Daily
the Brown
vol. cxlvi, no. 36
Herald
Friday, March 18, 2011
Since 1891
U. creates fund for Japan relief
Former mayor Cianci owns up to corruption Sporting a tie of festive green, former Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci strode down the aisle of Macmillan 117 to the enthusiastic applause of a smattering of students and community members. Following a brief introduction by a Brown Bookstore official, the man who transformed the cultural and financial landscape of Providence during more than two decades in City Hall took the stage with a practiced ease.
News in brief Times pay wall should not affect students Unlimited, free online access to New York Times articles — a resource as vital for students as food, coffee and spicies with — came under threat yesterday morning. But it appears the University Library will come to distressed students’ rescue. The Times will launch a digital subscriptions service March 28 and place added restrictions to its online content, the paper’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., wrote in a letter to readers yesterday. The new restrictions limit nonsubscribers to 20 articles or other media features per month before they are cut off and prompted to buy a digital subscription, according to the letter. Home delivery subscribers will continue to benefit from all online services. Readers who click through links found on blogs, search engines, Facebook and Twitter will not be denied access even if the monthly limit has been reached, the letter stated. “The Library is working with Newsbank, a vendor, to provide same-day access to the entire contents of the New York Times online. We will be providing more details very soon. The service should be available before the Times puts up its subscription wall on March 28,” David Banush, associate University librarian for access services and collection management, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Either way, students can always go old school — print versions of the Times will still be available in the Sharpe Refectory each morning.
inside
— Talia Kagan
news...................2-3 Sports...............4-5 editorial..............6 Opinions...............7 ArTS.........................8
“I can’t understand why you’re all here on St. Patrick’s day,” Cianci quipped, “But I can tell you, you left an awful lot out of that introduction.” Though audience members clutched copies of his newly released work, “Pasta and Politics,” the renowned former mayor went to the microphone empty-handed. It did not matter. Cianci, much like the book itself, was full of stories. Trained as a lawyer, Cianci continued on page 3
By Nicole Boucher News Editor
actually provisional,” he said, and people must not be blind to other views and perspectives. Universities can overcome this trend of specialization by striving to “promote a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach,” he said, adding that the “major challenge” is being able to make connections between different fields and disciplines. Though he acknowledged the negative effects of technology, he also discussed how it can help promote a wide-ranging education if we know how to use it correctly. Libraries can be an essential tool in correctly harnessing the power
The University will establish a fund for relief efforts in Japan following Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, President Ruth Simmons announced in an e-mail to the Brown community yesterday afternoon. A committee also met yesterday to discuss contingency plans for students studying abroad or planning to study abroad in Japan this semester and will continue to watch the situation as it develops, according to Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron. The University’s response to the disaster will include leading fundraising efforts, lending support to universities in Japan and soliciting student suggestions for innovative ways to provide assistance, Simmons wrote. “This is consistent with the approach we took after Katrina,” Simmons wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “The community is invited to help devise approaches that are uniquely representative of Brown.” She added that the fund will come from University resources as a way to generate donations. The Japanese Cultural Association will also throw a relief
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Hilary Rosenthal / Herald
Former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci spoke last night about his new book.
Gregorian celebrates libraries at Hay fete By Nicole Grabel Contributing Writer
There is a “difference between information and knowledge,” Vartan Gregorian, former president of the University, told an enthralled audience of 200 celebrating the centennial of the John Hay Library in a lecture yesterday afternoon. The lecture, titled “Information and Knowledge in an Age of Technology,” addressed the way technology constantly bombards society with facts, theories and data. He emphasized the importance of “analysis as well as synthesis” of information, and the ability to distinguish between “what we know,”
what the “screen” is telling us and “what we don’t know” in order to truly understand something. The premium placed on specialization is one way knowledge is stifled in the modern technological age, he said. We focus on “marketable skills” and confuse the educated person with the specialist. Today’s new technology makes it all too easy to continue on this specialized path, ignorant to the knowledge and views of others. Technology also allows the formation of “isolationist” groups which keep people “safe from having to relay” their ideas with those who may not agree with them, Gregorian said. But “all knowledge is
Protestors hold flash rally for gay marriage By SOPHIA SEAWELL Contributing Writer
Several dozen students and community members gathered outside J. Walter Wilson yesterday afternoon to encourage Rhode Island’s politicians to support the legalization of gay marriage. The sunny weather bolstered the already energetic atmosphere of the flash rally, which lasted only 30 minutes. Many protestors held signs and responded enthusiastically to speakers and honking cars driving by. Two bills that would legalize gay marriage are currently under consideration in the Rhode Island House and Senate judiciary committees, whose votes will decide if the bills will be debated on the floors of those chambers. Similar bills have been introduced several times in past years, but have never made it
Close to Home Janus Forum debates collective bargaining Campus news, 3
to the floor. The bill’s co-sponsors, state representatives Art Handy, D-Cranston, and Frank Ferri, D-Warwick, spoke at the rally. “This bill is moving forward because of people like you,” Handy told the crowd. Student support “helps people like me be more enthusiastic and energetic,” he told The Herald. “I’ve been with my husband for 30 years, and I am a second-class citizen,” Ferri told the crowd. He encouraged students to stay active in the fight for gay marriage. Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11, the president of the Brown Democrats, had a similar message. “Keep continuing the fight, going to the State House and fighting for the bill,” he told the gathered crowd. “It’s so important that we hold our elected officials responsible for the issues we care about.” The crowd was optimistic about
Sophia Seawell / Herald
Students rallied to legalize gay marriage outside J. Walter Wilson yesterday.
the bill’s passage. “Your generation will be the generation that makes a difference with same-sex marriage,” said Kelly Garrett, coordinator of the LGBTQ Resource Center. “These are hopeful and exciting times.” The rally was organized by the Queer Political Action Committee,
D&C
Das Racist gets coal — find out why Diamonds & Coal, 7
weather
By Amy Rasmussen Senior Staff Writer
along with the Brown Democrats and Marriage Equality Rhode Island, which held a phone bank for protestors to call their senators during the rally. Gabe Schwartz ’13, co-director continued on page 2
t o d ay
tomorrow
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2 Campus News
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 18, 2011
Students, U. fundraise for Japan relief effort
calendar Today
March 18
12 P.m.
ToMORROW
March 19
2:30 p.m. Vigil for Japan,
“Women in War Zones,”
Faunce House
Cable Car Cinema
7 p.m.
