Thursday, February 23, 2006

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006

Volume CXLI, No. 20

www.browndailyherald.com

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

RHODE ISLAND REDS The primary between Cranston’s mayor and Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75 has exposed larger rifts in the state GOP METRO 3

ELECTRO NO NO Grad student’s excessive downloading causes brief disruption of electronic resource provider CAMPUS NEWS 5

College Hill for Christ, Queer Alliance cosponsor HIV testing

OLYMPIC ENNUI Hugh Murphy ’06 offers some alternative events to spice up the competition in Turin SPORTS 16

partly cloudy 43 / 29

BY ERIC BECK NEWS EDITOR

BY JOSH TOBIAS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The evangelical Protestant group College Hill for Christ and Queer Alliance may seem like strange bedfellows, but recently the two groups have been FEATURE working together to provide free HIV testing at Brown.

Students and campus religious leaders said that in such a diverse community, collaboration between these two groups is not necessarily surprising.

“People don’t expect us to want to cosponsor events with the Queer Alliance — but that isn’t true,” said CHC member Alana Rabe ’08.

Rabe said CHC members had little opposition to co-sponsoring a program with Queer Alliance. The two groups have started planning the testing, which is slated for a weekend in March.

“This is a universal issue,” said QA CoPresident Josh Teitelbaum ’08. “It’s about saving lives.”

Brown has a long history of cooperation between religious groups and the gay community, said University Chaplain Janet Cooper-Nelson. The progressive Protestant “Call to Worship” service was developed a few years ago, she said, partly “to be an inclusive and open place for gay students.”

“The chaplain’s office has been outspokenly supportive of the gay community,” Cooper-Nelson said. She added that Manning Chapel has been used by gay couples for commitment ceremonies throughout her 16 years at

Neha Zope / Herald

Barefoot Boogie, a barefoot freestyle dance started in New York City in the 1980s, got a second breath of life in King House Saturday.

From Berkeley roots, FemSex comes to two Ivies

BY STEPHANIE BERNHARD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Though the Female Sexuality Workshop — more commonly known as FemSex — may appear to University students to be unique to Brown, it is actually an offshoot of a University of California, Berkeley program started in 1994. Since then, the workshop expanded to Brown, where the program is in its third year, and to Harvard University this past semester.

At Brown, students and facilitators have used the workshop to open themselves to new views on sexuality.

The workshop is designed “to create a safe environment where women can discuss various issues surrounding sexuality, learning from the diverse viewpoints of their peers,” according to the general FemSex Web site, which encompasses the programs at the three universities.

Shannon O’Hern ’06, Brown’s current FemSex coordinator, defined

see TESTING, page 6

FemSex as “a class on group dynamics and how to talk about sexuality in a healthy, respectful manner.”

In 1994, students at UC Berkeley founded the workshop as a Democratic Education at Cal, or DeCal, class, meaning it is taught by undergraduates, for undergraduates.

Students at UC Berkeley receive credit for taking such classes.

Harvard and Brown students do not receive credit for FemSex, which is unaffiliated with the universities.

Students are required to attend two group meetings of 17 students per week and complete several reading and writing assignments.

“It’s actually for the good of the program that we’re independent because it allows us to be more flexible,” said Zara Ahmed ’06, a longtime FemSex facilitator who is leading two of the four sections offered this semester. see FEMSEX, page 8

THE HERALD POLL

Nearly 40 percent of recipients somewhat dissatisfied with financial aid According to a Herald poll released two weeks ago, 38 percent of respondents said they receive financial aid from Brown. Of those individuals, 62 percent were very or somewhat satisfied with their aid packages, and 36.9 percent were very or somewhat dissatisfied.

The poll was administered to 461 undergraduates in the Registrar’s Office from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3. The margin of error for financial aid questions was 7.3 percent.

According to Director of Financial Aid Michael Bartini, the poll results were a “pretty good representation” of Brown students receiving financial aid.

The actual percentage of undergraduate students receiving aid is in the low 40s.

TOMORROW

No plans for opening address from Simmons this semester

BAREFOOT BOOGIE

For students, ties to religious and LGBTQ communities not mutually exclusive

BY JENNIFER PARK CONTRIBUTING WRITER

TODAY

mostly sunny 40 / 28

“Brown has one of the greatest financial aid programs in the country,” Bartini said. The University currently has a need-blind admissions policy, and the financial aid office meets 100 percent of students’ demonstrated need. If a family’s financial situation changes, the student’s aid package can be adjusted accordingly by the office.

Brown’s need-blind admissions policy only holds for U.S. citizens and eligible non-citizens with appropriate visas who are applying as firstyears. Brown is “need-sensitive” for transfer, international and Resumed Undergraduate Education students.

That the University is unable to institute need-blind admissions for these students is “a matter of resources,” according to Bartini.

When asked why he thinks around

Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3260

40 percent of students on financial aid reported dissatisfaction with their aid packages, Bartini said, “Sometimes, our measure of what (students’ families) can see AID, page 11 How would you rate your satisfaction with your financial aid package?

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

Though President Ruth Simmons will be spending much of the semester coaxing alums in far-flung locales to encourage them to give to the Campaign for Academic Enrichment, she won’t be taking the podium of Salomon 101 for her Spring Semester Opening Address.

Simmons first delivered the speech addressing the state of the University in 2004, at the formal invitation of the Undergraduate Council of Students. The previous semester, The Herald criticized Simmons in an editorial for lacking presence on campus, advocating more events to increase her campus exposure.

“She was surprised by the request, but she was more than happy to do it,” said Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president.

Simmons’ first campus lecture in 2004 filled Salomon and was “wildly successful,” said UCS President Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07. But the 2005 speech did not receive as strong a turnout, and those who did attend were less energetic.

Saxton-Frump suggested that the disinterest surrounding Simmons’ appearance last year might have been the result of fewer salient issues on campus.

In her 2005 address delivered to a halffull Salomon 101, Simmons stressed the importance of intellectual diversity on campus and announced the creation of the Brown University Community Council and the Kaleidoscope fund, designated to bring diverse lecturers to the University.

“We had some hesitation about whether or not to do (the address) again because there wasn’t great turnout last year and President Simmons puts a lot of effort into it,” Saxton-Frump said.

UCS decided to re-evaluate whether to ask Simmons to deliver a campus address this semester, Saxton-Frump said, but by the time UCS decided to make the request last month, it was too late for Simmons to prepare a speech and to fit it into her schedule.

“President Simmons is always happy to do (a campus address) when there is sufficient interest and advance notice,” Quinn wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“She takes it very seriously and devotes substantial thought and time to preparing her remarks. We have not scheduled a lecture because the request to have her speak this semester only came recently.”

“We’re disappointed that she can’t do it, but we would rather have her not do it than do it and not put in the appropriate amount of time to give it justice,” Saxton-Frump said.

Saxton-Frump added that UCS is currently brainstorming other ideas to have Simmons appear on campus, and UCS will request far in advance that Simmons continue the Spring Semester Opening Address tradition next year.

Ultimately, Saxton-Frump and Quinn stressed the challenge in planning effective campus appearances for Simmons, especially in light of the University’s $1.4 billion fundraising drive.

Though Simmons has to spend a lot of her time off campus during the campaign, she thinks carefully about the best way to see SIMMONS, page 12 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

THIS MORNING THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 2 Jero Matt Vascellaro

TO D AY ’ S E V E N TS FREE BACKRUBS 3:30 p.m., (Memorial Room, Faunce) — The Wellness Cafe will be offering free backrubs given by wonderful BURPers. Stop by for 15 minutes or stay the entire time. Take time to relax.

WRITING BEYOND BROWN 4 p.m., (Peterutti Lounge, Faunce) — Hear the experiences of seven distinguished former Writing Fellows who have gone on to enjoy great success in writing careers.

“THE CORPORATE CAPTURE OF ACADEMIC SCIENCE” 4:30 p.m., (Salomon 001) — Tufts Professor Sheldon Krimsky will discuss the costs of the privatization of scientific research.

PROVIDENCE TOWN HALL: GENOCIDE IN DARFUR AND WHAT WE CAN DO 8 p.m.,(Salomon 001) — A panel discussion on root causes of genocide, the particularities of Darfur and what measures Brown students can take to help in its ending.

MENU

Deo Daniel Perez

SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Cajun Fettuccini, Herb Rice, Mandarin Blend Vegetables, Vegan Tofu Pups,Sweet Potato Fries, Chicken Soup With Tortellini, Vegetarian Eggplant Vegetable Soup, Pepperoni Spinach Feta Calzone, Pasta with Shrimp Sauce, Chicken Pot Pie, Fudge Bars, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll

LUNCH — Vegetarian Escarole & Bean Soup, Beef Vegetable Soup, Chinese Chicken Wings with Sticky Rice, Wisconsin Ziti with Four Cheeses, Mandarin Blend Vegetables, Fudge Bars

DINNER — Mexican Cornbread Casserole, Parslied Potatoes, Whole Kernel Corn, Fresh Green Beans, Baked Potatoes, Anadama Bread, Hot Dogs and Hamburgers, Chicken Breast Florentine, Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce, Brazilian Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

DINNER — Vegetarian Escarole & Bean Soup, Beef Vegetable Soup, Grilled Cilantro Chicken, Eggplant Parmesan, Red Potatoes with Fresh Dill, Spinach with Lemon, Acorn Squash, Anadama Bread, Brazilian Chocolate Cake

Cappuccino Monday Christine Sunu

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, February 23, 2006

Los Angeles Times Daily Puzzle CR OSS W OCrossword RD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Being shot 9 High-tech business 15 Gymnasts’ performances 16 Land south of the Barents Sea 17 “That’s Not All Folks!” autobiographer 18 Bart and others 19 Fashion issue 20 Field 22 Prefix meaning “bad” 23 MAX rival 25 A hot one is hard to deal with 27 Most homeowners 31 Greek port 34 An ex of Mickey 35 “I’d have to __ to ...”

37 “Will & Grace” costar Messing 38 1962-63 Polo Grounds team 40 “The Clearing” actor Willem 42 Coin destination 43 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, for one 45 Prepares, as leftovers 47 Classified abbr.

48 Submergence 50 “Saturday Night Live” specialties 52 Rolaids promise 54 French royal 55 “So that’s your game!”

57 Highfalutin 59 Norway’s largest city 63 Fruit Loops mascot 65 Heavy genre 67 65-Across actor 68 Easy-cook item since 1954 69 Runs through, in a way 70 One-hit wonders, e.g.

DOWN 1 “Coffee, Tea __?”: ’60s bestseller 2 Seasonal tune 3 Gather selectively 4 If all goes well 5 Wire measure 6 Charmed 7 Kevin’s “Tin Cup” costar 8 BMI competitor 9 Spanish explorer 10 Superficial 11 Singing syllable 12 Chicken dish with ham and cheese 13 Nashville attraction 14 Fine kettle of fish, so to speak 21 Some residents 24 Seasonal laughs 26 Reasons for overtime 27 Deadens 28 “If __ Would Leave You” 29 Gulf state capital 30 Outboard motor jammer

32 Brownie bunch 33 Can’t stomach 36 “__ picture paints ...”

39 Benefit 41 Deep greens 44 Comic strip duck __ Fillmore 46 __-Cat 49 Super Bowl XXV champs 51 1979 self-titled pop album

53 Liquor purchase 55 Wagering sites, briefly 56 Earring shape 58 Star with attitude 60 Loudness unit 61 It may be on the house 62 NHL’s Bobby et al.

64 Is up to the task 66 Will Smith movie, initially

Homebodies Mirele Davis

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Caroline & Friends Wesley Allsbrook

xwordeditor@aol.com

02/23/06

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 3

Public access television show blasts T.F. Green Airport for pollution

BY ALISSA CERNY STAFF WRITER

Citing concerns about pollution, local activists are working to discourage the planned expansion at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick.

Former Warwick Councilwoman Helen Taylor has taken the lead in the effort, joining forces with Ronald Kandzerski, a custodian with Facilities Management at the University and host of a local public television political talk show, Progressive Rhetoric.

Together, they have taped a series of episodes about the airport, joined by George Duggan, a lab technician at Toray Plastics in North Kingstown, and Leo Garrity, a cancer survivor who believes his illness was caused by pollution at T. F. Green.

Duggan said T.F. Green has placed the citizens of Warwick at heightened risk for cancer and other illnesses — and the airport has plans to expand, including the creation of a 9,350-foot runway that would “be able to accommodate a wide range of aircraft that have the capability to fly nonstop to long-distance destinations such as the West Coast,” according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The proximity of Narragansett Bay to the airport exacerbates problems for the area, according to Duggan.

