches this weekend and led the team with 10 digs in the second match. “We can just go in and give it our all. We can end up with a huge upset or we can lose. We were all pretty pumped up.”
Justin Coleman / Herald
Kim Bundick ’10 tallied 11 digs in the volleyball’s 3-1 loss to Yale on Friday.
Unfortunately for the team, the result was the latter. After dropping the first game 25-16, the Bears came back strong in the second game and lead by four at 13-9 at one point. The Bulldogs gained the lead back with a 10-5 run to put the score at 19-18. But the team
rebounded again and sealed the game at 25-22 to tie the match. L yndse Yess ’09 lead the Bears in its comeback efforts by putting down 15 kills and digging up 15 balls. Captain Natalie Meyers ’09 led the team with 37 assists and also helped the defense with nine
digs. “Both of them are great leaders and athletes,” Gliottone said of the two seniors. “L yndse is the go-to player for kills. She can hit and defend. Natalie is a very smart player. As a setter, you usually don’t get that much attention. But she is, which is awesome.” With the match tied at one game apiece, the Bears looked to use their home-field advantage to keep the momentum on their side in the pivotal third game. Tied at 13, Yale’s offense picked up and the team pulled away with a 12-5 run to take the game 25-18. In the final game, Yale was equally aggressive in its attacks, and the Bears lost the final set 25-15. “We didn’t give up in the last two games,” Gliottone said. “Yale is a good team.” Short said Yale’s offense was too much for the team. “They have great hitters,” Short said. “In the second game (which we won), it was a combination of us hitting better and the making some mistakes.” Yale hit .310 on Friday and .393 on Saturday, whereas the Bears only hit .178 and .125, respectively. The Bears’ hitting was held down by the Bulldogs’ blockers who recorded seven blocks on both days, continued on page 9