9 p.m. BRIO: World Cultural Dinner,
Out of Bounds Sketch Comedy,
Andrews Dining Hall
MacMillan 117
continued from page 1
menu SHARPE REFECTORY
VERNEy-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH
Hot Ham Sandwich, Onion Rings, Green Beans with Garlic, Vegan Roasted Vegetable Burrito
Chicken Fingers, Vegan Nuggets, Corn Cobbets, Hot Dogs, Baked Beans, M&M Cookies
DINNER Linguini Tossed in Olive Oil, Mussels in Marinara, Baked Potatoes, Vegan Refried Beans, Pound Cake
Beef Lo Mein, Egg Foo Young, Sticky Rice, Hoisin Sugar Snap Peas, Focaccia Bread, Zeppole
Sudoku
Freddy Lu / Herald
Vartan Gregorian, former University president, celebrated the Hay yesterday.
Former president urges knowledge integration continued from page 1
Crossword
of technology because they bring many different types of knowledge together in one place. Some fear that technology will bring about the demise of libraries, but Gregarian said this is not the case. “We are not a virtual society yet,” he said. Along with helping us integrate different sources of knowledge, libraries remain vitally important as places that provide community and allow for the sharing of different ideas. The need for libraries and books will only grow stronger, and it is im-
portant that they remain available to everyone, especially those who cannot afford comparable resources on their own. The John Hay Library, which holds the University’s archives and rare books collection, was funded by Andrew Carnegie in the early 1900s as a library that would be open to the public. In her introduction, President Ruth Simmons said Gregorian was chosen to speak on behalf of the Hay’s centennial because he was “prominent enough, cute enough and persuasive enough.”
Students rally for gay marriage legislation continued from page 1 of the committee, briefly addressed the crowd. “The fundamentals of the constitution are being undermined” by the lack of a gay marriage bill, he said. Schwartz was contacted about planning the rally by Rhode Island Students for Equality, an organization recently founded by Kyle Marnane, a senior at Johnson and Wales University. The rally was the third of six that the group is organizing
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in universities across the state. “Getting students to do it is much more effective,” Marnane said. Lauren Childress ’14, a member of the Queer Alliance who attended the rally, said she is surprised the bill has not passed yet. By joining the rally, she is hoping to move the bill’s passage forward. “We are the next generation of this country’s leaders,” said Margaret Baxter ’14, another protestor. “So getting involved early on is important.”
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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily. Copyright 2011 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. editorial
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concert to raise money this Sunday, which will feature student performers, a capella groups and the Brown Jazz Band. Simmons will match the donations if the event raises at least $2,000, said Rie Yamamato ’12, one of the association’s co-presidents. “The tragic aftermath of the earthquake in Japan demands that the University respond in a concerted and careful way with humanitarian assistance,” Simmons wrote in the e-mail. Students participating in study abroad programs in Japan this semester may have to find alternative plans. The study abroad program at the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies will be halted by next week, wrote Helen Diagama ’12, one of three Brown students participating in the program, in an e-mail to The Herald. The program is currently examining different options available to the students and should be able to provide more information shortly, Bergeron wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Though Kyoto was not directly impacted by the earthquake and tsunami, the state department began issuing warnings encouraging the evacuation of Americans from Japan yesterday. “The state department strongly urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Japan at this time and those in Japan should consider departing,” the travel warning read. “This is very sad for us, since we do feel safe and don’t want to leave, so most students are protesting,” Diagama wrote. Jack Boeglin’12, who planned to study at Keio University in Tokyo, said he has not received additional information since first learning that orientation for his program would be delayed until April 4. “Local and international authorities continue to state how difficult it is to gauge the level of risk accurately,” Bergeron wrote in the e-mail. “We continue to monitor the situation closely, consult with our partners and peer institutions, consider the best options and communicate with the affected students and families. We expect to have more news by this weekend.” Yamamato said the association has been in touch with both undergraduates and graduate Japanese students who have family in Tokyo. Yamamato said her friends have described the situation as reminiscent of “wartime,” as Japanese citizens are being forced to ration food and water and planned power outages are blanketing the city in an effort to conserve energy. “The whole nation right now is uncertain,” Yamamato said. Everyone is now asking “how safe is it to be in Japan?”
