Wednesday, March 8, 2006

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006

Volume CXLI, No. 29

www.browndailyherald.com

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891

TU-BE OR NOT TU-BE Dartmouth is considering cancelling “Tubestock,” an annual summer tradition of rafting and drinking CAMPUS WATCH 3

COMMITTEE COMMITMENT The process for University committee appointments is long, complicated and sometimes criticized CAMPUS NEWS 5

FRIEDMAN’S FOLLY Andrew Morantz ’06.5 takes on N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman for oversimplifying globalization OPINIONS 11

TODAY

TOMORROW

partly cloudy 42 / 27

p.m. showers 43 / 38

Corporation may lift Israel travel ban

BY SARA WALTER STAFF WRITER

Changes to the University’s policy regarding study abroad in countries listed on the U.S. Department of State Travel Warning list, which includes Israel, will be voted on by the Brown Corporation’s advisory and executive committee March 17, according to Provost Robert Zimmer.

Currently, if a Brown student studies in a country on the warning list, the University will not allow the transfer of academic credit for that program, according to Kendall Brostuen, director of international programs and associate dean of the

Lucia Donatelli / Herald

Visiting Assistant Professor of Old World Archaeology and Art Katherina Galor will be leading a dig in Israel this summer.

college. The advisory and executive committee vote will decide whether the travel ban to countries on the list is lifted.

The vote comes after a petition circulated by Brown Students for Israel late last year called on the University to change the study abroad policy, said BSI Co-President Paul Savitz ’08. The petition, which received 2,055 signatures, was presented to Vice President and Secretary of the University Russell Carey ’91, Savitz said.

He said BSI is in the process of contacting Chancellor Stephen Robert ’62 P’91 “to help encourage the committee to approve” lifting the travel ban.

If the advisory and executive committee, which convenes between meetings of the full Corporation, removes the travel ban, Zimmer said a supplemental waiver — which is being worked on by the Office of General Counsel — would likely be instituted.

Brostuen said the supplemental waiver would tentatively require the signature of both the student and a parent or guardian stating that the student is willing to assume the risks of studying in one of the countries on the warning list.

The waiver would also serve to acknowledge the fact that if a student chooses to study in one of these countries, “Brown cannot guarantee their safety,” Brostuen said. see ISRAEL, page 4

Formed in wake of SPG, social events committee to finalize report today

Jacob Melrose / Herald

Glenn Loury, professor of economics, moderated this year’s public affairs conference.

Panelists tackle issues of class as part of public affairs conference

BY MELISSA KAGEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Panelists debated whether economic or cultural factors play a more important role in the development of class distinctions in American society last night before a crowded Salomon 101. The discussion, titled “Where Are We Headed?

Why and How Does Class Still Matter in America?” was moderated by Professor of Economics Glenn Loury and featured New York Times op-ed columnist David

Brooks.

The panel — which also included Jared Bernstein, director of the Living Standards program at the Economic Policy Institute, and Louisiana State Rep. Karen Carter — was the second part of the 26th annual Providence Journal/Brown University Public Affairs Conference.

Discussion centered on the interplay of economic, legislative and cultural influences in determining class. see PANEL, page 6

Recommendations include availability of metal detectors for large events

BY ANNE WOOTTON METRO EDITOR

Having presented its recommendations to Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene on Tuesday, the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Social Events Policy and Procedure will have a final version of its report ready today. The nearly 20-page document includes recommendations for increased monitoring of students during peak “pre-gaming” hours and the availability of metal detectors for potentially dangerous events.

The committee formed after two on-campus events associated with excessive drinking, fighting and violence in November 2005 — including Queer Alliance’s annual Sex Power God party, which appeared on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” after host Bill O’Reilly sent a reporter to the event. The committee, which included University administrators, staff and representatives from several student groups, met six times between November 2005 and March 2006.

There is no timeline in place for adopting the committee’s recommendations; instead, Greene said he is looking forward to soliciting feedback about the report from as many members of the University community as possible.

“We hope to begin vetting this report very widely this week and I’m curious to hear what people think of it,” he said.

The first recommendation in the committee’s report is the permanent adoption of the Interim Social Function Policies introduced after the incidents see REPORT, page 9

Jacob Melrose / Herald

From left to right: Karen Carter, Louisiana state representative; Jared Bernstein, director of the Living Standards program at the Economic Policy Institute; and David Brooks, oped columnist for the New York Times.

Senior hopes to outline shortcomings of U.’s writing requirement Professors say lack of enforcement may shortchange students

BY NATHALIE PIERREPONT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As part of the original charter of the University, the English requirement — which requires that students demonstrate writing competency — is one of the few curricular requirements undergraduates must fulfill prior to graduation.

But Katherine Saviskas ’06, who has worked for six semesters as a Writing Fellow, said she was unaware of the requirement until this year.

The education concentrator echoed several professors in saying she believes the requirement is not widely enforced, a fact that might allow some students to

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graduate without demonstrating writing competency.

“It’s something the University is claiming to provide us and it’s clear that the University thinks this is important,” Saviskas said.

But she “can’t make sense of the silence.”

Saviskas is writing her honors thesis on Brown’s academic writing support system in hopes that her efforts will start a “dialogue about writing at Brown,” including discussions among departments. Because Dean of the College Paul Armstrong will step down at the end of this semester, Saviskas said now is an opportune time to increase awareness of the writing requirement and encourage Armstrong’s replacement to address the issue.

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

Little oversight, professors say Before 1998, Saviskas said a committee of English professors evaluated incoming students’ applications to determine whether or not a student should be recommended to take an expository English course at Brown. However, students were getting so much help on their applications that their essays were not reflective of their abilities, she said.

Currently, the disconnected nature of Brown’s academic departments and writing programs makes enforcing the requirement difficult, she said. Several professors see WRITING, page 4

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

THIS MORNING THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 2 Jero Matt Vascellaro

TO D AY ’ S E V E N TS BEYOND CHASTITY: AFRICAN ACTIVISM AND FGM 4 p.m. , (Sarah Doyle Women’s Center) — Rogaia Abusharaf, a research associate at the Pembroke Center, will discuss movements that are fighting the tradition of female genital mutilation.

COMMUNITY INFO SESSION FOR THE CHANGES OF THE MPC PROGRAM 7 p.m. , (Wilson 301) — Come learn about the changes to the MPC program and provide your own concerns and suggestions.

AUDIO EDITING WITH AUDACITY 6:30 p.m. , (CIT 269) — Ever wanted to edit your own audio? This session will introduce the basics of slicing, splicing and mixing with the audio editing program Audacity.

“IN THE NAME OF GOD” 8 p.m., (Barus & Holley 190) — “In the Name of God” is a documentary exploring the events surrounding the Babri Mosque demolition in December 1992. This event is part of the 2nd Annual Lecture Series on South Asia.

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

M for Massive Yifan Luo

MENU SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Beef Tacos, Spanish Rice, Refried Beans, Spinach with Toasted Sesame Seeds, Lyonnaise Potatoes, Chourico, Raspberry Squares, Chocolate Frosted Brownies

LUNCH — Vegetarian Mushroom Barley Soup, Chicken Soup with Tortellini, Beef Tacos, Vegan Burrito, Vegan Refried Beans, Corn and Sweet Pepper Saute, Frosted Brownies

DINNER — Filet of Sole and Lemon Roll-ups, Vegetable Risotto, Beets in Orange Sauce, Broccoli Spears, Sourdough Bread, Chocolate Sundae Cake

DINNER — Vegetarian Mushroom Barley Soup, Chicken Soup with Tortellini, Rotisserie Style Chicken, Spinach Quiche, Spanish Rice, Broccoli Cuts, Turnip Fluff, Sourdough Bread, Chocolate Sundae Cake

Cappuccino Monday Christine Sunu

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle CR O S Daily SWO RD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Digital readouts, briefly 5 Cocktail flavorers 10 Responds in “Jeopardy!”

14 Came down 15 Heat center 16 “Say, Say, Say,” say 17 Sample in an Indiana city?

19 “Rubáiyát” name 20 Shoestring holder 21 Pen pals?

23 Lennon’s lady 24 Otherwise 26 Donned, as a corset 28 “I give up” 32 Its mascot is a goat 33 Zilch 34 Part of TNT 36 Extend, as a subscription 39 Drain problem 41 Latin land 43 Sprint 44 Macho type 46 Transfers for a price 48 Miniver’s title 49 Galena and bauxite 51 Distributed sparingly 53 Tommy and Chuckie’s TV clan 56 Oft-filled bread 57 __-Wan, Luke’s mentor 58 Authentic 60 Took care of 64 Move like molasses 66 First-class ad?

