Wednesday, February 9, 2005

W E D N E S D A Y FEBRUARY 9, 2005

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Volume CXL, No. 11 THE ‘I’ IN I-BANKING Adam Nelson ’06: You may be wearing a coat and tie, but act like yourself at job interviews O P I N I O N S 11

PHILLY WINS FOR ONCE Penn and Drexel top Bruno wrestlers, but only after a Brown win at Princeton SPORTS

BROCKPORT BOOTED Gymnastics beats SUNYBrockport; Amber Smith ’06 second ECAC all-around 12

SPORTS

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TODAY

TOMORROW

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U. grapples with Spring Weekend conflict

BY STEPHEN NARAIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Spring Weekend is scheduled to overlap the Jewish holiday of Passover this year, leaving the weekend’s organizers scrambling to address the conflict.

Spring Weekend, one of Brown’s most popular campus traditions, begins Thursday, April 21 and runs through Sunday, April 24. Piano rocker Ben Folds is slated to perform April 23.

Passover, one of the major holidays on the Jewish calendar, commemorates the deliverance of the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. It begins at sundown April 23 this year and lasts eight days.

“We have made a very large scheduling error,” said Ricky Gresh, director of

student activities. “That is not debatable.”

The date for Spring Weekend is set three years in advance, and traditionally falls in the last week of the spring semester before reading period.

“We want to make ... Spring Weekend a large community event; however, because of when it’s scheduled, sections of the community will be prevented from participating,” Gresh said.

Mitchell Levine, a rabbi at Brown Hillel, said many Jewish students at Brown embrace the religious and cultural connections associated with observances such as Passover.

“The conflict seems to lie more on cultural lines,” Levine said. “The (Passover)

Career Week attracts alums

Seder is equivalent to Thanksgiving, (which) is a very important time for families to get together.”

But Levine added that visiting family is in no way a “requirement” of Passover, and it is “perfectly normal for students to stay and celebrate at Hillel or with friends.” It is sometimes not possible to travel far from Providence during Passover, he said.

Levine said he has not encountered students who have expressed a need for the Spring Weekend dates to be changed.

But Jewish students “appreciate that their needs are taken into account,” Levine said.

see CAREER, page 6

see FELLOWS, page 4

Juliana Wu / Herald

Semyon Feldman ’05 watches Artie Hintermeister ’05 make dumplings for Zeta Delta Xi’s dumpling party, one of many events planned for this year’s rush period.

Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3269

BY BEN LEUBSDORF SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Though the Career Networking Conference is not a job fair, the networking aspect is a significant component of Saturday’s event, Ehrich said. The Networking Lunch, Saturday from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m., allows students to establish a personal connection with a panelist whose career appeals to them. “This is one very visible, tangible way that undergrads can tap the alum network,” she

see CONFLICT, page 6

DUMPLING KINGS

Outside of reunion weekend, this is the single largest alum event of the year at Brown, said Eve Formisano, director of Alumni Services and Career Programs at Brown.

The group of panelists is diverse, with 22 percent of the panelists alums of color.

Alums will also represent a broad spectrum of fields from architecture to business to government.

Providence Mayor David Cicilline ’83 will be one of the speakers.

Budget cuts stretch writing fellows’ resources A combination of budget cuts and students studying abroad this semester has left the Writing Fellows Program understaffed and struggling to cover all participating courses. The budget cuts have also resulted in the elimination of the Rhetoric Fellows program.

“We want to reach everyone we can,” said Rhoda Flaxman, director of College Writing Programs. “I am doing my darnedest not to drop any courses at this point.”

But, Flaxman added, “I also don’t want to kill my fellows” with the strain of covering so much ground with few resources.

There are currently 65 active writing fellows assigned to 26 courses and one program at the Swearer Center for Public Service, Flaxman said. They are tentatively distributed according to preregistration numbers for each course, and will serve a total of 972 students this semester, according to the early registration numbers. Flaxman said she was “praying” to see that number drop after shopping period ended Tuesday.

Seven fellows have been assigned to split their efforts between two classes, but “they have not really complained” about the situation and will read roughly the same number of pages overall this semester as the others, Flaxman said.

Five writing fellow positions were eliminated this year by budget cuts ordered by the Office of the Dean of the College, which transferred the funds to support the Writing Center, Flaxman said. Another 10 fellows are studying abroad or have taken leaves of absence this semester.

The budget cuts also mean an end to training new Rhetoric Fellows, specialized writing fellows with advanced training in oral presentation. This leaves only the current five trained fellows to act as rhetoric fellows this semester. Flaxman attributed this in part to the relatively small number of professors who took advantage of the program.

BY ARI ROCKLAND-MILLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Career Week 2005, which begins today, will give Brown students of all years the chance to explore post-college opportunities while networking with Brown alums.

Now in its fourth year, Career Week will culminate Saturday with the Career Networking Conference. The first three days will be devoted to “Career Conversations,” facilitated by administrators, young alums and current Brown students. These discussions vary widely in theme, encompassing strategies for networking with alums, obtaining an internship and communicating effectively in a job interview, among other things.

One of the highlights of this part of Career Week will be the Etiquette Dinner, to be held Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m.

Conducted by Professor Emerita Agnes Doody of the University of Rhode Island, this dinner will teach Brown seniors how to dine gracefully during job interviews.

Doody is an “amazing person and a beloved professor,” who does an exemplary job of making this event both entertaining and practical, said Beverly Ehrich, the associate director of the Career Development Center. Doody is notorious for feeding participants a dinner that is particularly difficult to eat, thereby teaching them how to avoid ordering sloppy meals at a real interview.

The Saturday Career Networking Conference is the pinnacle of Career Week. This event draws accomplished Brown alums from all over the country, who talk with current Brown students about their fascinating and often non-linear career paths, Ehrich said.

A major theme that is emphasized year after year by alumni panelists is the unpredictable and serendipitous nature of life, as many alums end up in careers that diverge sharply from their concentrations at Brown.

Through the panelists’ life stories, “students come to recognize the value of a liberal arts education,” Ehrich said. “No matter what your major, it can take you down a track you never anticipated,” she added.

This year, well over 100 panelists will be present at the conference, ranging in graduation year from 1960 to 2005.

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An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

providence music scene Since the 1970s, Providence has been considered a center for a thriving indie music scene.

Bands such as the Talking Heads and Lightning Bolt grew directly out of Providence’s artistic melting pot, and over the years, Lupo’s Hearbreak Hotel has hosted some of the biggest names in alternative music. Today, Brown bands are keeping the unique Providence feel alive and bringing their own creative ideas to the mix.

Campus groups such as Brown Student Radio and the Society of Mixology encourage Brown students to reach beyond the mainstream and sample some of the richness Providence has to offer. This week’s Focus explores Brown’s role in the Providence music scene.

See Focus, page 3 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

Courtesy of Get Him Eat Him

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

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THIS MORNING WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 · PAGE 2 Coreacracy Eddie Ahn

WO R L D AT A G L A N C E Suicide bomber kills 21 in Iraq page 5 Sharon, Abbas pledge an end to violence page 5 Afghans report decline of poppy crop page 8 Rice calls for Europe, U.S. to mend fences page 9

Jero Matt Vascellaro

TO D AY ’ S E V E N TS TAUBMAN LUNCHEON SERIES 12:00-1:00 p.m. (67 George Street, Seminar Room) — Stephen Laffey, mayor of Cranston, speaking on “Perspectives of a RI Mayor”

GLOBALIZATION AND BUSINESS POLITCS: MARKETS AND POLITCAL CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST 4:00 p.m. (McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute) — With Melani Cammett, assistant professor of political science.

POETRY PERFORMANCE: SUHEIR HAMMAD 9:00 p.m. (List Art 120) — Featuring Palestinian-American poet Suheir Hammad, cast member of Def Poetry Jam and author of “Born Palestinian, Born Black”

Penguiener Haan Lee

MENU SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH — Beef and Broccoli Szechwan, Sticky Rice With Edamame Beans, Polynesian Ratatouille, Cappucino Brownies, Raspberry Sticks.

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL LUNCH — Vegetarian Squash Bisque, Turkey and Wild Rice Soup, Chicken Pot Pie, Vegan Tex-Mex Chili, Fresh Sliced Carrots, Cappucino Brownies.

DINNER — Pork Chops with Seasoned Crumbs & Apple Sauce, Rice Pilaf with Zucchini, Peppers Stir Fry, Oregon Blend Vegetables, African Honey Bread Maine blueberry pie, Lamb Roast.

DINNER — Vegetarian Squash Bisque, Turkey and Wild Rice Soup, Baked Sesame Chicken, Egg Foo Young, Sticky Rice, Green Peas, Vegetables in Honey Ginger Sauce, African Honey Bread, Maine Blueberry Pie.

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

CROSSWORD ACROSS 1 Disgusted grunts 5 College assignment 10 Sort 14 It’s all downhill from here 15 Of service 16 “Dies __” 17 Unaccompanied 18 Dr. McCoy, to Kirk 19 “Rats!” relative 20 “Who needs designer gowns?”

23 Pugilist Marvin 25 Theater level 26 __ glance 27 Cereal box title 30 Like a British gentleman 34 Frat letters 36 What early birds often have to do 38 Tour leader 39 “Well, I always solve the crossword in ink” 42 Madrid month 43 Bicentennial celebrator of 2003 44 Info to input 45 Tokyo airport 47 SASE, for example 49 Mr. Rogers 50 Moving aids 52 Kitchen gadgets 54 “April 15th doesn’t scare me” 59 Plow pullers 60 Cries 61 Color lighter than teal 64 Kind of pool 65 Zhou __ 66 Morsel for Miss Muffet 67 Nose wrinkler 68 Hire a new team for 69 Decided, as a jury

DOWN 1 High times 2 One of six Eng. kings 3 Relative of a jackknife 4 Scandinavian toast 5 Barhop, in Bath 6 “That’s not __!”: “Careful!”

