BREAK DAY CHANGES:
• Add a two-day break after President’s Day and lengthen Spring Break by two days, OR
• Add a week-long break coinciding with President’s Day and delay Spring Break END-OF-YEAR CHANGES:
• Shorten exam week from 13 days to eight days, AND
• Shorten Senior Week from nine days to three days
By ERIN ELLIS Sun Staff Writer
days
The University’s Calendar Committee is proposing to add four vacation days to the spring semester and shorten exam week in an effort to reduce student stress, the committee’s chair Prof Jeff Doyle, plant biology, confirmed Wednesday
Aside from adding a day off for Labor Day last year, the University has not made changes to its calendar since 1984, according to Doyle
To separate long periods of instruction, the committee will request that the University make one of two possible adjustments to the calendar: One change would add a twoday break after President’s Day weekend and lengthen spring break by two days The other would insert a weeklong break coinciding with President’s Day in February and delay spring break President’s Day is celebrated annually the third week of every February
Last week, the committee shared its preliminary plans with senior staff, campus assemblies and deans After hearing feedback from the Cornell community, the committee will submit its final recommendations to the Faculty Senate by the end of the semester, according to Doyle
We are open to feedback, but we want people to read the rationale behind our suggestions,” said Prof Kate Walsh, hotel management, who is vice-chair of the committee
“I think [adding a break] in the spring should be one of the [University’s] first priorities.”
“I think [adding a break] in the spring should be one of the [University’s] first priorities,” Dean of Students Kent Hubbell ’67 said Committee members prefer adding a two-day break to the calendar, as many students “do not have the financial means to return home for a week in February,” Doyle said Additionally, a long weekend in the spring would also give graduate students an opportunity to “ get away from campus to do extra research,” according to Chris Heckman, liaison for the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly to the calendar committee
By KAITLYN KWAN Sun Staff Writer
Mingling with tech startup executives to plan mentorships for future students, Cornell administrators are fusing business with its technology-based initiatives in New York City
Specializing in “technology commercialization,” the application of technological ideas into the marketplace, Cornell’s new tech campus in New York City will require its graduate students to take courses in business and entrepreneurship, according to Prof Daniel Huttenlocher, computing and information sciences, and recently named vice provost and dean of the tech campus
Each student will be paired with an industry mentor with a background in entrepreneurship While no concrete program has been definitively created yet, many companies have already given advice to the University on how to design one that would best expose students to work with businesses, Huttenlocher said
“We feel that connectivity to the business community is really an important part of this whole commercialization focus in New York City,” said Prof Lance Collins dean of the College of Engineering There s a certain learning by doing aspect to commercialization It plugs people into others who are really knowledgeable about how to succeed as an entrepreneur ”
The committee may also shorten exam week by five days, as well as Senior Week a week-long series of activities hosted before Commencement from nine days to three
By DAN TEMEL Sun Staff Writer
An alumna donated $750,000 to create new scholarships for students studying agricultural sciences, an interdisciplinary major created in 2006 in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
The gift, part of a larger $1 million donation to CALS, was set aside by Marcia Stofman Morton ’61 The gift was a bequest, meaning it will not be realized until her death, according to Ronald Van Ormer, major gifts officer for the CALS Alumni Development office
Morton’s gift was the second-largest donation in the history of the agricultural sciences major, after Richard C Call’s ’52 $1 million donation to the college in 2010
“The funds are going to be primarily used for scholarships to bring in top-notch students who are in need of financial aid and to students from New York State from more rural areas that are good fits for the major,” said Prof Antonio DiTommaso, director of agricultural sciences
Students, who will learn business skills in the classroom while applying them outside, will be given the opportunity to receive feedback about their work immediately, rather than after they graduate, Huttenlocher said Additionally, he said, Cornell NYCTech’s focus on application, rather than just theory, will prepare students more for jobs after they graduate
Today
Friday, February 24, 2012
Cornell Timescapes: Fine Art Photography by Thibault Roland
8 a m - 5 p m , Mann Library, Mann Gallery
CRP Q&A Session With Mi Shih
2 p m , 208 W Sibley Hall
Anthropology Colloquium With Matthew Erie
3:30 - 6 p m , 215 McGraw Hall
Brazilian Carnival
9 p m , Big Red Barn
Tomorrow
Medieval Studies Student Colloquium
8:30 a m - 4:30 p m , AD White House
Feline Follies
1 - 5 p m , Shurman Hall Atrium
Guest Chefs Presents: Ron Duprat 6 p m , 180 Statler Hall
Step Across the Border
7:30 p m , Willard Straight Theater
News, “Chipotle Opens to Rave Reviews,” Wednesday
Speaking about the crowd for Chipotle s grand opening in Ithaca
Somebody must have said there was free food so half of Cornell and probably half of [Ithaca College] are here They’re all waiting in line to pay for food in a Chipotle I’ve been to a Chipotle in Virginia and it is good, but I wouldn’t wait an hour for Chipotle ” Elayne Weiner, Ithaca resident
Science, “Learning Hub,” Wednesday
Speaking about the multi-disciplinary benefits of Cornell’s new tech campus
The hubs are more closely tied to industry than traditional academic departments In addition to being able to have a psychologist a computer scientist and an engineer working on a problem you also have this idea of co-located entrepreneurs and industry Prof Jeff Hancock, information sciences
Arts, “Scenes From a Loudness War,” Thursday
Speaking about the changing trends in American music
Volume has been an integral part of pop music’s visceral thrill since the very beginning Amplified sound is, at its core, a beautiful thing; when done right, it shakes your very soul to the core There are those though who contend that pop music as technology has advanced is favoring volume over dynamic range
James Rainis ’14
News, “C U Honors Police Dog for ‘Hearts he Touched,’” Thursday
Speaking about the death of Sabre, Cornell’s first police dog
There are no words to describe the inseparable bond between a canine and his handler
CUPD Officer Kevin Noterfonzo
By DENNIS LIU Sun Staff Wr ter
In a collaboration with Finger Lakes
C o m m u n i t y C o l l e g e , t h e C o r n e l l
Cooperative Extension is working to set up a vineyard near Seneca Lake to conduct viticulture research and promote educational programs
Expected to break ground in early May the vineyard –– located 30 miles from Ithaca in Yates County –– will host
re s e a r c h e r s f r o m C C E s Fi n g e r L a k e s Grape Program, as well as community college students, according to Paul Brock M S ’07, instr uctor of viticulture and wine technology at FLCC
Bro c k s a i d h e w a s a p p ro a c h e d by Hans Walter-Peterson, a viticulture specialist at CCE, to establish the vineyard “ We wanted a place where we could do some field trials where we know the histor y of the vineyard,” Walter-Peterson said “It’s nice to have your own place where you know that kind of consistency from year to year ”
At the vineyard, researchers from the Finger Lakes Grape Program will work in f i e l d e x p e r i m e n t s i n v o l v i n g v i n e y a r d nutrition, plant growth regulators and hormonal treatments to tr y to modify plant features such as the size of clusters of grapes, Hans-Peterson said St u d e n t s f ro m F LC C w i l l a l s o b e involved in the setting up and maintaining the vineyard, giving them the opportunity to obser ve University researchers in their studies
Danticat’s deliver y
“It’s good for them to get familiar with how all these different practices work, as people who are going to be working in wineries and vineyards in the f u t u r
, ”
good training for them You can only learn so much sitting in a classroom ”
Hans-Peterson said that students who finish their classes at the community college will be eligible to transfer their credits to Cornell’s own viticulture program
Between 20 and 25 students are expected to begin working at the vineyard by the summer, according to Brock
“A vineyard like this is just going to be a tremendous asset for both of our missions in my case, training students, and in Hans’ case, training the industr y, ” Brock said “Not only do my students get to see the basics of what they need to do, they get to see the more advanced things that Hans is doing ”
B
p
between CCE and FLCC would be beneficial for both groups
Our program here at FLCC is really ne w, and we didn’t have any of our own vineyards,” he said “It worked out that we both needed vineyards with ver y similar attributes that approximate a commercial vineyard and has several small
demonstration purposes
The initial establishment of the vineyard is being funded by a por tion of a $200,000 grant given to CCE by the G
g Authority, according to Walter-Peterson
MacArthur Fellow Edwidge Danticat reads from her work as part of the Creative Writing Program’s spring reading series on Thursday
Brock said that the University and FLCC will evenly split the annual financial costs of r unning the vineyard A c c o r
Finger Lakes Grape Program and FLCC
Anthony Road Wine Company to obtain a four-acre plot of land where they will eventually create a two-acre vineyard
“ The vineyard right now is a field with a lot of rocks,” Brock said F L C C c u r
vineyard management and wine-making
Although the viticulture program is only in its second year of operation, Brock
said it is beginning to attract students from wine-making regions around the Finger Lakes
He also expressed hope that the program will encourage professionals in the industr y to become involved “ We’ve had a couple winemakers who have been in the industr y for 30-plus years taking a fe w classes with us, ” he said “I think, as time goes on, we’ll get more people that are in the industr y coming to take courses with us We’re just now at the ver y early stages of that ”
Dennis Liu can be reached at dliu@cornellsun com
By TINA AHMADI Sun Contributor
Big Red sports teams: You have some competition
Cornell and University of Chicago researchers have created a robot that can not only shoot hoops, but also pick up coins, screws, springs, cups and more