68 Highlands haberdashery 69 Cohort of Cleese, Idle, et al.

70 Correct text 71 Telegram “period” 72 Cybermemo 73 Cager Archibald DOWN 1 Vacation spot 2 Weary by excess

3 Flood control device 4 Destined for fencing?

5 Hepcat’s outfit 6 Conclude 7 Slip through the cracks 8 Dravidian language 9 Party catch phrase 10 Brouhaha 11 Energetic Japanese wrestler?

12 Sandra’s “Speed” costar 13 Barber’s device 18 Honeydew or cantaloupe 22 Surgery reminder 25 Rob of “Melrose Place” 27 Continuously 28 Barely move 29 Bit of mosaic 30 Device for showing sports highlights?

31 Flubbed it 35 Lowest deck 37 Hose color

38 Former Laker Jerry who is silhouetted in the NBA logo 40 Teri of “Tootsie” 42 Multipurpose 45 Warm, in a game 47 Arrange in advance 50 Eurasian grassland 52 Actor McGavin 53 Alex Haley saga

54 WWII threat 55 Leftovers covering 59 Disney’s “__ & Stitch” 61 Jerk’s offering 62 Give off 63 Shower attention (on) 65 Paranormal power, briefly 67 Sch. near Harvard

Homebodies Mirele Davis

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Caroline & Friends Wesley Allsbrook

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3/8/06

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CAMPUS WATCH THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 3

Dartmouth floating and drinking tradition likely going down the tube

BY MELANIE DUCH SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Tubestock, a longstanding Dartmouth College tradition of tipsy tubing down the Connecticut River, is likely to be cancelled this year.

Fraternities and sororities at the Hanover, N.H., college build rafts of all sizes and sell inner tubes in preparation for the July event, which is notorious for students’ alcohol use. Students and rafts are bussed to the river on a Saturday, where they spend the day.

“It’s basically a bunch of kids in tubes on the Connecticut River with alcohol,” said Adam Levine, Dartmouth’s sophomore class treasurer.

Tubestock, which attracts about 1,000 students on campus for Dartmouth’s mandatory sophomore summer term, is not officially sanctioned by any entity, including the college, though it is typically organized by the Greek Leadership Council. Because New Hampshire state law holds an organizational body and not participants responsible for congregation without permits, police have been unable to prosecute students for illegal activities during past Tubestocks, though they have always been “present on boats in the water and making sure everything is okay,” said senior Taylor Cornwall, moderator of the GLC. Following a student drowning in the river in August, which Cornwall said was “completely unrelated to Tubestock,” Hanover officials have been looking at passing legislation to make it more difficult for students to hold Tubestock.

Hanover officials proposed changing the law to make it “illegal to participate in a non-permitted event on a state waterway,” according to a document obtained by the Dartmouth Review, a student newspaper, and written by Julia Griffin, Hanover’s town manager. This would allow for the arrest of students participating in Tubestock.

According to the document, Hanover is taking steps to abolish or “constrain” the event so it does not involve alcohol, rafts or “floating objects of any kind.”

She also wrote that photography and videotaping might be used to record the event, and officials would subsequently “seek Dartmouth’s assistance in identifying all of the participants, rather than attempting to prevent entry into the river for the event itself.”

Under the new legislation, the organizing group would also need an expensive insurance policy in order to obtain a permit, which would have to cover Hanover and Norwich, N.H., two towns through which the Connecticut river flows, as well as the state of New Hampshire and Dartmouth. Such a policy would cost about $2 million because of the unsafe nature of Tubestock, the Dartmouth student paper estimated.

The GLC, meanwhile, which usually plans the event, is looking to modify the event to keep it running. Ideas included changing the name of the event in order to appeal to insurance companies, making lifejackets mandatory, banning rafts or making the event alcohol-free by requiring students to clear checkpoints before entering the river.

BY SPENCER TRICE STAFF WRITER

Courtesty of The Dartmouth

Tubestock, an annual Dartmouth tradition of drinking on the Connecticut River, is likely to be cancelled this year.

The council is also looking to Dartmouth to sanction the event and purchase insurance.

“The main thing is, the outside sources (for insurance) are very expensive and we don’t know if we have the resources,” Cornwall said, adding that college administrators are likely the only option for assistance.

Susan Knapp, public affairs specialist at Dartmouth, said she does not know at this time if Dartmouth will sponsor the event.

Students, meanwhile, are not pleased with the possible cancellation of their beloved Tubestock.

“There seems to have been a pretty visceral reaction to (the possible cancellation of Tubestock). It’s like a rite of passage,” Levine said.

“There are underground groups starting called ‘Save Tubestock’ and there is going to be a forum to inform students better about the actual behind-the-scenes processes and to teach them how to compromise with the administration,” he said.

Still, Cornwall seems optimistic about Tubestock’s future.

“I’m hopeful of it happening in some form. A lot of it is going to be dependent on how determined students are,” he said. “The question now is whether students are willing to have Tubestock in an altered form.”

College Roundup Professor resigns after allegedly showing bestiality video A criminal justice professor at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan resigned last month after allegedly showing a video in class of a man having sex with a pig.

Students and a faculty member told the Grand Rapids Press that Samuel Naves was flashing through video clips on his computer while teaching an introductory criminal justice class earlier this year. The video appeared on a projection screen, and students begged Naves to show the 10-second clip. Naves obliged, although he warned students it was explicit and gave them a chance to leave if they

Study finds dearth of black economics professors

thought they would be offended.

Fred van Hartesveldt, faculty association president, said Naves was known for his blunt teaching style.

“His pedagogy was to teach real life,” van Hartesveldt told the Grand Rapids Press. “His classes were very earthy. Some students took to that very well, and some students didn’t.”

A school administrator said Naves resigned Feb. 17 but declined to say why.

Student allegedly stabs professor over failing grade A college student at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell allegedly stabbed one of his professors because he was upset over

a failing grade.

Nikhil Dhar was arraigned in Massachusetts Superior Court Monday on charges of armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing seriously bodily injury and assault and battery, according to the Associated Press. He is currently in custody while a judge considers his bail request.

Dhar allegedly stabbed UMass Lowell professor Mary Hooker with a knife outside her Cambridge, Mass., home in December. He pleaded innocent at his arraignment in district court in December.

www.browndailyherald.com

— Stu Woo

A February survey from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education found only eight black economists teaching undergraduate courses at the top 30 highest-ranked universities nationwide.

Brown — along with Harvard University, Washington University in St. Louis and Georgetown University — has only one black economist on its faculty, according to the JBHE. Tufts University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have two black economists.

Professor of Economics Glenn Loury said he is not surprised by the statistics presented in the JBHE survey, adding that the small number of black economics professors stems from the fact that fewer blacks enroll in doctorate and other higher education programs. Loury, who is considered one of the nation’s leading economists and black social commentators, was the first black economics professor to be tenured at Harvard.

When considering the path from college- to university-level teaching, Loury said, “You will see the number of blacks dwindle down as you progress into higher levels of education.” The immediate solution, Loury said, is to increase the number of black Ph.D. students as well as the number of those interested in teaching.

The data from the JBHE study supports Loury’s claim that the small number of blacks in graduatelevel economics programs is causing the shortage of black economists. Data revealed that only about 20 blacks receive doctorates in economics each year. The study did not reveal any racial prejudice on the part of the educational institutions when hiring faculty.

Loury suggested the field should address issues of more concern to blacks, including the prison system, welfare, ghettos and issues relating to Hurricane Katrina.

At Brown, the Department of Economics is not the only department with few black professors, according to Micaela Dowdy ’07, former managing editor of the African Sun. “Black teachers here are all concentrated in African studies,” Dowdy said. She believes the University should make an attempt to add more black faculty members to different departments.

Dowdy, an ethnic studies concentrator, stressed the importance of diversity in the Brown faculty, and said that while a focus on black issues is critical, an overall increase in the number of black professors at the University would be a positive change.

“The presenter of the information is just as important as the information itself,” she said.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006

Israel continued from page 1 “(The waiver) is pretty straightforward and simple, but, needless to say, it has to be done carefully,” Zimmer said. “We have to prepare what we believe is an appropriate policy.”