Campus News 3
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 18, 2011
Cianci: ‘Corruption might Audience steals show at Janus debate my paycheck every week for health concerns in Wisconsin and closer have been involved’ care coverage that my union’s bar- to home. By Katherine Long Staff Writer
continued from page 1 spent time in the army before running for office in 1974. From 1975 to 1984 and from 1991 to 2002, he served as mayor of Providence, earning him the distinction of being the longest-serving mayor in Providence history. Ultimately, Cianci said, the book is not about Providence. Rather, it’s a mixture of personal anecdotes, the politics of the 1970s and 1980s and “this fabulous, wonderful life of meeting so many different types of people.” Cianci began by recalling that in the 1970s, the city of Providence was in “dire straits.” Though its history was rich, Cianci said, its future prospects could not have been dimmer. Running as the Republican candidate in a Democratically dominated state, Cianci thought he could do better. To appreciative laughter, Cianci admitted that at the time he took office, he knew as much about being mayor as he did about flying a 747 or performing brain surgery. In other words — nothing. “If I knew what it took to be mayor in 1974, I don’t think I would have voted for myself,” he said. Things were hectic from the start. On the night of Cianci’s inauguration, several monkeys escaped from the zoo, and the police department phoned their new mayor, looking for advice. “Do what you normally do,” Cianci recalled telling the police. “What do I know about how monkeys escape from the zoo?” Cianci emphasized that his time in office was centered on three priorities — social work, risk-taking and entrepreneurship. Among other things, the former mayor spoke to his role in rerouting the train tracks, forcing banks to provide food stamps and getting Nordstrom to invest in the Providence Place mall. While taking questions from the audience, Cianci also addressed the gaping $180 million two-year budget deficit Providence is currently facing. “It isn’t a matter of philosophy any longer,” he said emphatically, “It’s a matter of necessity. You’ve got to make the cuts.” Cianci did not deny abuse of his mayoral power, a topic he speaks about openly in his book. In response to a constituent request, Cianci said, he prevented B.A. Dario from demolishing Loew’s State Theater. “Corruption might have been involved there,” he said, adding that it was not a phenomenon unique to his own mayoral history. “There’s corruption in the city of Providence today, yesterday and
it’ll probably be there tomorrow,” Cianci said. “Anybody who doesn’t think it exists is crazy.” Cianci later offered to make Dario the official artistic consultant to the city of Providence with a salary of $20,000 a year to make up for the $40,000 that Dario claimed he was owed. The theater owner demanded $25,000, and Cianci agreed. Why? Because he was the mayor. “Now that’s what I should have gone to jail for,” he said to one of the loudest laughs of the night, “Not that other stuff.” In the aptly named 2002 “Operation Plunder Dome,” Cianci was indicted on 27 charges and cleared of all but one — racketeering, or the conspiracy to run the city as a criminal enterprise. “I will always maintain my innocence,” he said of the charge. After spending four years in the Federal Correction Institute Fort Dix, the former mayor spoke authoritatively on jail life. One of the most important things that he kept in mind, Cianci said, was that you have to do your time. It does not help to think about what you could be doing or where else you could be. Cianci said he never had any problems during his four years in the federally funded prison. Still, he recalled the first day of his incarceration, the official start to his sentence following “orientation,” as being the worst of his life. Some of his fellow inmates were murderers — as far as he was concerned, he was there for trying to gain membership to the University Club. When Cianci tried to gain admission to the invitationonly club and was denied a spot, he brought the club’s renovation requests to a standstill. Following the reading, a long line of audience members waiting for signatures and photos snaked down the hallway of Macmillan. Andrew Antar ’12, an urban studies concentrator, said he came to the lecture because he wanted a chance to see the Rhode Island icon before he graduated. “He’s the man,” Antar said. Helene Gordon, who has lived in Rhode Island for more than 70 years, said she thinks people have forgiven Cianci for the corruption because of all he did for the city. “I just think he’s a very nice man,” she said. According to Cianci, his proudest moment did not come from rebuilding Roger Williams Park, restoring the Providence Performing Arts Center or rerouting three rivers, but rather from restoring the confidence level of the city to a level most never imagined possible. “In 2002, when I left,” he added, “people were proud to say they were from Providence.”
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The atmosphere at last night’s debate on collective bargaining was at times charged and tense, as audience members shared their personal experiences to challenge the debaters — and each other. The debate, which was hosted by the Janus Forum, included an unprecedented amount of audience participation, perhaps because the topic struck close to home for many of the nearly 35 students and community members in attendance. In the shadow of the passage of a Wisconsin bill limiting collective bargaining of public unions, the debate centered around the question, “Should public unions have collective bargaining rights?” Susannah Kroeber ’11, a Herald opinions columnist, argued against collective bargaining for public unions, opposite former union organizer Benjamin Eichert ’13. Kroeber’s argument focused on the difference between public and private unions. She said that though private employers have the opportunity to “shut down or leave town” if they cannot meet their employees’ demands, government employers have no such option. “The state of Delaware can’t pick up and move to Oregon if its employees go on strike,” she said. She added that there is an inherent conflict of interest when public employees are given the right to bargain collectively. “I think it’s preposterous that you can both choose your management and then negotiate your contract with that management,” Kroeber said. Eichert, who has organized for the Service Employees International Union and the National Union for Healthcare Workers, argued that collective bargaining is a fundamental right recognized by both international organizations and the Constitution. “We can’t take a step backward,” he said. “We can’t say that while unions were great in the past, we don’t need them anymore … unions bring democracy to the workplace.” But audience members stole the show from the billed speakers, taking the debate into their own hands. One attendee made a passionate argument in favor of collective bargaining based on her knowledge of the working conditions of housekeepers employed by the University of South Carolina. “This is a high-pain job, where employees are taking painkillers just so they’re able to clean the absurd amount of rooms they need to clean in a day, and they’re working for extremely low wages,” she said. “How can you tell me that they don’t deserve the right to bargain collectively?” “That’s a tough question,” Kroeber said. “Does anyone in the audience have a rebuttal?” The debate soon broadened from a discussion of the rights of public unions to a conversation about the relative merits of unions in general. “I work in a closed-shop supermarket, and I give up two hours of
gained for. I’m 20 years old. I don’t need health care,” Steve Larrick ’11 said in response to a discussion of ‘closed shop’ contracts, in which every employee a company hires must be a member of the union. “Why am I paying for it? What is this union doing for me?” “But what about your co-workers?” audience member Gideon Leaks ’85 immediately rebutted. The enthusiasm of both debaters and audience members was overshadowed by the very real union
“Mayor Taveras has made the case that the teachers union prevented him from creating a better contract. … He says he can’t fire who he needs to fire without firing everyone,” Kroeber said. “He can’t operate within the union framework.” Leaks said he sees the Wisconsin situation as a harbinger “for the destruction of collective bargaining in general.” Eichert agreed. “Wisconsin is the reason we’re here today.”