The project that led to the robot’s creation was funded by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency While the robot was originally intended for military use, researchers ended up creating a multipurpose device with athletic capabilities
John Amend grad, one of the lead researchers on the team, said in an email that the inspiration for their work came while they were exploring “granular jamming,” or the manipulation of an object to act as “ a crowbar at one moment, and then as a stool soon after (or any number of other uses) ” The researchers ended up designing a gripper, a device capable of picking up objects
“I think our work with these new grippers is an example of how research can lead to interesting discoveries that [one] did not originally set out to find,” Amend said
Amend also said that the performance of the gripper has been significantly improved and diversified since it was first created a few years ago
“Prior to this work, we were unaware of any robot grippers that are able to shoot or throw objects a comparable distance with similar accuracy, he said
While previous grippers have had difficulties picking up a large number of objects because they were mechanical arms, this new gripper is not only cost efficient, but also more effective The “universal jamming gripper” looks like a balloon filled with sand Air is pumped into or released from the balloon to allow it to pick up and throw objects, according to an article published by Wired UK
Though this technology did not fulfill its original military pur-
poses, researchers are trying to further develop the gripper and determine how to best use the device for DARPA Amend said that they hope to eventually develop robots that will be able to locomote or recover from damage
The publishers and innovators of the recent research –– Amend and Prof Hod Lipson, mechanical and aeroscape engineering, and Eric Brown, Nicholas Rodenberg and Heinrich Jaeger from the University of Chicago ––have been cited in several international sources for their work
Although it may seem far removed from the researchers’ original plans for the device, the robot might someday make an appearance at a basketball game at Newman Arena
“I cannot picture it,” said Errick Peck ’13, a forward on the Cornell Varsity men ’ s basketball team “Although it may be interesting to watch ”
tta6@cornell
By THE DARTMOUTH
In a petition posted online on Saturday, approximately 90 alumn
d e m a n d e d that the College a d m i n i s t r a t i o n increase efforts to curb hazing o n c a m p u s A m o n g o t h e r demands, those s i g n i n g t h e “A l u m n i Pe
n Against Hazing and Violence pledged to cease donations to the College until more is done to
address hazing
Inspired by a letter written by faculty members that was published as an advertisement in The Dartmouth on Feb 2, the alumni petition seeks more formal assurance that “all organizations accept Da r t m o u t h’s c o re va l u e s o f respect ” and demands that the C o l l e g e f o r m a n i n d e p e n d e n t commission to investigate hazing on campus
The petition claims that the pledge terms of Greek organizations prevent students joining the groups from adequately engaging
in academics The petition also states that hazing “institutionali ze [ s ] b i n
” w h i c h “often enables widespread alcoholism” and “encourage[s] a culture of violence
Ad d i t i o n a l l y, t h e p
t i t i o n c h a r g e s t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n o f President Jim Yong Kim with ignoring the prevalence of hazing on campus and instead responding to accusations with “evasive PR strategies and outright lies ”
This article originally appeared in The Dartmouth on Feb 21
On Dec 19, Cornell won the right to build an applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City
The campus, named Cornell NYCTech, is expected to be completed over the course of 30 years
Professors are great at coming up with projects and problems that help test your understanding of the fundamentals ” Huttenlocher said “But problems in the real world often have very different aspects to them than the kinds of problem sets or projects or assignments that a professor would come up with ”
To implement these changes, Prof Joseph Halpern, chair of the computer science department, said he has already polled the faculty in his department to gauge their interest in the tech campus He said he has received several positive responses
Prof Ken Birman, computer science, was one faculty member who expressed interest in working at the campus in the future
“I’m sure I’ll teach there from time to time, although nobody has any concrete plans right now, ” Birman said “We’re already starting to think about how, starting a year
from now, we re going to be offering courses down there
Birman added that “ every department has been having these discussions” about hiring for the tech campus
According to Birman, only Ithaca faculty members who are tenured will be able to teach at the tech campus
“The kinds of professors that we hire really need to be full professors here,” Birman said “To give people a proper mentoring environment, it’s very important that they not be at arm ’ s length So the feeling is that we ’ re going to be hiring very, very strong tenure-leveled people there ”
Aside from hiring faculty, the University is also looking to lease a building in Manhattan until construction on Roosevelt Island is complete According to Huttenlocher, current Ithaca-based graduate students and some undergraduate seniors will be able to engage in city-based programs starting next academic year Students from outside Cornell, on the other hand, will not be accepted or enrolled until the tech campus programs have been accredited, he said
While the two campuses will have distinct curriculums, Halpern said he is exploring the possibility of streaming lectures to connect the two campuses
“The students here could gain by having access to someone in New York City,” he said “I’m hoping that
there could be courses that aren t just here or just there, but that are in both places And so we would also be gaining from the presence of the tech campus directly ”
Collins said that administrators must also consider how to preserve the unity of the campuses as they develop the tech campus
“The most important thing is that these two campuses feel like Cornell,” Collins said “Even though they have different missions and different sorts of activities going on, if we really build this strong bond with lots of idea flow and a lot of people flow and it feels like a single entity, then we’ll have this ideal complement ”
“If we ’ re successful, you ’ re going to think about New York City as a global center of technology and the role that Cornell has played in helping that out, ” Huttenlocher said “But, of course, that’s a 20 year goal, so we ’ ve still got time ” Collins, echoing Huttenlocher, expressed his hopes for the city s future
“We’re opening up a new avenue for engineering to impact society,” Collins said
Kaitlyn Kwan can be reached at kkwan@cornellsun com
DONATION Continued from page 1
In addition to attracting highperforming students, the donation will help support students completing the agricultural sciences’ mandatory internship program, DiTommaso said DiTommaso said he is looking forward to easing the financial burden on students traveling to complete this requirement
We are all kids looking to go back to farms, and when all your work needs to go back into the land, you ’ re not going to have the resources to easily pay back your student loans,” said Elias Barber ’13, an agricultural sciences major DiTommaso also saw the donation as a strong endorsement of the newly created major, which boasts an enrollment of around 100 students
“This raises the profile of the major,” he said I am glad donors and alumni feel a major like this can be supported This is also a reflection of what they feel about the kinds of students that we are training We hope students will come back in time and remember these gifts ”
DiTommaso also hopes to allocate money toward funding more seminar series and guest speakers, as well as subsidizing trips to industry conferences so students will not have to pay out of pocket to attend them
“I often say I wish I had money, both as a student and as an administrator, to go to conferences, and a gift like this has a big impact more than a lot of people think,” DiTommaso said
The remaining $250 000 will
be used to add a summer internship position at the Cornell Plantations and help fund research at the Laboratory of Ornithology
“Marcia Morton has supported Cornell Plantations for many years, and we are deeply grateful for her foresight and generosity in making this commitment in her estate plan,” Donald A Rakow MPS ’77 Ph D ’87 director of Cornell Plantations, said Rakow expressed appreciation for Morton’s gift, saying that Cornell Plantations’ student internship program gives students “ an opportunity to learn new skills, through their assignments, their interaction with our staff members and from each other ” In turn, he said, staff at the Plantations gain from “the energy, creativity and knowledge that each student brings to their internship ”
Irby Lovette, associate director for academic affairs at the Laboratory of Ornithology, said in a University press release that Morton’s donation will support a rising generation of students
“We are always stretching our financial support to cover this incredible cadre of young scientists, so this new support will definitely allow us to help additional students accomplish great things,” Lovette said John Russell ’13, president of Agricultural Sciences Ambassadors, called Morton’s gift “ an encouragement to innovate in our field, keep exploring and find applications for agriculture that improve our world ”
Dan Temel can be reached at dtemel@cornellsun com
Suppor ters of the second option said it might be more favorable to faculty and staff whose children would other wise be unsuper vised throughout the week of President’s Day, as public schools typically have this week off This alternative creates fe wer prob-
l e m s w i t h s c h e d u l i n g l a b p e r i o d s , University Registrar Cassie Dembosky said
B e s i d e s b r e a k i n g u p t h e s p r i n g semester, the committee which is “ ver y concerned with student stress ” is considering ways to reduce the number of back-to-back exams student take, according to Walsh Sharon Dittman, associate director of community relations at Gannett Health Ser vices, said that the committ e e , w h i c h h o p e s t o r e d u c e s t r e s s caused by exam scheduling, is par t of t h e Un i v e r s i t y ’ s c o m p r e h e n s i v e approach to suicide prevention
Since the 1980s, the registrar has used an inefficient” algorithm based on “when classes met rather [than] students’ actual schedules” to determine exam dates Doyle said Under the proposed changes, exam schedules schedules would be organized around students’ schedules to reduce students’ risk of having back-to-back exams, according to Dembosky
T h e c o m m i t t e e a l s o h o p e s t o address concerns about the length of the 13-day exam period by condensing it into eight days, according to Doy l e In s t e a d o f b e g i n n i n g o n a