7 Wrestling successes 8 Choose 9 Send over 10 Engage in horseplay 11 Afghanistan neighbor 12 User’s pursuer 13 Say it isn’t so 21 IBM competitor 22 Traffic sign 23 Transpire 24 Daughter of Zeus 28 El __, Texas 29 Wall recess 31 Like Don Quixote 32 I-dotting, tcrossing type 1

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 · PAGE 3

Beyond the Top 40: A look at Providence music Brown Student Radio reflects a city’s personality

Brown artists find niche in community

BY SUCHITA MATHUR CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The capital of a state with just over a million residents and the questionable distinction of being the smallest in the union, Providence does not fit the description of a thriving metropolis. But in at least one important respect, Providence can hold its own with the big dogs; student musicians at Brown say the university and its greater community of Providence provide an active, experimental and highly accessible music scene that competes with larger cities in atmosphere and opportunities.

One band that takes advantage of such opportunities is Get Him Eat Him, a Brown-based rock band. The group formed in 2003 and were signed to Absolutely Kosher records in July 2004.

Their debut album, “Casual Sex,” is due out in 2005, according to the Absolutely Kosher website.

Matt LeMay ’06, lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Get Him Eat Him, said that what sometimes looks like a lack of a scene in Providence is just a reflection of the considerable variety in the types of music people are creating and performing.

“The scene in Providence is kind of spread out, which can be a good thing and a bad thing,” he said. “I think right now, because there’s no Providence ‘sound’ or cohesive scene, it’s good because a lot of people are trying out many different things and sounds.”

Providence in the 1970s had a reputation for spawning indie rock bands — the members of Talking Heads were graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design. In the mid-1990s, Lightning Bolt, another band with a RISD graduate, gained renown and set an example other local bands loosely emulated, said Rafael Spielman ’07, Get Him Eat Him’s keyboardist.

Spielman said though he had heard the music scene in Providence has remained relatively unchanged in past years, he finds many performers quirky and eclectic. “Some of the bands in Providence are pretty out there — some of the bands are pretty free-form,” he said.

Even for bands comprised solely of Brown students, finding venues in the city can be easier than playing on campus, said Luke Fischbeck, a graduate student in the Music Department.

“There’s a pretty rich scene in Providence, which I think some (Brown) bands have broken into,” he said.

“They’re lucky.”

Fischbeck is currently involved in two musical endeavors on campus; one is a solo project called Lucky Dragons that he described as “laptop stuff — more experimental, electronic music” that has toured extensively, and the other is a two-person folk music group known as Glaciers.

He said the only times he has played on campus have been with other student groups, and he found a relatively limited audience.

“Mostly Brown students just go to see their friends play, but I think it’s just a matter of exposure,” Fischbeck said.

“On campus there are venues — places like the Underground … and once I put on a show at Steinert (Practice Center).”

Some bands have been lucky enough to break into the larger scene in communities around Providence. Along with a show at Providence’s AS220 in March of last year and a show at Brown’s Production Workshop in November, Get

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Him Eat Him also sometimes plays at various venues in nearby Cambridge, Mass. Venturing even farther beyond College Hill, the band will play at the Knitting Factory in New York City on March 18.

Jason Sigal ’07, a member of Get Him Eat Him, said what he had heard about the music scene in Providence excited him, but after coming to Brown he found the University and Providence community slightly more separated than he had imagined. “I don’t want to be a band from Brown, I just want to be a band,” he said. “I’m more into the Providence scene.”

Sigal also plays for the band Lame Drivers and Tinnitus, which he described as “more of an entity than a

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BY KIRA LESLEY FOCUS EDITOR

It’s no surprise that Brown Student Radio is firmly entrenched in the Providence music scene — it’s had longer than any other college station to form ties with the larger community. BSR blazed airwave trails when, in 1936, it became the first student-run station in the country. Sixtynine years of steeping in the unique culture of the city has left BSR with a strong Providence flavor.

One of the three tenets of BSR’s official manifesto is to further interactions between Brown students and the Providence community. The station features a blend of Providence-grown and Brown DJs and programming that focuses on the Providence scene.

Courtesy of Get Him Eat Him

band.” Despite the divide between music on and off campus, Sigal said he thinks being at Brown has benefited his musical experience and creativity, perhaps more than if he had been in a more prominent urban center such as New York. “A lot of New York is crap — not that everything coming out of New York is crap, but they have so many things going on, it’s kind of overwhelming,” he said.

Matthew Sledge ’08 is a member of the Society of Mixology, a club devoted to “spreading the joy of music through mix CDs.” He said a smaller cross-section of Brown students enjoy indie or underground music than he had expected. “I came here thinking it would be some sort of amazing music wonderland, and that everyone would be listening to the same kind of music as I do — I was amazed to come here and find people listening to Christina Aguilera,” he said. “But I’ve found a lot of people into interesting things, and (the Society) is working on outreach efforts; we’re trying to help people who like bad music.”

Brown Student Radio, Brown’s noncommercial student-run radio station, occasionally gives playing time to local and University bands, and greatly encourages independent and obscure music on campus, LeMay said. “I think college radio is great, and BSR is a good example,” he said. “The fact they have no set playlists gives DJs a lot of freesee BANDS, page 9

Approximately half of BSR’s DJs are local, said Shepherd Laughlin ’07, co-features director at BSR. “The people who come out of the greater community are more likely to have ties to the local music scene,” he said. The station’s weekly Live Block frequently hosts Providence bands.

Even when not playing the music of local artists, the DJs at BSR spin music that reflects the Providence tradition of indie and underground music. According to General Manager Shauna Duffy ’04, “the goal with the music shows isn’t to be elitist, but we have a limited amount of airtime, so our goal is to put things on the radio that aren’t elsewhere on the radio.

So it doesn’t have to be all obscure, but we don’t play Top 40. If you have a good reason for playing a Britney Spears song in a program, that could be legitimate, but for the most part we try to discourage DJs from playing the same stuff you hear everywhere else on the radio.”

Duffy noted that students and local DJs who want to learn the ropes of commercial radio production have an “amazing opportunity” in the Brown-affiliated WBRU. Unlike at commercial stations, DJs at BSR create their own playlists. In general, however, they are required to play three new releases — songs released within the past three months — each week. The station receives hundreds of new releases and most of them are reviewed, Duffy said. “We encourage (DJs) to play new things but we never tell them what to play.”

The range of music played at BSR is

large. Shows range from “The Square Dance Disaster Hour,” which describes itself as “country begets metal begets rock begets baguettes” to “Transforming HipHop,” which promises to deliver “free association with hip-hop as the jumping point.”

Although the music offered up at BSR is disparate in genre, it all tends to be music that doesn’t have many other avenues for public exposure.

This tendency toward originality and the lesser-known can also be seen in BSR’s lineup of feature programs. “Mixtape For the City,” hosted by Megan Hall ’04.5 and Andrew Oesch RISD ’02, directs listeners on biking tours of the city. For each show, Hall and Oesch plan out 30-minute biking routes in Providence and set them to music, giving directions and pointing out the routes’ interesting points along the way. Hall said she tries to pick music that reflects the feel of the routes, which so far have included a stretch along Wickenden Street beginning on the downtown side of the Point Street Bridge and ending at India Point Park and a path around the capitol building that included a dip below the Providence Place Mall.

While Hall stays in the station to broadcast, Oesch arrives at the route’s endpoint to leave candles, cookies and a suggestion box for listeners. But Hall and Oesch make it a point not to accompany the bikers along the way because they want listeners to discover the city for themselves and create a “mobile community” in Providence, she said.

“Mixtape For The City” provides one example of the fluid nature of the Providence arts scene. The show combines music, biking, the aesthetic appeal of the city and even visual arts. According to Hall, “some of the (advertisement) posters were more artistic than informative” — one was designed to emulate a silk screen with nearly illegible information about where and when to meet.

This tendency toward mixing music, visual arts and the biking community is an aspect of Providence life that Rhode Island native Duffy said she finds very appealing. As for Providence’s reputation as a haven for underground music fans, Duffy said she feels that “Providence is a million times more amazing than its reputation could ever pretend to stab at. I think it’s the most amazing city in the world. There are amazing ties between the music community, the visual arts community, the bike community — all these people are part of amazing communities that get international recognition.”

Hall said she feels the uniquely diverse nature of the Providence music and arts scene is partially due to people’s desire to “live intentionally.” She said that many Providence artists are concerned with the impact their actions — including what food they eat, where they live and how they get around — have on the greater community. “(Providence) has a group of people who want to live in a different way. They don’t want to buy into owning a car, they don’t want to buy into having a corporate job. They’re interested in making art or music and alternative forms of transportation.”

This characteristically Providence blending of art forms and desire for something outside the mainstream continues to be reflected at BSR. “We don’t need to be doing what every other radio station is doing,” Duffy said.

BSR 88.1 FM bsrlive.com

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005

Fellows continued from page 1 The strain on the writing fellows program is unwelcome news both for the professors who take advantage of the program to improve their students’ writing skills and the undergraduates who work as writing fellows.

In courses that employ writing fellows, all students must submit a first draft of each paper to a writing fellow two weeks before the due date. The writing fellow then provides feedback though written comments and a one-on-one meeting, leaving the student another week to revise the paper.