4 Sports Friday
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 18, 2011
Squash
Self-taught squash star makes professional playing debut By Nikhil Parasher Contributing Writer
Adrian Leanza ’11.5, the topranked player on the No. 12 men’s squash team, made his professional debut at the Providence Open Tuesday. Leanza, who signed with the Pro Squash Tour in February, drew a tough opponent in his first professional match. He faced off against Bradley Ball, the tour’s top-ranked player, and lost the match in straight sets 3-0. But Leanza said before the match he was not expecting to win — he was just excited to gain experience in his debut and go up against one of the best players in the world. “I’m definitely going to lose pretty badly (against Ball). But, hopefully, I’m going to get better over the next few years,” he said. “It’s amazing — these are just the names I hear about in the squash world. The fact that I get to play (Ball) is just really incredible.” Leanza, who grew up in Denver, took up squash when he was eight. He initially picked up the sport because his dad played squash recreationally, so he grabbed a racquet and started teaching himself the sport that would eventually become his profession. “While (my dad) was playing
matches, I was really bored, so he gave me a racquet and a ball and I would just go ahead by myself,” Leanza said. “And that was when I was very young. That was like my day care, hitting by myself. I just kept going from there.” Leanza’s self-taught style is evident even today. Stuart LeGassick, Brown’s head squash coach, said Leanza is the only player he has ever seen who skips before he serves. LeGassick decided to let Leanza retain the skip despite its peculiarity. “I can see players, very experienced and very well-coached players, looking at this little skip before he serves and thinking, ‘Well, this guy surely can’t be that good,’” LeGassick said. “And then he turns around and plays remarkably well and surprises these people time after time.” Evan Besser ’11, who is a tricaptain of the men’s team along with Leanza and Ben Clayman ’11, said Leanza’s unconventionality makes him difficult to play. “He does stuff that no one else really would do on court,” Besser said. “That kind of throws off a lot of his opponents because he hits a lot of weird shots that most players who are traditionally trained are not going to hit.” Leanza’s playing style is so unique that Sean Wilkinson, the
Courtesy of Adrian Leanza
Adrian Leanza ‘11, the top-ranked member of the men’s squash team, competed in his first professional match Tuesday.
squash team’s assistant coach, distinctly remembers seeing him play when Wilkinson was an undergraduate at Bates College during a match between Bates and Brown. “I remember him just running around the court, diving everywhere,” Wilkinson said. “I think Bates won the match relatively comfortably. Adrian (Leanza) was on the court for about two hours, which for squash is a remarkable time. I remember asking Stuart
(LeGassick), you know, what this guy’s deal was.” Leanza admitted that he does not “really have the best shots or tactics or anything.” “I just get every ball back,” he said. “I’m very much about … tiring out the other player and being able to go longer than the other person.” But even as he stuck to his unusual techniques, Leanza climbed in the rankings. According to LeGassick, Leanza was ranked near 115th in the country when he was in high school. Brown usually recruits players who are in the nation’s top 30. This season, Leanza was the top-ranked player on the team. Leanza’s improvement has been so drastic that it caught Wilkinson off-guard when he joined the program as an assistant coach in 2010. Leanza did not look anything like the kid diving all over the court that Wilkinson remembered. “When I got here in the fall, and I gave my first lesson to him, I was like, ‘Are you the same kid?’” Wilkinson said. Besser also raved about his teammate’s progress. “He turned out to be … a huge surprise,” Besser said. “Over the past three years, he’s really progressed squash-wise, and he’s turned out to be a really amazing addition to our team.” Wilkinson just wishes Leanza had been able to benefit from coaching at an earlier age. “His ability to learn is unbelievable,” Wilkinson said. “If he had a real coach growing up and started playing the sport at a younger age, he’d be top 10 in the country.” Because of his unpolished tech-
nique, Leanza is forced to rely on his physical strength and fitness to beat his opponents. To stay in playing shape, Leanza spends about three hours every day training for squash. “It is his physical abilities that really make him stand out,” LeGassick explained. “Time after time, Sean (Wilkinson) would turn to me and say, ‘I’ve never worked with anybody this strong and this fit,’ and he’s worked with some of the top squash players in the world.” “He’s just so unbelievably fit that it’s such a huge advantage for him because no one else really plays with that kind of intensity and attitude on court,” Besser said. On Tuesday, Leanza’s fitness was not enough to beat Ball, who went on to win the Providence Open. But that did not stop Leanza from enjoying his professional debut. “It’s certainly a learning experience,” Leanza said. “It’s always good to play people a lot better than you. Your flaws are really exposed.” Leanza will use his professional debut experience against Ball to prepare for the New England Open, which will take place April 9-10, and the Albany Open, which will take place April 29 through May 1. Leanza, who is completing a bachelor of science in applied mathematics and two bachelor of arts, with concentrations in economics and chemistry, hopes to continue to play at the professional level after the Albany Open. “I do plan to continue playing after college,” Leanza said. “As long as I’m still improving … I’d love to keep playing.”
Sports Friday 5
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 18, 2011
When football stopped being about football ‘Famished’
By Sam Sheehan Sports Columnist
Midway through December, I sat on a bus bound for northern Maine, firmly sandwiched between a morbidly obese woman and the grimy windows of Concord Coach. The in-drive movie was the shockingly horrendous “The Back-up Plan,” so I was forced to turn to my iPhone to pass the time. Luckily, I had just downloaded the latest Bill Simmons podcast, in which he had interviewed Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis. What he said in the two-hour interview blew my mind, but can all pretty much be summed up in this quote: “It’s their team,” he said of Washington’s fans. “I might write the checks, but it’s their team.” Woah. The words every fan wants to hear out of their team owner’s mouths. Now, it’s a given that any owner would say that if they thought it would get fans on board and create more money for them, but in the interview Leonsis came off as genuine. The way he spoke of Washington, fans and winning, he sounded like a man who really believed that, with his money and position, he had an honest civic duty to create the best team for his fans. Since Leonsis took over the Caps in 1999, the team has morphed into a perennial contender at the expense of his pocketbook. I can’t stress enough that I understand Leonsis was likely using the interview as a way to monger up support, and simply saying all the right things. But still — that’s an intoxicating idea, isn’t it? The wealthy earning their money, but feeling a human and civic duty to share it? At Brown, we are often mocked