“Over the course of the day, as the land and water cool and heat the winds are constantly shifting in and out.

Particulate matter from the airplanes can stay in the air for days, making up to 30 passages across the areas around the airport,” Duggan said.

Duggan also said the airport uses pesticides that contain dioxin, a known carcinogen, in order to clear brush near the runways.

But those claims have not been supported by preliminary findings from a half-million dollar survey of five sites — four near T.F. Green airport — by the

Senate primary fight reveals deeper split in state GOP

BY JONATHAN HERMAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Department of Environmental Management.

“We are still working through the preliminary results of the new DEM study,” said Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian. “So far, the study has shown the air quality in Warwick is actually better than some East Providence sites.”

According to the DEM study, average levels of black carbon in Warwick were found to be lower than they are in urban Providence. A majority of the 79 measured compounds were found to be below recommended levels for short- and long-term exposure, though there were six compounds found in excess of or very close to the target levels.

Two of the six compounds could possibly be connected to the airport, but levels of black carbon at those compounds were higher than or the same as sites

The word of the night at the State Republicans’ Lincoln Day Dinner Feb. 19 in the town of Lincoln was “healthy.”

Competition is healthy, said many in the crowd of longtime Republicans who turned out to hear Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey speak. They were referring to the Republican Senate primary contest between Laffey and his challenger, incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee ’75, which has only magnified existing divisions in the Rhode Island Republican Party.

The party is small: just 10 percent of voters in Rhode Island were registered Republicans as of Election Day 2004, according to the Rhode Island Board of Elections.

38 percent registered as Democrats, and the remaining 52 percent of voters did not affiliate with a political party in their registrations for the 2004 elections.

There are substantial ideological gradations within that 10 percent of Republicans, said Patricia Morgan, chair of the Rhode Island Republican Party.

“It is a big tent, there is no doubt about it. We have people who are very liberal and people who are very conservative,” she said.

Those differences often play out in the theater of statewide Republican primaries. In 2002, the state party endorsed James Bennett ’79 in the gubernatorial primary, but he lost to current Governor Donald Carcieri ’65.

Many discount Laffey’s chances because they believe he cannot win a statewide election. Conventional wisdom says a Republican candidate must be moder-

see AIRPORT, page 6

see GOP, page 4

Jean Yves Chainon / Herald

Some community activists believe too much pollution is produced by T.F. Green Airport.

www.browndailyherald.com

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006

GOP continued from page 3 ate to appeal to voters in a largely liberal state — the Republican 10th of the electorate can only carry a candidate so far.

“In the states in the Northeast, when a conservative is nominated, they usually don’t win. (Those states) don’t elect conservatives,” said Sarah Chamberlain, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which has backed Chafee in his re-election bid. “A conservative Republican cannot win in Rhode Island,” she said.

A Feb. 4 poll conducted by Professor of Political Science Darrell West, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy, indicated that Laffey would do poorly in the November general election against either serious Democratic candidate, Secretary of State Matt Brown or former Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse.

Supporters of Chafee say he is better positioned to win the general election than Laffey, regardless of how competitive the Republican primary may be. Analyzing the recent poll, Ian Lang, Chafee’s campaign manager, said Laffey would have to carry more than 80 percent of the unaffiliated voters to win.

Laffey has positioned himself as a political outsider in his challenge to Chafee, echoing Carcieri’s campaign as a businessman not previously involved in politics.

“I don’t have a political career,” Laffey told The Herald. “Mr. Chafee said he wanted to end my career. He thinks it’s a career. I spent 15 years working my way up in an investment-banking firm.

That was my career. This is public service. For him it’s a career.”

Laffey said he is a believer in Rhode Island Republicans, but he criticized the party, which endorsed the incumbent Chafee for the upcoming Senate race.

According to Laffey, the state party is disconnected from voters and has done little to encourage more people in Rhode Island to vote Republican.

“There really isn’t any Rhode Island Republican Party. It really hasn’t done much this year. (The number of) state-wide registered Republicans has been going down (everywhere) except for

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com.

Cranston,” Laffey said, referring to his own efforts to register voters in his city. “There are a great number of people who are Republicans who are not registered.”

Laffey’s dissatisfaction with the state party also comes from his “excommunication” from the party and its events, he said.

Laffey said he and a backer of his campaign, Robert Manning ’75, who represents Rhode Island Republicans on the national party committee, were not invited to a December party fundraiser.

But Morgan, the head of the state party, said Laffey’s claim is false, and Manning said he did not recall whether he had attended the fundraiser.

“My goal is that I want a Republican senator to send to Washington D.C.,” Morgan said.

“I think it’s important to have a Republican senator — it would be better for Rhode Island if we had that. At this time in the race, (Chafee) is the most electable (candidate).”

State Republican parties in New England are caught between two squabbling forces: the increasingly conservative national party and the more moderate local stalwarts. Rather than the social conservatism that is fundamental to the national party’s program, Morgan said, fiscal conservatism is the foundation of New England Republican parties. Both Laffey and Chafee bill themselves as fiscal conservatives, but to different degrees.

For his part, Chafee backs “a socially moderate and fiscally conservative version of Republicanism which is deeply rooted in the Teddy Roosevelt proenvironment Republicanism,” Lang said. Chafee’s voting record demonstrates his belief in reigning in government spending to ensure that “future generations are not burdened by debt,” Lang added.

But others attack Chafee’s voting record in the Senate as fiscally irresponsible.

“Lincoln Chafee hasn’t voted for any of the pro-economic tax cuts and he shows no interest in … these in the future,” said David Keating, executive director of the Club For Growth. “If these pro-growth tax cuts do not get (through Congress), he’ll probably end up voting for a tax increase,” he added.

The Club for Growth, a political action committee that

backs conservative Republican candidates who support limited government and lower taxes, recently endorsed Laffey in his candidacy for Senate.

Laffey raised taxes twice in Cranston during his first two years as mayor, a move he said was necessary but which critics have focused on in attacking his claim of being an anti-tax candidate.

“The day I took office, (Cranston) was on the verge of going broke,” Laffey said. “It was running an 11.6 million dollar deficit. We raised taxes by half as much as Warwick … but we have also cut everything else (in the budget) we can,” he said.

Republican politicians must appeal to independents for the state primary in September, since registered voters who are not affiliated with either party can vote in either party’s primary. Independent voters outnumbered Republicans five to one in Rhode Island in 2004.

“The key in the primary is getting the independents to vote,” Chamberlain said. “We’ll probably get some Republicans out to vote for (Chafee), but we need those independents,” she added.

However, Manning, the Republican national committeeman, said independents rarely sway the results of the primary.

“You don’t get a lot of independents. They have to change their party affiliation on that day and then change back,” he said. “If you have any independent action it will probably be towards the Democratic primary.”

Without a large turnout of independents in the Republican primary, according to West, Laffey may have a chance at unseating Chafee.

Conservative political action committees and publications from around the country have had a strong influence on the party in this election cycle because of the national attention paid to Chafee’s re-election bid.

National Review, a conservative magazine based in Washington, D.C. and New York, recently endorsed Laffey in an editorial titled “Dump Chafee.”

The editorial “expressed our disappointment with Senator Chafee’s performance as a senator,” said John Miller, a political reporter at the magazine.

“Chafee’s vote against (thenSupreme Court nominee) Sam Alito was really the last straw.”

In addition to the Club for Growth, several other town committees have backed Laffey.

“I wouldn’t classify Mayor Laffey as a conservative,” Keating said. “I would classify him as proeconomic growth. He is the only one who is taking an outsider’s view of Washington. Laffey is against pork barreling and special interests lining their pockets in Washington at the expense of the average (citizen),” he added.

Backing Chafee is the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican Main Street Partnership, as well as Carcieri and other state officials.

His supporters have largely focused on the need to keep the Senate seat for the Republican Party.

“If Chafee loses and Laffey wins the primary, then the Republicans have lost the seat,” Chamberlain said. “This is one of the swing states that will make or break the Republican Senate.”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

CAMPUS NEWS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 5

Excessive downloading disrupts U.’s access to online book service

Air Force scholarships helping two Brown students fly through Med School

BY OLIVER BOWERS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

BY REBECCA JACOBSON SENIOR STAFF WRITER

As their peers enjoyed postCommencement celebrations last spring, Marie Audett ’05 MD’09 and Hana FEATURE Kwan ’05 MD’09 boarded a flight to Montgomery, Ala. to begin a month of what many would consider boot camp.

“We got there, and it was raining, and they made us line up and learn how to salute and learn how to ask questions properly,” Audett said. “It was just really intimidating. I wasn’t used to that sort of thing. I would stumble all the time, and stutter, and forget to say ‘Sir’ and ‘Ma’am.’ ” But after the initial shock, Audett grew to like the discipline, as well as the leadership training and physical activity of the fourweek Commissioned Officer Training. Kwan said the program grew “very intense” at times, but despite the 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls and physical fitness tests, she said it didn’t really qualify as boot camp.

Kwan and Audett have time to adjust to a military lifestyle.

As recipients of Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarships, they will each serve four years of active duty in the Air Force after finishing medical school and residency. For each year of active duty they serve, the scholarship covers all direct educational costs — including tuition and books — in addition to a monthly stipend during the academic year.

Kwan and Audett are unique among their peers at the Brown Medical School. Kathy Baer, director of admissions and financial aid for the Medical School, said military aid is not very popular — only 11 students at the school participate in the Health Professions Scholarship Program. Baer said that because the program requires a long-term commitment, students have to apply for it early in their medical education.

“For many students, it’s too early for them to make an informed choice about their practice plans and the area of the country where they would like to live, and these military scholarships can limit their future plans,” she said. “They have to make this choice very early in their medical training, before they’ve had a chance to investigate specialty areas and really understand what their ideal practice environment might be.”

The students who do apply and receive such scholarships, however, give positive reviews, Baer said.

“Many students come back and tell me they are thrilled with the quality of the training they received from the military,” she said. “They cite the degree

Min Wu / Herald

Marie Audett ’05 MD’09 (right) and Hana Kwan ’05 MD’09 are recipients of Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarships. of autonomy, the quality of the facilities and strong mentoring support.”

Although there are few Brown applicants, Master Sergeant Richard Marble, officer accessions flight chief at a New Hampshire Air Force recruiting station, said those who do apply are consistently well-qualified.

All HPSP applications submitted from Brown since September 2004 have been accepted, he said.

Nationwide, Marble said 91.7 percent of qualified applications for the Air Force HPSP were accepted for fiscal year 2005.

Marble defined qualified applicants as those with strong leadership skills, adding that many unqualified students apply each year.

Audett and Kwan voiced their own reasons for applying to HPSP, but both said they had not given too much thought to military service prior to medical school.

Audett considered the United States Military Academy while in high school, but she chose Brown because she wanted a more traditional undergraduate experience. She said a good friend at the Naval Academy advised her to look into military scholarships when she started seeking out medical school financing options. As well as the obvious financial benefits, Audett said the military’s research opportunities and advanced technology were particularly appealing.

“In some ways I’m looking forward to getting deployed and traveling,” she said. “I’ve heard that the Air Force has some

opportunities with volunteering to go set up clinics, which would be really great. But it’s still terrifying to think of going into a war zone.”

As for Kwan, her family moved to Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, so she observed military personnel while growing up.

Kwan said she enjoyed the closeknit community of the gated compound where her family lived, adding that she imagined a military base would have a similar atmosphere. The longterm benefits of military service, such as good retirement plans and health insurance, were also incentives.

Kwan said that despite the weak presence of military aid on Brown’s campus, she has received positive responses from other students when they hear about her scholarship.

“People think it’s a good thing that I’m helping to serve our country, which kind of surprised me in the beginning,” she said.

“Brown is very liberal, and you wouldn’t expect that kind of a culture.”

But Audett said she doesn’t always receive such upbeat reactions.

“Most of the people at Brown have been pretty shocked or horrified about it,” she said.

“They hear that I’m joining the military, and in their heads they interpret that as, ‘Oh my god, Marie’s going to go to Iraq and kill a lot of people.’ But once I actually explain to them what my role will be, they’re much more OK with it.”

A recent incident in which a student downloaded an excessive amount of text from an electronic resource caused the suspension of the service Ebrary to the entire campus.

Service was quickly restored after library administrators notified the provider that the full text had been destroyed, though the incident prompted library administrators to send an e-mail Feb. 14 to the Brown community reminding students not to violate agreements with the electronic services offered by the University.