According to Zimmer, administrators have believed for some time that the policy needs to be changed and have been collecting information from other institutions about their policies regarding travel to countries on the warning list. “You always want to have a full understanding of the whole domain before you put a policy in place,” Zimmer said.

When evaluating study abroad programs, Zimmer said, “The overriding principle is that the University should be making a judgment about whether or not an appropriate academic program can be fulfilled.”

If the ban is lifted, the Office of International Programs will follow up by sending out a Universitywide announcement about the policy change, Brostuen said. He added that studying abroad in the countries on the list would not necessarily be possible in Fall 2006 because students would still need to meet all study abroad deadlines. According to the OIP’s Web site, the deadline for Approved Alternative Programs is March 15.

However, Zimmer said that

studying abroad in countries on the warning list will in fact be possible for the upcoming fall semester. “We intend to have it done this spring so students would be able to go and take advantage of it next year,” he said.

Zimmer added that if the ban is lifted, “We hope that this will be a more flexible policy and that we will be able to allow students to take advantage of the educational opportunities in these countries.”

Besides study abroad opportunities, lifting the travel ban would also allow students to participate in summer programs that provide hands-on experience in countries on the warning list. Katharina Galor, visiting assistant professor of old world archaeology and art, will be offering one such program this summer in Israel.

“My intentions are to take students to a very safe place. This year, Apollonia, which is really a safe haven,” Galor said. “Nothing has ever happened there and nothing ever will.”

She said she currently has 10 to 15 students lined up for the archaeology trip to ApolloniaArsuf in Israel, where an excavation will be conducted in August. Regarding the potential lifting of the travel ban, she said, “It’s still pending, but everybody is very optimistic that it is going to happen.”

If the travel ban is not lifted, Galor will still go to Israel as she does every summer.

With the ban in place, Savitz

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.

said a Brown student studying in Israel or another country on the warning list cannot receive research funding, financial aid or any guidance from the University about which school to study at.

“I applied for group (Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantships) grants together with a number of students and, of course, whether we will be awarded those grants will be dependent on Brown’s policy on the travel ban,” Galor said.

Eytan Kurshan ’08, who helped with BSI’s petition, did not know that study abroad in Israel was not “officially condoned” by the University until he arrived at Brown. Kurshan said it makes sense that Israel is on the warning list because there are dangerous parts, but he finds it unfair to make generalizations about the safety of the entire country. Though he is not planning on studying in Israel if the ban is lifted, Kurshan said, “I got involved based on principle.” He has been to Israel seven times and added that many people believe that Israel is much more dangerous than it actually is.

“The media is exaggerating the situation,” Galor said. “Certainly in the past couple of years, I feel the situation has calmed down tremendously,” she added.

Galor said that many people ask her whether she’s scared to travel to Israel. She maintains she feels perfectly comfortable there.

Living near Thayer and Lloyd streets, Galor does not allow her three children to walk around alone, but in Israel she permits them to walk alone to friends’ houses and school.

“Terror affects us all and everywhere unfortunately, as September 11 has shown us. And the randomness of terrorism and terror attacks makes issuing those legal rules or policies with respect to travel restrictions nonsensible,” Galor said.

Writing

appropriate to refer a struggling student to a dean, he added.

continued from page 1

A growing problem?

Kurt Raaflaub, professor of classics, says he has been “noticing with dismay and worry that the writing ability amongst the student body has gone down.” Since returning from an eight-year sabbatical in 2000, he said he has observed that there are not only “more and more freshmen that are less and less well-prepared, but that the writing ability amongst the seniors has gone down.”

According to Waage, “We are not talking about the difference between getting an A on a paper and getting a B, but someone who has trouble conveying certain ideas, communicating coherently.”

Raaflaub said he worries that seniors with poor writing abilities have no time to develop their skills and may graduate without demonstrating writing competence. “We are in danger of shortchanging our students,” he said.

The use of teaching assistants to grade writing assignments may enhance the deficiencies of the current system, he said.

Moreover, students do not always bother to see how they performed on certain writing assignments, particularly final papers.

It’s “not only a fault within the system and faculty, but of the students,” he said, pointing to a stack of graded and critiqued papers on his shelf that students have failed to pick up.

Still, McLaughlin argued that many students do take the initiative to improve their writing, citing 50 expository writing courses a year that are over-enrolled.

“By the time a student wanders his or her way through Brown, they will find problems and address them. It’s not a terribly efficient way to do it but it all comes down to the question of whose responsibility it really is,” Waage said.

This system is “giving a lot of responsibility to the students,” McLaughlin said.

said the University lacks a widely used mechanism to enforce the requirement. The requirement states that if professors feel a student has fundamental writing problems, they can note this by checking a column on a grade sheet that is submitted to the registrar. If a student receives multiple checks, the registrar forwards a notification to the dean of the college. The student is then referred to an expository writing course. Several professors, however, said they rarely make use of the check system and are more prone to deal with a struggling writer themselves.

In “typical Brown fashion,” the enforcement of the writing requirement is left to the individual students and individual faculty, said Jonathon Waage, professor of biology and senior advisor to the dean.

Because the requirement is “not pegged to a specific course requirement,” it’s a vague policy, said Kevin McLaughlin, professor of English and the department’s chair. McLaughlin added that he does not believe a specific course requirement would solve the problem. Different fields have different norms and expectations for writing, so there is no one view of what constitutes writing competency, he said.

McLaughlin admits he has never used the check system himself, in part because, as an English professor, he considers it his own responsibility to help improve a student’s writing performance. If a student continues to struggle, he encourages that student to take an expository writing course himself rather than sending the student to a dean.

For professors in departments that do not place as much emphasis on writing, it might be

Possible solutions The College Curriculum Council has had several discussions about enforcement of the writing requirement, according to Waage, who is a CCC member.

Waage believes the University should do more to emphasize the importance of writing “because it far exceeds what is on a transcript” in terms of usefulness in whatever fields students enter after college.

McLaughlin said a mandatory writing requirement for firstyears is not the answer because a required writing course might “turn students off to writing.”

Raafluab recommended that the University evaluate its incoming students by requiring them to produce a writing sample in a monitored test setting. If the student’s writing is considered insufficient upon evaluation, that student should be referred to a writing course, he said.

But Waage said it might be difficult to evaluate a student’s writing before that student’s first year. Often, it is not until sophomore or junior year that a student is fully able to delve into academic material and develop an original argument, he said, so a “freshmen screening process might not be the most effective way” to evaluate a student’s writing proficiency.

CAMPUS NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 5

Administrators react to proposed standardized tests for colleges Armstrong opposed to ‘reductionism’ in higher education

BY THI HO CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A proposal by the Commission on the Future of Higher Education for the establishment of standardized tests to evaluate how much college students are learning has received criticism from Dean of the College Paul Armstrong.

The commission, appointed last September by the Bush administration, aims to develop a comprehensive national strategy for postsecondary education that will meet the needs of the country’s diverse population groups as well as economic and workforce needs, according to a Sept. 19 press release from the U.S. Department of Education.

The proposal for standardized tests came early this year from the commission’s chairman, Charles Miller. In a memorandum to the commission’s members, Miller detailed his reasons for promoting the tests.

“There is gathering momentum for measuring through testing what students learn or what skills they acquire in college beyond a traditional certificate or degree,” Miller wrote. Specifically, the commission wants to focus on four major skills: critical thinking, analytic reasoning, problem solving and written communications.

Miller said three independent developments in the area of student testing see TESTS, page 8

How to set the University’s budget Committees provide undergrads with opportunities to influence policy

BY ROSS FRAZIER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Brown is home to an alphabet soup of 18 advisory committees — such as the URC, CCC, BUCC, CAB and CAC — in which undergraduates take an active role in determining UniFEATURE versity policy. To join these committees, students apply to the Undergraduate Council of Students, which has strict procedures on how it evaluates applicants. But some students question the selection process and cite mistakes made in past years, suggesting the possible need for more oversight or, perhaps, a complete overhaul.

A complex process According to the UCS Code of Operations, each spring, the UCS appointments chair and another member appointed by the council’s vice president select no fewer than seven students unaffiliated with UCS to form an ad hoc appointments committee, which must be ratified by the full UCS body. The appointments chair then creates applications for each committee and makes them available to the entire undergraduate population.

Applicants are given the opportunity to meet with current members of the University committee to which they are applying.