Flaxman said it may become necessary to make the individual student conferences optional for fellows serving more than 20 students if the preregistration numbers prove accurate.

“I would be really bummed if I didn’t have writing fellows,” said Rachel Morello-Frosch, assistant professor of environmental science, who has three writing fellows for ES172: “Environmental Justice.”

“Students come into class with varying writing skills,” she said, and the writing fellows help students with stylistic issues to a degree that she “can grade more on the actual content and mastery of the material.”

Morello-Frosch also credited the program with improving her class plan, noting that having writing fellows “encourages you to think early about the structure of your course and the timing of your assignments, to the benefit of students.”

Tara Nummedal, assistant professor of history, plans to use writing fellows in her first-year seminar, HI97, Sec. 6: “Magic, Science and Religion in Europe.” She has been tentatively assigned two fellows for her class of 20 students.

“Particularly for first-year students, I think it’s absolutely essential” to develop strong writing skills, Nummedal said. She added, “I think of the first-year seminar as a place to really focus on writing.”

That’s why she uses the writing fellows, Nummedal said, describing them as “fantastic” in helping students develop writing skills.

She believes all first-year seminars should use writing fellows to that end.

Both professors said they believe, in the end, students appreciate the writing fellows and value the improvement in their writing skills, though they may resent the extra work at the time.

Kevin Wilson ’07, currently in his first year as a writing fellow, agreed, saying he believes the writing fellows are “generally much appreciated” by students. He said he was excited for the coming semester and working in CG42: “Human Cognition.”

Samuel James ’07, also a firstyear writing fellow, has been assigned to work in two courses this semester: HI97, Sec. 6 and SO2: “Perspectives on Social Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology.”

“I’d prefer to have one class just because I can devote more time to the papers in that class,” James said, but he said having two classes would be “not that big an issue,” and he was still looking forward to working as a writing fellow this semester despite being stretched thin.

But, James added, “The underfunding (of the program) doesn’t really help things at all.”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

WORLD & NATION WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 · PAGE 5

Suicide bomber kills 21

BY STEVE FAINARU THE WASHINGTON POST

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A man walked into a crowd of Iraqi army recruits in central Baghdad on Tuesday and blew himself up, killing at least 21 and wounding at least 27 people.

With that attack, the death toll has reached 168 in Iraq since the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections and Iraqi security forces have born the brunt of that violence. Of 153 Iraqis reported killed in the past nine days, 106 were soldiers, police officers or army and police recruits, according to figures released by the U.S. military and Iraqi authorities. In addition, 15 U.S. soldiers were killed.

The violence suggests that the election, despite a largerthan-expected turnout, has not slowed a grinding insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and 1,445 Americans since the start of the Iraq war. Attacks appear to have increased in cities such as Baghdad and Mosul, where security was particularly high for the elections but since has leveled off.

Insurgents were “no doubt waiting for a relaxing of security restrictions after the elections” and “are probably feeling some of the saved-up animosity that couldn’t work its way out during the election period,” according to U.S. Army Capt. Patrick M. Roddy Jr., who until last week served as liaison between the U.S. military and the government of Ninevah province, where Mosul is located.

Roddy said that “another large spike in violence” is likely when the election results are announced, including the targeting of newly elected officials. Those results may be announced by Thursday, Iraqi election officials have said.

In addition to Tuesday’s bombing, at least five Iraqis were killed in separate violence in the capital. They included three Iraqi police officers who were killed during clashes in Baghdad’s western Ghazaliyah neighborhood, according to the Associated Press.

Assailants also ambushed a sports utility vehicle carrying see SUICIDE, page 7

Sharon, Abbas pledge an end to violence

BY MOLLY MOORE THE WASHINGTON POST

SHARM EL-SHIEK — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas promised Tuesday to halt attacks on each other’s people, expressing optimism that renewed relations offered a chance to end a devastating four-year cycle of suicide bombings and military assaults.

At the conclusion of a carefully scripted summit in this Red Sea resort town, Sharon announced: “We agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere. ... Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians anywhere.”

“We are looking forward to replacing the language of bullets and bombs with the language of good dialogue,” Abbas said, “and to provide Palestinian and Israeli children with new opportunities for peace.”

Abbas said the two leaders’ parallel announcements signaled “the start of a new era” and provided “a new opportunity to resume the peace process.” But he cautioned, “What we agreed on today is only the beginning to bridge the gap and differences between us.”

The pledges did not have the force of a formal ceasefire, but were described by Israeli and Palestinian officials as an agreement to begin forging a lasting solution to a conflict that has killed just over 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,000 Palestinians since September 2000.

In addition, Egypt and Jordan, whose leaders also attended the summit, announced that they would return their ambassadors to Israel for the first time since withdrawing them in late 2000 over what they considered Israel’s use of excessive force against Palestinians in the early weeks of the uprising.

In Paris, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised the progress made by Sharon and Abbas. “Success is not assured, but America is resolute,” said Rice, who met with both men this week. “This is the best chance for peace we

are likely to see for some years to come, and we are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance.”

Many of the thorniest issues dividing Israel and the Palestinians remain unresolved. Some were assigned on Tuesday to committees; others won’t be addressed for months. “We couldn’t resolve all the issues today,” Abbas said.

Officials from each side said the realization of Tuesday’s pronouncements depends on the other side meeting its obligations. For Abbas, that means persuading guerrillas to stop attacks on Israelis and ensuring that Palestinian security agencies work to help prevent such attacks. For Sharon, it means an end to assassinations of militants, military incursions into Palestinian cities and destruction of Palestinians’ homes.

But while Abbas committed the Palestinian Authority to refrain from violence, the two most powerful radical Islamic groups — the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, and Islamic Jihad — have not endorsed his efforts, though both have scaled back attacks since Abbas was elected a month ago.

Representatives of Hamas issued conflicting assessments of the summit, reflecting both continued debate within the group’s ranks and the challenges still facing Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen.

“We cannot accept it,” Mushir Masri, one Hamas spokesman, said in a telephone interview. But Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas political leader in the Gaza Strip, told television reporters that if the Israelis “continue the quiet, then we are going to continue, because we are committed to Abu Mazen.”

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said after the summit that he was preparing to fly to the Syrian capital, Damascus, to try to persuade senior Hamas officials to honor Abbas’ commitment to the Israelis. see ISRAEL, page 7

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005

Career continued from page 1 said.

The networking process is laid back and fairly informal, but students should take the event seriously, Formisano said.

“Although it is not a job interview, students should spend the time and do the background research on the panelists so that the level of the questions they ask is beyond the baseline,” she

said.

Career Week student leader Radiance Hill ’05 explained that the alums “are obviously willing to help students” and that faceto-face networking is a wonderful way of establishing connections in a student’s field of interest. “You’re taking a step to set up the start of your career path,” she said. The beauty of the Networking Conference, Hill added, is that it allows students to move forward in the process of career exploration and networking, in a relaxed and reassuring way that reduces their anxiety.

Not only can Career Week’s events be helpful to students, they are also “hugely fun,” according to Ehrich. “Students always tell us it was an amazing day of learning, exploration and opening their brains,” she said.

Though some of the more popular events are already full, interested students can register for available programs at the Career Services Web site.

Conflict continued from page 1 “The college concert circuit begins bidding for acts in late November, and most spring activities are planned between this time and early January,” Gresh said.

The Brown Concert Agency scheduled Spring Weekend without the knowledge of a possible conflict with Passover, Gresh said.

“If we don’t move the weekend, we want to maximize the number of people who participate while sending a message to the community that we respect the choices they have to make. … There are many outstanding questions we still need to address,” Gresh said.

Over the past weeks, numerous organizations on campus, including Greek Council, the Class Coordinating Board, the Hillel Student Executive Board, the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, have been searching for proactive answers to these questions.

Representatives from most of these organizations plan on providing a more concrete recommendation at a private meeting tonight.

“This problem can’t be solved without engaged student leadership,” Gresh said.

Resolving the scheduling conflict would involve either moving Spring Weekend entirely or rescheduling individual events, Gresh said.

For students traveling to homes nearby in New England or the tri-state area, present

alternatives for Saturday’s schedule include pushing performances up to the early- and mid-afternoon so there would be enough time for students to reach their destinations by car.

“The real challenge is (students would have) to make a choice between ending the school year with Spring Weekend or with spending time with family at Passover,” Gresh said.

At other Ivy League universities, organizers of campus-wide events said they pay particular attention to avoid scheduling conflicts, especially with major religious observances.

“Religious holidays are always taken into account when planning big weekends at Dartmouth,” said Russell Lane, president of the Green Key Society at Dartmouth College, which organizes the annual Green Key Weekend each spring.

The event will be held this year May 14-15.

Linda Kennedy, director of student activities at Dartmouth, said planning campus activities often involves “calendar gymnastics.”

“Because Dartmouth’s spring term runs until June, our big spring weekend is in mid-May and doesn’t conflict with Passover,” Kennedy said. “We do have potential conflicts between Passover and our weekend for admitted students in April, but through careful scheduling we avoid that situation,” she added.

According to Christina Adams, campus life chair of the Harvard Undergraduate Council, the date for Harvard University’s annual Springfest is not set by undergraduates, but by the Office of the President.

Springfest’s date for 2005 has

not been released.

Adams said she believed that Passover’s date would be a factor in the planning of Springfest, but she said other timing considerations would be taken into account.

She said Harvard’s present trend is to have Springfest coincide with its visiting weekend for accepted students, so the event would most likely fall in late April.

Andrew Cedar, president of the Yale College Council, noted that the duration of Brown’s Spring Weekend added to the scheduling conflict.