The perpetrator, a graduate student, had downloaded a full text off of Ebrary, a service that offers electronic documents.

One of the rules of the service stipulates that only portions of a text, not entire books, can be downloaded. Service was restored after library

administrators notified the provider that the full text had been destroyed.

Harriette Hemmasi, University librarian and co-author of the e-mail, said that violations such as this often involve excessive downloading. “If you have been downloading an excessive amount of information from one journal title, the publisher shuts down all of the University’s access because they’re afraid someone could redistribute it,” Hemmasi said. “It’s like someone has cleared out all the merchandise in their store.”

Electronic resource providers are becoming increasing-ly able to detect such violations, according to the e-mail.

In order to avoid these violations, the e-mail stressed that users have an obligation to read through and be aware of terms and conditions for see DOWNLOADS, page 6

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006

Testing continued from page 1 Brown.

It is misleading to categorize communities as strictly gay or religious, Cooper-Nelson said.

“You can’t put the terms out there like ‘gay’ or ‘religious’ and say that you’ve said something,” Cooper-Nelson said. “There is such diversity within the religious and gay communities that those terms don’t mean anything.”

Despite the diversity of Brown’s campus, other University religious leaders and students said individuals who are both religious and gay may have difficulty finding a religious community because of some faith groups’ links to larger religious institutions.

“People might feel uncomfortable being an openly gay leader in religious institutions because they are linked to the outside world,” said Rumee Ahmed, the University’s new Muslim chaplain.

Sean Lanigan ’05, who is gay and a liberal protestant, said it was difficult for him to find a religious community in which he felt comfortable at

Brown. “Religious groups don’t want to confront homosexuality directly,” he said.

“If I could just be gay, that would be fine. But if I add this religious thing to the mix it makes it a lot more difficult,” he said.

Students such as Talia Stein ’09, however, keep both ties in balance. Stein joined QA after participating in queer activism in high school and is now a member of the executive board.

“The Queer Alliance is a diverse group of people from many different backgrounds and interests,” she said. As an observant Jew, Stein said she “never felt threatened or turned off because of my religious identity.”

While Stein enjoys her role in QA, Lanigan said he did not even feel comfortable at the group’s events. He said the first event he went to — “Meet, Greet and Find Some Meat” — was intended for students looking “to scope out the sex life.”

Gabe Heywood ’08, a Christian, said he believes many gay students understand personal faith and queer advocacy as conflicting values. “People (in the queer community) feel that they can bash God and the church,” Heyward added.

Stein said QA would be open to working with religious institutions, even though the group has not frequently collaborated with faith communities in the past.

“Some (gays) are hesitant (to work with religious groups) because they don’t know how religious groups view homosexuality and transgender issues,” Stein said. “There’s this misperception that all we do is dances (like SexPowerGod).”

QA seeks to offer a wide range of programs, she said, and more collaboration between Brown’s queer and religious communities lies ahead.

Brown Hillel and QA are currently working on a gender and sexuality series. Scheduled to begin in March, the program will host lecturers, screen movies and hold forums that focus on the relationship be-tween religion, sexuality and gender.

“When people look at religious traditions, they tend to see patriarchal structures,” said Rebecca Russo ’08, Hillel’s education chair who is organizing the series.

“It’s important for us as a community to show how people break out of these structures and explain how religion can remain a meaningful part of people’s lives,” she said.

Airport continued from page 3 tested in Providence.

Taylor said she does not trust the DEM findings.

“Every time the DEM conducts a study, the results are always inconclusive,” she said.

Taylor, who grew up in Warwick, said during a taping of Progressive Rhetoric that she has always believed the airport poses a threat to the health and safety of people in her neighborhood.

“I grew up on Yucatan Drive (in Warwick), and every family was affected by cancer in one way or another. There is a film of oil running down the roof and sides of houses on the street,” Taylor said.

In 2004, the Rhode Island Department of Health’s John Fulton authored a report on the incidence of cancer in the area surrounding the airport.

“The area surrounding the airport has an 80 percent higher incidence of cancer than the rest of the state,” Taylor said. “I was told by state officials not to distribute the study because it would cause fear and make it impossible for the airport to go along with its intended expansion.”

Avedisian said he disagrees with Taylor’s interpretation of the 2004 study of cancer rates in Warwick.

That study “was not conclusive,” he said. “The Health Department told former Councilwoman Taylor as much. There are rates that were alarming but there are similar rates in other

Downloads continued from page 5 use of a site. Sometimes this information can be found in the license agreement that a user must accept before access to the site is granted. Ellen Waite-Franzen, vice president of Computing and Information Services and co-author of the e-mail, acknowledged that not all users read through such agreements carefully, calling them “those license agreements that everyone clicks through.”

According to Waite-Franzen, each service that the library offers has its own unique set of rules and regulations. “Every site is different,” Waite-Franzen said, so there’s no easy way for the library to educate students about the specific rules of conduct on these sites.

“These are complicated agreements we’re entering into to provide (these services),” WaiteFranzen said. Hemmasi said library administrators are talking with publishers to make their restrictions more visible.

Service from an electronic journal was shut off for the whole University one other time in the past year after a professor

areas as well, and there are many possible sources of the problem,” he said.

According to Maria WahFitta, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health, the increased incidence of cancer could have many causes.

“There were some relatively high numbers in pockets around the airport but there are many factors it could be attributed to. We need to systematically measure and reduce air pollution from aircraft and vehicles, as well as aggressively fight the use of tobacco in Warwick,” she said.

William Jesdale, a research assistant in the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown, said it was difficult to connect the increased cancer rates to the airport.

“Unfortunately this could be a random problem, or perhaps related to the age distribution of people living around the airport,” he said. “Even a slight difference in age can cause a higher incidence of lung cancer.”

Jesdale said the cancer rates could be caused by larger numbers of smokers or radonor asbestos-exposed workers living in the area, but he does not believe that is the case.

“I’m not trying to take the airport off the hook, but the chain of events is very hard to nail down. There is soot and unburned fuel being released from the airplanes. “Whether or not the link is there, I don’t doubt these fumes are damaging people’s health to some degree and that their concerns are legitimate,” he said.

downloaded a large number of abstracts from a site. Service was eventually restored, but WaiteFranzen said, in a worst case scenario, service might not be restored.

Steven Thompson, co-leader of the library’s Technical Service Department, agreed that this is a possibility, though it is unlikely to occur. The University spends $3.4 million annually on electronic journals and electronic databases, so providers “have no reason to want to hurt the University … particularly when violations are addressed quickly and to our providers’ satisfaction,” Thompson said.

Waite-Franzen cautioned that legal action against violators of agreements is always possible, but Hemmasi said there are currently no pending lawsuits.

“What is more likely to happen is that the publisher says to us, ‘Are you aware that somebody has been in violation?’ ” Hemmasi said. “They want to work with us.

The first action is not a lawsuit.”

Hemmasi stressed that the University is by no means in hot water with vendors of electronic services. Thompson said that an e-mail like the one sent Feb. 14 “should be done on an annual basis (to instruct) new classes coming in.”

Taylor said she is also concerned about the effect of noise pollution from the airport, especially on local schools. Of the 26 schools near the airport, only seven have soundproofing, she said, and often those schools must open their windows in the spring and late summer if they lack air conditioning.

“It’s ridiculous,” Duggan said.

“Teachers are forced to absolutely stop teaching. We can’t move schools to compensate for the airport.”

Other environmental concerns over the airport have been raised. In April 2003, the Conservation Law Foundation and Save the Bay threatened to sue the airport authority, the Rhode Island Airport Corporation, for violating the Clean Water Act by illegally dumping pollutants.

The possible lawsuit inspired the state to pass one of the most stringent pollution permits ever issued in the United States, according to the April 2005 issue of Rhode Island Monthly.

As part of the expansion process, RIAC created a committee to solicit public feedback in the expansion planning. In March 2002, the committee formed a quality of life subcommittee, which drafted a list of concerns about the airport.

Among the issues raised were health studies to address fumes, dust and particles, the problem of noise pollution and its impact on Warwick schools and the declining value of houses with deed easements.

RIAC offered to help neighbors pay for soundproofing in exchange for agreeing not to sue the airport for any pollution.

Taylor has faced difficulty trying to alert people to her concerns about pollution at the airport — she has been turned away by all local news networks.

She said she believes there is a political cover-up by politicians who stand to benefit from the expansion of the airport.

Representatives from the Rhode Island Airport Corporation did not return requests for comment.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

CAMPUS NEWS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 7

Beyond rods and cones

Med school professor advances research on third type of photoreceptor cells

BY ASHLEY CHUNG STAFF WRITER

After taking a neuroscience or biology course, most students have heard about rods and cones. But what about the recently discovered third class of photoreceptor cells in the retina — intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells?

While many scientists previously believed these mysterious cells were inherently different from other photoreceptor cells, recent findings show that ipRGCs adapt to light in a manner unexpectedly similar to that of rods and cones.

Prior to 2002, the scientific community had only known about two types of photoreceptor cells in the retina — rods and cones — that specialize in converting light energy into electrical signals that can be understood by the nervous system.

Scientists, however, had suspected the existence of a third class of photoreceptor cells after observing how blind mice that lack rods or cones could still adjust their daily activities to daylight and night.

In 2002, Professor of Medical Science David Berson discovered ipRGCs, a special subpopulation of the ganglion cells at the last layer of nerve cells in the retinal complex. As a subgroup of ganglion cells — output cells that send signals to the brain — ipRGCs are able to communicate directly with the brain, while rods and cones have to communicate with other retinal cells and ganglion cells in order to reach the brain.

Kwoon Wong, a postdoctoral research fellow in neuroscience, joined Berson’s lab in December of 2003 and is the lead author of the “Neuron” paper addressing ipRGCs’ ability to adapt. Wong and Berson first identified the ipRGCs by using axon transport labeling, placing tracer dye in the circadian pacemaker of the brain of a rat so that the dye traveled onto those cells associated with the circadian pacemaker.

They then exposed the rat ipRGCs to different light stimuli and recorded the electrical responses of the cells. Wong and Berson found the light stimuli evoked greater responses when the cells had been in darkness than when they had been exposed to bright background light, indicating that the cells did indeed adapt to different brightness levels.

According to Berson, ipRGCs are not involved in basic sight, but rather are involved in certain kinds of visual reflexes.

Most notably, they take part in coordinating circadian systems with light.

The circadian system acts as a biological clock, monitoring the body’s temperature, heart rate and other processes over a period of a day. It is driven by a “master pacemaker” inside the brain that keeps track of time as the body’s functions fluctuate during the circadian rhythm’s 24-hour cycle. Even if someone was placed inside of a cave, with no contact with the outer world, the body’s functions would still continue to oscillate over a period of about 24 hours, Berson said. He added, however, that the inner clock is not perfect.

“It’s like a cheap wristwatch that runs a little bit too fast or too slow,” Berson said of circadian rhythms. “Every few days you have to check it and adjust the time back to what it’s supposed to be.” Human bodies can adjust their inner clocks to their environment, timing them to the sunrise each day. IpRGCs play a key role in this part of circadian rhythms, as they absorb light to maintain the synchrony between the environment and internal clocks.

While rods and cones function in basic sight to help someone catch a baseball or drive, ipRGCs are meant to deal with very gradual changes in light. Thus, they are considerably slower than rods and cones in their responses.

Along these lines, it seemed that ipRGCs would also differ from rods and cones in terms of their ability to adapt — that is, their ability to adjust their sensitivity according to recent stimuli. According to Berson, many people speculated that unlike rods and cones, ipRGCs might not adapt based on recent light exposure.

“Rods and cones adapt with a vengeance,” Berson said. “But if the purpose of ipRGCs is to define when the sun has risen, they wouldn’t want to adapt so much that they might be sensitive to, say, the stars or the moon rising.” Considering the purpose of the cells, it would make sense for ipRGCs to be sensitive to an absolute light intensity, with their sensitivity pegged at a specific point, Berson said. Contrary to expectations, however, in vitro studies of ipRGCs have shown that the cells do adjust their sensitivities and adapt to different light intensities.

Wong and Berson are now focusing their research on learning more about the purposes of ipRGCs as well as studying exactly how the cells function on a chemical level. Wong is currently working on another article about how ipRGCs relate to other retinal cells in the synaptic network.

“We’re making good strides,” Berson said.