as the bleeding hearts, the hippie children stuffed with ideals and ignorance, the elitist socialists who haphazardly condemn the greed of the business sector: the liberals. Now, I don’t do politics. Entertaining a “nuh-uh”-themed conversation with someone who will cling to any point, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it supports them, is not my idea of an adult dialogue. Fox News is the most egregious offender in my opinion, but MSNBC is often just as ridiculous. No congressman hears a speech by an opposing party member and goes, “That’s a great point! I’m changing my vote to do what I believe is right. Voters and job security, be damned!” I lack the wherewithal to face that without depression creeping into every corner of my body. Hopefully, someone with more stomach than I will fix this someday. But — what happened this Friday was disgusting. For the next couple paragraphs, I’m not the cheery, joke-cracking columnist. I’m the latest in a long line of jaded fans. As the NFL’s lockout begins, there is a wave of finger-pointing from both owners and players, with each side pointing to the greed of the other. The argument is how to split nearly $1 billion in leftover revenue. The owners have cried poor and claim they need the money to help pay for things such as stadiums, which are often supplemented with a city’s tax money. Players, who get a slight majority of the cash, are not unwilling to let the owners have this money. They just want to see the 10-year financials of the clubs so they can make sure the owners need the money. Yes, everyone, the main reason why we will not have football this year is because owners refuse to hand over their ledgers. Sounds fine to me. NFL players are not sympathetic figures. When people look at players, they see cockiness and arrogance. Men who are more successful on the luck of possessing natural talent: men of the enter-
tainment industry. You will often hear grumbling about the millions that players make. Maybe that’s how the owners actually managed to turn this into an argument. But let’s look at this. These guys don’t “stumble into” the skills required of NFL athletes. These guys practice and practice and practice. Not to mention the gambles these kids take from a young age. If you are a budding NFL hopeful, you have to gamble much of your future away for that chance. If you have a good season, you have to leave college or risk hurting your own draft options. For every star, there are four young men staring at the practice squad final cut list, tears in their eyes and broken dreams around their feet. These men aren’t here through dumb luck and accident. These NFL players took serious risks. And they are still taking them. As more data on the dangers of concussions becomes apparent and NFL players continue to drop dead in their 40s, we are left to ponder: Who is really cashing in on the game? Who is really writing the costly checks? Who is the one paying? Capitalism has a place. It’s worked in our country for generations. I’m not arguing that the owners don’t deserve their money — though maybe I could. It’s when the curtain is lifted back on sports, and the ugly “money talks” philosophy rinses its greed-caked hands in the pure water of sport, that I just can’t take it anymore. Maybe I’m an idealist. Maybe I’m just the latest of Brown’s ignorant bleeding hearts. Maybe I’m just a fool. But I’m sticking to my beliefs. This labor strike stopped being about football a long time ago. It isn’t the millionaires versus the billionaires anymore. It’s about the 32 men with more money than they can spend in their lives. The 32 men who hide behind the rights given to them by capitalism to dodge the responsibilities tied to their humanity. It’s about the 32 men who look down on the
46-year-old on his deathbed and callously dismiss him as “knowing the risks.” Football is just a game. Tell that to the stadium workers who now need employment in a down market. Tell that to the would-be draft picks, who gambled everything on football and suddenly have nothing. Tell that to the bar owner outside Soldier Field in Chicago with a mortgage to pay. Tell that to the people of New Orleans who fell with Katrina only to rise with Braylon Brees, as his father held him aloft with the championship trophy. Tell it to the widowed Lisa McHale and her young sons who lost their husband and father to a drug overdose brought on by concussion symptoms. As fans, we need to remember how far the owners are going in hopes of getting more, how we fans were tossed aside and how the true colors of the owners have bubbled to the surface. When deciding between a football game and basketball or baseball game, remember this. Football isn’t about football anymore. I know I’m not going to forget. Sam Sheehan ’12 blacked out there for a second. What did I say? Talk sports with him at sam_sheehan@brown.edu or follow him on Twitter @SamSheehan.
boasts sharp script, strong acting continued from page 8 The set is wisely designed to take full use of the beautiful and state-of-the-art theater in the Granoff Center. The foreground
Arts & Culture is set up like the break room of an office, with the rest of the stage comprised of cubicles raised on different levels. Six other employee characters are in full sight of the audience as they work silently amidst the conversations between principals. These actors create a busy work atmosphere which never detracts from the dialogue or plot. “In a world where people either say way too much or way too little, ‘The Famished’ seeks to investigate the rhythms of failures,” Posner wrote in the program notes. Posner’s investigation manages to find humor, heartbreak and humanity amidst sterile and gray cubicles.
Sharp script, sharp set and heartfelt acting.
comics Cloud Buddies! | David Emanuel
Dot Comic | Eshan Mitra and Brendan Hainline
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6 Editorial & Letter diamonds & coal
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 18, 2011
to n a n d Editorial comic b y eevar i nk sdtay o n au h u e
A diamond to the “Year of China,” an initiative inspired by the University’s awareness of the importance of cultural appreciation — and the yuan’s appreciation. Coal to Spring Weekend act Das Racist. We were hoping for Das Kanye. Coal to Rhode Island Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, who said, “Right now, the reality is that what is considered to be algebra in Woonsocket may not be the same as the algebra in Westerly.” We’ve heard of cultural relativism, but mathematical relativism is taking things a bit far. Diamonds to the cities of Pawtucket and Central Falls, which have decided to integrate municipal services in an effort to increase efficiency and decrease cost. It’s nice to see the “friends with benefits” thing catch on beyond College Hill. A cubic zirconium to the student who said of the new bar Whiskey Republic, “From the looks of it on the outside, it doesn’t look like a venue that’s very conducive to DFMOs: dance floor makeouts” — that’s why there’s MDMA. A cubic zirconium to the student who said of a program that raises money to fight childhood obesity by betting on March Madness, “There are a lot of people out there that feel uncomfortable gambling with their friends. But if you turn it into a situation where they’re donating to charity, all of a sudden they feel a lot more comfortable and not like they’re dirty while doing it.” That’s all well and good, but instead of gambling, shouldn’t this insight be applied to masturbation? Coal to Mayor Angel Taveras for recommending the closure of four Providence schools. To make up for the closings, University Hall has bravely decided to open schools of engineering, business, public health and, heck, let’s say law.
quote of the day
“We are the next generation of this country’s leaders, so getting
”
involved is really important.
— Margaret Baxter ‘14 See protestors on page 1.