“I know that Brown’s Spring Weekend is multiple days, so that is an added constraint for Brown; but, Yale’s Spring Fling is only one day,” Cedar wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

As every day passes, the logistical challenges presented by any solution become more complicated, Gresh said.

“In planning 10 spring weekends at Penn and MIT, I have never met this problem,” Gresh said, who came to Brown last summer.

University schedulers have already begun to scrutinize scheduling conflicts that may arise in the future due to religious observances and have cleared Passover until the year 2016, Gresh said. They are working on Easter and Ramadan.

But as far as Spring Weekend 2005 is concerned, organizers hope to find a reasonable solution at their meeting tonight.

“What solution can we make to be respectful to these students?” Gresh asked. “It seems the values Brown espouses in diversity and respect run contrary (to this situation).”

BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

Israel continued from page 5 Although Abbas has preferred to negotiate with militant groups rather than arrest or attack their members, Shaath said, “from now on, any violation of the truce will be a violation of the national commitment and will have to be dealt with as such.”

On the Israeli side, senior government officials said Israel’s military will maintain its presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and continue to conduct operations against militants believed to preparing attacks against Israelis.

“We must move forward cautiously,” Sharon said, sitting across from Abbas at a massive round table in a conference hall that has been the site of numerous peace summits. “This is a very fragile opportunity that the extremists will want to exploit.

They want to close the window of opportunity for us and allow our two peoples to drown in their blood.”

Sharon appeared to refer not only to Palestinian guerrillas but also to the politically powerful and outspoken minority of Israelis who oppose his plan to pull Jewish settlers and Israeli troops out of the Gaza Strip and four small settlements in the West Bank this summer.

Tuesday’s summit was the first between high-ranking Israeli and Palestinian officials since President Bush attended a similar June 2003 session with Sharon

Suicide continued from page 5 a politician, Mithal Alusi, who ran in the Jan. 30 elections. Alusi was not injured but two of his sons — one reportedly in his twenties and the other 30 — were killed. Alusi was a prominent official within the Iraqi National Congress, the party headed by Ahmad Chalabi, until Chalabi expelled him for visiting Israel last year.

The pan-Arab television network Al-Arabiyah showed footage of Alusi standing in a daze before his sons, both cloaked in black body bags. Two American soldiers were seen offering their condolences to Alusi and trying to console him, shaking his hand and kissing him on both cheeks, an Arab custom.

An Iraqi chef who worked for U.S. troops at Baghdad International Airport was killed Monday by gunmen, according to the Associated Press, quoting hospital sources. And the U.S. military, elaborating on reports that U.S. soldiers in Baghdad had rescued four kidnapped Egyptian employees of an Iraqi cell phone compa-

and Abbas, then Arafat’s prime minister, in the Jordanian seaport of Aqaba to announce the launching of the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan.

Following that summit, Abbas persuaded Palestinian militant groups to agree to a cease-fire. But the cease-fire collapsed within months and Abbas, frustrated with Arafat, Israel and world leaders’ failure to support the peace process, resigned his post.

At Tuesday’s summit, held at a resort where bemused golfers watched as Egyptian security officials patrolled the fairways with bomb-sniffing dogs, participants were sequestered in a conference hall. Reporters were not allowed to view the proceedings, though ritual handshakes and the summit-ending addresses by Sharon, Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were conducted before television cameras and news photographers.

Sharon and Abbas held a private meeting that lasted just over an hour, while both men held private meetings with Mubarak and Jordan’s King Abdullah, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

Palestinians and Israelis choreographed Tuesday’s summit in minute detail, even exchanging copies of Abbas’ and Sharon’s speeches the day before the meeting, according to officials on both sides.

Joint committees were formed to seek compromises on a number of issues. One will haggle over the number and type of Palestinian prisoners Israel is willing to release — an issue that

nearly derailed the summit a few days ago. Israel has said it will release 900 prisoners of the 7,600 that the Palestinian Authority says are being held, and the Defense Ministry announced Tuesday that the first 500 would be freed next week.

Another committee will work out the details of the Israeli military withdrawal from the West Bank cities of Jericho, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Qalqilyah and Tulkarm.

The far more prickly issues, including the future of Jerusalem, the barrier that Israel is building through and around the West Bank, and the rapid expansion of settlements across the West Bank, haven’t been scheduled for discussion, officials said.

Even so, the summit offered a rare flash of hope among Israeli and Palestinian leaders who have been trapped in a grind of violence and repetitive rhetoric for most of the past four years.

Mubarak called the summit “a significant and very important step forward,” adding, “We met today to put an end to this whirlpool and put the peace process back on track.”

Mubarak said he believed Sharon and Abbas “are equally sincere” in their efforts to try to negotiate a solution to the uprising.

Sharon invited Abbas to his farm in southern Israel for their next meeting, Israeli officials said.

If that session is successful, they said, they hope a third meeting would be conducted in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

ny, said soldiers had stopped a suspicious vehicle and found two of the men in the trunk. Soldiers then arrested suspects at the scene, the military said.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, the organization headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took credit for Tuesday’s bombing in a statement on an Islamic Web site. The group, which also took credit for the Mosul bombing and another in Baqubah on Monday that killed 15, vowed further attacks on “apostates and their masters.”

The solidification of the Iraqi security forces is regarded as the linchpin of the U.S. military’s strategy to ultimately withdraw from Iraq. The Bush administration has said there are 136,000 such forces who are “trained and equipped,” but military officials acknowledge that only a fraction are developed enough to provide adequate security against the insurgency.

The insurgents have repeatedly targeted not only soldiers and police but also the recruits who continue to line up for jobs by the thousands, in part because of the country’s chronic unemployment.

Tuesday’s bombing occurred around 10:30 a.m. at an army

recruiting center at the old AlMuthana airfield in the heart of the capital. According to witnesses, a man walked into a crowd of approximately 100 recruits gathered in front of the front gates and detonated a bomb.

Iraqi soldiers were shooting indiscriminately at the site for hours after the bombing. The area where the bombing occurred was littered with shell casings and debris.

Haider Ahmed, a 58-year-old retiree, who said he was passing by when the bombing occurred, said it was the fifth time insurgents had struck at the recruiting center.

“Have not they realized that this place was targeted many times?” he said. “They have to move this place somewhere else. They must choose a place that is not one of the most crowded places in Baghdad.”

The bomber “thought that he would have his dinner with the prophet,” said Abed Nor Khazi, a 69-year-old street vendor, referring to the heavenly reward that insurgents sometimes promise to entice people to be suicide bombers. “Is it worthy to have dinner with our prophet to commit this?”

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005

Afghans report decline of poppy crop

BY N.C. AIZENMAN THE WASHINGTON POST

GIRDI GHOUS, Afghanistan — Shah Mahmoud smiled ruefully as he surveyed the snow-speckled fields stretching beyond the mud walls of his village. In droughtplagued Nangahar province, a rare snowfall would normally augur a bumper crop for the many opium poppy farmers among his people.

But on acre after acre, the green shoots poking through the soil were not fat poppy buds but delicate sprigs of wheat.

“I made the decision this season that it would be forbidden to plant poppy,” said Mahmoud, whose edicts as the area’s traditional chief, or malek, carry more weight with the 30,000 members of his community than any government law. “So none of us did.

Now I’m not so happy about that.”

Across Afghanistan, government officials and foreign aid workers who monitor poppy cultivation have reached a remarkable conclusion: One year after Afghan farmers planted the largest amount of poppy in their nation’s history and provided the world with nearly 90 percent of its opium supply, many of them have stopped growing it.

Poppy farming, officials said, may have declined by as much as 70 percent in three provinces that together account for more than half of Afghanistan’s production: Nangahar in the east, Helmand in the south and Badakhshan in the north.

In Nangahar, where last spring poppies bloomed all along the main road from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, to the Pakistani border, the contrast today is striking.

“I visited 16 out of 22 districts and I couldn’t find a single plant of poppy,” marveled Mirwais Yasini,

Wrestling continued from page 12 when Pedro tried to mount a last-period comeback against Dustin Wiles. Pedro went into the final period trailing 7-5, and with 12 seconds left in the match, Pedro reversed Wiles to bring the score within one. But Pedro was unable to record the final takedown to send the match into overtime, and Wiles won, 8-6.

The Bears bounced back, though, winning three of the next five matches to tie the score at 9-9, winning the tying match on a sudden-death overtime takedown by Apello.

“Danny’s been wrestling tough,” Amato said. “He had a good win against Penn (in a key situation).”

After Penn’s nationally ranked Doug McGraw defeated Savino, though, the holes in the Bears’ lineup proved to be their downfall. The Bears lost two of the final three matches, including a major decision in Lohrman’s 165pound weight class, where a win would have given the Bears a tie.

The Bears did not put up the same fight against Drexel.

Emotionally drained from the close loss to Penn, they faced a Drexel team that was still stinging from a 22-14 loss on their home mat the year before. The Bears came out flat, while Drexel was hungry

head of the Afghan government’s counter-narcotics directorate. “It was all wheat.”

Several factors may be responsible, including a drop in opium prices after the previous banner harvest, and a reluctance to plant among farmers whose crops were destroyed last season by disease or the police.

Afghan officials, however, claim the news vindicates President Hamid Karzai’s decision to reject an anti-poppy aerial spraying campaign, which had been promoted by the U.S. government, in favor of a more consensus-based “Afghan solution.”