UCS calls for Sudan divestment, debates pluses/minuses at length

BY BRENNA CARMODY STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students passed a resolution calling for the University to divest from Sudan and debated but did not vote on a resolution opposing the addition of pluses and minuses to the grading system during its general body meeting Wednesday night in Peterutti Lounge.

UCS also heard from Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene on changes to the Minority Peer Counselor program and the ongoing review of the University’s social events policy.

The plus/minus debate centered on whether a resolution on the issue should be voted on immediately or at next week’s meeting, after a UCSsponsored forum on the subject scheduled for March 2. The draft of the resolution calls on the College Curriculum Council not to vote in favor of the plus/minus proposal and encourages all faculty members to vote against the plus/minus proposal if it does come to a vote.

Ultimately, Vice President Zachary Townsend ’08, who authored the resolution with Tristan Freeman ’07, chair of the Academic and Administrative Affairs Committee, withdrew the resolution after an hour of debate, including four straw polls about whether to table or pass the resolution.

“My assumption is if we pass it on (March 8) we could pass it unanimously,” Townsend said, adding that “we gain very little passing it today rather than then.”

“It’s bizarre for us to come out with a policy statement when forums haven’t been held yet,” said Class Representative Michael Glassman ’09.

Motions were called to pass the resolution multiple times, though an objection was filed each time followed by speakers for and against immediate action on the resolution.

“We cannot represent students if we have no position,” Freeman said, adding that “not voting would be process gone too far and run amok once again.”

The faculty “want to get around students,” said Appointments Chair Benjamin Boas ’06.5, adding that “we’re standing up to them.”

Greene also updated UCS on a number of issues regarding the campus.

The University is trying to increase the number of “good residence halls,” Greene said.

“The University is better served if more students live here, but to do that we have to have more attractive housing,” Greene said.

Faunce House and the Sharpe Refectory will be undergoing renovations, and the 24-hour Friedman Study Center in the Sciences Library is “moving along very quickly in the design stage,” Greene added.

Greene asked UCS for advice about continuing the Napster and Internet Protocol Television programs, saying the future of the programs would have to be determined before the end of the semester.

Greene also discussed the transition from the Minority Peer Counselor program to the campus-wide Minority Peer Mentor program, which he said is still in development. He said that problems persist over how to deal with the transition between the programs.

UCS President Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07 made clear that there would be no change in the role of the residential counselors in policing residence halls, though Greene noted that there is no one in charge in residence halls under the current system. He listed recent graduates and community directors as possibilities for filling the void in residence halls, but said Department of Public Safety officers are “the wrong answer.”

A sheet provided by Greene updating UCS on the work of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Social Events Policy and Procedure includes the recommendation that students need assistance with managing the door at parties. Alumni Relations Liason Douglas Faron ’06 said that professional bouncers would be too expensive but suggested creating a student bouncer position.

“Make it a desirable enough job that people won’t screw up,” Faron said.

A resolution was passed calling for the University to divest from Sudan.

The Brown University Community Council passed a resolution supporting divestment last week.

“UCS support would add another layer,” said Associate Member Michael Williams ’08. Freeman said the University see UCS, page 12

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006

High court says postal service can be liable for customer accidents

BY CHARLES LANE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has a message for the U.S. Postal Service: Be careful where your letter carriers put their letters and packages, because if somebody slips on them and gets hurt, you might get taken to court.

In a 7 to 1 decision Wednesday, the court said that the U.S. Postal Service is subject to personal injury lawsuits by its customers, ruling that federal law does not immunize the service against claims by those who say they were hurt by negligent delivery of the mail.

The court said that Barbara Dolan, a Pennsylvania woman who says she was injured when she tripped and fell over mail left on her porch, can proceed with a suit against the postal service that had previously been dismissed

by a federal district judge and the Philadelphia-based federal appeals court.

In the court’s opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy brushed aside the government’s concerns that a ruling for Dolan would open the door to frivolous slip-and-fall claims.

He wrote that the lower courts had misinterpreted a federal law that gives the postal service immunity from some tort claims.

Congress intended only to protect the postal service against lawsuits that arise from delivering the mail late or in damaged condition, Kennedy wrote.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented; Justice Samuel Alito Jr. did not participate. The case is Dolan vs. U.S. Postal Service.

Separately, the court voted unanimously to make it easier for women to sue small businesses see USPS, page 10

FemSex continued from page 1 Most students who participate in the workshop here feel that the experience of FemSex is credit enough for them.

“I gained a general respect for myself and my body,” said Katie Tsubota ’08, who took the workshop last fall. She explained that after a “crazy” first year, she felt the need to re-examine her views on sex as a sophomore. Some of her friends had participated in the program during their first year and recommended it to her.

“We open up topics for discussion in a group setting, and that in itself is valuable,” said Kira Manser ’07, another FemSex facilitator. “People can come from a lot of different backgrounds and explore whatever they want,” she added.

“I was in a place where it was a good time to look at what I thought about sex,” Tsubota said.

Tsubota admitted that the meetings were awkward at first because people found

it challenging to talk about the sensitive and often taboo issues surrounding sexuality.

But, in an effort to encourage open discussion, Tsubota said facilitators had everyone in the group sign a “safe space” contract promising that nothing said in the group would leave the room and that people would take the opinions and feelings of their peers seriously.

“The safe space contract is at the heart of FemSex,” Ahmed said. “Without it, it’s hard to share. We pride ourselves on our ability to help people share things that might otherwise be challenging.”

And students did open up; they had to, if they wanted to complete assignments such as the “erogenous zones exploration exercise” and the “creative writing assignment — write your anonymous sexual fantasy,” both of which were listed on the course syllabus.

Other topics on the agenda include anatomy; sex and gender; women’s health and menstruation; body image; reproductive choices and motherhood; pleasure and orgasm; masturbation; and pornography, erotica and sex work.

“It can get pretty intense,” Tsubota said. She described a FemSex Porn Night, during which her group watched several different genres of pornography, from “the standard Jenna Jameson film” to gay pornography to foreign pornography.

She said it was experiences like these that helped blast away many of the taboos people tend to uphold about sex, calling the evening “constructive” for all the women in the group and even for the one man.

Although the FemSex Web site says the workshop is created “by women for women,” men are allowed to join and even facilitate, though none currently facilitate at Brown. This semester, two of the FemSex sessions are co-ed; the other two are allfemale. Participants stated their preference before being placed in a group.

“Men who do FemSex are very interested, very supportive, fully involved in the workshop. I think it’s a great thing,” Tsubota said. She admitted that the atmosphere was slightly different when a man was present than when the group was all female, but she did not mind the change.

What was important, she said, was not to “expect to get a guy’s perspective” from the man.

“After a while you stop looking at the gender of people, and just look at their experiences,” Ahmed said. She added that including men in FemSex helps to “maximize the number of backgrounds and experiences” in the group.

Ahmed agreed, stressing that FemSex seeks people with varying levels of sexual experience.

“People have a limited perception of what FemSex is and who it’s for. We do want people of all backgrounds to come,” she said. “The only thing you need to have is interest, and an ability to challenge yourself.”

Now with more cowbell wwww.browndailyherald.com

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

WORLD & NATION THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 9

Google under fire in China

BY PHILIP PAN WASHINGTON POST

BEIJING — A state-run newspaper reported Tuesday that Google Inc. is under investigation for operating without a proper license in China and quoted an unnamed government official as saying the Internet giant needs to cooperate further with the authorities in blocking “harmful information” from its search results.

The report, in the Beijing News, was published the same day that another state newspaper ran a harshly worded editorial about Google. The paper accused the firm of sneaking into China like an “uninvited guest” and then making a fuss about being required to follow Chinese law and cooperate in censoring search results such as pornography.

The unusually bold attacks in the state media suggest that the Chinese government is unhappy with Google’s efforts thus far to filter politically sensitive results from its popular search engine in China, and that its ability to do business in the country may be in jeopardy.

Google’s cooperation with the Chinese government in censoring the Internet has already sparked outrage from free speech advocates and U.S. lawmakers who accuse it of betraying its corporate motto, “Don’t be evil.” The firm announced last month that it was launching a censored search engine, Google.cn, to improve its service in China, where its regular site and its search results are sometimes blocked.

Dubbed the “eunuch edition” by some Chinese Internet users, the new search engine withholds results from Web sites the governing Communist Party finds objectionable, and returns limited results when users enter politically sensitive keywords.

Google has defended its decision to launch the censored site, arguing that people in China can continue to use the Chinese version of its regular search engine, Google.com. It has also pointed out that the new search engine is the first in China to inform users when results have been removed because of the government’s “laws, regulations and policies.”

But it appears Chinese authorities are now pressuring Google to cut off access in China to its regular search engine, and to stop telling users of the new site every time a search is censored.

“Is it necessary for an enterprise that is operating within the borders of China to constantly tell your customers you are following domestic law?” said the editorial published Tuesday in the China Business Times, a financial daily.

Both the editorial and the Beijing News accused Google of operating its new site without an ICP–or Internet content provider–license. The editorial also accused Google of starting a debate about censorship in China to draw attention away from its “illegal” activity. “Can Google get away with this?” it asked.

Google did not respond to requests for comment.

But in the past, it has said it shares a license with a local Chinese firm, Ganji.com, in an arrangement that is common for foreign Internet firms in China.

A source familiar with the government’s position said the Ministry of Information Industries has raised the ICP license issue to put pressure on Google to comply with its demands. He said the government wants Google to make a larger investment in China and do more to censor its search results.

“The main problem isn’t the ICP dispute, but the awkward relationship between Google and the Chinese government,” the source said. “To be honest, the ICP dispute is a minor thing, and that’s not what will get Google into trouble.”

Another Chinese source said Google recently rejected an urgent request to remove from its stored Web pages information related to an internal dispute at an influential Chinese agency. That information had been posted on the Internet.

“Foreign-invested search engines must strengthen control and management of how they handle search results with Chinese information,” an unnamed government official was quoted as saying in the Beijing News.

He said blocking “harmful information” from search results was a “very practical problem,” and added that Google “still needs to strengthen cooperation with the government’s relevant functional departments” in this area.

The Beijing News also quoted an unnamed Google official as saying it was “very likely” that all Chinese searches on its regular site would be redirected to the censored search engine because of “pragmatic considerations.”

Libby’s lawyers to argue that security concerns overrode Plame issue

BY CAROL LEONNIG WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON – Vice President Cheney’s former chief-ofstaff was so consumed with pressing national security concerns in 2003 and 2004 that he undoubtedly forgot details of conversations he had about undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame, his defense lawyers argue in new court filings.

Attorneys for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby insist they need hundreds of pages of classified daily briefings prepared for President Bush to show that Libby did not intentionally lie about discussing Plame with reporters, as prosecutors allege. They contend that he was preoccupied with more serious matters when the conversations took place and when investigators questioned him months later.

Libby faces charges of committing perjury, making false statements and obstructing justice in the investigation of whether administration officials broke the law by disclosing Plame’s identity to the media.

“One of the central themes of Mr. Libby’s defense at trial will be that any misstatements he made during his FBI interviews or grand jury testimony were not intentional, but rather the result of confusion, mistake or faulty memory,” the attorneys wrote in a court document filed late Tuesday. “Given the urgent national security issues that commanded Mr. Libby’s attention, it is understandable that he may have forgotten or misremembered relatively less significant events (such as) alleged snippets of conversations about Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment status.”

The filing also indicated that Libby, in his first grand jury appearance in early 2004, apologized, saying his memories could be inaccurate because he read 100 to 200 pages of material a day and usually worked from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“I can’t possibly recall all of the stuff that I think is important, let alone other stuff that I don’t think is as important,” he said.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald argued in court filings last week that Libby’s lawyers were attempting to derail the prosecution with a“breathtaking” request for nearly a year’s worth

of Presidential Daily Briefs, the closely guarded document that summarizes threats to the United States and is almost never released.

In announcing Libby’s indictment last October, Fitzgerald accused Libby of displaying a detailed but selective memory with investigators. Libby told prosecutors he believed he learned that Plame worked at the CIA from NBC reporter Tim Russert in a telephone call in July 2003. But he forgot that Cheney had actually told him that information the previous month, and that three days before the Russert call, Libby passed it on to then-White

House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

On Thursday, defense lawyers are also expected to file a motion asking U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who is presiding over the case, to dismiss all charges against Libby. On Friday, Fitzgerald and defense lawyers are scheduled to argue at a court hearing whether Fitzgerald should have to provide Libby with classified material and information about reporters and administration officials questioned in the investigation.

Libby’s trial is scheduled to start in January 2007, but many legal experts predict that legal battles over such questions could delay it.