Wednesday and concluding the following Friday, exam week would span f r o m a Mo n d a y t o t h e f o l l o w i n g
Tuesday
While there will still be exams held on Saturday and Sunday, professors
c
y, which will be designated a “Mental He a
Da
Raps ’12, president of the Student Assembly
“My feeling is that having a study day in the middle of the exam schedule will be helpful, but we won ’ t know until we tr y it out, ” Hubbell said T
weekend exams might inter fere with
Ye
emphasized that the revised system would reflect Cornell s non-denominational” status
If adopted, the shor ter exam schedule would add vacation days to the calendar a change that would make adding an extra spring break feasible
The committee is also vetting recommendations regarding commencement, Senior Week and staff holidays
Moving commencement to an earlier date, such as Memorial Day weekend, was a “ non-star ter, and because of that, commencement is our anchor for the entire calendar,” Doyle said
“ We would have loved to be able to give faculty and students a head star t on internships, jobs and research for the summer, but we can ’ t, ” he said
There was less agreement in the committee on Senior Week, a topic that Dembosky said is hotly debated among seniors and staff Senior Week i
spring term exams and commence-
seniors enjoy a number of activities hosted by student volunteers
While most seniors prefer having a
long Senior Week as their final sendoff from the University, Dembosky said that many faculty members oppose
We
believe that it encourages “excessive student drinking ”
The committee recommends shor tening Senior Week to “address concerns for student safety,” she said
The registrar’s ne w algorithm for d
attempt to ensure that seniors do not have exams on the final Monday and Tuesday of exam week thereby cre-
“d
We
k , according to the committee’s proposal
Raps said that although she was initially hesitant about shor tening Senior Week, she now suppor ts the committee ’ s recommendation
“At first I was worried that if Senior Week were shor tened, we would be cr ushing so many activities into such a shor t amount of time that we would graduate without making the most out of our final days here,” Raps said “But then I realized this wouldn’t really be
exams that week ”
Another advantage to shor tening Senior Week, Raps said, is that “ nonseniors will be around, so seniors will really be able to make the most out of the week ”
The committee which will submit its proposals to the Faculty Senate for approval is not involved in implementing the calendar modifications Doyle predicts that proposals approved by the Faculty Senate will go into effect gradually
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) In the final months before she resigned as Alaska’s governor, Sarah Palin displayed growing fr ustrations over deteriorating relationships with state lawmakers and their perceived effor ts to “lame duck” her administration, along with outrage over ethics complaints that she felt frivolously targeted her and which prompted her to write: I can t take it any more
The details are included in more than 17,000 emails released Thursday by state officials nearly three and half years after the records were first sought by The Associated Press and several other ne ws organizations
By the spring of 2009, the emails show, Palin was regularly butting heads with lawmakers of both par ties over her absences from the Capitol and over her picks for vacancies in the state Senate and her own cabinet The emails she sent to staff illustrate Palin's growing suspicion that those legislators were seeking to undermine her administration by harping on how often she was away from Juneau, the state capitol
She asked her aides to tally how many days she was out of Alaska in 2008 The staff came up with 94 days, but 10 less if you count travel days when she was in the state par t of the day; the absences included all of October and most of September while she was on the campaign trail as the GOP vice presidential candidate
“It’s unacceptable, and there must be push back on their attempts to lame duck this administration, Palin wrote to her top aides on April 9, 2009 “ That’s only going to get worse as they tr y to pull more bs and capitalize on me being out of the capitol building for 36 hours,” she wrote aides
Palin also asked her aides to see if they could hold cer tain legislators feet to the fire and hold votes on her nominees She wrote words of encouragement to Wayne Anthony Ross, her nominee for attorney general, telling him to “ stay strong ”
“ Those who want to turn this into a kangaroo cour t will soon see you confirmed as Alaska’s AG,” Palin wrote Ross was not confirmed, the first ever cabinet-level candidate rejected by the Alaska Legislature
SALT L AKE CIT Y (AP) A ne w claim has sur faced that the Mormon church has posthumously baptized a Holocaust victim, this time Anne Frank
The allegations come just a week after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apologized when it was brought to light that the parents of Holocaust sur vivor and Je wish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized by church members at temples in Arizona and Utah in late Januar y
Researcher Helen Radkey, a former Mormon who revealed the Wiesenthal baptisms, said this week she found Frank's name in proxy baptism records dated Feb 18, showing the ritual was performed in the Santo Domingo Temple in the Dominican Republic
The Mormon church almost immediately issued a statement, though it didn’t mention Frank by name
“ The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism,” the Salt Lake City-based church said “It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church's policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention ”
Church officials did not return telephone calls and emails from The Associated Press on Thursday A spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam declined comment Larr y Bair, the president of the Mormon temple of Santo Domingo, said Thursday he had looked into the repor ts but was unable to verify that Frank had been baptized
If it did occur, Bair told the AP, “it was a mistake ”
SPOKANE, Wash (AP)
GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Thursday a U S apology to Afghan authorities for burned Qurans on a military base was “astonishing” and undeserved Gingrich lashed out at President Barack Obama for the formal apology after copies of the Muslim holy book were found burned in a garbage pit on a U S air field earlier in the week
Obama s apology was announced Thursday morning A few hours later, news organizations reported that an Afghan soldier had killed two U S troops and wounded others in retaliation for the Quran burning
Campaigning in Washington state, Gingrich said Afghan President Hamid Karzi owes the U S an apology for the shootings
There seems to be nothing that radical Islamists can do to get Barack Obama’s attention in a negative way and he is consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the United States period, Gingrich said
“And, candidly, if Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, doesn’t feel like apologizing then we
should say good bye and good luck, we don’t need to be here risking our lives and wasting our money on somebody who doesn’t care ”
Even before Gingrich’s comments, White House spokesman Jay Carney sought to counter any criticism of the president’s apology
“It is wholly appropriate, given the sensitivities to this issue, the understandable sensitivities,” Carney told reporters traveling to Miami with the president on Air Force One “His primary concern as commander in chief is the safety of the American men and women in Afghanistan, of our military and civilian personnel there And it was absolutely the right thing to do ”
Later Thursday, Gingrich planned to head to a rally across the border in Idaho, one of the 10 states that votes on March 6 He is also spending Friday in Washington state, which holds caucuses a week from Saturday
“You are the last big event before Super Tuesday,” he told a gathering of 600 Republicans in Kennewick, Wash “You have a huge chance to change things ”
NEW BRUNSWICK, N J (AP) It’s not just what a former Rutgers University student did or didn’t do that’s at issue in his trial on charges he used a webcam to spy on his roommate s liaison with another man, just days before the roommate killed himself
It’s also what he was thinking Jur y selection was completed Thursday and opening arguments are expected Friday in Dharun Ravi’s hate crime trial which could answer at least some of the questions about the circumstances of a death that sparked a national conversation about bullying on young gays and the emerging issue of cyberbullying
The case gained widespread attention in September 2010 when Ravi’s roommate, Tyler Clementi, killed himself days after the intimate encounter Experts following the case say that like many criminal cases, it seems more complicated than it did at first
“One of the reasons the politicians jumped in so quickly is that there is a growing national concern over cyberbullying and harassment,” said Joel Reidenberg a law professor at New York's Fordham University who studies online law “This appeared on first blush to be a very crystalizing example It became an opportunity for statements about the problem ”
Independent Since 1880 129TH EDITORIAL BOARD
BENJAMIN D GITLIN 12 Editor in Chief
Snow, clouds and a perpetually hiding sun welcomed me back to Cornell about a month ago The grim look of campus should have served as a warning as I looked out the bus window patiently waiting to clamber out It had been a nearly eight-hour bus ride coming from Bethesda, Md and I could not wait to take my first step onto Cornell’s typically beautiful, yet currently dreary, campus Due to my eagerness to resume my education, I failed to heed the warning of the ominous weather, and like the sun I should have ran and hid behind the clouds I went to sleep unknowing of the horrors
ized that although I might want to join every club, every club might not want to accept me I took the initiative to narrow my choices down to the clubs that I have a deep-seated interest in, which are also somewhat related to the field of law I have decided to try to join the Minority Undergraduate Law Society, the mail center at the Robert Purcell Community Center and The Cornell Daily Sun
As I stated before, I chose these organizations as a result of both my interests and their relevance to my (hopefully) future profession MULS is obviously related to law, however one may wonder why I would want to join it
RITTER 13
NEVINS 12
AARON SAGE ’13
ALYSSA TSUCHYIA 12
ELIZA LaJOIE 13
RUBY PERLMUTTER 13
With Super Tuesday fast approaching one lucky Sun reporter had the chance to catch up with founders Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White to get their thoughts on the election season
THE SUN: The election season is heating up and we ’ re less than two weeks away from Super Tuesday What are your predictions?