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letter to the editor Female CS concentrators misrepresented To the Editor: In an article published last month (“Algorithms can’t solve CS gender gap,” Feb. 16), The Herald made some gross misrepresentations of the Department of Computer Science and of the field in general. The Herald illustrates a national deficit of women in computer science by citing the computer science enrollments at Brown and other schools. There’s no arguing with the numbers, but speculating about the cause of the problem through numbers alone is an inherently misguided and error-prone approach. Thus, it’s not surprising that The Herald’s article lacked an eye-opening, fair or even accurate depiction of being a female CS student. Like many writings on this topic, the article discusses the under-representation of women in the sciences and how it can be difficult to be a woman in a field largely comprised of men. Yet it says nothing about the positive experiences of female CS students — students like us. Being a computer scientist is incredibly challenging, fun and rewarding. Despite the widely propagated stereotype that programmers are Mountain Dew-guzzling, Dorito-inhaling, antisocial hermits, our department is a close-knit group of genuinely friendly, passionate people. Between the two of us, we have been teaching assistants for nearly every incoming student over the past three years, and an overwhelming number of our students have remarked upon the department’s sense of community. When surrounded by such a welcoming atmosphere and immersed in fascinating projects, why should it matter that fellow females are few and far between? Which brings us to the question: What is it like to be a woman in CS at Brown? Honestly, being women in the department simply does not define our experiences here. In fact, the top five groups within the CS department with which we identify do not include “women in CS.” Only things like The Herald’s distorted characterization of the gender imbalance make us feel stigmatized or like outsiders. Rather than heeding a
reporter who has no personal experience as a woman in science or as a CS concentrator, but who nevertheless labels women as people fighting to belong in a field where they are underrepresented, we encourage you to consider some facts. The eight women graduating from the CS department this year have 33 total semesters of TA experience. All eight have been a TA for at least one CS class. Five have been a head TA at least once. And for the last two years, one has been a “Meta TA,” responsible for facilitating the program of 90 TAs. Additionally, three work as consultants who fix technical problems that students encounter in the computer lab. This is not to say that our department lowers its standards for women and other minorities — all eight have accepted jobs at major tech companies for next year, and all are esteemed by peers and professors alike as noteworthy department members. This substantiates our claim that being a woman isn’t a handicap — our fellow female CS students all excel and stand out as high-achievers in one way or another. There are fewer women than men in the CS department. Yet quantity and quality are not one and the same. The excellence of female students’ departmental contributions is in no way limited by the number of female students — nor is our love for the subject. Writing articles that broadcast the unflattering statistics regarding women in CS and fixate on the trials and tribulations they face, but that do not also mention their joys and successes, is a damaging and reactionary way to dishearten potential computer scientists. The two of us love what we do and want others to join us, not for the sake of boosting the numbers, but so that they can experience first-hand a subject that is uniquely exciting and rewarding. We sincerely hope that after reading this piece, no student — male or female — feels discouraged from exploring the fascinating field of CS. Nell Elliott ’11 Alexandra Schultz ’11
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Opinions 7
The Brown Daily Herald Friday, March 18, 2011
Brown deserves a sailing center By Jim Mackey Guest Columnist So you go to school in Rhode Island, “The Ocean State.” But do you ever get out on salt water? The Brown sailing team is ranked first in the Ivy League and fourth in the nation, ahead of the Navy, the Coast Guard, Merchant Marines and 230 other schools. But have you ever seen a regatta, taken out a boat to sail or even known you could learn to sail if you wanted to? Sailing at Brown is a club sport — anyone can come, and no one gets cut. It is open to recreational sailors, and as members of the crew, an experienced skipper will drive the boat while others will have the time of their lives learning to sail and race. I believe the reason so many students have missed this opportunity is because the University does not have a sailing center of its own. Brown’s sailing club formed in 1894, and the school used to have a boat house — a gift from the class of 1907. But since the boat house was destroyed in 1974, the club has had to borrow the facilities at Edgewood Yacht Club. This is an urgent issue today after the Edgewood Yacht Club burned to the water Jan. 12, and the University’s nationally ranked sailing team became homeless. It is now renting a trailer as its temporary changing facil-
ity and hosting regattas without enough space for participants to change or warm up out of the cold and rain. Yet the team is off to a great start, winning regattas despite the loss of so much of its gear, trophies and sails. Though Edgewood was a fine facility, when I was at Brown — two dozen years ago — it always felt like we were borrowing the place. There was no sign or anything at the club that said “Brown.” Using someone else’s facility to host a regatta
the coaches’ and the team’s commitment, certainly not the facilities. Consider Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ranked sixth and 14th respectively. Their sailboats and boathouse on the Charles River are prominently displayed in their brochures for prospective students. Yale, ranked eighth, recently renovated its state-of-the-art sailing facility. Stanford, ranked 12th, has a gorgeous new multi-million dollar facility. Almost all of the schools with strong sail-
With the loss of the rented space at Edgewood, the time has come to finally rebuild, after 37 years, a Brown sailing facility that everyone at our school can enjoy.
weekend did not give a good first impression to visiting clubs or prospective students, but it was certainly better than the current situation. Other schools have invested millions in building facilities to grow a sailing program, yet Brown has better sailors because it has a fantastic coach in John Mollicone and a long track record of success. It has consistently ranked in the top 10 nationally for the past 30 years because of
ing programs have their own sailing facility, but they lack the program and people who are consistently putting Brown ahead of them in regattas and national rankings. With the loss of the rented space at Edgewood, the time has come to finally rebuild, after 37 years, a sailing facility that everyone can enjoy. Over the last 115 years, thousands of students have been part of the sailing team — ecologists learning about
the power of winds and tides, engineers learning how to apply aero- and hydrodynamics, historians gaining perspective on naval conflict, biologists studying the sea and anthropologists understanding migration and coastal communities. They are all learning leadership and team dynamics while getting away from the books, out on the water and into the wind for a while. Harnessing the wind and ocean is an important experience on a planet that is 75 percent covered by water and running out of fossil fuels. I believe alums will step in to help fund a sailing center if students ask for it and if the University makes it a priority. It is time to begin a discussion of how we can finally rebuild the University’s sailing facility that was lost in 1974. The University and the Department of Athletics have been very supportive of the team in getting temporary facilities so they can continue to compete in — and hopefully win — the Ivy League, as well as a national title, this year. But it is time to look to the future. Where will Brown be sailing next year? How will it accommodate the next generation of sailors? Sailing is a big part of my life because I learned to race at Brown, and all students deserve the same opportunity. Jim Mackey ’87 is an alum from Seattle, Wash. and urges everyone to join the Friends of Brown University Sailing Facebook group. He can be reached at jim.mackey@gmail.com.