PAGE 10 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006

USPS continued from page 8 for sexual harassment.

Federal job-discrimination law does not apply to companies with fewer than 15 employees.

Jenifer Arbaugh sued her boss at New Orleans’ Moonlight Cafe for sexual harassment and won a twoweek jury trial. But after the trial, the employer moved to throw out the verdict on the grounds that it had fewer than 15 employees.

A federal district judge agreed to dismiss the case, and a New Orleans-based federal appeals court affirmed the ruling.

But in an opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court ruled that, when it set the 15-employee limit, Congress did not intend to authorize such

Briefs continued from page 13 The women continued to do well in the sprints, as the trio of Hall, Laura Snizek ’07 and Natasha Barrett ’07 finished second, third and fifth in the 200-meter dash with times of 25.69, 25.34 and 26.93 seconds, respectively.

Naja Ferjan ’07 and Cheryl

defense motions. Instead, the court ruled, it should be up to a jury, not a judge, to decide whether or not a given company is covered by the law.

Alito also did not participate in that case, Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp.

In a second civil rights case, the court unanimously rebuffed a black entrepreneur’s effort to expand civil rights protections for minority contractors, ruling that he could not sue Domino’s Pizza for allegedly violating his right to make and enforce business agreements.

John McDonald’s one-man company, JWM Investments, had agreed to build four stores for Domino’s in the Las Vegas area. But the deal fell apart after the construction of the first store, with Domino’s claiming that JWM failed to do what

it promised and McDonald claiming that Domino’s discriminated against his firm because of his race.

JWM Investments and Domino’s settled their dispute, but McDonald filed a separate personal suit against the pizza chain, claiming that it had violated his rights under a federal law first passed in 1866 to help newly freed slaves participate in the economy on an equal footing with whites.

The San Francisco-based federal appeals court upheld the suit, but the Supreme Court struck it down. Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that McDonald’s suit could not go forward because only JWM, not McDonald, had any rights under the contractual relationship with Domino’s.

Scott ’07 placed fourth and fifth in the 400 meters with times of 59.06 and 59.26, respectively.

The women took home two wins in the field. Tiffany Chang ’08 won the pole vault with a height of 11 feet, 11 3/4 inches, with Janea Russ ’06 taking third place. Chelsea McCarron ’08 won the shot put with a throw of 40-5.

The men also fared well.

In the 800-meter run, Jordan Kinley ’06 and Eamon Quick ’07 swept the top two spots with times of 1:54.26 and 1:54.88.

Paul Raymond ’08 took third in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.97 seconds.

In the field, Kenna Achilihu ’08 won the triple jump with a jump of 50-5. The Bears took home third, fourth, fifth and sixth in the shot put, with Matt Frankel ’08 leading the way.

Both teams now have their sights set on this weekend’s Heptagonal Championships at Dartmouth.

Washington University 14-6 to win their opening game. Caitlin Fahey ’07 led the Bears with four goals, while Paige Lansing ’07 added two goals and two assists.

Later in the day, the Bears lost a close one to Indiana University, 7-5. The Bears trailed 5-4 with only 1:21 to play in the fourth quarter, but the Hoosiers scored two quick goals to put the game out of reach.

The next morning’s match was a hard one to swallow, as the Bears lost to Bucknell College 11-9 in double overtime.

Bruno led 8-7 late in the fourth quarter, but the Bisons scored a goal with 11 seconds left to force overtime. Claire Angyal ’07 had some last-minute heroics of her own, scoring with 57 seconds left in the first overtime to force another one, but Bucknell pulled away in the second extra-frame.

On Sunday, the Bears finished up against No. 18 Princeton, losing 8-4. Once again Brown was within striking distance late in the game, trailing 5-4 going into the fourth quarter, but the Tigers dominated down the stretch.

The Bears will compete in the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara Invitational next weekend.

— Sports staff reports

W. water polo opens at Princeton Invite The women’s water polo team opened its season at the Princeton Invitational this weekend, winning its first match before dropping its next three.

On Saturday morning, the Bears took care of George

www.browndailyherald.com

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 11

Aid continued from page 1 do and what they can (actually) do is different. There are a variety of reasons that students can be dissatisfied, and this may or may not have to do with our policies.”

He continued: “Paying for college is difficult even for people not on financial aid. One year of college is more than the average family income — that’s a lot.”

Zara Mathews ’07 receives financial aid from the University and is happy with her aid package.

“I feel that they covered most of my family’s need,” she said. Her family pays for its portion of her tuition out of its income.

“Overall, I think Brown does a good job with financial aid, but there are still areas that need improvement. I feel that a lot of people don’t talk about financial aid but that there is a good number of students who are not satisfied,” Mathews said.

Sean McGeary ’09 said he believes he received a “very good package” this year and that the University really met his family’s need. He perceives Brown students belonging to three main financial tiers — students who have no need for aid, students who could not possibly attend Brown without aid and students whose families could “just swing it” by making changes to their financial expenditures. Of the 40 percent who were not satisfied with their aid packages, McGeary said many of them probably belong to this last group.

Megan Danyliw ’09 had mixed feelings toward her financial aid package. She feels “very lucky” because the school covers a large percentage of her tuition, but “(her) family still struggles to make tuition payments.”

“I feel that Brown has a good financial aid policy in relation to other schools. I feel that the financial aid office is more than willing to talk out any problems you may be having,” Danyliw said.

“I think the financial aid office (at Brown) is pretty efficient these days in responding quickly to students and ameliorating their concerns,” said Armando Bengochea, associate dean for freshman studies. He said that students he has referred to the financial aid office generally report “getting good help.”

Internationals, transfers and RUEs Mathews argued that the University’s “need-sensitive” policy for transfer, RUE and international students attracts a “certain kind of people” from that part of the student population to Brown. The school suffers because a certain

portion of students is not eligible for aid, she said.

Neha Zope ’09, an international student from Bombay, India also said the University’s financial aid policy “limits the international community to only those (students) who can pay.”

“So many capable students can’t come to good institutions because they lack the financial resources to pay for their education. They wind up having to settle for places where the quality of education is not as good because they are not being given financial assistance,” Zope added.

International students do receive financial aid, but aid for foreign citizens is “limited,” according to the Web site for the Office of Admissions.

Harvard and Yale universities are among the few schools in the United States that have instituted a need-blind admissions policy for international students. Bartini said that improving the University’s financial aid policy for international students is “on the list of future enhancements.”

Sonya Mladenova ’09, an international student from Sofia, Bulgaria, receives financial aid and is happy with her aid package.

“I heard that some people were told that there was no aid for international students but I know that some international students do receive financial aid,” Mladenova said.

Danyliw also expressed her concerns about the school’s financial aid policy for transfer, RUE and international students.

“In order to get more diversity into the school, we have to offer the same thing to these students,” she said.

Teresa Tanzi, a RUE student who expects to graduate in 2010, is the former president of the Resumed Undergraduate Students’ Association. The number of RUE students accepted each year is limited by funding, Tanzi said. There are around 100 RUE applicants on average each year, and, historically, only 10 to 12 out of that pool are admitted. There are around 30 RUE students at any given time attending Brown.

The RUE student population does not have anywhere near the amount of funding undergraduates have, Tanzi said.

RUE students are admitted after the Resumed Undergraduate Education Policy and

Admissions Committee reviews their applications and ranks them without looking at their financial need. Students are then admitted according to how much funding is available for RUE students that year. Therefore, if the sum of the top five students’ financial need amounts to the total available for RUE funding, then only those five students would receive aid for that year. If the top five ranked students’ financial need was not very high, then more students would be able to be admitted into the program, according to Tanzi.

RUE students cannot apply for financial aid unless they apply for it when they submit their application for admission, Tanzi said. Therefore, if the financial situation of a RUE student changes, his or her aid package would not be adjusted in any way.

Tanzi said RUSA has talked to the administration about increasing funding for the RUE program and that it have received assurances that the University is “working on it.”

For her part, Tanzi receives around $2,000 a year in aid from the University and has taken out loans to finance the rest of her tuition.

“I know (President Ruth Simmons) is committed to having diversity on campus, and I think that RUEs really add a lot to the campus,” Tanzi said. “I do want to encourage the administration to increase funding (for the RUE program), but I know that the University has a lot of financial constraints and a lot of things that come ahead of us,” she added.

The Brown Corporation announced the introduction of aid for transfer students last February.

Prior to that, transfers did not receive aid from the school. The Herald reported in September that the University Resources Committee planned to raise the budget for transfer student financial aid from $400,000 to $1 million by the beginning of this year.

“As time goes on, we will improve the financial aid policy in an order that seems most reasonable for the institution and in sync with our resources,” Bartini said. “We want to make it better. We have made it better.

But that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to keep trying.”

PAGE 12 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006

Simmons www.browndailyherald.com barely legal

continued from page 1 maximize her time on campus to interact with students, Quinn said.

“We’re trying to work around her schedule” to allow her to give “due diligence” to students through effective campus appearances, Saxton-Frump said.

Saxton-Frump also said Simmons has to “strike a balance” of interacting with students enough to stay in touch with student concerns without appearing so often that her presence no longer generates excitement.

It’s not clear whether students think that Simmons is visible enough on campus, Saxton-Frump said, though she noted that no students have actively complained about the president’s presence.

Though she won’t be delivering a campus address this semester, Simmons will still make public appearances in a variety of smaller settings. These events tend to be easier to schedule and require less preparation for the president than a campus speech.

As part of Black History Month, Simmons told some 30 students about her life’s struggles and

UCS continued from page 7 should target specific companies in addition to promoting divestment.

Townsend said that there is a proposal to create a science and engineering program similar to the Program in Liberal Medical Education in front of the faculty.

“Science education doesn’t really

Murphy continued from page 16 After four minutes, I was naked and my tongue was frozen to a flagpole. After 10 minutes, I … wait! Why am I telling you this? I don’t even know you!

Let’s get back to the point of this whole thing. Point being, the Winter Olympics are terrible.

Sub-point: they’re really terrible.

Secret triple sub-point: it is my belief that PETA hates the Winter Olympics too. Why? “Because snow, like, kills bugs and stuff and

inspirations in a “fireside chat” at the Third World Center Feb. 1.

One of the event’s coordinators, Andrew Chisholm ’08, said the idea for the event came out of a conversation with Simmons last semester when she met with students at the TWC. After that discussion, Chisholm and coordinator Diarra Guthrie ’06 dealt exclusively with Quinn to establish a date and handle other logistical issues.

Quinn was “amazingly helpful,” and arranging the president’s appearance was easier than reserving a venue for the event through the Student Activities Office, Chisholm said.

In another type of appearance, Simmons will update students on University news and answer questions at a UCS meeting March 1. Simmons typically attends a UCS meeting once per semester.

When her schedule allows, Simmons also regularly appears at events at which her presence isn’t necessary, such as speaking to prospective students during A Day on College Hill, Quinn said.

Standard campus appearances for the president include Opening Convocation in September, Commencement in May and Parents Weekend in October.

work in America,” he said, adding that the question is whether “this type of education works.”

Townsend said that he and Saxton-Frump had discussed with President Ruth Simmons “ideological concerns on the difference between a research university and a college.”

Boas sought and received UCS’s approval for Williams’ appointment to the University Resources Committee.

you’re like, completely boxing me in.”

Alright, I guess I really don’t hate the Winter Olympics as much as I let on. I’m just bitter that I didn’t develop into a champion skier, despite growing up in the snow-capped peaks of rural Kansas. But it’s alright, I still watch the Winter Games.

Just sitting and watching by myself, in the dark, rocking back and forth in the fetal position, crying softly.

There are no words to describe Sports Staff Writer Hugh Murphy ’06.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

SPORTS EXTRA THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 13

Winless streak hits 11 for m. icers after two road setbacks in N.Y.

BY TOM TRUDEAU SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The men’s ice hockey team’s winless streak grew to 11 games this weekend, as the Bears fell to ECACHL opponents St. Lawrence University 4-1 and Clarkson University 8-2.

The Bears had beaten both teams earlier this season at home but were unable to find a consistent source of offense or goaltending. With the losses, Brown falls to 2-14-4 in the ECACHL (3-18-6 overall).

“Coming in we always have the expectation that we’re going to win regardless of how the year’s gone,” said Head Coach Roger Grillo. “Considering we played well against both teams earlier in the year, it’s very disappointing (to have lost).”

Against St. Lawrence, the Bears quickly fell behind 2-0, surrendering a pair of power play goals in the first period. Brown was unable to mount a comeback while being outplayed in all three periods.