Karzai voiced concerns that spraying would cause health and environmental problems and antagonize farmers; several foreign nonprofit aid groups here also opposed the idea. Instead, the president used appeals to national and religious pride, the promise of international aid and the threat of crop destruction to persuade hundreds of village and tribal leaders such as Mahmoud to curb poppy cultivation voluntarily.

Yet the very success of this new policy also creates tremendous challenges in a nation where opium cultivation and trafficking made up more than a third of the economy last year and sustained many thousands of poor rural families.

“People will need other sources of income as soon as possible, or we’ll be the witness to a big disaster. People may even face starvation,” said Gen. Muhammad Daoud, deputy interior minister in charge of counter-narcotics.

U.S. military officials said they plan to conduct aerial surveillance soon to verify reports that poppy crops have been reduced. In December, the top commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, for revenge.

“They were ready to fight,” Amato said. “(Wrestling) is a fight with rules, and they were ready to brawl. They were a lot more motivated to be in a battle of wills than we were.”

Two Bears bucked the trend and put up wins. Firstyear standout Jeff Schell ’08 got a major decision for his 20th win of the season, and Heist had an 11-7 comeback win that featured the fire Amato thought was lacking from the rest of the team.

“He showed some toughness against Drexel … and if everyone had wrestled like him, we would have won,” Amato said. “He just got ticked off.”

As a team, though, the Bears had their first truly subpar dual meet performance, as Drexel’s toughness and emotion caught the Bears off guard.

“It was definitely a different match for us (than Penn), coming off a hard loss to Penn,” Pedro said. “It didn’t seem like anyone out there wanted to be out there, but that they had to be out there.

You can’t be on your best game every match.”

The Bears host their first home dual meets of the semester this weekend, with Ivy League leader Cornell coming to the Pizzitola Center Friday, followed by Columbia and Sacred Heart on Saturday.

reportedly warned visiting officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that drug lords were expanding their influence in the Afghan government and could form ties with Taliban fighters.

But Col. David Lamm, chief of staff for the U.S. military command in Afghanistan, said he was optimistic that Kabul’s assertions of progress in reducing poppy production would prove true. “Can you put it under your mattress and let the price go up? Yes,” he said, but he added that since Karzai told farmers not to plant, “they are not planting.”

International donors have pledged millions to help Afghanistan combat drugs this year; the United States pledged about $780 million. About $120 million of the U.S. assistance package has been earmarked for work on irrigation canals, to improve roads, to create micro-credit systems, and to obtain better seeds and fertilizers so poppy workers can make a living from other crops and industries.

In Nangahar, the first phase of that effort has already begun, with plans to hire about 50,000 workers to do jobs such as clearing irrigation canals. In a largely symbolic gesture, the U.S. government has also distributed 500 metric tons of wheat seeds in Nangahar — enough for less than 5 percent to 10 percent of farmers, Afghan officials said.

But it will take until at least early spring to start up more lasting infrastructure improvements, U.S. officials said. Also, while aid workers stress that such programs are not intended to compensate individual farmers who gave up their see POPPIES, page 9

M. swim continued from page 12 “Inevitably, with more spots and guys that can be recruited, Yale and Columbia should be faster,” he said. “Overall though, I think it will be a different story at (the Ivy League) Championships.”

The Bears have one more regular season meet at home against Cornell Saturday. Cornell (7-2, 52) has beaten both Yale and Columbia within the last month and trails only Harvard and Princeton in the Ivy League. The Big Red will no doubt be a tough opponent, but Coach Brown thinks it will be a highly competitive meet.

“Cornell is swimming very well right now and will be very challenging,” he said. “But we match up well with them, so we will see how it goes.”

The Bears will also be motivated to be back in their home pool after almost three months away from it.

“I can’t wait to swim at the Smith Center again,” Volosin said.

“I hope there are a lot of people there to get the team energized.”

The seniors will have an additional incentive, as it will be not only their last home meet of the season, but also the last of their careers.

“I know that the team will be ready to go,” Zimmerman said.

“Especially the seniors. We know it is our last dual meet ever and will want to end it on a high note.”

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

Poppies continued from page 8 poppy crops, local leaders such as Mahmoud see it that way.

A tall man in his 60s, Mahmoud has the regal bearing of a leader whose title has been passed down through generations. If enough aid does not arrive by the start of the planting cycle next fall, he warned, he may not have enough clout to stop growers from switching back.

“The farmers will grab my collar and say, ‘You said that we could get aid for not growing poppy and we got nothing!’” Mahmoud predicted. “Then even I will not be able to stop them from growing poppy again.”

Mahmoud said he learned of Karzai’s new anti-drug strategy in December when he tuned a dusty television set to watch the inaugural address. Karzai, who was elected Oct. 9 after serving as interim president for nearly three years, called for a “holy war” against the drug trade, which Afghan religious leaders have also declared unIslamic.

Shortly afterward, Mahmoud and more than 40 other tribal and village leaders in Nangahar received invitations to meetings about anti-drug efforts with provincial officials, several national ministries and representatives of the British and U.S. governments.

The purpose was to make clear that the government had the means and the determination to crack down on poppy cultivation, said Ghous, head of counter-narcotics for Nangahar police.

“We told them that the central government is serious — that if you grow poppy, the government will get rid of it by force,” recalled Ghous, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

The community leaders also heard presentations by aid workers about plans for development and assistance projects. Then they were asked to discuss among themselves whether they could pledge to stop growing poppy in

Gymnastics continued from page 12 The floor exercise was Brown’s strongest event of the competition, with all five scorers tallying 9.325 and above, posting an impressive combined score of 47.575. Brown was again led by Smith, who scored 9.725 in the event. Pouchet finished a successful day by coming in second for Brown with a 9.575 performance.

Durning continued to show great composure for a first year, posting a 9.5.

The meet proved to be challenging for several reasons, most notable of which were a loud atmosphere and the large number of fans. Despite the distractions, the team was able to cope with the pressure.

their areas. Mahmoud said he struggled with the decision.

“As far back as I can remember, the people in this village have always grown poppy,” he said. The reason is simple: Opium harvested from poppy fetches 10 to 20 times the price of legal crops such as wheat.

Last season, Mahmoud said, he and his brothers planted poppy on about 1 1/2 of the three acres they farm and received about $2,500 in return. By contrast, the wheat they planted on the rest of the land earned them one-tenth that amount. He also leased another 25 acres to sharecroppers who mainly planted poppy.

A tour through Mahmoud’s fortress-like compound made clear how he has benefited from poppy income. Although it is built of mud brick and lacks electricity and heat, it has walls two stories high, an imposing blue metal gate, three separate courtyards and a sprawl of rooms with living space for more than 50 members of his extended family. A Toyota Corolla — one of three vehicles the family owns — was parked near a mosque built especially for the family.

Mahmoud said he agreed to the voluntary crop reduction, in part because he feared a more aggressive effort to eradicate the crop would lead to violent clashes with farmers, and in part because he was convinced that the aid officials he met would follow through on their promises. But mostly, he said, it was because he did not want to bring shame on Karzai, for whom he voted, and his new government.

“The international community has its eyes on Afghanistan now. If we cultivate poppy this year, they will say every time Afghanistan is growing poppy. We need the international community’s help, and so I don’t want us to have a bad reputation,” he said.

There is, however, a limit to his support. If the president does not deliver the expected improvements soon, he said with a shrug, “We will vote Mr. Karzai out of office and go back to planting poppy.”

“The team stayed focused through the entire meet and stuck together,” Carver-Milne said.

Compared to the Yale meet, the squad performed much better, scoring two more points. Both Carver-Milne and co-captain Kelly Moran ’05 pointed to recent improvement in the first-year class as integral to the team’s growth in strength and depth. Co-captain Melissa Forziat ’05 attributed the team’s success to a more competitive attitude during the competition.

“We improved a lot in terms of our energy and enthusiasm. (On a small team) everyone makes a difference,” Forziat said.

The team will host its first home opener Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Pizzitola Center, where it will take on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Southern Connecticut State University.

Rice calls for Europe, U.S. to mend fences

BY ROBIN WRIGHT THE WASHINGTON POST

PARIS — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Tuesday for Europe and the United States to turn away from past disagreements and focus on spreading democratic values to the Middle East and around the world, saying recent developments show that “we’ve only just begun to see what freedom can achieve.”

In a speech billed as her first major foreign policy address since taking over as secretary of state for President Bush’s second term, Rice echoed the themes of Bush’s inaugural call to promote democracy abroad as a way to fight Islamic radicals, who she said are “swimming against the tide of the human spirit.”

“Freedom by its very nature must be homegrown,” Rice said.

“It cannot be given, and it certainly cannot be imposed.” But she added, “Spreading freedom in the Arab and Muslim worlds is urgent work that cannot be deferred.”

Speaking at a renowned political science school in the allied capital that had most vociferously opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq nearly two years ago, Rice stressed that now “it is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past” and begin a “new chapter” in the transatlantic alliance.

“America has everything to

Bands continued from page 3 dom and distinguishes them even from other college indierock stations.”

Fischbeck said though college bands generally dissolve after members graduate and disperse, the atmospheres at Brown and RISD are unique in that many students want to devote their lives to the arts. “I

gain from having a stronger Europe as a partner in building a safer and better world,” Rice told an audience at the Sciences Politiques. “So let each of us bring to the table ideas, experience and resources and let us discuss and decide — together — how best to employ them for democratic change.”

Rice’s remarks are seen as particularly important because they end the debate in the Bush administration over whether a united Europe is a rival to the United States on global issues.

“America stands ready to work with Europe on our common agenda — and Europe must stand ready to work with America,” Rice said. “After all, history will surely judge us not by our disagreements, but by our new achievements.”