The case for infant rights By Sarah Gassel Guest Columnist Imagine for a moment that a local pediatrician’s office offers to painlessly euthanize newborns at the request of struggling mothers. Perhaps the mothers are too young, old, poor, busy, embarrassed, unstable or unprepared to raise a child. These are all potential reasons why a woman might abort her fetus — but I ask you, where do they stand when it comes to putting to death a newborn infant? The horror most feel at the practice of infanticide is the same horror felt by people who call themselves “pro-life” and who extend the idea to fetuses in the womb. In a recent column by Kathleen Braine ’11.5 (“Keeping my head down no longer,” March 4), she maligns anti-abortion protesters, defends herself against their charge that she was “hurting women” as an intern at Planned Parenthood and counters that recent Republican efforts opposed to federal funding for Planned Parenthood are hurting women. Braine paints herself as defender of the weak, working long hours for “voiceless women,” but I counter — are infants not the truly voiceless? In the womb, they are not only unheard but invisible, making it easy to ignore them in favor of a “vulnerable” mother who has been legally empowered beyond the limits of ethical behavior. Let me tell you a story. Twenty-one
years ago, a woman became pregnant with a child she could not raise. Though she had the legal right to abort her child, she did not. She gave birth to the baby on June 16, 1990 and gave her up for adoption. The child was adopted into a loving home, by parents who desired a child but could not conceive and grew up to study at Brown and ultimately, to write this article. Had my birthmother exercised control over her body at a vulnerable time, I would not be here today, annoying your
upon our hearts and minds. The government does not fund abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics, and abortions comprise a mere 3 percent of their annual services. Three percent sounds insignificant, but what if I told you that this makes up approximately a third of annual abortions in the United States? In 2009, Planned Parenthood provided abortions to 332,278 women. It is deplorable judgment when this human carnage is termed a service, equal to
While the providing of contraception, education, sexually transmitted disease testing and medical exams are good in their own right, it is difficult to praise the vision of an organization that takes away the lives of future Americans. conscience. Just as no one had the ethical right to take my life as a newborn, no one had the right to say my mother could choose whether or not I was to live while I was in the womb. Both abortion and infanticide would result in my non-existence on this earth — are they truly separate practices? I say this to give the cause a face, but I am no more deserving of life than the millions of children who are put to death by a mother’s will or a father’s pressure every year. Let us now turn to the present Planned Parenthood controversy with the gravity of the taking of human lives impressed
the service of handing a woman a pack of pills or the service of examining her breasts. What paucity of the noble progressive spirit, what twisted method of reasoning, what ignorance of the value of a human being it must take to put the taking of a life on the same footing as a lifepreserving medical procedure. Even more telling is that in 2009, there were a mere 977 referrals to adoption agencies by Planned Parenthood, compared to a medium-sized city of people prevented from being born. And now I must ask you — is Planned Parenthood working for the good of voiceless children? Is it promoting
the option of adoption as morally higher than the murder of a child? Is it giving a voice to those truly without voices? By these statistics, it is unequivocally failing in the pursuit to preserve human life, and instead complying with the hardening hearts of mothers and aiding them in the ending of their children’s lives. As long as Planned Parenthood provides abortions as a service, its high moral purpose of helping low-income women is fundamentally tarnished. If helping one person comes at the expense of another’s life, is any good accomplished? While the providing of contraception, education, sexually transmitted disease testing and medical exams are good in their own right, it is difficult to praise the vision of an organization that takes away the lives of future Americans. Were Planned Parenthood to stop providing abortions and to promote adoption as the only satisfactory solution to an inconvenient pregnancy or the heartwrenching dilemma of being unable to raise one’s own flesh and blood, my full support would be behind the organization. Until that day comes, I will continue to declare my right to be alive, hoping to convince others that every child conceived also has such a right. One cannot be too careful when it comes to human life.
Sarah Gassel ‘12 thinks it’s time for Brown students to take up the mantle of infants’ rights. She can be reached at Sarah_Gassel@brown.edu.
Daily Herald Arts & Culture the Brown
Friday, March 18, 2011
Shakespeare goes off the Green, out of control ‘Famished’
fun takes over Granoff
By Emma Wohl Senior Staff Writer
Shakespeare on the Green moves indoors this weekend to present “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged),” directed by Nicole Damari ’12 and Kirsten Ward ’12. The play attempts to condense all 37 Shakespeare plays and 154 sonnets into one night. The result is an explosion of sounds and props. There are only three characters, designed as caricatures of the actors who portray them. Becca Leeds ’12 and Trevor Olds ’14 play quintessential stereotypes of over-eager actors, and Bennett Ferris ’13 plays their eager but much-abused straight man. While Leeds and Old emote and gesticulate emphatically, Ferris mostly bumbles through his actions — he has the best of intentions but little idea of how to please his demanding cast mates. His clueless simplicity comes as a welcome relief. Leeds’ voice booms through the theater for the show’s two-hour run. It is impressive that she can stick to her character with such commitment. Her vocal styling and mock seriousness yield some of the show’s funniest moments but also begin to grate on the audience in scenes where all of the focus is on her. Olds’ delivery is more dynamic, as is his character. At times, he is as pretentious as Leeds. At others, he is an excessively eager drama student, shrieking with excitement at the possibility of getting to perform “Hamlet.” “We were very intent on trying to cast three people who had very strong presences but would preferably take their parts in very different ways,” Damari said. Olds said playing a version of himself was “the hardest thing to do acting-wise.” The set is made up of wood frames with the cast and crew’s
By ben kutner Staff Writer
Nick Sinnott-Armstrong / Herald
Becca Leeds ’12, Bennett Ferris ’13 and Trevor Olds ’14 reimagine “Titus Andronicus” as a cooking show as they condense Shakespeare’s 37 plays and 154 sonnets into two hours in “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged).”