St. Lawrence tallied two more goals in the third period to take a four-goal lead.

By the time Brown got on the board with five minutes remaining with a power play tally by Jeff Prough ’08, the game was long over.

The following night, Brown got off to a strong start. Goaltender Mark Sibbald ’09, starting in the net in place of Adam D’Alba ’08, recorded 16 first period saves. Prough again provided the offense, scoring three seconds into the Bears’ power play at 5:54.

Fellow sophomore Brian McNary ’08 won the faceoff and moved the puck back to Prough, who sent it into the back of the net to put the Bears up 1-0.

M. tennis continued from page 16 good job energizing the guys on the court (during the Lafayette match),” Lee said.

The energy continued that afternoon against Marist. This time, the Bears won every one of their doubles matches.

Hanegby and Kohli took the first doubles match 8-5, Lee and Garland took the second doubles match 8-6 and Thomas and Blumenkranz took the third doubles match 8-3.

In singles, the Bears again won all of their matches in straight sets, although two of the matches required second-set tiebreakers. Straight-set victories went to Thomas, Charm, Lee and Tedaldi at first, second, fourth and sixth singles, respectively.

Although the second sets of the third and fifth singles matches were decided by tiebreakers, the scores of the tiebreakers were decisive. At third singles, Ratnam defeated Leonardo Rodriguez 6-1, 7-6 (1), and Garland defeated Ray Josephs 6-2, 7-6 (3) at fifth singles.

Overall, the Bears were impressed by the amount of improvement they displayed over the course of the three matches. “There was a lot of improvement in the young guys from a few weeks ago to now,” Charm said.

Harris agreed. “This is the beginning of defining this group of guys. I’m really proud of them. They got a lot better this weekend in every area, and I’m very excited,” he said.

The improvement will hopefully carry over to the Bears’ next match, when they will host Michigan State University on March 4. “In terms of the last few weeks, we’ve had tough, intense practices,” Charm said. “We’re quicker and sharper.”

Brown, however, lost its lead at 14:05, surrendering a power play goal to Clarkson’s Steve Zalewski. The score remained tied at one until Eric Slais ’09 re-directed a shot into the back of the net to give Brown the lead at 3:03 into the second period.

Brown clung to the 2-1 advantage until 11:00 in the second period, when a controversial goal opened up the floodgates on the Bears. A shot was seemingly caught in mid-air by a Clarkson forward and tossed into the net. The referees missed the play, robbing Brown of its lead and deflating the team.

“We were playing well until we got rattled, lost our confidence and then the game got away from us,” Grillo said.

After the equalizer, Clarkson went on to add six unanswered goals before the final buzzer mercifully sounded. “(Frustration) is a huge factor along with confidence,” Grillo said. “It’s definitely wearing on the guys a little bit and that’s somewhat understandable. But we have got to fight through that and play better.”

With the losses, the Bears look ahead to next weekend’s last regular season games at home versus Princeton and Quinnipiac University, hoping to pick up some momentum heading into the playoffs.

“We’re still focused on this year,” Grillo said. “We’ve played good enough hockey against the top teams in the country that we can do some damage in the playoffs, no question.”

Yale laps m. swimming 141-103, Bears still pick up four wins The men’s swimming team closed out its regular season schedule with a 141-103 loss to Yale at SPORTS the Smith Swim Center on Saturday. The loss BRIEFS left Brown in seventh place in the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League at 2-6 heading into the EISL Championships on March 24.

Brown started off the day with a resounding win in the 400-yard relay. The team of Eric Brumberg ’06.

Grant Garcia ’08, Brian Kelly ’08 and Richard Alexander ’09 edged out Yale’s “A” squad by one one-hundredth of a second, 3:24.54 to 3:24.55. Alexander also notched a victory in the 200-yard butterfly.

After the Bears’ strong start to the meet, Yale collected itself and dominated the day’s second event, the 1,000-yard freestyle. The Bulldogs swept the top four spots with the nearest Bear nearly 20 seconds behind.

Dan Ricketts ’09 nabbed a win in the 200-yard freestyle to boost Brown back into contention, but Yale responded again. It took five of the next seven events, sweeping the top four spots in both the 500-yard freestyle and 200yard breaststroke.

Though resigned to defeat, Brown did manage to take the meet’s final event — the 400-yard freestyle. Led by Kelly and Brumberg, the Bears’ time of 3:05.5 was a full second faster than Yale’s second-place time of 3:06.63.

Injury to Bailey ’06 keeps m. squash from improving ranking at championships The men’s squash team competed in the Hoehn “B” Division bracket of the College Squash Association Team Championships at Princeton over the weekend, winning two of three matches to finish the season ranked 11th in the nation.

The Bears (8-9, 0-6 Ivy League), who drew the United States Naval

Virginians not friendly to w. tennis squad in pair of losses

BY BART STEIN SPORTS STAFF WRITER

It is safe to say that no member of the women’s tennis team is eager to go back to Virginia.

Coming off an encouraging 5-2 home victory over Boston University Saturday, the Bears were dominated in two consecutive matches, falling at the University of Richmond 6-0 on Monday and then at No. 34 Virginia Commonwealth University 6-1 on Tuesday.

This is the first losing streak for the Bears (3-4), who have made a pattern of alternating wins and losses.

The team entered the road trip with confidence after defeating BU 5-2 on its home courts. The win showed that the Bears are making progress as a team, since the Terriers had won the teams’ match-up 4-3 last season.

“We’re better than we were last year,” said Head Coach Paul Wardlaw.

“BU didn’t graduate a single player, so Saturday’s victory was a great testament to our team’s improvement this season.”

Wardlaw’s words, however, seemed less convincing after Monday’s disheartening loss to Richmond.

“It was disappointing,” he said. “It turned out much worse on paper than it should have. I think the effects of being on the road for the first time really got to

Academy (20-12) in the first round on Friday, were dealt a huge blow when their number one player, Breck Bailey ’06, injured his knee in the third game of his match. Bailey had a 2-0 lead in games over Navy’s Tucker George when George crashed into his knee. Bailey continued playing but lost the match in five games and was rendered inactive for the rest of the weekend.

While the Bears beat the Midshipmen, 6-3, to advance to a second-round meeting with Amherst College (9-10) on Saturday, Bailey’s injury forced each of his teammates to compete against higher seeds than normal. The Bears still almost pulled off the victory without their top player, but ultimately fell to the Lord Jeffs, 5-4.

Sunday, the Bears faced Franklin and Marshall College (14-9) in a match to determine year-end rankings. Bruno beat the Diplomats, 6-3, to claim the 11th rank.

Bailey did get some good news, sharing the Skillman Award with Princeton’s three-time national champion Yasser El-Halaby. The award recognizes skill and sportsmanship over a player’s career.

Bailey’s status is questionable for next weekend’s Intercollegiate Squash Association Individuals Championship held in Amherst, Mass. Herald staff photographer Dan Petrie ’07 and Ed Cerullo ’08 will likely compete.

Wrestlers wrap up regular season with 1-2 trip The wrestling team closed out its regular season this weekend with three matches in New York, pounding Wagner College 34-6 but losing to Ivy League rivals Columbia, 22-17, and No. 14 Cornell, 33-6, to drop below .500 on the year at 8-9-1 (2-7 Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association).

Brown was able to take down Wagner easily. Regulars Matt Gevelinger ’09 at 174 pounds, Levon Mock ’08 at heavyweight and Jeff Schell ’08 at 125 pounds all recorded pins in the first two

us.”

The Bears may have been disoriented as they found themselves away from the friendly confines of the Pizzitola Sports Center. The Pitz is known to have very fast hard courts, and the courts the Bears played on in Virginia presented a sharp contrast.

Even Daisy Ames ’07, whose grinding style of play would seem to favor the slower courts, couldn’t manage to notch her first victory of the season at No. 1 singles. After a very impressive fall season, Ames is in a funk and is 0-7 in singles play thus far.

In the match against VCU, the Bears again were overmatched, although this time it was against a team that was on a hot streak. The Rams were 11-0 coming into the match and had just defeated No. 31 University of Maryland, College Park 7-0.

The one bright spot of the weekend was Brett Finkelstein ’09’s thrilling victory at No. 5 singles over Gabrielle De Beaucoudrey of VCU. Finkelstein pulled out a 4-6, 7-6 (5), 10-6 win, despite letting a 5-1 lead slip away in the second set.

“Whenever you lose a lead like that, you have to start playing smarter,” Finkelstein said. “I realized that the only way I was going to lose is if I continued to beat myself.”

The Bears return home Saturday to face the University of South Carolina.

minutes of their matches. Tom Fazio ’09 also posted a pin at 157 pounds, and Lenny Marandino ’09 and Greg Pace ’06 both notched technical falls.

In the afternoon match with Columbia, the Bears lost another match in which they managed to take five of the 10 bouts. Following consecutive wins by co-captains Michael Savino ’06 and Shawn Kitchner ’07 at 157 and 165 pounds, respectively, the Bears and Lions were knotted at 10. Columbia responded by rattling off three straight victories to take the match.

On Saturday, the Bears made their way north to grapple with the elite Big Red. Despite solid efforts from Mark Savino ’08 at 141 pounds and Mike Ashton ’06 at 149 pounds, Cornell took the first two matches to jump out to the early lead and never looked back.

The Big Red boast six wrestlers ranked in the top 15 of their respective weight classes, and five of the six posted wins.

Then-No. 13 Steve Anceravage was the lone exception, as he was upset 6-3

by Kitchner. Mock picked up Bruno’s other victory with a 4-3 decision at heavyweight.

Brown is now idle until the EIWA Championships in two weeks.

Track squads warm up for Heps at USATF-New Englands The men’s and women’s track teams had strong individual showings at the USA Track and Field-New England meet Sunday at Harvard.

Anna Willard ’06 turned in another strong performance in the middle distances. This time she competed in the 800-meter run, bringing home the lone women’s victory on the track in 2:10.07.

Lauren Hale ’07 nearly notched another Brown victory, this in the 60meter dash. Hale posted a time of 7.97 seconds, good for second place and just one one-hundredth of a second behind the first-place finisher. see BRIEFS, page 10

EDITORIAL/LETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 14

STAFF EDITORIAL

Overbooked, overlooked Last February, President Ruth Simmons’ Spring Semester Opening Address — what we hoped would become a longstanding tradition — generated a disappointing turnout from undergraduates. As Simmons highlighted the importance of enhancing intellectual diversity on campus and touched on other longstanding University-wide concerns to a half-empty Salomon 101, we hoped she didn’t leave thinking she had wasted her time. This year, however, the speech is conspicuously absent from the University’s events calendar, and it seems the Brown community will have to go without a prominent public appearance from its leader.

We understand that Simmons’ already-packed schedule has become even more daunting since the launch of the Campaign for Academic Enrichment in October. Surely, the prospect of addressing rooms full of eager donors outweighs that of speaking to a lecture hall as sparsely filled as Salomon 101 was last year. However, two years ago, the first presidential address attracted many students who praised the opportunity to hear directly from the person at the helm of initiatives that are rapidly changing the University. Five years into her tenure, we believe an address from Simmons would once again pique student interest, particularly as members of the Brown community await the outcome of several crucial, high-profile measures.

This weekend, the Brown Corporation will revisit issues — such as financial aid — that never lose their relevance for students. In addition, the University’s top governing body will take up new concerns, like the proposal to divest from Sudan. Other programs remain in flux, such as the aforementioned campaign and the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. With all of this on the table, it makes sense for Simmons to address the Brown community en masse. Important announcements like the formation of a committee to examine the role of the undergraduate College — which was lumped together with other items at the Feb. 7 faculty meeting — would also serve as appropriate talking points.

Appearances in front of bodies like the Undergraduate Council of Students do not allow Simmons to sufficiently communicate her broader goals and vision for the University’s advancement. Though UCS President Sarah Saxton-Frump ’07 is probably right when she says that too many Simmons appearances might compromise student enthusiasm, an annual address is a far cry from over-saturation.