Rice, making her first trip to Europe as secretary of state after a Middle East stopover to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, hailed an agreement announced Tuesday by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to halt acts of violence against each other”s people.

She called the accord “an important step forward,” although the United States and the parties involved “have no illusions about the difficulties ahead.”

think a lot of people go on to do creative things from here, not only in the music industry but film, art, etc.,” he said.

While Providence may not have all the resources of a large city like New York, there is a unique musical experience to be had at Brown and in Providence. “I think it’s really great being here, because Providence has a lot of interesting things going on, like music and art you can’t put into a category,” Sigal said.

M. track continued from page 12 jump with a mark of 47-8.5.

Also on the runway, Kevin Ferrone ’05 hit a fourth place mark of 21-5.25 in the long jump. Across the infield, John Wade ’08 took third for the Bears with his high jump performance of 6-5.

Though Rothenberg traveled to New York to coach the jump squad attending the Armory, she noted that the men who stayed in Rhode Island were impressive in getting the job done and supporting each other.

“We had talked a lot about what they needed to do and I thought they did a great job pulling together as a group,” Rothenberg said. “I had told them this was the first week they would have their legs back because we are cutting back on the previous hard training.

They competed well this weekend, but more importantly they are even closer to making big breakthroughs and performances we’ve been waiting for all season.”

Another young athlete, Jamil McClintock ’08, scored for the sprint squad, taking fourth in the 55-meter hurdles with a final time of 7.94 seconds. Steve Bernardi ’07 earned six points with two sixth-place finishes in the 55meter dash and the long jump.

Continuing his success for the season, Kent Walls ’06 garnered points in the weight throw, as he hit 50-11 to take fourth.

With only two more meets until the Heptagonal Championships, the Bears are looking to hit times and marks to be competitive in the league. They will compete next on Saturday in Boston at the Fast Track Invitational, where many of the men will be looking to hit seasonal bests as they enter the championship portion of the season.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL/LETTERS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 · PAGE 10 S T A F F

E D I T O R I A L

Good fellows As The Herald reported in March 2004, the University has begun its enforcement of the writing proficiency requirement. Within Brown’s open curriculum, demonstrating a satisfactory ability to write is the one requirement all Brown students are expected to meet. It is no surprise, then, that the Writing Fellows Program is stretched thin. Writing fellows aid students not just in English courses, but in departments ranging from sociology to environmental studies to history. And across department lines, professors find that writing fellows improve students’ work.

What is surprising is that, amidst this effort to create a student body of competent writers, funding for these valued writing fellows has been cut. It is the professors who request the support of writing fellows, and demand is high, suggesting they are an integral part of many professors’ educational goals.

Taking courses with writing fellows is not the only way students can improve their writing. Students looking for assistance in any course, or even for applications and speeches, can visit the Writing Center.

And there are, to be sure, some students who dislike the Writing Fellows Program. Those students already comfortable with their writing abilities may perceive the fellows as an unwelcome intrusion into their course work. Even a professor or two has been heard to grumble about the hassle of coordinating a course with the program. Of course, a budget cut won’t solve those imperfections. If anything, the University should examine the program to find possible improvements.

The University may have its reasons for cutting fellows funding, but we encourage a second look at the program.

After all, professors are the ones responsible for ensuring students meet the writing proficiency requirement, and professors are the ones requesting writing fellows for their courses. It is clear that a sufficient number of professors see value in the Writing Fellows Program, regardless of how many other options exist for students. And with introductory English courses consistently overenrolled and the Writing Center a long walk away on a cold winter’s day for students without intense motivation, writing fellows courses may be the only opportunities some students have to improve their prose.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL Jonathan Ellis, Editor-in-Chief Sara Perkins, Executive Editor Dana Goldstein, Senior Editor Christopher Hatfield, Senior Editor Lisa Mandle, Senior Editor Meryl Rothstein, Arts & Culture Editor Melanie Wolfgang, Arts & Culture Editor Justin Elliott, Campus Watch Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet, Metro Editor Stephanie Clark, Features Editor Kira Lesley, Features Editor Te-Ping Chen, Opinions Editor Ari Savitzky, Opinions Editor Chris Mahr, Sports Editor Ben Miller, Sports Editor PRODUCTION Peter Henderson, Design Editor Katie Lamm, Copy Desk Chief Lela Spielberg, Copy Desk Chief Matt Vascellaro, Graphics Editor Ashley Hess, Photo Editor Juliana Wu, Photo Editor

BUSINESS Ian Halvorsen, General Manager Daniel Goldberg, Executive Manager Mark Goldberg, Senior Financial Officer Robert McCartney, Senior Accounts Manager David Ranken, Senior Accounts Manager Kathleen Timmins, Senior Accounts Manager Lisa Poon, Marketing Manager Ryan Shewcraft, Technology Officer Abigail Ronck, Senior Business Consultant Laurie-Ann Paliotti, Sr. Advertising Rep. Susan Dansereau, Office Manager POST- MAGAZINE Fritz Brantley, Editor-in-Chief Adrian Muniz, Executive Editor Sarah Gordon, Calendar Editor Abigail Newman, Theater Editor Josh Cohen, Design Editor Marissa Hauptman, Photo Editor Ruthie Baron, Features Editor Jeremy Beck, Film Editor Paul Levande, Assistant Film Editor Jesse Adams, Music Editor

Shah Rukh Khan, Night Editor Taryn Martinez, Sonia Saraiya, Copy Editor Senior Staff Writers Camden Avery, Alexandra Barsk, Eric Beck, Mary-Catherine Lader, Ben Leubsdorf, Jane Porter, Stu Woo Staff Writers Marshall Agnew, Zachary Barter, Hannah Bascom, Danielle Cerny, Christopher Chon, Stewart Dearing, Gabriella Doob, Amy Hall Goins, Kate Gorman, Krista Hachey, Jonathan Herman, Leslie Kaufmann, Allison Lombardo, Meryl Rothstein, Jen Sopchockchai, Jonathan Sidhu, Lela Spielberg, Stefan Talman, Jane Tanimura, Jessica Weisberg, Melanie Wolfgang, Anne Wootton Sports Staff Writers Kathy Babcock, Zaneta Balantac, Stephen Colelli, Ian Cropp, Justin Goldman, Bernard Gordon, Katie Larkin, Matt Lieber, Shaun MacNamara, Chris Mahr, Ben Miller, Eric Perlmutter, Jilane Rodgers, Marco Santini, Charlie Vallely Accounts Managers Steven Butschi, Rob McCartney, John Nagler, David Ranken, Joel Rozen, Rukesh Samarasekera, Ryan Shewcraft Project Managers In Young Park, Libbie Fritz Design Staff Deepa Galaiya, Allison Kwong, Jason Lee Photo Staff Marissa Hauptman, Judy He, Matthew Lent, Nick Neely, Bill Pijewski, Kori Schulman, Sorleen Trevino Copy Editors Chessy Brady, Jonathan Corcoran, Eric Demafeliz, Leora Fridman, Allison Kwong, Suchi Mathur, Cristina Salvato, Sonia Saraiya, Zachary Townsend, Jenna Young

DANIEL L AWLOR

LETTERS Concentrator sees support for women in the Physics Dept.

To the Editor: Being a female, a physicist and a student, I certainly find the issues surrounding women in science important and the recent attention is wonderful (“U. Striving To Improve Academic Climate For Women,” Feb. 2).

The article was intended to show that some are not satisfied with university efforts to “close the gender gap” in academia. However, the article depicted certain departments in such a poor light that women might be discouraged from joining them. Comments made about the physics department may have some merit, but there were points left out. As far as numbers go, there are at least five females graduating from the physics department this year, not one as the article stated. In some classes such as PH142 there are more women than men (seven to five). Admittedly, it is only one course. I am merely trying to show that

there is a female presence in the department.

Regarding the faculty in the department, it is unfair to make general statements. As in most departments, there is a range of personalities and abilities. It is unfortunate that there is only one female professor, but because of limited openings change will come slowly. As for current professors, I have had some wonderful experiences. I have found it refreshing that there are people in the department who not only feel great about women in the department, but who actively support them. If you’re an undergraduate who is interested in physics, go for it because women are making their presence known and will be a stronger force in the future.

Susanna Finn ’05 Math/Physics Concentrator Feb.7

Why not iTunes?

To the Editor: Given that iTunes is the most popular jukebox and online music store and that the iPod is the most popular music player (capturing 70% and 65% of their respective markets), it is odd that there was no mention of Apple’s iTunes on Campus program in The Herald’s article (“U. considering legal alternatives for student music downloads,” Feb. 7).

The Apple program would allow the University to purchase song downloads in bulk with a volume discount. Each student could then be provided with a certain number of free song downloads per semester, depending on the budget of the program. With this service, students could actually own their music — it would be theirs to keep after they leave Brown with no additional charges. Additionally, they could play their music on both Macintosh and Windows-based computers, and they could transfer their music to their iPods or burn it to CD as many times as they want, all at no extra charge. The four services that were mentioned in the article do not allow any of

these things. And by providing students with a certain number of permanent music downloads, the program would encourage students whose musical appetites were not satisfied by the free downloads to use the iTunes store to purchase additional music legally.

The Apple program is far from perfect –– it won’t work with other operating systems such as Linux (neither do the other services) or with other MP3 players unless students burn the music they download to CD and then rip it back to their computer, and it doesn’t offer subscription-based options –– but it is clearly superior the options mentioned in the article, since it lets students own music instead of just renting it. No one wants to have to start forking over $10 or $15 a month after they graduate just to keep the music they already have.