bed sheets duct-taped to them, designed to look as though the actors had thrown it together with objects from a basement, Damari said. This cobbled-together feeling pervades other aspects of the performance. “If you guys look unfinished, that’s great,” Ward told the cast. Both directors said perfecting the comedic aspects was the most difficult part of the show. “People have such different senses of humor that it’s really hard to know what other people will think is funny,” Ward said. “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr” attempts to combat that difficulty by cramming as many jokes into every line as possible. Some fall flat, especially those thrown in to update the play or make it Brown-friendly. No one needs to name-drop Sarah Palin,
and the fact that modern culture and media is a department at Brown really should have stopped amusing us a long time ago. Jokes involving actors vomiting on the audience grew similarly tiresome. But the bulk of the show is very funny. It is tailor-made for theater geeks, but the variety of jokes promises something for everyone. Particular highlights include a slideshow illustrating the characters’ super-comedy — a mash-up of all 16 Shakespearian comedies — and the histories interpreted as a multi-sided football game, with the actors going after a crown instead of a ball. Most of Shakespeare’s plays get a few words’ mention. “Hamlet,” on the other hand, gets multiple run-throughs. On the first goaround, it’s a fairly standard — but rushed, cut down, irreverent and sometimes completely ad-
libbed — interpretation. Subsequent versions descend deeper and deeper into madness, until the cast is doing nothing but screaming meaningless monosyllables. By the end, they collapse on top of each other on the floor. It’s hard to imagine them recreating this level of energy for a weekend full of performances. “The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr” is running March 18-20 at Kassar House Fox Auditorium.
“The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr” comes in the midst of a season filled with re-imaginings of the Bard’s work. It is certainly not, as Ferris said “dry, boring, vomitless Shakespeare.” It is not high-brow, intellectual or elegant either. But it is deeply amusing.
“Rabbit Hole” explores cosmos, adheres to screen cliches By Suzannah Weiss Arts & Culture Columnist
“Rabbit Hole” is a movie about choices. It is about how even the most arbitrary decisions can destroy a life, how people choose different means to attain the same ends and how the universe chooses events for inexplicable reasons. Becca (Nicole Kidman, nominated for a best leading actress Academy Award for the role) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart) are grieving for their son in opposite ways: he with closeness, she with distance. A power struggle ensues through each of their neuroses. Becca tries to sell the family house and cleans obsessively to erase the memories of her son. Howie obsessively watches home videos and drags Becca to group therapy. She will have none of the group’s religious mumbo jumbo — if God wanted another angel, she asks,
“Why didn’t he just make another angel? He’s God!” Instead, she seeks the company of the high school student who accidentally hit her son with his car. Rejecting the warmth and cushioning her husband seeks, Becca favors cold, hard facts. She wants causes, not reasons. When her son’s remorseful killer presents a stunning art project about parallel universes, she finally finds a theory that satisfies her. Disillusioned with a God who plays dice with the universe, Becca finds in science — or pseudoscience — a comfort that many find in religion. Rather than seeing her adversity as a crucial part of a grand plan, she sees it as a completely random event with many alternatives coexisting somewhere out there. There are infinite copies of her son elsewhere. She just happens to be experiencing the chance world where he dies.
Movies about such tragic loss work against themselves by trying to convey emotions most can’t imagine unless they’ve been through similar experiences themselves. The plot line borders on cliche, and it can’t help it. Some exhausted topics simply inhere in the theme: the existential crisis spurred by undeserved tragedy, the tension that death creates within a family, the faint light at the end of the tunnel of grief. These fortune cookie narratives seem profound and unique when experienced up close but terribly trite and vague from afar. But I’ll excuse this because it’s a real part of the experience that could not be excluded. And that’s something I generally appreciate director John Cameron Mitchell for: depicting realistic people, not cookie-cutter characters. This is often at the expense of the conventional Hollywood illusions that all people worth film-
ing are just naturally glamorous, that normal lives belong in soap operas and that all relationships between men and women inevitably lead to romance. Actually, “Rabbit Hole” was a bit disappointing with this last trope. A poignant platonic relationship forms between Howie and a woman in his grieving group. Then, it abruptly threatens to become an affair — whether it actually does is unclear. They have no chemistry and no explanation besides his marital problems and her recent separation from her husband, which typically add up to adultery — at least if the equation plays out on screen. “Rabbit Hole” will be available on DVD April 19.
I’d recommend you go see it in three out of five parallel universes.
Whoever said art is dead would be confused by “The Famished,” a new play written and directed by Max Posner ’11 and the first to be staged in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. “The Famished” is a testament to the enthusiasm and excitement which a young playwright and cast can offer. Set entirely in a corporate office, the play follows a worker named Jefferson (Zach Segel ’13). Upon learning his home is infested with bedbugs, Jefferson sleeps in the office each night after the other workers leave. Each day, he is bombarded by criticism and mired in competition from his long-time friend and coworker, Ryan (Sam Alper ’11.5), a devious character who munches on the leftover food of workers when they get fired from the company. When the two men learn that the head position will soon be available, the relationship becomes fraught with tension and confrontation. “I’ve been writing the play for two and a half years,” Posner said. “I was interested initially in the rhythm of how men talk to each other.” Segel said the most difficult aspect of playing Jefferson was being on stage for the entire time. “This is the first outright lead (I’ve had),” said Segel, who has previously appeared in five plays at the University. Segel’s performance was extremely convincing, and his best moments were in his fantastically awkward conversations with his co-worker and love-interest Rebecca (Leah Cogan ’12). His nervous bumbling and stammering antics when he talks to her create an air of tension that everyone in the audience can feel, made all the more tangible by Cogan’s excellent reciprocation. Cogan’s performance as a beautiful young office worker who finds something endearing in Jefferson is exciting to watch, and she convincingly conveys Rebecca’s frustration and anxiety when the relationship falls into tumult. Another notable performance comes from Lily Mathews ’12 as Ryan’s wife Amy, who approaches her role with a ferocious voice and a penetrating stare towards the audience. Mathews described the experience of performing a new play as an exploratory process, adding that “The Famished” focuses on the different levels of relationship. The script is quick-witted and often snarky. “I hope it’s funny,” Posner said. “It’s also very dark.” The dialogue supports the plot well, and there is little drag. continued on page 5