For each committee seeking to fill open spaces, the appointments chair formulates an interview panel, which is made up of two members of the appointments committee, a current member of the relevant committee and the UCS member “whose project or interest falls under the jurisdiction of that committee,” according to the UCS code.

Each panel conducts all interviews for its specific committee and forms its own

questions beforehand, though panelists may ask individual questions during the actual interview. The UCS appointments chair is given direct responsibility for ensuring that no one on the panel has any potential biases or conflicts of interest.

Each interview panel must then make its recommendations to UCS within 24 hours of its final interview. Panels must inform UCS of any general questions asked of all candidates, specific qualities sought in them and whether or not there have been any appeals. The UCS general body then votes on whether to accept the recommendations, a step that requires a twothirds majority.

Up to 50 spots may become available on various committees for the spring appointments process — when spots for the following academic year are filled.

According to UCS Appointments Chair Benjamin Boas ’06.5, applications for the committees have been drafted and came up for approval during a recent meeting.

But when spots have to be filled in the middle of the year, the procedure is less clear. This generally happens when students go abroad, take a leave of absence, resign or become ineligible to serve. While UCS bylaws outline a detailed process for annual appointments, they do not specify how that process should accommodate unplanned vacancies that, according to Boas, often have to be filled under tight deadlines imposed by administrators.

“Administrators are usually in such a hurry to fill open spots that they don’t give us as much time as I would sometimes like,” he said.

Still, Boas insists the appointments committee is careful to preserve the impartial nature of the process. “My priority is running the process strictly by the book. It’s really the only way to be

fair,” he said.

Conflict over procedure, impartiality In the past, it appears the process laid out by UCS rules was not always followed.

According to Residential Council Chair Brendan Hargreaves ’06 and others, not all candidates were interviewed, and, at least for ResCouncil, applications were misleading and repetitive. The breach of procedure and lack of interviews suggest there was little deliberation involved in appointing students to University committees.

“I’m not saying the choices made were necessarily incorrect, but the procedures set forth in UCS’s Code of Operations were not followed,” Hargreaves said.

Last spring, Hargreaves, Boas and one other student who held a committee appointment spoke out against this lack of process at the UCS general body meeting in which they were to be confirmed to their positions. As a result, the approval was postponed by a week so interviews could be conducted.

According to Hargreaves, at least one UCS member then suggested that the three people who complained of the breach in process consider running for chair of the appointments committee the following year. Apparently, Boas heeded that suggestion.

Will Cunningham ’07 and Ben Creo ’07, past appointment chairs who are both studying abroad this semester, did not return calls or e-mails from The Herald.

Though the full springtime selection of 2006-2007 University committee members has not yet taken place, several spots have been filled since the beginning of the year. These include one position on see COMMITTEES, page 8

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006

Briefs continued from page 12 ten finish, registering a time of 6.424 seconds at the IC4A. Raymond, a member of the football team, has only been running for the past two months but has already made an impression in his short time with the team.

Also scoring for Brown were Christian Tabib ’07, who finished with a time of 1:53.53 in the 800-meter dash, and Luke Renick ’08, who broke the 22-second mark in the 200-meter dash with a time of 21.94.

Brown now shifts its focus to the outdoor season and does not resume competition until heading south for the Army Invitational at the United States Military Academy in late March.

— Justin Goldman Jeppesen ’08 wins season’s final Ivy Player of the Week After the men’s basketball team’s impressive win against Princeton and another strong showing against the University of Pennsylvania over the weekend, Keenan Jeppesen ’08 was named Ivy League Player of the Week in the final week of play.

Against the Tigers, Jeppesen led all scorers with 16 points and five steals in leading the Bears to a 61-46 triumph. The 15-point win was Brown’s biggest margin of victory over the Tigers since 1959.

Jeppesen followed that with another impressive performance against Penn — the Ivy Champions and the league’s NCAA Tournament representative. He poured in 21 points, collected five rebounds, dished out three assists and registered three steals in the Bears 74-68 overtime loss.

Following an up-and-down rookie season, Jeppesen emerged as Brown’s top offensive threat during league play this year. He helped the Bears to fifth place in the League, averaging 16.1 points per game-good in conference play. That mark was good for second on the league, behind only Jaaber Ibrahim of Penn.

His 2.43 steals a game also ranked second in the league.

The honor was Jeppesen’s first ever Player of the Week award, and the Bears’ first such honor this season, although both Chris Skrelja ’09 and Scott Friske ’09 picked up Rookie of the Week awards earlier this year.

— Justin Goldman

Panel continued from page 1 Bernstein began with the assertion that the differences among income classes are escalating, saying, “There’s more income mobility in France, Canada and Norway than in the (United States).” While real incomes have grown in all economic classes nationwide, the disparity between lower and upper brackets’ respective growth has been staggering.

“Inequality is heading up with a vengeance,” he said.

An interesting ramification of globalization, he noted, is that a worldwide economy would diminish the magnitude of the trend by lowering the value of more educated professionals.

Those whose work can be digitized might be more exposed to worldwide competition. But Brooks disagreed, stating that America seems “well placed to thrive in a global economy.”

Carter, who represents New Orleans and has been involved in rebuilding the city following Hurricane Katrina, emphasized the need to focus on existing structures that promote class

Klonick continued from page 12 Cities.

Yes, Puckett was the Twins.

Yes, Puckett was a great philanthropist. Yes, Puckett was a damn good ball player.

Those are the easy things to remember. Those are the things that I remember of Puckett as I read ESPN obituaries and watch career highlight montages. But maybe the legacy that Puckett leaves is less about his lionized career than the ephemeral nature of our greatest heroes.

I remember when the legend ended almost as well as when it began. In early March of 2003 a faded No. 34 smiled up at me from the cover of Sports Illus-

distinction.

“In a capitalist society it is practically impossible to eradicate class. … We need to create some level of tolerance and respect among the classes,” she said. Objectives included housing and health care reform, “a fair tax system that does not favor the wealthy nor exclude nor excuse the poor” and a special focus on education.

As he did Monday, Brooks argued for the importance of cultural, instead of economic, differences in creating class disparities. It is the “unequal childhoods” of people from a variety of backgrounds that deprive some children of “the linguistic skills they need to succeed,” he said.

For his part, Bernstein argued that the economy is so closely intertwined with aspects like education and occupation that “the division is somewhat of a false one.” Carter responded that factors like behavioral patterns, spirituality and family structure all contribute significantly to class in ways that are not necessarily economic. As Brooks described, the economy’s new emphasis on human capital involves many complicated cultural factors along with

economic background.

Panelists also addressed the roles of race and ethnicity.

Carter said that voting trends underscore the interaction of class and race in shaping the political leanings of a particular group. Brooks also argued for the importance of group identities, saying that different groups’ traditions and ties will always matter.

A look at the boundaries between legislative and personal responsibilities dominated the question-and-answer session following the panel discussion.

Panelists described the growing shift from government responsibility to the privatization of services as a class divider, as those with the least means become more at risk.

Panelists were asked how government policy should address discrepancies in factors like education in a way that diminishes inequality while preserving personal liberties.

Brooks responded that the school system’s position is to “give kids an alternative to the home environment they have” and create an equal playing field for students. But he added that “if you’re going to criticize a culture, you’d better be in it.”

trated, next to the headline: “The Secret Life of Kirby Puckett.” Inside, the mountain of evidence against my childhood pin-up seemed irrefutable: charges of sexual harassment, assault and adultery all brought a man I’d seen as the epitome of athletic virtue to a querulous pile of lies and deceptions.

I was 20 at the time, no longer an eight-year-old girl looking for role models in baseball cards.

I knew better than to think of people, especially athletes, as monolithic idols, but it didn’t seem to make the news any less crushing. My go-to heart-ofgold player, the Roberto Clemente of my generation, was apparently just a wolf in Twins clothing. He had cheated on his wife and allegedly tried to strangle her. The myth was de-

stroyed. The fairy tale over.

I felt betrayed; thousands of sports fans who had held up Puckett as some kind of “paragon of virtue” joined me in incredulity. I felt sadness; losing your generational good guy to a sexual harassment suit seemed to deal a final blow to my starry-eyed childhood wonder.

For the past three years, I filed Puckett’s tarnished reputation under hardened cynicism and bitterness as yet another example of the not-so-happilyever after.

But last night when my computer’s ESPN ticker informed me of his death, I felt a startling wave of nostalgia. I hadn’t thought of him in years, but there was something still special about his memory. It had been child-like innocence to think any one man could ever be as perfect as I had thought Puckett to be. Sure, he would never sparkle in the way he had, but somehow his tribulations gave him new value and made him more accessible. Time had turned him into a new type of paragon, not of virtue, but of reality.