EZRA CORNELL: I believe it’s actually on a Monday this year Enough with the gotcha questions! I know there’s only one candidate on the ballot this year You folks over at The Sun might want to try reading your own rag once in a while
A D WHITE: Oh, Ezra, ever the Cornellian I believe our friend was referring to the run for the White House, not the Student Assembly
EZRA: Honestly, that other election completely slipped my mind with all the intrigue surrounding this year ’ s S A race The Republicans might have Newt Gingrich’s three wives and an outbreak of Santorum, but our student government here in Ithaca is ripe with scandal and controversy
A D : If by “scandal and controversy ” you mean crossing off a name on a signature sheet and replacing it with your own
EZRA: This is outrageous! Everybody knows it’s okay to cheat so long as you are the sweetest girl in the world I thought I made that clear in the Academic Integrity policy
SUN: I appreciate all of the enthusiasm about the S A , but let’s move on to the Republican primary
EZRA: How can we gloss over such an important conversation about this University’s student representation? This was unquestionably the week’s top story, I read The Sun every day!
A D : Ezra stop trying to win over our faceless moderator He’s just a lowly Sunnie And for the record, the arrival of Chipotle was clearly the biggest story this week
EZRA: Oh my God! I love Chipotle When did this happen? I had no idea
A D : On that note I would like to apologize to the owner of a gray Ford Edge I probably should have waited around to exchange insurance information, but have you seen those burritos? I just had to try one
EZRA: Getting back to your original question, I have all my eggs in the proverbial Santorum basket He ll probably lose in the general election, but think about all the mileage the late-night comedians will get out of his name
A D : Personally, I would like to see Stephen Colbert jump into the race Comedy Central is literally the only channel we get on the Arts Quad other than Slope Media, and he promised me I could have his Super PAC if he makes the leap
EZRA: Who knows, maybe we could revive the Department of Education with all those funds?
A D : Sorry, already promised it to the tech campus Maybe next time
that lay before me The next day I woke to the unbearable sound of my roommate ’ s alarm clock going off, and I noticed that I had a text from my mother It read “Deon I forgot to tell you to begin looking for summer internship opportunities!” The horror had begun Not unlike the typical Cornellian, I began to, for lack of a better phrase, freak out A multitude of thoughts flooded my mind, the majority of them questions such as: What will happen if I can ’ t find the job I want? Will I still get into law school? If I don’t get into law school will I become homeless? If I’m homeless will my grandma still send me care packages? I’m sure that I probably overreacted, but one thing I knew for sure was that a summer internship could definitely help determine my future
Over the next few weeks I didn’t think much about any summer opportunities I was too busy finding the right classes, buying the right books and sitting next to the right girls However, once I was settled in, I realized that there was no reason not to begin my search I initiated my investigation by emailing some lawyers I know, asking them how they took advantage of their summers and if they knew of any opportunities for me They all emailed me back telling me of their own internships with law firms, attorney generals and even a few politicians However, they all noted that employers were looking for upperclassmen and were not likely to employ rising sophomores I began to create a résumé for myself, which brings us to the present I am still in the process of fashioning the perfect résumé; you know, the ever elusive, perpetually unobtainable, yet deliciously promising résumé Any day now I am going to shake off the laziness that seems to permeate the air around me, and I am going to head down to the office of career services and have them help me edit my résumé Although I have not made it to their offices I have still been trying to further my cause by attempting to join every club known to mankind I quickly real-
The answer is quite simple I do not know many other minority students at Cornell and I thought it would be a great idea to meet other minority students interested in the same career path as myself I applied for the job at the mail center because I felt future employers would be happy to know that I have experience doing secretarial work My decision to write for The Cornell Daily Sun comes from my old and lasting desire to write for a newspaper; luckily, the ability to write is valued in the field of law, so this is a perfect opportunity for myself
Throughout my search, one thing has become quickly apparent There is a perpetuating cycle withholding me from reaching my goal I began searching for a summer internship, and then realized I needed more experience in order to secure one This led me to join other organizations However, the mail center application was focused upon past employment, which I have none of, and I have not heard back from them I now realize that in order to gain experience, one must first have experience! I now question how I can create the “perfect résumé if I cannot manage to secure a position worthy of inclusion I can almost picture myself as a dog running in a circle attempting to catch its own tail
I am not sure whether or not it is merely a coincidence, but the weather in Ithaca has managed to represent my summer search Although the sun has come out of hiding, it has still managed to remain fairly cold, and although I have began to look for opportunities, my search has been rather cold as well Hopefully by the time it warms up here in Ithaca my search will have managed to heat up
Ialways thought that I had a fairly typical good childhood, full of playdates, educational excursions that were masked in fun and plenty of time outdoors However, I’ve been talking to my non-veterinary school friends lately, and I’ve come to realize that a lot of the things I was interested in and liked to do weren ’ t actually typical at all So, whether you ’ re a lost college student trying to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, or an anxious parent trying to figure out your child’s mysterious behavior, here are some signs that vet school may be somewhere in your future
1 BOOKS: I used to be a voracious reader, and a column like this wouldn’t be complete without talking about James Herriot Herriot (his real name is James Alfred Wight) was a country veterinarian in England in the mid 1900s, and wrote a series of books based on his life The stories he tells are both amusing and poignant, and almost everyone I know who is involved in veterinary medicine has read them BBC made a TV series out of the stories called All Creatures Great and Small and I spent a lot of this past winter break watching them on Netflix I really want to go back and reread the stories after going through a year of vet school to see how my perspective has changed
While we re talking about books, I m also going to throw in the Redwall series by Brain Jacques and Watership Down by Richard Adams Both of these have animals as the protagonists, although Watership Down is for an older audience than Redwall As a child, I always was disproportionately fond of books with animal protagonists instead of human ones Adams also wrote a book called The Plague Dogs, which I remember liking enough to read several times, although my recollection of the details is a little hazy It’s another one I definitely want to go back to, because I remember that it followed two dogs that escaped from an institution that was conducting research on them I think The Plague Dogs might be one of the reasons I grew up being a little wary about the idea of research on animals As I started to think seriously about my career, animal research was a topic I had to redefine my views on
Last on this list would be books by Gerald Durrell It’s
hard to give a sound-bite sized summary of Durrell, but basically he was a naturalist who, amongst many other things, wrote a book called My Family and Other Animals He chronicles his childhood collecting and generally being passionate about animals in the Greek island of Corfu He’s written other books set in different times of his life, but My Family and Other Animals is the one that I’ve read so often that the spine of the book is unidentifiable now
To my parents ’ credit, my dad was the main reason I was exposed to a lot of these books, especially the ones by Durrell and Herriot he’d heard of them and knew that they were exactly what an animal-obsessed child would like to read
2 TV: While my friends were watching Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, I was watching Animal Planet Seriously, I never turned it off I was fascinated by the landscape and animals that lived in parts of the world I’d n e ve r i m a g i n e d b e f o re ( I might have had a huge crush on Steve Irwin I had a crush o n t h e w h o l e c o u n t r y o f Australia, really) I was also inspired by Emergency Vets shocked and saddened by the various Animal Cops shows, and thought The Planet’s Funniest Animals was the funniest thing I had ever seen I ve heard rumors that Animal Planet has gone downhill since the days I used to watch it, but I haven t looked into the issue myself yet so I don t have anything to say about it
the “If you could have any superpower what would it be?” question seems to come up a lot? Most kids say flying, or teleporting, or reading people’s minds I used to say, without hesitation I want to talk to animals! Honestly, I probably still would say that I should have added the Dr Dolittle series (the original Dr Dolittle, written as a series of books by Hugh Lofting) to that books list above
What I’m trying to get at is that it was an inherent obsession with all things related to nature and animals that drove me towards vet school Along the way, I discovered plenty of other interests that pulled me away for a while, but they must not have been strong enough to overcome years of childhood conditioning I also discovered that vet school isn’t just about