Currently, UCS has no plans to schedule an address from Simmons before this time next year. We urge the council to reconsider. It is not too late to arrange for such an appearance at some point this semester or during the fall. After all, 24 months is a long time to wait.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL Robbie Corey-Boulet, Editor-in-Chief Justin Elliott, Executive Editor Ben Miller, Executive Editor Stephanie Clark, Senior Editor Katie Lamm, Senior Editor Jonathan Sidhu, Arts & Culture Editor Jane Tanimura, Arts & Culture Editor Stu Woo, Campus Watch Editor Mary-Catherine Lader, Features Editor Ben Leubsdorf, Metro Editor Anne Wootton, Metro Editor Eric Beck, News Editor Patrick Harrison, Opinions Editor Nicholas Swisher, Opinions Editor Stephen Colelli, Sports Editor Christopher Hatfield, Sports Editor Justin Goldman, Asst. Sports Editor Jilane Rodgers, Asst. Sports Editor Charlie Vallely, Asst. Sports Editor PRODUCTION Allison Kwong, Design Editor Taryn Martinez, Copy Desk Chief Lela Spielberg, Copy Desk Chief Mark Brinker, Graphics Editor Joe Nagle, Graphics Editor

PHOTO Jean Yves Chainon, Photo Editor Jacob Melrose, Photo Editor Ashley Hess, Sports Photo Editor Kori Schulman, Sports Photo Editor BUSINESS Ryan Shewcraft, General Manager Lisa Poon, Executive Manager David Ranken, Executive Manager Mitch Schwartz, Executive Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti, Sr. Advertising Manager Susan Dansereau, Office Manager POST- MAGAZINE Sonia Saraiya, Editor-in-Chief Taryn Martinez, Associate Editor Ben Bernstein, Features Editor Matt Prewitt, Features Editor Elissa Barba, Design Editor Lindsay Harrison, Graphics Editor Constantine Haghighi, Film Editor Paul Levande, Film Editor Jesse Adams, Music Editor Katherine Chan, Music Editor Hillary Dixler, Off-the-Hill Editor Abigail Newman, Theater Editor

Jason Lee, Allison Kwong, Night Editors Amy Ehrhart, Chris Gang, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Simmi Aujla, Stephanie Bernhard, Melanie Duch, Ross Frazier, Jonathan Herman, Rebecca Jacobson, Chloe Lutts, Caroline Silverman Staff Writers Anna Abramson, Justin Amoah, Zach Barter, Allison Erich Bernstein, Brenna Carmody, Alissa Cerny, Ashley Chung, Stewart Dearing, Gabriella Doob, Phillip Gara, Hannah Miller, Aidan Levy, Jill Luxenberg, Taryn Martinez, Ari Rockland-Miller, Jane Porter, Chelsea Rudman, Sonia Saraiya, Kam Sripada, Robin Steele, Kim Stickels, Nicole Summers, Laura Supkoff, Spencer Trice, Ila Tyagi, Sara Walter Sports Staff Writers Erin Frauenhofer, Kate Klonick, Madeleine Marecki, George Mesthos, Eric Perlmutter, Marco Santini, Tom Trudeau Account Administrators Alexandra Annuziato, Emilie Aries, Steven Butschi, Dee Gill, Rahul Keerthi, Kate Love, Ally Ouh, Nilay Patel, Ashfia Rahman, Rukesh Samarasekera, Jen Solin, Bonnie Wong Design Staff Ross Frazier, Adam Kroll, Andrew Kuo, Gabriela Scarritt Photo Staff CJ Adams, Chris Bennett, Meg Boudreau, Tobias Cohen, Lindsay Harrison, Matthew Lent, Christopher Schmitt, Oliver Schulze, Juliana Wu, Min Wu Copy Editors Anastasia Aguiar, Oliver Bowers, Aubry Bracco, Chessy Brady, Jacob Frank, Ross Frazier, Christopher Gang, Yi Fen Li, Taryn Martinez, Katie McComas, Sara Molinaro, Heather Peterson, Sonia Saraiya, Lela Spielberg, Alice Winslow

JOSEPH NAGLE

LETTERS Campus eateries inflexible To the Editor: I would like to get the attention of the general student body and the Undergraduate Council of Students in a matter that concerns all of us: the use of our meal credits at the Gate and Josiah’s.

The practice of not letting students use two meal credits at once has got to go. Anyone who has gotten $7-plus of food at either of these fine dining establishments late at night knows that you must use flex points for any purchase over $4.45 regardless of how many meal credits you have left, even if you have two or three. I have asked and heard several reasons for this: “The University wants you to use flex points”; “The computer won’t swipe your card twice in a row for a meal credit”; “If you try and buy two meal credits worth of stuff every day, there might not be enough left for others”; and my favorite and most credible for our institution “If you use two meal credits it holds up

the line and isn’t fair to the others waiting behind you.” These “restaurants” make you take all your purchases over $4.45 and cycle through the line a second time if you wish to use a second meal credit. This is ludicrous. If you are in line at the supermarket, it doesn’t matter how many items you have or if you bought the last roll of toilet paper in town. They will take care of your needs no matter how long you hold up the line.

Also, the University charges $11.45 for dinner while our Gate meal credit is worth a measly $4.45. If this is type of customer dissatisfaction is commonplace on the East coast, someone please tell this humble Alaskan, but until then, let me use my two meal credits. Sorry — didn’t mean to hold you up in line.

Matt Palmer ’09 Feb. 13

Same-sex marriage rally coverage ‘fabulous’ To the Editor: Thanks for your fabulous coverage of Marriage Equality Rhode Island’s rally on Valentine’s Day (“Brown Dems, Queer Alliance Turn Out in Support of Same-Sex Marriage,” Feb. 15). The Brown University community was out in full force, which I particularly appreciate as the co-chair of MERI and a Brown alum. I want to clarify that when Hannah Miller discussed the progress of the bill in the General Assembly, her information only reflects our Senate bill. This year, MERI introduced a promarriage bill in the House with 23 sponsors, and in the Senate with six. There is a Defense of Marriage Act bill in the Senate with three sponsors, and no DOMA in the house. Rep. Edie Ajello and Sen.

Rhoda Perry, who represent Brown and most of the surrounding areas, are leaders with this legislation. I urge all Brown students who vote in Rhode Island to call them and thank them. To find out more about MERI and our work here in Rhode Island, please visit our website at www.MarriageEqualityRI.org.

All of us at MERI join you in envisioning a world where any two people who love each other have access to equal protection under the law.

Jenn Steinfeld Co-Chair, Marriage Equality RI Feb. 16

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OPINIONS

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 15

How to get involved David Segal, Ward 1 city councilman, details two local initiatives

BY DAVID SEGAL GUEST COLUMNIST

I’m writing to alert the campus community — students, faculty and all employees — to opportunities to become involved in two exciting city initiatives.

I ran for City Council in 2002 — at least in part — because my predecessor, a conservative Democrat, was the Council’s most strident opponent to the inception of the Providence External Review Authority, a board of civilians whose role is to monitor and mediate accusations of police brutality.

The push for PERA began in earnest after the 29 year-old off-duty police officer Cornel Young Jr. was shot and killed in Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood by two fellow officers who mistook him for a suspect.

But concern about heavy-handed police conduct wasn’t new to Providence in 2000. A 1991 study by Human Rights Watch illuminated the astonishing fact that the rate of complaints of police abuse was higher in each of Providence, East Providence and Pawtucket than in any other cities in the country, except for New Orleans. A subsequent Human Rights Watch study determined that Providence’s police force was the nation’s third most abusive, behind Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

There’s little doubt that the situation is much-improved relative to a half-

decade ago. Our current, progressive police chief, Colonel Dean Esserman, has decentralized his department and made it more neighborhood-oriented.

The department’s Ninth District, which includes Brown’s main campus, is fortunate to be overseen by the superb Lieutenant Paul Campbell, but that does nothing to undermine the importance of the role PERA serves in our community.

Each Councilmember is allowed to make one appointment to PERA’s board.

The term of Ward 1’s current appointee will end in a month’s time. For a variety of personal reasons, she has chosen to step down, so the search has begun for her replacement. I’d ask that anybody who’s interested in serving get in touch with me, at the email address or phone number listed below. The ideal candidate would be able to commit to completing a 3-year term, and should reside within Ward 1 — the East Side, south of Angell Street. The position is unpaid, and would entail attendance at meetings one or two evenings per month.

As The Herald reported last fall, the Parks Department and I are working to establish a community garden in Fox Point. It’ll be located east of Gano Street, just off of Power Street — about a 10 minute walk from the Main Green.

It’s on a sliver of city-owned, unused greenspace that had been slated for paving-over.

I’ve been working with students involved in the Sustainable Food

Initiative, the Brown Environmental Action Network and others, to get the garden up and running.

The Parks Department has tested the soil and is devising a landscaping plan.

Decorative fencing will be done by an artists’ collaborative, the Steel Yard. We anticipate being ready for plantings in late April.

If you’re interested in gardening with us this summer, please contact me. We think that we’ll have room for 50 or so 100 square-foot plots, each to be caredfor by an individual, family or small group.

For those who are interested in a more substantial investment in this project as well as a summer job, we’re in the process of hiring one or two garden managers. The (paid) positions would entail 5-10 hours of work per week, from April until October, with a little bit of work in March too. Candidates should have good managerial skills, and some gardening experience. We hope to have managers identified within a couple of weeks, when we’ll be holding meetings with the garden’s stakeholders.

This will be the East Side’s first substantial public garden — we’re excited to make sure that it’s a success.

OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Seriously, guys, I am just so sick and tired of students complaining that the Undergraduate Council of Students doesn’t “do anything.” It is mean-spirited, hurtful and completely off-base. UCS does do things. For one, UCS is excellent at sucking. Truly — they totally suck.

Yet, unique among college student governments, UCS’s sucking isn’t due to it being ineffectual; UCS has done a lot for Brown students, from satellite fitness centers to national newspapers in the Sharpe Refectory to getting back at Bill O’Reilly for us. No, UCS sucks because of its obsession with bureaucratic nonsense.

It sucks because of its members’ habit of engaging in masturbatory dialogue. And it sucks because of its secretive, cabal-like selection of members. UCS Vice-President Zachary Townsend ’08 insists that “UCS is done playing games.” Well, I sincerely hope the first game that they quit playing is the suck-game.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have never been to a UCS meeting. They conflict with my watching of entertaining TV dramas like Lost. Somehow, a magical island appeals more to me than sitting in Peturutti Lounge for three hours listening to UCS argue about the definition of “a week.” I almost went to a meeting last semester, though I changed my mind when I read The Herald’s coverage of the previous UCS meeting regarding the increase to the Brown student activities fee. It went a little something like this: “After nearly three hours of contentious debate ... the Undergraduate Council of Students voted to pass a resolution to raise the student activities fee. ... One of the main objections to the resolution was that students had not had ample opportunity

GUEST COLUMNISTS

Didn’t notice? That’s because the “elections” consisted of UCS members voting each other into new positions without any input from the student body.

Oh, they apologized for it afterwards, though, just in time for them to still retain the offices to which they had elected themselves. New VP Townsend admits that UCS “needs change.” He opines that “UCS has been isolated and closed.

Students feel we do not represent their particular interests.” He insists that “We can do more.” Two suggestions Townsend lists: “Why can’t there be 3,000-signaturepetitions on President Simmons’s desk or 30 people sitting in Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene’s office at all times?”

Well, UCS, you’re our student government, our “elected” representatives, our organizers — so why don’t you go out and actually do those things? That is exactly why we sort of vote for you guys, after all. Talking (or writing op-eds in The Herald) about what UCS is going to talk about in the future is a typical UCS move — chock full of bureaucracy and student disenfranchisement — but it would be far more impressive and inspiring to see UCS representatives actually collecting those 3,000 signature petitions and organizing sit-ins. At a university like Brown, where the administration is extremely dedicated and receptive to undergraduate students’ needs and wants, and where the student body is excited and devoted to the ideals of their school, it is possible for UCS to ditch the suckiness and embrace a more awesome future.

And if they could coordinate their meetings with my TV watching schedule, I’d appreciate that too.

Jacob Schuman ’08 has to return some videotapes.

The writers invite you to the 2006 Writing Beyond Brown symposium this afternoon from 4-6 p.m. in Peterutti Lounge.

David Segal is Ward 1’s city councilman.

Reach him at (401) 521-7477 or David@VoteSegal.com.

To this sophomore, UCS is a depressing cabal of talking heads to voice their opinion on the resolution. ... No poll has addressed student opinion on an increase since the spring, when a speculative question drew 51 percent opposition. ... UCS Student Activities Committee chair Cash McCracken ’08 responded that the general student body was not well enough informed about the process ... to make a decision on the matter.”

Rather than trust in the opinions of the students they supposedly represent, or attempt to better explain the issue to the student body, UCS concludes that it knows best and raises the student activities fee anyway. A stunning and inspiring example of democracy at work. Good old Soviet democracy.