As I read ESPN’s baseball reporters Peter Gammons and Jayson Stark wax poetic about the man I had once thought to be a video game character, I realized what it was that really upset me about his untimely end. Perhaps the most tragic element in the sudden loss of a legend like Puckett, is the reminder that his legend died long ago.

Kate Klonick ’06 still cherishes her Oil Can Boyd rookie card but burned her Roger Clemens card in disgust.

www. browndailyherald. com

www.browndailyherald.com

WORLD & NATION THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 7

Scientist’s elephant theory rekindles nessie debate

BY MARY JORDAN WASHINGTON POST

LONDON — So maybe the Loch Ness monster was actually a circus elephant.

Neil Clark, curator of paleontology at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, sees striking similarities between descriptions of Nessie and what an Indian elephant looks like while swimming. And perhaps not coincidentally a traveling circus featuring elephants passed by the misty lake in the 1930s at the height of the monster sightings.

“It is quite possible that people not used to seeing a swimming elephant — the vast bulk of the animal is submerged, with only a thick trunk and a couple of humps visible,” thought they saw a monster, Clark said in an interview Tuesday.

By publishing his theory in the current issue of a British scientific journal, Clark has reignited passionate discussion here about the great Scottish mystery.

Clark noted that in 1933, circus impresario Bertram Mills promised anyone who could capture the monster for his circus a 20,000 pound reward, which Clark reckoned would be equivalent to nearly $1.8 million today. Perhaps Mills dared offer such a huge sum because he knew it would never be claimed, Clark speculated.

As early as the 6th century, a “monster” was reported in Loch Ness in northern Scotland; Saint Columba is said to have saved a man who had been attacked by a monster in 565. Since then, and as recently as last year, there have been hundreds of reported sightings.

Clark acknowledged that those before and after the 1930s cannot be explained by the elephant theory. But he said the vast majority of sightings occurred not long after 1933, the first year of the A82, a road that runs alongside the lake. Around that time, Mills’ traveling circus was visiting nearby Inverness and “would have stopped on the banks of Loch Ness to allow their animals to rest.”

At Loch Ness, where scientists have used everything from submarines to sonar to try to explain the mysterious sightings, news that the monster might be a circus owner’s marketing ploy didn’t go down well. Nessie is, after all, at the core of the lake’s lucrative tourist industry.

“Ah! Bloody dismissive, that’s what people are,” said George Edwards, skipper of the Nessie Hunter, a tour boat on Loch Ness.

Reached by phone, Edwards said he didn’t think much of the pachyderm hypothesis. For one thing, he said, “How does it account for more recent sightings?”

“Yes, it’s possible — you can never say never, but I think its very, very unlikely,” the skipper said.

Edwards, 54, said that more than once in his 20 years of navigating the lake he has seen something he couldn’t explain.

He described it as “dark humps in the water,” but “not the media monster” with the long neck. He said his personal theory is that an unidentified species lives in Loch Ness.

Adrian Shine, leader of the Loch Ness Project, a research effort, also dismissed

Clark’s theory. He said it struck him as the kind of thing he might expect on April Fool’s Day. People who live close to Loch Ness are polarized about Nessie. Those who believe they have seen a monster — or know someone who has — find her as real as Scotland’s bitter winter winds. Others are equally sure that Nessie is hot air. Asked which group he fell into, Shine said: “I am not a believer. I am an investigator. ... I am still investigating.”

On Tuesday, many people across Britain found themselves confronted by television and newspaper photos and artist renderings of Nessie and a swimming elephant, and many agreed there were similarities.

“Elephants do swim and they love it,” said Olivia Walter, program coordinator for the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which has found itself fielding lots of questions about the water habits of elephants.

They do indeed submerge their bodies, leaving their trunks above water. Whether they would find Loch Ness refreshing en route to a performance, she said, “is another question.”

Clark chuckled when asked about the fallout of his article in the Open University Geological Society Journal. Nessie is a “loved monster,” he said. Some people find his explanation persuasive and say they can’t believe they didn’t think of it before, he said. But he said others have scolded him, saying, “You naughty man.

You shouldn’t be carrying on with this nonsense.”

Efforts to block bill on ports fail

BY JONATHAN WEISMAN WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — Efforts by House Republican leaders to hold off legislation challenging a Dubai-owned firm’s acquisition of operations at six major U.S. ports collapsed Tuesday when House leaders agreed to allow a vote next week that could kill the deal.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., will attach legislation to block the ports deal today to a must-pass emergency spending bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A House vote on the measure next week will set up a direct confrontation with President Bush, who sternly vowed to veto any bill delaying or stopping Dubai Ports World’s purchase of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Co. “Listen, this is a very big political problem,” said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, explaining that he had to give his rank-and-file members a chance to vote on the issue. “There are two things that go on in this town. We do public policy, and we do politics. And you know, most bills at the end of the day, the politics and the policy kind of come together, but not always. And we are into one of these situations where this has become a very hot political potato.”

Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said GOP leadership is “endorsing the view point of our members and Chairman Lewis that we do not believe the U.S. should allow a government-owned company to operate American ports.”

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Tuesday night the administration is “committed to keeping open and sincere lines of communication with Congress,” but, she added, “the president’s position is unchanged.”

Since the Dubai port issue exploded

last month, the Bush administration, GOP leaders and DP World officials have tried to calm the political waters and buy time to let the issue would fade. In a deal brokered by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., DP World resubmitted its acquisition this week to the administration for a 45-day national security investigation. Frist has said he will hold off any legislation in the Senate until that inquiry is completed, a vow meant to give the administration and the company a chance to present their case.

That agreement appears to have quieted calls in the Senate for immediate action against the deal. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., an early critic of the deal, said briefings by port security experts and company officials have eased his concerns. But House Republican aides and Senate Democrats said the Senate will almost certainly have to follow once the House acts.

“This issue is going to go away like the sun’s not going to come up in the morning,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “There’s a lot of politics going on around here,” Martinez said.

The House is still boiling. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., with bipartisan support, introduced legislation Tuesday that would scuttle the deal, mandate that the owners of “critical infrastructure” in the United States — from ports to highways to power plants — be American, and demand that all cargo entering U.S. ports be screened within six months of passage.

“We need to speak out,” Hunter said.

“This is a question at the heart of the security challenges we will be facing in this next century.”

House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., has been shopping around a compromise that would require DP World to team with an American partner, which would have complete con-

trol of operations at the company’s holdings at the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami and New Orleans.

But lawmakers from both parties suggested they could not even accept that.

Hunter said employees and management would remain obedient to the company’s owners, no matter how walled off from operations those owners are.

“It’s difficult to come to the conclusion that security can be absolute and ownership can be irrelevant,” he said.

Even King questioned whether it was workable. If DP World was guaranteed a percentage of the profits from its U.S. holdings, it would have to have access to financial records that King wants to deny the company. Instead, King said, DP World would have to receive a flat annual sum from those operations, a contract that may be impossible to write.

DP World officials were similarly noncommittal.

“We appreciate the comments and suggestion of the congressman, among many other congressmen and people from the White House also, as well as the senators,” Sultan Bin Sulayem, Dubai Ports World’s chairman, told CNN. “This 45 days that we have volunteered for review is a good chance for all of us, I think. And I think by the end of this, they will realize that there is no fear, no worry about security.”

DP World officials suggested Tuesday that within days, Peninsular & Oriental’s operations will belong to them, no matter what Congress does.

But lawmakers Tuesday said Congress did have the power to force DP World to sell off its U.S. assets, a view that private experts agreed with. “The law allows the administration to undo the deal,” said Todd Malan of the Organization for International Investment, at least for the U.S. assets of P&O.

CIA says Libby document demands too much

BY R. JEFFREY SMITH WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — The CIA said in an affidavit released Tuesday that meeting the demand of former White House official Lewis “Scooter” Libby for copies of highly classified intelligence documents he saw before he was indicted would “impose an enormous burden” and divert its analysts from more important tasks.

Attorneys for Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, responded that the CIA was exaggerating the difficulty of finding and turning over the documents. But they also scaled back their request for information in the hope of persuading a federal judge to order the agency to produce the documents.