working with animals It encompasses a myriad of other professions besides “animal doctor ” but learning this just made me even more interested in it pursuing it so that I could find out about all of the other exciting things I could do
3 GENERAL BEHAVIOR: My parents had to actively train me not to run up to any animal I saw outside to pet it It’s a lesson that’s still only half-stuck: whenever I see a stray cat, no matter what part of the world I’m in, I usually try to make friends (at least because of vet school I’m now vaccinated against rabies) I also begged my parents for an animal as soon as I could speak My first pet was a goldfish and I cried for hours when he died And you know how for some reason
Bene ting the O
This past September, at a conference hosted by the Genetic Alliance, I met the physicians who had treated a small child named “N ” N had a nearlyunheard-of condition in which bacteria could invade his body through micropores in his skin He suffered from nearly constant infections and often battled lifethreatening bloodstream infections known as “sepsis ” His team of scientists and p h y s i c i a n s c h o s e t o a t t e m p t a n e w approach to better understand his disease: whole-genome sequencing Conventional genetic testing, as seen in most diagnoses, relies on a scattershot examination of several common mutations Looking at N s
entire genome, however, helped his physicians realize that a bone marrow transp l a n t m i g h t h e l p t re a t
saved his life, and he is now a healthy child
As I heard about N’s stor y, I couldn’t help but think of “M,” a three-year-old girl who also suffers from a mysterious illness M and her parents were working with my team at the ne wly-founded Rare Genomics Institute, a biotechnology star tu p d e s
p
g
thropy
So, if you re that person who s easy to buy presents for because all of your friends know that an animal-related present will always be a winner, don’t be surprised to find vet school in your future
Nikhita Parandekar graduated from Cornell in 2011 and is a first-year veterinary student in the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine She may be reached at nparandekar@cornellsun com Hoof in Mouth appears alternate Fridays this semester
a l s o b e c o m i n g c h e a p e r a n d cheaper, now r unning as low as $3,500 for trios (child and two close relatives) This test was once available only to the ultraw e a l t h y St
Jo
Ever y day, children like M are born with syndromes that are rare and poorly u n
n remain undiagnosed for their entire lives, and only one in five of them live to adulthood Precise estimates are hard to come by, but approximately 250 million indiv
worldwide, with 20 million individuals in
the United States alone It is hard for cent r a l i n s
o n a l Institutes of Health to fund research that pulls in such varied directions, but we created RGI because we believe that a private institution can help fill that role by capitalizing on two recent innovations: one in economics and one in science
On one side scientists have been perfecting sequencing technologies that offer u n p re c e d e n t e d i n s i g h t i n t o a p a t i e n t ’ s genome Such technologies are cr ucial in offering accurate genetic diagnosis, which p
treating previously mysterious ailments As these tests have continued to advance,
n o m e sequencing to children suffering from rare illnesses It is our hope and belief that s e q u e n c i n g w i l l h e l p s c i e n t i s t s b e t t e r understand rare genetic diseases, which will in turn help children like M Last June, a group of friends and I founded RGI to help bring together two trends t h a t c a n m a k e t h a t p o s s i
genome hoping to find a way to fight his cancer but is rapidly become more and more available To many families, however, even $3,500 can seem prohibitive
That opened the window for another innovation: microphilanthropy As startups like 33needs com have demonstrated, even small donations can make a large difference when benefactors work together t o w a r d s a c o m m o n g o a l Microphilanthropy, or “crowd-funding,” has been facilitated by the rapid rise of We b 2 0 a p p l i c a t i o n s , w h i c h a l l o w Internet users to create their own commun i t i e s a n d b u i l d t h e i r o w n n e t w o r k s Crowd-funding doesn’t just enable large projects to fundraise it allows donors to continue to par ticipate and to take ownership in projects as they grow
Our journey at RGI began with a seemingly simple idea: That families afflicted b y r a re g e n e t i c d i s o rd e r s s h o u l d h a v e access to genome sequencing technologies and exper t analysis We saw a pressing need to create an institute that can connect families searching for answers with geneticists and scientists across the globe who can help them gain access to the best information science can offer We recognize that families afflicted with rare diseases are under financial strain and we believe that microphilanthropy can give access to other wise unreachable goals
RGI has been a ne w and daring challenge for our team one that sometimes seems bigger than us, because it is Our team relished the challenge and adventure
ground-up, but none of us could have imagined how quickly things would take off In fact, as with most star t-up endeavors, we couldn’t predict whether our first tr y would be successful at all We still don’t know for cer tain what the future holds
But we do know that on Dec 6, we launched M s fundraising campaign, hoping to make steady progress over the first fe w weeks
We finished on Dec 6
In a stunning six hours, 50 donors giving an average of $66 demonstrated the potential of crowd-funding We exceeded our research goal by nearly a third, with excess funds helping other children's campaigns Spurred on by word of mouth
M’s mother keeps a ver y well-written blog
M’s fundraising campaign literally outpaced the speed at which our browsers could refresh Thanks to our donors, M has taken a power ful step towards ne w insights into her illness and possibly treatments for her symptoms
We believe that she has also played a larger role that she has demonstrated the viability of crowd-funding as a means of financing whole-genome sequencing Sequencing, in turn, can make a difference in the lives of thousands or millions of children suffering from rare diseases across the world
My
blessed to be along for the ride
Naira Rezende is a sixth-year Ph D candidate at Weill Cornell Medical College She may be reached at ncr2002@med cornell edu What s Up Doc? appears alternate Fridays this semester
Looking for a sappy romance that’s sure to induce a few tears (or at least make you feel like you want to cry)? If you are, The Vow is right up your alley The film, which topped the box office in its opening week, details a couple’s trying romance Paige (the ever-beautiful Rachel McAdams) and Leo (the charming Channing Tatum) fall in love at first sight They get married and lead a happy (and mildly countercultural) life in a one bedroom flat Paige makes her living as a sculptor while Leo has just opened a somewhat shabby recording studio All is well until Paige, overcome by a sudden wave of romantic feeling, decides to unfasten her seatbelt on a snowy night to have sex with her husband Cue a giant pickup truck on slippery ice and the rest is history
Leo awakes in the hospital to find his beloved wife in a medically-induced coma with possible signs of brain damage When
she awakens, it quickly becomes apparent that her memories of the past five years have been erased Paige does not remember marrying Leo (or anything about Leo, for that matter) and she is clueless as to why she would even fall in love with him in the first place As the film progresses, the Paige before Leo emerges She was a buttoned-up law student and d
d daughter of c
ve socialite parents from whom she
estrange Paige still believes she is engaged to her former beau Jeremy and cannot understand why she would have ever dumped him for a guy like her Leo Leo, on the other hand, is ceaselessly patient with his amnesia-stricken wife who has made it perfectly clear that she is now married to him against her will
You can probably guess what happens next: Leo does everything in his power to recreate the love that he and his beloved wife had shared before the accident Even when things look bad Leo never gives up on his relationship with Paige
The movie is a typical cutesy romance But it’s also unendingly frustrating Fresh off of HBO’s critically acclaimed Grey Gardens telepic, director Michael Sucsy adjusts well to a genre dominated by Nicholas Sparks’ adaptations The casting of McAdams, star of The Notebook, seems to be a bit more than a coincidence Although The Vow
has often been compared to The Notebook, do not anticipate a film of that caliber or you are sure to leave the theater disappointed While The Vow starts off strong, it fails to compensate for a flabby middle and incomplete ending
The film is based, however loosely, on the real-life story of Kim and Krickett Carpenter The audience is informed of this when the film opens and this gives the film a legitimate excuse for using what would otherwise be considered an abuse of Hollywood’s favorite lazyscreenwriting tool: dramatically expedient amnesia However, it also forces the viewer to think about how heart wrenching and difficult amnesia can really be
After placing yourself in the main character ’ s shoes, it becomes quite clear that The Vow just barely scrapes the surface Its embodiment of true human pain feels a bit too painless How would Leo really react if his wife awoke from a coma with no recollection of marrying him? Wouldn t Leo want to find a way of making her memories come back? His feeble attempts at trying to “tickle-torture” her into
remembering the past five years would seem more foolish than romantic in the real world
Similarly, wouldn’t Paige be terrified if she awoke to find a stranger at her bedside who claimed to be her husband of four years?