Owen Strain ’08 Feb. 7

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OPINIONS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2005 · PAGE 11

JOHN BROUGHER

Bleeding, beer, bombs I’ve been thinking a lot about being a woman recently.

And for the record: No, I am not myself a woman. This fact makes women all the less understandable. Other men have experienced this same lack of ability to grasp woman-ness, leading to bad relationships and Mel Gibson’s “What Women Want.”

But perhaps what perplexes hetero males more than anything in the world (and I include in this sweeping generalization concepts like organic chemistry) is the period. As Mr. Garrison of “South Park” fame so eloquently put it, “I don’t trust anything that bleeds for three days and doesn’t die.” I share this suspicion.

But seriously, what was God thinking when periods came up?

God: Okay, now we have to make women.

First off, we’ll commodify them as sexual objects.

God’s secretary: (writing on clipboard) Check.

God: And then we’ll force them into traditional roles for thousands of years.

God’s secretary: Okay.

God: Make them deal with childbirth, rape, domestic violence and a glass ceiling.

God’s secretary: Right.

God: Oh, and make them bleed every month, requiring the use of complex telescoping devices. Throw in something like cramps that make them hate everybody, too.

God’s secretary: Isn’t that a bit much?

God: Perhaps, but imagine the whimsy.

I mean, isn’t there something cosmically unjust about periods? What’s the upside of being a woman? Having to work twice as hard to get the same amount of respect as men? Woohoo, sign me up for that.

But throughout time, one thing (and one thing alone) has brought women and men together: beer. And because of exhaustive Anheuser-Busch research that is sure to have effects in countries throughout the world, beer has entered its next stage of evolution. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you … caffeinated beer.

Finally, an alcohol that dehydrates even more!

With the addition of caffeine, I can get in that extra hour of studying as I drink myself to oblivion. Thanks, Anheuser-Busch! Even better, the brew-master (one imagines him cackling over a bubbling cauldron) who created this drink said that “it finishes with what we’re calling the wow factor.”

Wow. You heard it here first, readers. The wow factor. According to Master Davis, “People who drink it, their eyes light up and they say ‘Wow!,’ among other things.” One can only surmise what those “other things” are. Like “Wow, I’m glad this was a gift” or “Wow, you’re not my friend anymore.”

Perhaps U.S. research and development personnel are imbibing some of these wow-ifying alcoholic beverages. An NGO recently shed light on some ideas the Air Force was throwing around during the ’90s, including a “recommendation to expose enemy troops to powerful aphrodisiacs in order to distract them into lustful hookups with each other (irrespective of gender).” I’m sure someone in the Air Force is kicking themselves right now. “We could’ve won Vietnam with just a little more Viagra!” Other possibilities included “overrunning enemy positions with rats or wasps … and creating waves of fecal gas.” Now, maybe I’m alone on this, but I think there’s something just a tad silly about unleashing Biblical on our enemies, foreign and domestic. It makes me feel somewhat embarrassed to live in a country where such “National Lampoon”-like strategy is considered. But I’ll be okay.

I mean, at least I’m not a woman.

John Brougher ’06 is a tad silly.

ARJUN IYENGAR

Crisis in Nepal Perhaps the collapse of the Nepalese peace process was not entirely unexpected.

But until the last minute both sides were still telling the public they were committed to dialogue. The government and the Maoist rebels fighting it were under pressure to find a peaceful end to a seven-year-old insurgency.

In a sudden turn of events, however, King Gyanendra dismissed Nepal’s government and imposed a state of emergency last Tuesday, cutting off his Himalayan country from the rest of the world. Flights were diverted and civil liberties severely curtailed, but King Gyanendra denied that he had staged a coup d'etat.

In a live TV broadcast this week, the Nepalese leader tried to clarify his actions: “I have decided to dissolve the government because it has failed to make necessary arrangements to hold elections by April and protect democracy, the sovereignty of the people and life and property.”

Soldiers were seen surrounding the houses of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and other government leaders, while armored vehicles with mounted machine guns were patrolling the streets of Katmandu.

According to the Press Trust of India, the King stated that a new government would be formed that “will restore peace and effective democracy in this country within the next three years.”

In Nepal, crisis is nothing new. The past few years have been one long, slow crisis. Earlier this week every telephone line and Internet connection had been disconnected by royal decree. But cutting phone lines and Internet connections is nothing in a country where three and a half years ago almost the

entire royal family was wiped out, apparently after the crown prince went on a berserk rampage.

Nepalis are moving to the capital in the thousands because it's the only place safe from a Maoist insurgency that has already claimed more than 10,000 lives. The king may have seized absolute power, but Maoists camped halfway up the Himalayas can still bring his capital to a near standstill any time they want by calling a general strike.

One of the reasons that the Maoists have become so powerful is the King’s increasing unpopularity.

After his father died, Gyanendra became a trusted adviser to his brother, King Birendra, but they fell out in 1990.

That was when Birendra agreed to give up absolute power and become a constitutional monarch.

Gyanendra opposed the constitutional monarchy from the start.

Birendra's death in the royal massacre of 2001 caused an outpouring of grief. Not just any king had been killed; Birendra gave Nepalis democracy and constitutional rights. When Gyanendra succeeded him, grief gave way to rage.

Even now, many ordinary Nepalis do not believe the official version of the massacre: that it was carried out by a drunken, enraged Crown Prince Dipendra. And we thought the British Royal Family had problems.

Many find it highly suspicious that Gyanendra was conveniently away from the palace when it took place. It is considered even more suspicious that virtually the sole male survivors in the royal family were Gyanendra and his only son, Crown Prince Paras.

By utilizing draconian policies to maintain power, King Gyanendra is

playing into the hands of the Maoists who decry his autocratic monarchy, hardening their resolve to overthrow him and install a communist republic.

The only sensible way to deal with the situation would have been for the king to encourage elections, however flawed. The king needs to regain the trust of the people. He needs to stick to the timeline of elections put together by the central government and he must continue the constitutional changes of former King Birendra.

Furthermore, the world community needs to do more to facilitate peace in an already volatile South Asia. By pulling out of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation meeting in Dhaka, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sent a rightful snub to King Gyanendra, who was to attend. Britain has threatened to review security and development assistance to the kingdom. In a recent press conference, Foreign Office Minister Douglas Alexander said after summoning the Nepalese ambassador that the King’s actions “will increase the risk of instability in Nepal, undermining the institutions of democracy and constitutional monarchy in the country.”

The United Nations, the United States and China have also expressed their concerns, albeit in a comparatively muted manner.

The international community must not let Nepal become a failed state. As witnesses to recent history, we have all become all too familiar with how renegade groups and terrorists can capitalize on political vacuums. And prospects of avoiding another Afghanistan, Somalia or Sudan seem grim indeed.

Arjun Iyengar ‘05 is anti-draconian.

ADAM NELSON

Job seekers should be themselves Last week I was at an open house held by a major investment banking firm, which for the purposes of this column we will refer as Moldman Machs. The open house was held at the faculty club, and for those of you who have never attended an event like this, let me paint the scene. There are about 150 students all dressed in business attire, all sort of milling around acknowledging each other cautiously, but with that look of ambitious determination that suggests that they would easily club out your knees to talk to the head recruiter first.

I sit next to my goofy ex-roommate trying to make small talk. We nervously acknowledge the acquaintances that walk by: the man who shaved his head bare so that he could dress up as Judge Mills Lane for Halloween, now wearing a jacket and tie and looking professional; the girls whom I normally see dancing on the stage at Fish Co., dressed in business suits and talking about global capital markets.

After the presentation ends, it is time for “networking.” Now, “networking” in this scenario is the chance for a bunch of ambitious prospective investment bankers to kiss the asses of current investment bankers. This does not entail a one-on-one conversation. Five soonto-be’s talk to each already-is, asking “smart” questions such as, “How do you

like the performance of your division?”

So I am faced with a decision: should I go up to some of these people and ask questions that will make me sound smart, or should I go hit the little hot dogs at the food table. I think that you can guess which one I chose.

It’s around this point that I get the feeling that I’m definitely not supposed to be here. First I realize that all these people have to be smarter and more qualified than me, because they are acting like 45-year-olds. And then I remember why, for my entire high school career and the beginning of college, I had always said I would never go into business or finance as a career path: because it would turn me into this –– kissing ass, wearing a suit and pretending to be something I’m not. This isn’t to say I don’t find the finance stuff interesting; I actually do, and that’s why I was there. But I never wanted to become this guy who asks Bill Wilson from Global Research what he thinks about the consumer confidence numbers for January.

Maybe I, and many of my fellow applicants, are looking at the whole process the wrong way. Deep in the back of our minds, I suppose we still believe in the emotionless, suit-wearing capitalist financier, and on this occasion we’re trying to channel the stereotype. But that image is just that –– simply a stereotype. The

young people who are already working in these fields are just like us, kids who like to have a good time. They may be brilliant and they may be dynamic, but they don’t live in some plane of existence only reachable by disingenuous brown-nosing.

As many of us spend the next few weeks on the job search, let’s not try to be somebody else. That’s not what our prospective employers want, and it’s not who we really are. As corny as it sounds, we have to be ourselves not only because it’s what our future employers want to see in us, but more importantly because when we start acting like the stereotype, we become it.

Brown is a unique place, and the attitudes that we develop here can be useful in changing the real world for the better. This is true not only for investment banking, but also for most everything we do after graduation. This is not to say that you have to go to your interviews in sandals and the T-shirt that you’ve been wearing for five days. But when you’re in the interview, remember that you’re wearing the five-day-old Tshirt under your button-down and tie, and that you’re still going to be wearing it tomorrow. I hope you catch my drift.