At issue are documents that include the President’s Daily Brief, the CIA’s most sensitive intelligence report. Written in slightly different form for the president, the vice president and a handful of other senior officials, PDBs contain raw data clearly attributed to what the CIA considers its most reliable sources.

The demand by Libby, who has been indicted on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame leak case, is unprecedented and clearly unsettling to the CIA and to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, whose grand jury brought the charges.

In court papers, Fitzgerald has accused Libby’s defense team of engaging in graymail — demanding unobtainable legal documents to terminate a court proceeding. Libby’s legal team responded that this accusation was “not only false but insulting.”

The memos contain unusual detail about the PDBs and make it clear how Libby hopes to relieve himself of the burden of what his defense team describes as his forgetfulness or confusion about the conversations he had with reporters and fellow administration officials regarding CIA operative Plame.

The discrepancies in various accounts of those conversations — which turned up during Fitzgerald’s probe into whether administration officials improperly disclosed Plame’s links with the CIA—formed the basis of the indictment, which forced Libby’s resignation from the White House.

Libby’s attorneys have made it clear they will seek to counter the charges by depicting any incorrect statements by him to the FBI as mistakes amid the pressures of a consuming workplace.

In court documents filed yesterday, his legal team explained further: “Mr. Libby is not simply seeking to establish that he was a busy person — that he had a daily calendar crowded with meetings, briefings.

Instead, Mr. Libby needs the information ... to show that the issues he was dealing with dwarfed in importance the snippets of conversation about Valerie Wilson.”

Wilson is Plame’s married name.

The White House and the CIA have jealously guarded the secrecy of the PDBs. They are produced by a staff that the agency said in its affidavit is deliberately kept small to protect the information they contain, including “raw operational information” and “information from methods specially developed or acquired only by the CIA or the National Security Agency.”

One of the few outside groups to gain access to the PDBs was the independent commission that investigated the Sept.

11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the White House granted access to the documents only after bruising fights over national security and executive privilege. see LIBBY, page 9

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 , 2006

Tests continued from page 5 have shown “promise.”

First, the Collegiate Learning Assessment was formed as a result of a multiyear trial by the Rand Corporation that included 122 higher education institutions. The CLA assesses institutions by testing a group of first-year students in the fall and a group of seniors in the spring. According to the CLA’s Web site, the student assessment includes a “real-life” activity such as writing memos or policy recommendations using a series of documents.

Another component, a writing prompt, attempts to evaluate students’ ability “to articulate complex ideas, examine claims and evidence, support ideas with relevant reasons and examples, sustain a coherent discussion and use standard written English,” the Web site reads.

The second effort, a test developed by the Educational Testing Service, which measures college-level reading, mathematics, writing and critical thinking, will be promoted next January, according to Miller’s memorandum. Similarly, in a third effort, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has developed a new program of testing college students in five states so far.

For his part, Armstrong said he is not surprised by the commission’s emphasis on greater accountability.

Armstrong said that when he served as dean at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, state education officials pressed for one core curriculum for all 64 SUNY campuses in order to better gauge student learning. “It’s a topdown effort to control universities,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong said he is against instituting standardized tests in colleges and universities, although he believes another measure should be estab-

lished to evaluate how much students are learning. “The reductionism is just breathtaking, trying to boil it down to a number. It was a failed experiment in the K-12 level, and it’s even less appropriate in higher education,” he said.

Instead, Armstrong points to the Teagle Foundation as a better way to measure student learning at colleges and universities. The foundation is a consortium composed of other schools with open curricula. This year, the University received a $100,000 grant from the foundation, which will go toward evaluating the quality of education at Brown.

Armstrong said alums will be interviewed on the education they received at the University, and data will be gathered on how broadly students select their classes in an open curriculum.

“The goal should be what we do with our open curriculum,” Armstrong said.

At Columbia University, where there is a very strict core curriculum, processes of evaluating student learning are integrated, said Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley.

Brinkley said he is more open to the use of standardized tests in colleges and universities than Armstrong. “I certainly wouldn’t say there’s never a place for standardized tests in education,” Brinkley said.

However, like Armstrong, he believes there are better ways to go about evaluating students than through standardized tests.

“There’s a great push for many universities to assess how much their students are learning, but there are many other ways to do that. We don’t have a terminal process, but we have many processes built in,” Brinkley said.

Both Brinkley and Armstrong believe the education students receive at colleges and universities varies in ways that cannot be captured by one standardized test for all.

“It shows that legislatures don’t trust faculty,” Armstrong

Committees continued from page 5 the Honorary Degrees Committee and, most recently, on the University Resources Committee. The URC recommends a budget and reports on Brown’s finances to the president, who then passes the budget on to the Brown Corporation for approval.

Some have pointed to the recent URC appointment as evidence that the process can still be unfair — even when correctly followed.

Cash McCracken ’08, who is currently a representative of both the Undergraduate Finance Board and UCS, applied for a position on URC but was rejected.

Under UCS bylaws, a person may not serve on more than two advisory committees formed by appointment. McCracken, however, remained eligible because UCS members are voted in by the student body, not appointed.

At least one UCS member told The Herald there were concerns about a potential conflict of interest in having McCracken serve on so many committees. Boas, citing the confidentiality of the selection process, declined to comment on why McCracken was not recommended.

“I was disappointed in the outcome, but also in the manner in which the interview process was conducted,” McCracken said. “Ultimately, I think the process was partial, and was based more on personal thoughts about me, about me on UCS, about me as a person.”

McCracken would not point to any specific evidence of partiality but said he “knew the results the moment I stepped into the interview.”

McCracken said he has chosen not to appeal because he does not have “sour grapes” and is not bitter, adding, “The people to whom you would appeal are the same people running the process in the first place. Appointments are handled by a self-selecting group of UCS representatives. My case was endemic of a larger problem within the appointments process.”

Despite concerns about McCracken serving on multiple committees, some UCS members do serve on multiple advisory committees. Kate Brandt ’07, for example, serves on both UCS and

M. squash continued from page 12 solation bracket. Although Petrie abattled to the end, Yu eventually claimed the match, 9-7, 9-4, 49, 9-4. The two losses concluded Petrie’s first ever venture into the A side of the CSA’s individual tournament, and he emerged pleased with his performance.

“Obviously it is nice (to have qualified for the tournament). …

It speaks to my accomplishments throughout the year, although I had a tough time at the championships,” Petrie said. “It was fun to compete at the highest level.

It was certainly challenging, though.”

In the second division, Cerullo, seeded 7th for the Molloy plate, performed strongly. He reached the quarterfinals of the division, knocking off two opponents along the way.

Opening with a match against

the Brown University Community Council. Boas, despite being the appointments chair, also serves on ResCouncil.

Speaking generally, Boas said, “I don’t like those cases of concentration of power in undergraduate appointments. Having a wide range of people can only help us form a strong diversity of opinion.”

“If a UCS member applied for a position, he would have no special advantage,” Boas said. “A majority of people who apply for these positions are not UCS members. If it were any other way, I’d be very disappointed.”

But Boas did acknowledge that some UCS members are particularly qualified to be on University committees because of their experience working with administrators and because of their special knowledge of University governance, though this is a “minority.”

“At many times in the past it has been suggested by various ResCouncil members that we should distance ourselves from UCS in a way that would allow us to appoint our own members,” Hargreaves said. “Personally, I think they can appoint people just fine, however, I’m not necessarily convinced that UCS as an organization itself has enough knowledge about each individual committee to which they appoint people to make the best appointments.”

An important role Despite criticisms, both committee members and those involved with the selection process agree University committees have an important role to play.

The College Curriculum Council’s four undergraduate members help advise curricular policies in the College, including regulations regarding independent study projects, teaching guidelines and, most recently, grading policies.

CCC member Freya Zaheer ’06 said, “I thought it would be interesting to see how University governance works. I had heard it was a committee where students had a lot of input. I think we’re taken pretty seriously.”

The CCC has recently taken up the plus/minus issue. Zaheer said that though personally she is undecided, overwhelming student opposition has led her to oppose the proposal.

“Even if (students) did all vote against it and everyone else voted

unseeded Edward Gadient of Northwestern, Cerullo cruised to a straight sets win, 9-5, 9-5, 9-2.

He followed with another dominating performance over Trevor Rees of Yale, 10-8, 9-0, 2-9, 9-4 in the round of 16.