The Vow just feels a bit too comfortable It is clear that the writers did not realise the promise of the original story More melodrama and deeper characters would have given this lightweight movie the substance it badly needed Instead, The Vow is a mere knockoff of a Nicholas Sparks film adaptation, which suggests that Hollywood is more interested in preying on the surface emotions of the everyday moviegoer than dealing in reality and infinitely more interested in selling out on Valentine’s Day
Do not get me wrong; The Vow is a sweet date-night movie But that’s all it is
After spending well over two decades of fighting to bring George Moore’s short story The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs to the big screen, Glenn Close has triumphed (well, sort of ) She has fended off many problems in her multiple duties as the producer writer and lead actress of this film Rodrigo García finally came on board, ending Close’s struggle to find a director Production was once again stalled when Amanda Seyfried and Orlando Bloom pulled out of the show; their roles were given to Mia Wasikowska and Aaron Johnson respectively Ever ything had to go up from there, right? If only Albert Nobbs is the story of a woman posing as a male butler at an Irish hotel in the 1800s Nobbs (Glenn Close) has spent over 30 years working at the establishment, saving every penny she earns She dreams of using her earnings to open her own tobacco shop one day However, her simple life and aspirations are revised when she meets Hubert Page ( Janet McTeer), a painter recently hired by the Dublin hotel Although Nobbs is afraid of having her real gender uncovered, Nobbs finds solace in confiding in Page and even endeavors to seek a wife to secure her place in society Nobbs chooses the young maid Helen
Dawes (Mia Wasikowska), as her target She begins courting her, buying her fancy things Meanwhile, Dawes has already started a relationship with the archetypical bad boy, Joe Mackins (Aaron Johnson) Joe promises Helen a life of freedom and riches in America, miles away from the Irish slums He goads her to continue seeing Nobbs as a way to extort money for their trip to America and to figure out just what it is the quiet butler is after
This film lends itself to a lot of interesting dilemmas, but each character and scene fails to deliver the punch to carr y the film along Although Close has always resembled a man, she is still not manly enough for the role There remains something terribly awkward about her; the appalling makeup does not help Close’s depiction of a woman pretending to be a man with many secrets engenders little curiosity At a pivotal moment when Albert reveals her grotesque and unsettling back story, Close shows no emotion The disconnect merely confuses the audience Close s Oscar nomination just goes to show how trigger-happy the Academy is when it comes to a seemingly controversial character
The supporting cast also fails to impress They float in and out of the story without strengthening the plot The lives of the characters are just as bleak and as washed-out as the Ireland in which they live Although that may be the point, the movie still lacks sub-
stance Wasikowska stays a young girl stuck in a love triangle that she has no say in Her spat with Nobbs remains superficial Aaron Johnson adds a bit more color to his volatile character but still misses the mark The only face in the movie that is worth any notable comment is Janet McTeer’s performance as Hubert Page Her portrayal of a man is utterly convincing; it was jarring to see her dressed as a woman at one point in the film She paints a stirring portrait of a man who pretends to be a woman Page loves the woman she has married She respects Albert Nobbs’ situation and builds a powerful friendship Her loyalty to Nobbs leads her to fulfill the dream and plan that Nobbs started before her death McTeer, a British powerhouse, has finally earned the recognition she deserves
with her Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Page Rodrigo García’s Oscar bait falls a little flat to say the least The movie is about at as bland as Glenn Close’s face throughout the film The film tries to break barriers for transgendered individuals, but only manages a slight crack at best (similar to Nobbs incident with a wall at the end of the film) Even the climax of the film comes and goes so anticlimactically; one feels robbed of a full storyline This story should have been left as a short story Even Janet McTeer’s brilliant performance fails to ignite this dull film
Tennis comes off as carefree and spontaneous The name of their band, for instance, comes from an inside joke the two shared while in college Then there is the now well-publicized trip that became the creative inspiration for the band’s debut album, Cape Dor y After falling in love as philosophy majors at The University of Colorado Denver, Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley promptly sold all their earthly possessions, flew down to Florida and, after a week of sailing lessons, purchased a Cape Dor y sailboat They then proceeded to sail up and down the Atlantic coasr until they ran out money
The flipside to this sensational backstor y, however, is that the buzz it generated for the group has almost eclipsed their actual music Reviews of their work tend to obsess over this admittedly unique aspect of the band rather than focusing on the album’s artistic merit This is an imbalance that they attempt to connect and ultimately succeed in correcting in their new album a deliberate departure from their debut that makes the music, not the stor y, the focus In this way, their second album, Young & Old is the product of the band’s evolution toward musical maturity In it, Tennis pulls together a new, more vaied sound that showcases their slightly more “rock-like” (possibly influenced by producer, Patrick Carney, drummer of The Black Keys) persona, but still hangs on to the right amount of their signature easy-going beach pop
A major reason behind the altered sound in Young & Old is the ver y different themes it encompasses Whereas Cape Dor y was essentially the musical docu-
mentation of the pair’s seafaring journey, Young & Old ambitiously touches upon some pretty major topics, including the progression of life and the search for happiness In this sense, the album triumphs by bringing a degree of lyrical substance and emotional range into the mix that were seriously lacking in their first attempt While visual descriptions of oceanic views and experiences are nice for a while, the tracks eventually seem to blur together as upbeat guitar strumming bled into upbeat guitar strumming They move away from the blissful ignorance of a utopian summer, delving into issues of imperfection as demonstrated in the line “Paradise is all around, but happiness is never found ”
With their second album, Tennis, for the most part, delivers an array of varied stand-alone tunes that are much more memorable on an individual level These changes are reflected most notably in some of the album’s moodier songs such as “My Better Self ” and “Petition ” Here, Moore loses her usual swoons in favor of a deeper, more textural tonality that at times almost sounds gospel-like These titles, along with “Origins” and “ Take Me To Heaven” are probably the farthest from Tennis’ original early 60s pop moniker, but they are also the strongest on the album The most impressive aspect of this is the way in which they are able to almost completely reinvent themselves musically Tennis also continues the growing trend of universit
Wesleyan University alums respectively) The status of
these groups as just-out-of-college intellectuals has a clear impact on the academic level of references within their music Just as Vampire Weekend wrote an entire song about frustrations with Oxford Commas, the inspiration behind Tennis’ new album title was the poem, “A Woman Young and Old,” by William Yeats not exactly common knowledge Despite the intellectually lofty source material, the group insists that the idea behind Young and Old is not to “preach to the listener, but to have the work be open to interpretation In tracks like “Robin” and “It All Feels the Same” the band unfortunately seems to drift back to the lazy rhythms and uninspired lyrics that were a problem in Cape Dor y Their construction is formulaic and predictable, but this issue is not widespread Some songs follow the general design of Cape Dor y-era peppy summertime ballads and are still ver y good “Deep in the Wo o d s ” f e a t u re s Mo o re ’ s s w o o
telling a tale of unrequited love while in the background, maracas sway to the beat The difference here is how they have tweaked and built upon this basic format, elevating it to new heights The track begins with thunderous and catchy piano chords that make for a strong base making it more substantial than the wispy songs of the previous album All in all, with Young and Old, Tennis improves upon what they had, while still holding on to a version of the simple, honeysweet sound that earned them fans in the first place
Lucas Colbert-Carreiro is a freshman in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations He can be reached at lqc2@cornell edu
G e o rg e C l o o n e y ’s S t y l i s h Ta ke o n J o u r n a l i s m
Aconstantcloud of smoke lingers in the air, but if you can manage to see through it, then you’ll surely understand why 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck received the accolades that it did
Set in 1953, Good Night and Good Luck (directed by George Clooney) tells the story of radio and television journalist Edward R Murrow (David Strathairn) and his famous conflict with conser vative U S senator Joseph McCarthy
Murrow and his CBS team used their television program See it Now to combat the excesses of senator McCarthy, who was most notorious for leading an anti-communist witch hunt in the early 1950s On his show, Murrow dared to speak out against McCarthy and his methods This led to a fight between the two, which escalated when McCarthy, unsurprisingly, accused Murrow of communist leanings
Murrow never gave up his fight and continued to tenaciously attack the senator His struggle has been credited with turning public opinion against McCarthy Murrow’s actions are also a prime example of how journalism can be used as an effective political tool And Good Night, and Good Luck provides a high-energy glimpse into one of American journalism’s highpoints
born forty years after Murrow’s crusade
But that’s the effect Good Night and Good Luck has The weaving together of actual newsreels with black-and-white shots integrates past and present, fact and fiction
In an ingeniously sly move, Clooney even makes McCarthy play himself by solely on real footage of McCarthy The actors playing the members of the CBS team react to the actual senator; they interact, quite literally, with history Funnily enough, according to a review in the British newspaper The Telegraph, young test audience members critiqued the “ actor ” playing McCarthy for being “boorish” and over-zealous Little did they realize the “boorish” actor was in fact McCarthy himself
Clooney no doubt intended this; McCarthy’s words do not require over-acting or exaggeration to sound strong And his choice to use the real McCarthy draws an
Clooney does more than proves his chops as a director in a mere 93 minutes; he also captures the zeitgeist of an entire era I would go so far as to say that the movie is nostalgiainducing, which is odd, considering I was
interesting parallel between actor and politician As Clooney’s film makes clear, 1950s America was shaped not only by politicians behind closed doors in Washington, but also by the media