To be fair, many student groups had voiced support for the resolution, and with the Undergraduate Finance Board running an $11,000 deficit, some kind of action had to be taken. But when UCS wonders why students aren’t excited about attending meetings or working with their student government, perhaps they should look at how anti-democratic their practices can be. Or maybe it’s because of how absurdly bureaucratic and pointless their meetings are: “After seven sub-debates on whether or not to limit speakers’ times to under two minutes, whether or not to amend the proposal — which spelled “whereas” incorrectly four times and had numerous grammatical errors — and whether or not to vote on if they should vote on the proposal, the final vote was 19 in favor, two against and five abstaining. A poll that was taken in the first 45 minutes of the meeting had 17 members approving, which would have satisfied the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.”

That’s just depressing.

UCS recently had elections to replace two officials who resigned over break.

BY ALICIA YOUNG AND SOPHIE CHOUKASBRADLEY The college essay. The writing proficiency requirement. The line of students snaking down the stairwell of University Hall on the morning of writing course registration. Writing plays into every student’s time at Brown. But for those of us who are passionate about writing, what happens after graduation?

There seems to be a disconnect between the emphasis on writing that faces us throughout college and the nebulous world of writing beyond Brown.

The world will always need doctors, lawyers and analysts. But careers in writing seem to be less practical, less stable and less accessible. The mere thought of trying to find a place in the writing business can seem daunting. What is the “writing business” anyway?

Perhaps the best way to answer this question is by hearing the stories of alums who found their way into the world of writing after Brown. The speakers at today’s Writing Beyond Brown symposium prove that writing careers can take many forms.

Writers can educate, inform, entertain and work for social change.

Take Simon Kinberg ’95, screenwriter of 2005’s box-office smash “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

His career in entertainment writing also includes work on the screenplay for the upcoming “X-Men 3” and a “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” TV show for ABC. Sam Schechner ’99 has also combined entertainment and writing. He writes an entertainment column for the Wall Street Journal and has freelanced for Slate magazine, Black Book and the New York Times Magazine. He helped MTV launch its first U.S. magazine as a senior editor and has worked for three years as editor-inchief of Shout magazine.

Jonathan Fasman ’97 has recently connected his career in writing back to his alma mater, setting his recently released mystery novel “The Geographer’s Library” in a fictional school called “Wickenden College.” He has also written for Harper’s Magazine, The Moscow Times, the Washington Post’s Book World and The Economist.

Just two years after graduating from Brown, Arthur Sulzberger ’04 writes for the Providence Journal. Also a recent grad, Ariana Green ’04 has worked as a New York Times stringer in Puerto Rico and as assistant editor of San Juan City Magazine.

She has recently returned to New York and is writing a chapter for Senior Lecturer in American Civilization Paul Buhle’s book “Jews in American Culture.”

Louisa Lombard ’03 worked as a research assistant at the New America Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She then moved to Nairobi and worked as a consultant to Small Arms Survey in sub-Saharan Africa.

She is presently doing freelance consulting on post-conflict situations for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and has recently published an article on traditional justice in Somalia for the magazine Legal Affairs.

Also working for social change, Lara Schwartz ’93, a legal counsel, drafts op-ed pieces, policy papers and press releases for the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization and has published several articles on legal justice.

While the path to a career in writing may seem challenging, this group of alums has demonstrated that the possibilities are endless when writing beyond Brown.

Undergraduate Council of Inanity

BY JACOB SCHUMAN

The write stuff

SPORTS THURSDAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FEBRUARY 23, 2006 · PAGE 16

The only thing these Olympics are is terrible When I first heard that the Winter Olympics would be held in Italy, I said what was on everyone’s minds when they heard: “What?!

There’s snow in Italy?” I didn’t believe it, so I set off to ask some expert Italian ski bums.

Unfortunately, I was not allowed inside the Italian embassy, Viva, because I didn’t meet the dress code.

A p p a r e n t l y, the bouncers didn’t realize HUGH MURPHY that flannel and BLACK ELK cowboy boots SPEAKS are the new Gucci and Prada.

This was a major setback, until I realized I could still finish my column by simply making a bunch of crap up. Facts? Facts are for the terrorists, my friend. Are you a terrorist? Then shut your mouth.

So, let’s be honest, outside of hockey and the occasional figure skating cat fight, the Winter Olympics are terrible. The sports of luge, skiing, snowboarding and bobsled seem to be little more than clever ways of falling down a snowy mountain.

The ski jump is another one that seems to have been born out of some poor fool’s misfortune.

Are these sports hard? Probably, but not as hard as trying to sit through 16 days of this televised nonsense.

There could be plenty of exciting and entertaining sports in the Winter Olympics, but no one has taken the time to think of any. I decided to take some initiative for once in my life and

come up with some worthwhile winter games. After weeks of intense internal struggle, I could only come up with a brutal combative sport involving Dr. Phil and a pack of vicious polar bears.

Success! Even though this sport would take minimal preparation, I understand it is probably too late to implement it during the Turin Games. You’re safe for now, Phillip … for now.

My favorite Winter Olympian, Bode Miller, has been more controversial than a Danish cartoon lately. People hounded him about his drinking comments before the Games, and now he’s skied terribly. Don’t you people understand that he is an elite athlete with very specific dietary guidelines? Without vats and vats of hard liquor, the poor guy’s body is burning itself from the inside out. You’ve ruined his Olympic dreams! Damn you!

Damn you all!

Figure skating is definitely the worst part of the Games. The male skaters all look like cruise ship magicians and the women look like junior high cheerleaders playing dress-up with Captain Kangaroo and a pound of crystal meth.

To cope with all this, I invented a drinking game set to figure skating. Every time a skater comes out on the ice in a ridiculous costume smiling like Miss America, take a drink. Every time you are reminded of the musical “Grease” during the competition, take a drink. Every time you want someone to fall but they don’t, take a drink. After three and a half minutes, I was plastered. see MURPHY, page 12

M. tennis nets three victories No. 43 Brown takes down No. 44 Virginia Tech 5-2 on Sunday

BY ERIN FRAUENHOFER SPORTS STAFF WRITER

For the men’s tennis team, one win is never enough — and neither are two. After No. 43 Brown dominated No. 44 Virginia Tech with a 5-2 victory on Sunday, the Bears came back on Monday with a 7-0 shutout over Lafayette College in the morning and a 7-0 shutout over Marist College in the afternoon.

“We came out with a lot of energy,” said Chris Lee ’09 of the team’s three wins. “It was a good collective effort.”

Sunday’s match against Virginia Tech began with a grueling duel for the doubles point. Although co-captain Phil Charm ’06 and Dan Hanegby ’07, ranked 50th in the country together, easily took the first doubles match 8-3, the third doubles pair of Lee and Saurabh Kohli ’08 lost its match 8-6.

With all the pressure resting on second doubles, Eric Thomas ’07 and Sam Garland ’09 stayed strong, winning a close match with an ace from Garland for a score of 9-8 (5).

“All that momentum turned around the entire match,” Thomas said of the doubles victory.

Singles action brought even more excitement, as four of the six singles matches were pushed to three sets. At first and second singles, No. 68 Hanegby and Thomas prevailed over Albert Larregola and Alexei Sergeev by respective scores of 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-4 and 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. The Hokies’ David Rosenfeld defeated Charm 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 in another three-setter at third singles. The Bears’ only other loss came at

Ashley Hess / Herald

Eric Thomas ’07 went undefeated over the weekend, winning all three of his doubles and singles matches, including a straight-sets victory against Marist College on Monday. fourth singles, as Kohli dropped his match 6-1, 7-5 to Nicolas Delgado.

But the Bears emerged triumphant in the two remaining singles matches. Basu Ratnam ’09 had a sound victory at fifth singles, winning his match 63, 6-4 against Brandon Corace.

Meanwhile, co-captain Luke

Sickly fencing squads battle to fourth place finish

BY MADELEINE MARECKI SPORTS STAFF WRITER

The fencing team faced an unexpected foe at the New England Championships on Sunday — sickness. Entering the Championships without key members, both the men and the women struggled to fourth-place finishes in what should have been a more competitive tournament for the Bears.

Bruno was capable of placing second or third and had an outside shot of winning the 13-team men’s field and the 15-team women’s field, according to Dan Mahoney ’07. However, all hopes were dashed when cold and flu-like illnesses swept through the team.

Brown entered the competition at Wellesley University without foilists Nick Bender ’09 and Jen Hausmann ’07. Captain Ruth Schneider ’06, the team’s top fencer, competed despite being severely ill and was the team’s top performer in the tournament.

“Ruth looked like she was about to faint after every bout,” said captain John Sheehy ’07. Mahoney expressed similar thoughts, commenting that Schneider’s condition worsened with every successive bout.

But Schneider hung on to finish the team portion of the competition and won first place in the epee event on the A strip with a score of 13-1. Although her performance qualified her for the individual competition, Schneider was too ill to continue. The timing was unfortunate, as Schneider, who

was too sick to comment for this article, has won the event the past three years.

“She really did her part to help the team,” Mahoney said.

The female epee squad finished first overall in the team standings, led by Schneider’s first place on the A strip, a first-place finish on B strip by Christine Livoti ’08 and a second-place finish on C strip by Christina Salvatore ’09.

The saber squad also performed well, tying for second with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Charlotte Gartenberg ’08 placed a strong fourth. Olivia Partyka ’06 won B strip, while Deborah Gorth ’09 finished fourth on C strip.

Foil proved to be the Brown women’s weakest weapon. Keara Kelly ’07 highlighted the squad’s seventh-place finish with her fourth-place effort on C strip.

The men fared similarly, putting forth some strong individual and squad efforts.

Mahoney led the men’s effort with a bronzewinning performance in the individual saber competition. The only Brown fencer who medaled in the tournament, Mahoney qualified for the individual competition by finishing third on B strip with a 9-3 record. Sam Levine ’08 also qualified for the individual portion of the tournament by going undefeated on C strip, winning all 12 of his matches and helping the saber squad to finish first.

The epee squad did just as well, tying with Boston College for the top position.

Brown was led by Adrian Martin ’06, who took runner-up accolades on A strip with

a record of 10-2, and Pat Culhane ’06, who was the top performer on B strip at 9-3.

Like the women, however, the men’s foil squad struggled. The loss of Bender due to illness hurt the squad, and Brown finished sixth. The Bears’ top performer was Jeremy Zeitlin ’07, who went 8-5, good for fifth place.

Mahoney characterized the day as a frustrating one. “(We) just hung in there,” he said. “There were no exceptional performances.”

Despite the disappointing overall finishes, Mahoney said the team took solace in the fact that “(the New England Championships) certainly isn’t one of our more important tournaments.”

The team’s primary focus is to qualify individuals for Nationals at the NCAA Regional competition on March 5, Mahoney added.

Before the Regional, however, Brown will have to take on stronger competition next weekend at the ECAC/International Fencing Association Championship held at the University of Pennsylvania. Last year, the men finished ninth while the women placed 11th. Sheehy said the team is looking to keep putting forth stronger performances and to become more competitive.

“Our ultimate goal is to make a place for ourselves,” he said. “We want to be in the thick of things, and to rise into the next echelon of fencing. I think we are getting there. Our current team is the strongest we’ve ever had at Brown.”

Tedaldi ’06 defeated Brent Wilkins in a gripping sixth singles match, as every set in the 6-7, 76, 1-0 (8) win was determined by a tiebreaker.

“The guys call him ‘Houdini’ for saving so many match and set points,” said Head Coach Jay Harris.

By the time Tedaldi’s match was finished, the players had spent over five hours competing — but Monday morning found them back on the courts for two more matches. “(Monday) was a good test for us,” Thomas said.

“We were able to come out after a day of hard tennis for another day of hard tennis. And we were very successful.”

The Bears’ only loss of the day came during doubles play against Lafayette. Garland and Scott Blumenkranz ’08 dropped a close second doubles match 8-6, but the first doubles duo of Thomas and Charm and the third doubles duo of Tedaldi and Noah Gardner ’09 had solid 8-1 and 8-6 wins, giving the Bears the doubles point.

“We came out with a little less energy in the beginning,” Harris said. “It’s not always easy to play that much.”

The Bears were flawless during singles play, easily taking every match in straight sets. The closest match-up came at first singles, as Hanegby defeated Andrew Mott 6-3, 7-5. Every other singles set was won by a score no closer than 6-4.

“The guys off the court did a see M. TENNIS, page 13 BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23 W. SWIMMING: Ivy League Championships (Cambridge, Mass.)