Adam Nelson ’06 is angling for a position with Storgan Manley.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

SPORTS WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 9, 2005 · PAGE 12

Wrestling able to tame the Tigers but drops tough decisions to Penn, Drexel

BY BERNIE GORDON SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The wrestling team opened Ivy competition with a strong 32-11 win at Princeton on Friday before dropping a tight 19-12 loss to No. 25 University of Pennsylvania and a 31-7 decision to Drexel on Sunday.

The Bears came out firing on all cylinders against Princeton, scoring bonus points — points for a major decision or pin — in five of their seven wins, while giving up bonus points in only one match.

Co-captain David Saadeh ’06 got off to a fast start with a firstperiod pin, dropping the Tigers’ Tim Prugar in just 1:25 to give the Bears a 6-0 lead. Mike Pedro ’07 and Doran Heist ’06 followed up with wins of their own to give Brown a 12-8 lead heading into the heavyweight match.

At heavyweight, Levon Mock ’08 took his first start in a dual meet, facing Princeton’s Kris Berr. Mock, who had broken into the lineup through hard work in practice, rewarded his coaches’ faith in him by pinning Berr early in the third period to give Brown a commanding 18-8 lead.

“He’s a pretty tough kid, he had been wrestling well in practice, (and I) felt he deserved a shot,” said Head Coach Dave Amato. “It was good to see him get a win.”

BY CHARLIE VALLELY SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Ashley Hess / Herald

Heath Lohrman ’05 was one of two wrestlers unable to compete in Saturday’s tight loss to the University of Pennsylvania.

The Bears won the next two matches, picking up major decisions from Dan Apello ’06 and Mark Savino ’08 to give them their final total.

Against much stronger opposition at Penn, the Bears were without several wrestlers and lost a 19-12 match that was much closer than the score indicated. The Bears lost Heath Lohrman ’05 to illness the previous day and Saadeh to a knee injury. Despite the disadvantage, Brown wrestled tough and came within a couple of key moves of winning the meet.

“We wrestled really good against Penn,” Amato said. “Any time you can wrestle a good team like Penn and go down to the last match, (that’s something to be proud of ).”

Pedro echoed his coach’s comments, saying, “It just shows that we have a lot of heart.

Everyone on our team just wrestled to the best of our abilities … it was the best match we’ve had all season.”

Penn’s first lucky break in the meet came in the first match see WRESTLING, page 8

Solid individual performances bolster gymnastics to third at Rutgers meet

BY MADELEINE MARECKI SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Looking to bounce back from last weekend’s loss to Yale, the gymnastics team traveled to Rutgers University Saturday to take on three other teams. Despite falling to Rutgers and the University of Pittsburgh, who scored 190.750 and 190.050 points respectively, Bruno defeated State University of New York at Brockport, 186.000 to 183.450.

The team’s effort was highlighted by several strong individual performances, particularly that of Amber Smith ’06. As Brown’s only

Lack of team depth proves downfall for m. swimming again

participant in the all-around competition, Smith finished second with a total of 38.15 points. That places her second in the ECAC rankings for all-around.

On vault, Sarah Durning ’08 finished first for Brown and third overall, turning in a 9.55. Smith contributed a score of 9.475, coming in second for the Bears. Smith also came in second on the uneven bars with a 9.55, while classmate Jessica Pouchet ’06 led Bruno on the bars with a 9.575 performance. Pouchet’s performance continues what has already been an impressive comeback

after spending all of last season out with a torn Achilles tendon and last semester studying abroad.

“Jessica continues to impress everyone with every meet. She is a major contributor in three events for us,” said Head Coach Sara Carver-Milne.

On balance beam, Smith continued her impressive day, scoring a team-leading 9.4. Competing in her only event of the day, Jessica Pestronk ’08 turned in a 9.375 for the beam, good enough for second on the squad. see GYMNASTICS, page 9

The men’s swimming and diving team fell to 3-6 on the season and 2-4 in the Ivy League Saturday, losing to Yale, 175-66, and Columbia, 134-107, in New Haven, Conn.

The Bears were victimized by a small roster, a recurring problem this season. Both Yale (6-5, 4-4 Ivy League) and Columbia (5-4, 3-3) fielded much larger teams, making victory a mathematical near-impossibility for Bruno.

The Bears came out strong, winning four of the first five events. Eric Brumberg ’06, Brian Sharkey ’06 and captains Matt Del Mastro ’05 and Tim Wang ’05 won the first event, the 400-yard medley relay. Wang swam a 49.08 butterfly leg, a career-best time.

“I was really impressed by (them),” said Peter Volosin ’08.

“They really dominated the race.”

Meanwhile, Volosin won the 1,000-yard freestyle for the fourth time this season.

“I almost expect Volosin to win the 1000 whenever he swims it,” said Matt Zimmermann ’05.

Sharkey then took the 50-yard freestyle, while Brumberg beat out Columbia senior Ben Collins in a closely contested 200-yard medley. With their early strong showing, the Bears demanded some respect from their opponents.

“We did what we came to do and that was to shake our opponents up,” Wang said. “With our wins in the beginning we forced the other teams to have team meetings and regroup. We really did get them shaking in the knees, I think.”

Sharkey was also proud of the fight the Bears put up.

“We went in with the mentality that we’ll give them everything we got,” he said. “We had them scared for a little while, (and) we just gave them hell.”

But the depth of Yale and Columbia was too much. Even

M. track overcomes injuries to score 64 at Armory Invite

BY JILANE RODGERS SPORTS STAFF WRITER

While most of the men’s track and field team took advantage of local competition this past weekend in Kingston, a select few traveled to New York to take part in the highly competitive New Balance Armory Invitational. Despite being hindered by injuries, sickness and the absence of top scorers, the Bears tallied 64 points at the University of Rhode Island Mega Meet. The score placed them fifth of ten in the team competition. Freshmen and sophomores turned in 48 of the Bears’ points at URI. In New York, co-captain Patrick Tarpy ’05 took full advantage of his trip inland, taking fourth in his heat of the mile run, crossing the line in 4:04.5. His performance ranks him third in Brown’s history

and provisionally qualifies him for the NCAA Championships. Tarpy already earned the honor last week in the 3,000meter run. He now leads the Ivy League in both events.

Back in Rhode Island, other men from the middle-distance squad turned in strong performances as well.

Eamon Quick ’07 and Neil Hamel ’07 raced to second place finishes, each earning eight points for the Bears with their performances. Hamel competed in the mile run, clocking 4:17.56 for the distance, while Quick ran the 1,000-meter event in 2:29.63. Quick’s time qualifies him for the IC4A competition in March.

“Quick and I had similar races in that they were both very tactical,” Hamel said.

“It came down to the finishing laps for

both of us, so it as good to get that experience.”

For the jumps, Grant Bowen ’07 cleared 14-9 in New York to take fifth in the collegiate pole vault, and teammate Brian Zubradt ’08 captured third-place points for the team at URI with his 14-3 effort.

The height moves Zubradt onto the Ivy top-ten performance list for the season.

“As far as New York went, for Grant, it was a great experience,” said Jumps Coach Anne Rothenberg. “He saw what was necessary to move up to the next level and I believe he’s ready to do that.”

Two other newcomers scored for the jumps squad in Rhode Island, as Ikenna Achilihu ’08 took top honors in the triple see M. TRACK, page 9

after winning four of the first five, the Bears held a narrow lead, as Yale and Columbia combined to take all the secondary points. The Bears were doing nothing but winning, and yet that was a problem.

“We aren’t getting enough third and fourth places in the events that we do win,” said Michael O’Mara ’07. “Columbia got great secondary points.”

Yale also had another advantage over both Brown and Columbia. Last week they competed in the HYPs, an annual meet with Harvard and Princeton. To prepare for that meet, Yale shaved, which is typically only done at the beginning and end of the season. They had also started to taper, a resting routine carried out towards the end of the season that typically leads to faster times. “(Yale was) very rested and tapered, so they have a decided competitive edge against us,” said Head Coach Peter Brown.

“If they swam us straight up, the meet would have been very close.”

Brown admitted that his team’s chances were slim. In order to win, he said, they needed “a disqualification or something of that nature.”

Although Bruno did not notch another win over the final eight events, the rest of the afternoon had some strong swims.

Del Mastro took second in the 200-yard breaststroke, and Wang did so in the 100-yard freestyle.

Wang also teamed up with Sharkey, Brumberg and Zimmerman to take second in the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Diver Matt Freitas ’07 had a solid overall performance, finishing third in the 1-meter dive and fourth in the 3-meter.

Freitas believes that while Columbia and Yale were almost a lock to win because of their depth, the Bears will have a better chance the next time they see them, when the rosters are limited to 18 swimmers. see M. SWIMMING, page 8 IVY LEAGUE STANDINGS Men’s Basketball Team 1. Penn 2. Cornell 3. Columbia 3. Harvard

Ivy Record (Overall) 5-0 (12-7) 4-2 (9-10) 3-3 (12-7) 3-3 (8-11)

3. Brown 6. Dartmouth 7. Yale 8. Princeton

2-2 2-4 1-3 1-4

(9-9) (5-14) (5-12) (10-9)

Women’s Basketball Team Ivy Record (Overall) 1. Dartmouth 5-0 (9-8) 2. Brown 5-1 (13-6) 3. Harvard 4-1 (12-6) 4. Penn 3-2 (10-8) 5. Columbia 3-3 (10-9) 6. Princeton 1-4 (9-9) 7. Yale 1-5 (4-15) 8. Cornell 0-6 (2-17)