Frankly, McCarthy makes us cringe We can viscerally feel the same things television audiences decades ago might have felt Politics, Clooney seems to imply, is just like
any other a performance It is the role of objective journalism to critique politics
Apart from its clever twist on the period drama, another reason for the film’s salience is that the themes it exposes remain important today (truth, civic responsibility, and the role of mass media to name several)
The last theme, namely, the role of mass media is one close to Clooney’s heart Clooney briefly studied journalism in school and his father worked as a television anchor After Clooney’s stint as a journalism student, he went on to become a fixed member of Hollywood’s A-list
It makes sense then that the media would fascinate Clooney As a director, Clooney evaluates the American media from a different perspective Usually the object of media attention, here he is the evaluator From the film, we can infer that he is not entirely pleased by what he sees Good Night, and Good Luck urges journalists to reclaim Murrow-style journalism
This is a message made explicit in the opening minutes of the film Strathairn, stoic as ever, delivers a speech in front of Radio Television Digital News Association, “We have a built in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information our mass media reflects this ”
He rails against “complacency” and asks his audience both the conference attendees and moviegoers to expect more from mass media than mere distraction
The film quite obviously (but not unsophisticatedly) appeals to the makers of mass
media and all of us who consume it In today’s world, where media forms are constantly evolving and old-fashioned journalism is becoming more and more obsolete, Good night, and Good Luck reminds us of the crucial link between good journalism and democracy
The best part is that the movie does all of this with a sense of style and knowhow that would make the Mad Men producers blush As if it were a testament to Murrow himself, Clooney’s film does precisely what Murrow claimed media has the potential to do His film is entertaining and engaging, but conveys a deeper message
Like I said earlier, if you can manage to see past the cigarette smoke, the impeccable costumes and even Clooney’s own winking charm, then you’ll see the power this small film wields
Hannah Stamler is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences She can be reached at hstamler@cornellsun com The Basement Tapes appears alternate Fridays this semester
M. HOCKEY
Continued from page 20
crucial it is to give our bodies a little bit of a rest it gives us an extra week to prepare for our opponent, [and] we are excited about it ”
That being said, both Schafer and his players recognized that the Red is not in the playoffs just yet I d be lying if I told you we weren t excited, but with that, you have to control your emotions and you have to keep them in check,” said junior forward Greg Miller “It’s just another hockey game and Union is a great team, so is RPI Of course it is our last home weekend and senior weekend and all this stuff and all this distraction but we have to focus on us at the end of the day because that’s what its about sticking to the process ”
Right now, Miller leads the team in goals with 13 on the season, seven of which were recorded in his past seven games Also leading the team with a plus-19 rating, Miller credits his success to his line mates
“I don’t know [what it is], it just seems to be working,” he said “A lot of credit is to my line mates again it is true that guys have been in and out playing on our line, [but] it doesn’t matter who is in there, we will produce I know coach will expect that from us ”
Another factor in the success of the team is the amount of work the team has put into every game this season, according to Miller
“You just have to continue to do the things that are working that’s just playing hard, forechecking the right way and sticking to things that you can control ” he said “[We’ve done] a lot of hard work, I know coach has been pushing that on us We have been doing a lot of video and stuff like that but we are just trying to keep it simple and help the team win ”
This season, both Cornell and Union have been known throughout the season to be stingy on defense
The Red has surrendered only 61 goals this season the second lowest in the nation Similarly, only twice this season have the Dutchmen surrendered more than three goals in a single game
As Union also boasts a plus-1 75 scoring margin the best average in the nation Iles’ goaltending skills will be key for the Red, according to Schafer
“He’s been very consistent all year round,” he said All year long he has been a big part of our hockey team I think he has played every minute of every game I
don’t know if there is another goalie in college hockey that s done that, but he has risen to that challenge of being our number one this year, and he’s had a great year ”
Iles, like Miller, believes that much of his success is due to his teammates
“As a goalie, when you have success its usually when your team is playing the best and I think we are getting more comfortable as the season goes on, ” he said Saturday night at 7 p m , the Red hosts Rensselaer (821-3, 5-12-3) for the last game of the regular season The night holds extra significance, as the team will recognize the success of its graduating seniors: alternate captain and forward Sean Collins, forward Locke Jillson, captain and defenseman Keir Ross and defenseman Sean Whitney
With the influx of freshmen that the Red welcomed into the program this season, both Schafer and the players have emphasized the important role the seniors filled, providing guidance for their younger teammates
“The leadership from that senior class down has been great, ” Iles said “They went on the ice as a team, they set the tone and the work ethic and the younger guys have followed it I think every single one of our freshmen would say their success this year has come from senior leadership down ”
As the last weekend of the regular season arriving and Cornell chases the possibility of at least a share of the league’s regular season championship, the team has only one thing on its mind: the games ahead
We are so focused, and it starts on Friday,” Iles said “We have a great team coming in We took a point from [Union], shared a tie with them earlier in the year They are a good hockey team We talked about a few of their tendencies and we re really focused on that And as soon as that game is over, we’ll flip the page and focus on Saturday
This weekend is huge for us We have an opportunity to wrap up the regular season championship It is in our hands and I think as far as looking at national picture, it is a big weekend for us as well We are excited for the playoffs but we really have to focus on this weekend and make sure we end the regular season on the right foot and have momentum going into playoffs ”
Dani Abada can be reached at
dabada@cornellsun com
Continued from page 20
what we do well ”
One thing the Red will have to overcome is Yale s solid defense Over the course of the season, the Bulldogs have outrebounded opponents and limited other teams to 34 percent shooting from three-point range We have to attack inside out and with dribble penetration, collapse the defense, and then kick it out for wide open shots,” Courtney said “We also have to look to go inside a little bit more in order to make sure we ’ re balanced and to maintain an inside presence ”
Getting out in transition and running the floor will also be vital to the Red attack According to Ferry, a key strength for the Cornell offense is to utilize its fast break capabilities, “Getting out in transition, spotting up and setting great screens [are important for us],” he said “We need to set great screens, forcing them to make a decision, and then either we will have open shooters or open looks down low ”
On the defensive end, the Red will have to focus on senior Greg Mangano, the Bulldogs 6-10 center Mangano is averaging 18 4 points per game along with 9 9 rebounds and is putting himself in good position as a front runner for Ivy League Player of the Year Ferry said that defense on Mangano, “is going to have to be a team effort The first thing is that guards will have to have a lot of pressure on the [Yale] guards to prevent entry pressure The post guys will then have to do a great job of fronting and denying the ball and then the weak side helper will have to bring a quick double team ”
With the season coming to a close, the Red is looking to end on a high note “We had a really good week of practice, it’s been really competitive, [we’ve been] kind of getting our mindset back to where it needs to be and our goal is to finish up these last four games up strong, ” Ferry said
According to Courtney, after dropping two away games last weekend, the Red needs to bring its home-court mindset on the road against Yale and Brown
“It’s tough to come off of two losses last weekend, but we just played these guys a week and a half ago, ” he said “I think we should be confident against these teams, but now we re going on the road where we have struggled We will be trying to find a way to recreate that home court intensity while on the road ”
Shayan Salam can be reached at sports@cornellsun com
M LAX
Continued from page 19
ing into Saturday’s match
“If we go out there and give it our best effort, we ll be fine, Gilbane said “Just take it one game at a time and don’t think about the past and just have your eyes on the future If we go out there and play as hard as we can, I think we’ll be okay ”
While the team is committed to taking the season one game at a time, there are a few goals at the back of ever yone ’ s minds, according to Pannell
“ The ultimate goal is to win a national championship We have the talent on the team to do that That’s the ultimate goal, but we certainly have goals leading up to that, [like] being undefeated at home We take pride playing at home on Schoellkopf, on Georgy’s turf,” he said “Being undefeated in the Ivy League, winning the Ivy championship, Final Four and as a senior class we have the goal to go undefeated That captures all our goals and I believe we have the talent and experience on this team and the coaching staff to do that We have high expectations for this team we know that one of our goals is to not look too far into the future; to take it on a one practice at a time and one game at a time basis ”
Playing Hobart will be a fitting start to the season, given the histor y of the matchup and the histor y that the current team is making
“Playing against Hobart is really special for us, ” DeLuca said “Ever yone recognizes the histor y and rivalr y of it and it’s really special ” As for the players on the field, ever yone is excited to hit the turf, according to Gilbane
“Ever yone is excited to get out there and hopefully bring home the ‘ W ’” he said
Lauren Ritter can be reached at lritter@cornellsun com
By ZACH GAYNER Sun Staff Wr ter
The Cornell Women’s lacrosse team will travel to Rutgers this week to face the Scarlet Knights in its first game of the season this Saturday Historically, the Red is 21-19 in season openers but is looking for its first opening game road win since 2008 The Red is 12-3 against the Scarlet Knights, but has not beaten them since 2009
Cornell is looking to ride the momentum it gained at the end of last season when it upset the then No 2 Florida Gators 9-6 The majority of that team has remained intact, with 10 of the 12 starters returning
The Red just named four senior players as captains: defender Cacki Helmer, midfielders Katie Kirk and Shannon McHugh and attacker Jessi Steinberg, all of whom will be leading the team this year