Unfortunately, Cerullo’s run was ended before he could do any more damage. Rohit Gupta of Cornell bounced him from the draw with a 9-5, 9-6, 9-3, straightsets victory. Gupta proved to be the bane of Brown’s existence on the day. Earlier, he had knocked off Krupnick with a 7-9, 9-2, 9-7, 9-4 victory in the opening round.

Krupnick, however, managed to put together an impressive run to the semifinals of the consolation bracket. In his first match, he downed Alex Salton of Haverford College in straight sets, 9-5, 9-3, 9-3. Following Cerullo’s example, Krupnick then made quick work of Gadient in the second round, 9-0, 9-6, 9-5.

Before Krupnick could do any more damage, Adam Slutsky of

for it, the vote would be 10 to four.

We have been advocating for students as much as we can, but it’s really up to students to change the faculty’s minds at the public forums that have been established,” Zaheer said.

ResCouncil has also received attention lately because of its successful recommendation of a revised housing lottery system.

Members of University committees have a role to play not only within the context of their committee but also as liaisons to UCS. UCS bylaws state members of committees serve at “the pleasure of the duly-elected student government,” though it is unclear if and how that rule is enforced.

“In previous years there were several members of ResCouncil who wanted absolutely nothing to do with UCS, and they had their very legitimate reasons for it,” Hargreaves said. “We did not appreciate the way the scavenger hunt was handled two years ago.

Most of those members are gone now, and our relationship has gotten considerably better. Several UCS members have attended several meetings.”

Hargreaves said UCS and ResCouncil now work together often, citing examples of discussions regarding incoming first-years’ housing questionnaires.

Boas pointed to the collaboration between UCS and ResCouncil as well as UCS and the CCC as examples of effective committee cooperation. He said he personally looks for applications that show a comprehension of how University policy is formed.

Besides ResCouncil and the CCC, a bevy of other committees cover everything from computing policies to discipline to environmental policy to socially responsible investing of the University’s endowment.

According to Boas, Brown is one of few colleges to give its students such an extensive level of input in so many areas of campus life. He and Hargreaves both note that students who are wary of parliamentary procedure needn’t worry. Highly structured rules of debate are not as prevalent on advisory committees as they are with UCS, they said.

“UCS is transparent so it gets more face time,” Boas said, “but many of these University committees are just as, if not more, effective than the student government.”

Dartmouth pulled out a 9-5, 9-6, 9-5 win in the semis.

The individual tournament was the final event for the 200506 intercollegiate men’s squash season, but the men are already looking to build on this year’s success next season. With Bailey and Krupnick graduating, the Bears will be without two of their top players. However, the performances of Cerullo and Petrie in the CSA bodes well for the future.

“Team-wise, the guys definitely improved through the year,” Petrie said. “There were a few matches that didn’t quite go the way we wanted them to, but next year we should continue the success that we had this year.

(The performance at the championship tournament) speaks to the success of the squash program at Brown.”

— with additional reporting by Sports Editor Stephen Colelli

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

Study looks at caffeine gene

BY DENISE GELLENE LOS ANGELES TIMES

An extra cup of coffee increased the risk of a first heart attack in people with a defect in the gene responsible for breaking down caffeine, researchers reported Tuesday.

But people with a normal caffeine-processing gene could drink as much coffee as they liked with no added heart attack risk, scientists said.

Coffee is among the most widely consumed beverages in the world, and Americans spend more than $17 billion a year on lattes, cappuccinos and just plain joe.

Slightly more than half of adults in the United States start their mornings with a cup of coffee. Coffee drinkers average three cups daily.

The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association helped explain why earlier studies on the health effects of coffee produced conflicting results. None of the other studies looked at genetic differences among coffee drinkers.

The study compared 2,000 people who had suffered a first heart attack to an equal number of healthy people. Participants in the study were asked about their coffee consumption and tested for a mutation in the caffeine-processing gene, the CYP1A2 gene.

People with the genetic defect process caffeine up to four times more slowly than people with a normal gene, said Ahmed El-Sohemy, a University of Toronto researcher involved in the study.

Caffeine causes blood vessels to constrict, which can trigger an increase in blood pressure. The longer caffeine remains in the

bloodstream, the greater potential for harm, El-Sohemy said.

There is no commercial test for the CYP1A2 gene, which scientists have known about since the 1990s. All people have two copies of the gene. People with mutations in one or both genes will break down caffeine slowly.

El-Sohemy said the gene mutation is common and that about half of the residents in large urban centers have the mutated gene. El-Sohemy’s study was conducted in Costa Rica, where a member of his team had been performing other research.

Researchers found that a single cup of coffee daily did not increase the heart attack risk in people with the genetic defect.

But those who drank two to three cups of coffee daily faced a 36 percent increased risk of a first heart attack. Those consuming four or more cups of coffee had a 64 percent higher risk.

Women with the defective gene had a higher risk than men, and younger people with the defect faced worse odds than older coffee drinkers.

El-Sohemy said a second study was needed to confirm his findings.

The American Heart Association dietary guidelines said one to two cups of coffee daily do not appear harmful.

“I would not change dietary guidelines based on one study,” El-Sohemy said.

Coffee had a protective effect for people with normal caffeineprocessing genes, the study found. Drinking up to three cups of coffee daily reduced the risk of a first heart attack by 22 percent in people with normal CYP1A2 genes.

El-Sohemy said coffee contains antioxidants and other beneficial chemicals.

County takes immigration fight to employers

BY NICOLE GAOUETTE LOS ANGELES TIMES

CALDWELL, Idaho — Like many communities, this fast-growing agricultural pocket of southwestern Idaho is paying a high tab for illegal immigration.

When an undocumented worker gave birth to a premature baby, the county wound up with a $174,000 hospital bill. County officials say the jail spent thousands to house another illegal

Libby continued from page 7 Libby originally asked for all PDBs and related documents presented to him in daily notebooks from May 2003 to March 2004. But the CIA said the written material he received was often not the same as that given to Cheney, Bush and others. It also said recovering copies of the roughly 300 to 500 documents Libby wanted would require “extensive research, including review and correlation of inquiries received, briefer’s notes, internal CIA e-mail, and subsequent memoranda.”

The agency said the effort would take nine months — and that additional time would be needed to deal with clas-

immigrant at a motel to keep him from spreading tuberculosis to fellow inmates.

But where others have merely chafed at paying costs such as these, officials in Canyon County are trying a novel approach: The all-Republican county commission has filed a racketeering lawsuit against four big businesses in the area, charging that they knowingly and deliberately hired illegal workers.

sification concerns and any presidential claims of executive privilege. Libby’s attorneys called this assertion difficult to accept at face value but agreed to drop their request for related documents and concentrate only on the PDBs he saw over a more limited period, plus the texts of any follow-up requests Libby made.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton already has indicated he may require the government to provide summaries of the PDBs instead of the documents, a solution Libby’s team complained would leave it without the ability to convince a jury “he confused or forgot the snippets of conversation” about Plame in the midst of much more weighty concerns.

Rifts open regarding strategy on both sides of abortion debate

BY STEPHANIE SIMON LOS ANGELES TIMES

South Dakota’s ban on nearly all abortions, signed into law Monday, has opened deep rifts within both the anti-abortion and the abortion-rights movements, as the two camps struggle to frame the issue to their political advantage.

The divisions have turned traditional abortion politics topsy-turvy.

Some foes of abortion — fearful that South Dakota has moved too far, too fast — now find themselves reluctantly opposing efforts to protect all fetal life from the moment of conception. They are even angling to block another abortion ban that seemed likely to pass in Mississippi.

For their part, some abortion-

Report continued from page 1 of last November. These changes to the University’s social function policies — which were last amended in 1996 — include an additional weekend event manager, no re-admission for events drawing over 300 people, a mandatory drink charge for Class F parties and “more specific recommendations for ticket sales and admission procedures,” according to the report.

As for specific recommendations about alcohol use on campus, the committee deferred largely to the Campus Life Advisory Board’s Subcommittee on Alcohol and Other Drugs, which is currently conducting a review of alcohol use at University social events. That committee’s report is scheduled for release by the end of the semester.

The committee did, however, suggest increased monitoring of alcohol use in residence halls during peak hours for “pre-gaming,” which were defined as occurring between 9 and 11 p.m. on weekends. One aim of this measure is to prevent sexual assault. The report also cites a need for change in the “culture of admissions” to events, with more stringent insistence that intoxicated individuals not be admitted to oncampus social functions. The report recommends developing a guide for managers to evaluate intoxication.