Although the Red boasts a strong senior class, featuring nine players, it has also been able to recruit a large freshman class, including eight new players The freshman include Goalie Carly Gneiwek; Gabby Weintraub, Christine Ferguson and Kristin Carr on defense; Skylar Fidel, Sarah Hefner and Claire Mcmanus in the midfield and Lindsay Toppe at Attacker
A prominent storyline in the game will be the matchup of the twin sisters, Jessi and Ali Steinberg Senior attacker Jessi Steinberg led the Red in scoring last year, tallying 38 goals while her sister senior midfielder Ali Steinberg was second in scoring for Rutgers with 28 Jessi was tied for 27th in the nation for scoring, with 2 71 goals per game, and is on the Tewaaraton watch list, which is the highest individual honor in women ’ s lacrosse She is one of 53 players who have been listed across all three divisions of women ’ s lacrosse
Other players to watch include junior defender Kate Ivory and junior goaltender Courtney Gallagher Ivory was
26th in caused turnovers in the nation, with 1 64 per game and 25th in ground balls with 2 64 per game Gallagher was 35th in the country with a 9 00 goals against average
The Ivy League has dominated the preseason rankings for women s lacrosse with Princeton ranked No 6, Penn ranked No 8, Dartmouth ranked No 10 and Harvard
ranked No 18 Although the Red did not make it into the preseason poll, it still received three votes in the Laxpower poll
By LAUREN RITTER Sun Assistant Sports Editor
Schoellkopf Field is cleatmarked once more as the men ’ s lacrosse team is primed to kick off its 2012 season on Saturday at 1 p m away at Hobart The Red has been busy preparing during the past few weeks, so the squad is excited to begin a new season, according to senior midfielder JJ Gilbane
“The past couple of weeks we have really been focusing on getting ourselves better [as opposed to] focusing on another opponent, ” he said “Everyone is super excited for the first game It has been a long time coming from midAugust till now to the get season started ”
Since the matchup against the Hobart Statesmen (0-1, 0-0 ECAC) will be the seasonopener for Cornell, the squad has been paying closer attention to perfecting its own game, rather than focusing on its opponent ’ s style of play, according to senior captain Rob Pannell
“Early on in the season we are more concentrating on ourselves and what we need to do to be successful this season, ” he said “We are just seeing what we are doing, looking at ourselves and evaluating what we need to do to perform at the level we want to be at Right now we are more worried about what we are doing, knowing that if we play the way we want to play then we will be successful on game day ”
Hobart and Cornell have a long-standing rivalry in fact, the longest one in collegiate lacrosse history
“I’m pretty sure this is the 134th meeting between Hobart and Cornell,” Gilbane said “It’s an upstate battle and it’s always a good game, always a close game that gets a lot of fans from both sides It’s a match that been going on for over 130 years [and] it’s got a lot of history It s a special game to be a part of ”
Cornell leads the series, 8247-4, after beating Hobart, 149, almost one year ago at Schoellkopf The Red has been a dominating force against the Statesmen since 2000, when former Cornell head coach and Hobart graduate Jeff Tambroni led the Red to a 10-1 record during his time with the Red Head coach Ben DeLuca has continued the tradition of
Cornell victories, going 1-0 against the Statesmen since taking control of the lacrosse program Under DeLuca the men s lacrosse team has experienced multiple successes, including a 14-3 season record, ninth consecutive Ivy League title and a trip the NCAA quarterfinals The team has great potential for the upcoming season, especially due to the hard work of the players, according to DeLuca
“I think that we are looking to play at a really high pace and utilize the depth and athleticism on our roster, ” he said “But what had really characterized our program is our blue collar work ethic and focusing on day to day progress
The Red hopes to carry over the high-energy momentum it accrued last season into the game against Hobart, according to its coach, though the roster is not the same as last year While high-performance senior starters like Pannell, midfielder Roy Lang, defender Max Feely and attackman David Lau are returning for their final season with the Red, the sidelines feature a few new faces
“We are realizing this is a new season, a new group of young men and a new journey,” DeLuca said
All of the preparation Cornell has been doing, both on and off the field, should give the squad a solid footing head-
12
The Bears will come into the weekend hungr y for a pair of victories
Tournament since 2006 and first-year head coach Amy Bourbeau may seek
around in Providence L
Landr y, who has tallied 19 points on the season, the Bears are playing for ne w life in the playoffs after sur viving the regular season, barely
remains optimistic about moving on to the next round, it maintains that there are still things the team needs to work on in order to advance past Brown and deeper into the tournament “ We need to work on our defensive zone, ” she said “ We put a lot of pride on defense because a good defense makes a good offense Being strong defensively, not allowing them a lot will really help us down the stretch [ The power play] will also be a key factor, and [so will] being strong on our forecheck, putting a lot of pressure on their defense so we can control the play better ” While the team as a whole has been strong as of late, a fe w players have been singled out for their individual contributions by being named as nominees for the Patty Kazmaier Award, the highest honor bestowed upon a player in women s college hockey The
and
It is playoff time again; once more, after another impressive season, the Cornell women s hockey team will start off the ECAC Playoffs with a best-of-three home series The action starts Friday at 3:30 p m at Lynah, with the Red taking on Brown The series continues Saturday, with the Bears returning to Lynah at 2 p m If a winner still has not been decided by that point, Brown will make a third appearance on Sunday at 2 p m for a final contest to decide who advances to the next round
The No 3 Red (26-3, 20-2 ECAC Hockey) comes into the weekend as one of the hottest teams in Division I women ’ s hockey, winning its last seven, tying the longest winning streak in the nation The Bears (8-14-7 5-13-4) on the other hand, are limping into the playoffs after losing four of their last five, most recently suffering a 2-1 overtime loss at Dartmouth
“We’re expecting a lot from Brown,” said senior goaltender Amanda Mazzotta They took Dartmouth into overtime last weekend Their goalie is playing really well right now and they’re an extremely hard-working team that likes to shoot from anywhere ”
P re s s u re D | Junior defender Lauriane Rougeau said the Red’s ability to play a tight defensive zone will be an important key to success in the game against Brown
The Red has already met the Bears twice this season, once in Ithaca and once in Providence, and both times the result was the same: a definitive victory for Cornell, with the Red outscoring Brown by a combined score of 14-0 Still, the Red maintains that Brown will indeed be a tough opponent and that it can t take anything for granted
“Every time [the] playoffs come around it kind of gives everyone a little more life,” said senior forward Chelsea Karpenko “They’re going to be energized and ready to go We re going to have to be ready for that
By DANI ABADA Sun Assistant Sports Editor
This weekend marks the end of the ECAC Hockey regular season, but the excitement is at a season high At Lynah Rink at 7 p m , Cornell (14-6-7, 11-3-6 ECAC Hockey), which currently sits only two points out of first place in the standings, will take on Union (19-6-7, 13-3-4), the only team ranked above the Red in the league Cornell will have the opportunity to take at least a share of the Cleary Cup if it can come away from the weekend with two victories
Coupled with the fact that the Red clinched a bye in the first round of the playoffs as one of the top four teams in ECAC Hockey, there is a lot of hype surrounding this weekend
“We’re really excited,” said head coach Mike Schafer ’86 “We have a top-four bye
for the following weekend and it’s always important to have success [we will have a] great game on Friday night with Union we have to win in order to win a league championship It has more ramifications and both games are really important for the NCAAs at large That warped into the fact that it’s seniors weekend for our guys on Saturday night will make it a special couple of games of hockey for our guys, as we have worked so hard to get to this point of the year
The team expressed a similar sentiment of elation about clinching the first-round bye
“I think when you start out at the beginning of the year, you establish some goals as a team, said sophomore goaltender Andy Iles “Locking and securing a first-round bye was definitely a goal of ours You know how
See M HOCKEY page 18
While the Red dominated ECAC play in the regular season, the Bears found themselves struggling to gain even a playoff bid, barely holding onto the last spot after RPI who, like Brown, finished the season with 14 points in the ECAC failed to garner a victory last weekend Additionally, Colgate, who was also on Brown s heels, earned no points against the North Country teams, finishing the season with
In the wake of two tough losses on the road, the men ’ s basketball team looks to rebound this weekend by beating two teams that it has defeated in the past The Red (10-14, 5-5 Ivy League) will travel to Brown (7-20, 1-9) on Friday and then head to New Haven to take on the Yale Bulldogs (17-7, 7-3) Brown, who is currently tied for last in the conference with Dartmouth, still forced the Red to work for the win in the first matchup After a fine shooting performance by the Bear’s Matt Sullivan in the first half, the Red went into the locker room only up by two points They began the second half with a 15-1 run, hitting five straight three-pointers
According to senior guard and co-captain Drew Ferry in the upcoming matchup the team will want to give the Brown shooters their due respect and look to prevent them from getting open looks
“On defense, we want to really get after them, pressure them and force them to make plays, and in doing that, we really want to communicate, making sure we find shooters as well as maintaining quicker rotation,” he said
Additionally, the Red will have to deal with sophomore guard Sean McGonagill, who was injured during the first game McGonagill is leading the Bears with 14 points per game and he, along with the other Brown guards, will draw a lot of attention from the Red defense
“We have to do a great job of guarding their shooters and making sure that they don t get off to a hot start like last game, ” Ferry said “[On the other hand] We’ll have to attack the basket well and make sure we get out in transition to get some easy opportunities ”
After playing in Providence, the team will make the trip to New Haven and take on a Yale squad that is currently sitting in third place in the Ivy League The last time these two teams faced off, the Red won an overtime thriller coming out of the game with an 85-84 victory This time around, the team knows that the Bulldogs will be hungry for a win and will look to build on the strengths it utilized during the first game
“We have to use our speed and quickness and our defensive intensity They re going to try to pound the basketball inside and really hurt us on the glass,” said head coach Bill Courtney “We have to do a really good job at limiting what they do well and trying to accentuate
See M B-BALL page 18