The committee also addressed the need for increased security at events, determining that “the difficulty of dealing with long lines outside events and disruptive behavior as people leave events (is) beyond the purview of student hosts” and should instead be relegated to Department of Public Safety officers assigned to these events.

For larger events, the University would hire a contract security service.

The committee also recommended that metal detectors and wands be available to campus groups. These would either be purchased by the University or rented when there are concerns about safety at an event. Sworn DPS officers must be present when wands or detectors are in use, and bag searches “could be

rights activists feel they must acknowledge the sentiment behind the South Dakota ban by assuring America that they, too, regard abortion as a grave moral concern. But such language outrages others in their movement, especially abortion doctors, who feel it stigmatizes and alienates their patients.

“There’s a mood out there that change is in the offing,” said John Seery, a professor of politics at Pomona College in California who has written extensively on abortion. “There’s a lot of jockeying, a lot of testing, a lot of pushing the envelope.”

The turmoil in both camps underscores the significance of South Dakota’s law. It bans all abortions in the state, including the few performed each year in cases of rape and incest — and the hundreds done in the ear-

liest weeks of pregnancy. The only exception is if physicians deem an abortion necessary to save the mother’s life. Doctors who violate the ban would be subject to up to five years in prison.

In signing the bill, Republican Gov. Mike Rounds acknowledged it was, for now, a symbolic gesture. The law is due to take effect on July 1 but will almost certainly be blocked because it directly — and deliberately — challenges the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which established abortion as a constitutional right.

An anonymous donor already has pledged $1 million to help South Dakota defend the ban in court. Citizens of more modest means have also stopped by the governor’s office to drop off checks.

another option,” according to Greene.

“I think a lot of students and others are accustomed to going to concerts or sporting events and going through metal detectors or having their bags searched — it’s becoming increasingly common at large social gatherings,” Greene said.

He added, “It’s hard to know” which events would necessitate metal detectors, wands or bag searches. “(It is) actually a little distressing to think we’ve come to a point where we need to be thinking about that, particularly in terms of protecting the community from individuals who might bring weapons on campus, and I don’t know … whether (metal detectors or bag searches) would be effective for the types of incidents we’ve seen in the past,” Greene said, referring to an incident when shots were fired on the Main Green the night before Sex Power God. The committee stressed the need for more thorough preevent planning, suggesting specifically the development of a handbook for event planners, standard plans for campus venues and a system through which experienced students

can help new student group leaders plan events. The report expressed concern over whether sufficient and adequate social event space currently exists on campus, recommending that residential lounges be renovated over the summer to create appealing common spaces for medium-sized public gatherings in residence halls.

The committee agreed that students would benefit from additional oversight in residence halls and the leadership of older students. It recommended revising the training of Residential Peer Leaders, highlighting the need to build these counselors’ skills to “intervene in disruptive behaviors, including the misuse of alcohol” and suggesting an increased presence of upperclassmen in counseling programs.

Finally, the committee noted the recommendations in its report will require additional University resources to implement — for example, hiring professional security or developing additional social event space. The committee expressed interest in working with the appropriate offices to make resources available for the implementation of its recommendations.

EDITORIAL/LETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 10

STAFF EDITORIAL

Getting it write Beyond requiring that a student take 30 classes and, eventually, select a concentration, the University does little in terms of directing an undergraduate’s education. But there is one requirement on the books that has remained there since the University’s original charter — according to the Course Announcement Bulletin, “competence in reading and writing is required for all degrees.” Even on a campus so averse to obligatory standards, we believe this is a good requirement. It’s a necessary and reasonable expectation that a Brown graduate in any field be able to write well.

But what does that really mean? In recent years, the writing requirement has been criticized as unclear at best, ineffective at worst. Director of College Writing Programs Rhoda Flaxman has, in past years, questioned the University’s commitment to defining the requirement. In March 2004, The Herald reported that Flaxman and Dean of the College Paul Armstrong planned to take steps to raise awareness of the issue, though it seems some faculty members doubt this process has generated much change.

It’s clear that the requirement — and the mechanisms in place to enforce it — is not consistently applied. Some students aren’t even aware the requirement exists, and surely there are other faculty members who echo the view of Professor of Classics Kurt Raaflaub, who said he has been “noticing with dismay and worry that the writing ability amongst the student body has gone down.”

With a system as vaguely structured as the one currently in place, it is impossible to know whether Raaflaub’s concerns are widespread or the fluke experiences of one professor. Because some, like Professor of English Kevin McLaughlin, take personal responsibility for a student’s poor writing performance while others are more willing to overlook the problem, the current system — which involves “writing deficiency” checks that inform the registrar of students who need help — has become arbitrary and ineffective.

We fully support the writing requirement, for a Brown graduate who cannot put words down on a page does not serve anyone. And we commend Katherine Saviskas ’06 for trying to hold the University accountable for the requirement’s enforcement. It is necessary for the University to clarify what qualifies as proficient writing and establish a system to ensure students meet that standard. Though neither a standardized writing test nor a required course seem like the right solution for a university so averse to objective standards, we encourage the University to actively seek out other ways to evaluate writing performance. Otherwise, we might as well do away with the requirement entirely.

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

D A N I E L L AW L O R

LETTERS The Herald disrespects generous alums To the Editor: I was dismayed upon reading Stephanie Bernhard’s embarrassingly naive coverage of the University’s campaign kickoff in Boston (“Reporter’s Notebook: U. hosts Boston campaign kickoff,” March 6). The sarcastic tone of Bernhard’s article suggests that she has no conception of the importance of such a campaign in helping to fund an education that is not covered by tuition alone.

Instead of obnoxiously degrading alum donors for enjoying wine and sushi or chastising Brown

for providing said items, Bernhard should thank these people for giving so graciously to an institution that benefits so many, including nearly everyone who reads this publication. I would hope that a greater degree of respect would be shown in future coverage of fundraising events.

Christopher Elias ‘06 March 6

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OPINIONS

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 11

Thomas Friedman can kiss my ass The New York Times’ mustachioed, Pulitzer Prize-winning opinions columnist confuses wealth and happiness

BY ANDREW MARANTZ OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Now that Bush has finally made a state visit to India, residents of the world’s strongest democracy (us) are thinking more about the world’s largest democracy (them). It’s about time.

I could spend this column critiquing Bush’s policy toward India, but he doesn’t have one. Instead, I will focus on a man who is so ahead of his time that he knew about India while Bush was still pumping oil.

Thomas Friedman, blockbuster author and foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, has been called the most important opinion journalist in America. (It is also worth noting, as a dispassionate aside, that Stalin was twice named Time’s Man of the Year.) Friedman writes with a down-home Midwestern simplicity (some would say simple-mindedness) and has been known to sport a wraparound, Unabomber-style mustache.

Freidman has a hard-on for free trade.

To hear him tell it, he invented globalization around the same time Al Gore invented the Internet. So, even though Friedman’s background is in Middle East studies, his gaze has lately followed the markets further eastward.

Unfortunately for East- and South Asia, Friedman’s gaze is not too sharp.

A few days after returning from an eightmonth trip to India, I had lunch with my grandmother. She was having trouble reconciling her conflicting preconceptions about India. They have a parliament, but don’t they also have castes, religious fundamentalists and disease? “And if they’re supposed to be a democracy,” she asked,

“why don’t they pave their roads?”

Her reasoning was misguided. Fundamentalists can be democratically elected, as Americans now know. And anyone who has been to Saudi Arabia — or China, for that matter — can tell you that infrastructure is no guarantee against tyranny.

But my grandmother is the victim here.

The villain, as you may have guessed, is her favorite columnist, Thomas Friedman.

Twice a week, his neoliberal drivel conflates free markets with freedom. No wonder his readers are confused.

Last summer, Friedman wrote a Times column about India’s high-tech industry.

“Bangalore: Hot and Hotter” began with this literary wonder: “Every time I visit India, Indians always ask me to compare

will be a dynamo.” Phew! Now, with Tom’s blessing, Indians can rest easy. Except, of course, those Indians building the actual, non-metaphorical roads. They can only rest during their five-minute chai breaks.

Friedman’s rhetoric is paternalistic and, oddly, also provincial. What I mean by “paternalistic” should be obvious. The visiting American blithely smiles on the Third World — “Keep it up, natives, and one day you’ll be as advanced as we are.” He even demonstrates his sensitivity to caste issues by re-defining “untouchables” as “people whose jobs cannot be outsourced.”

By calling Friedman “provincial,” I mean that, for a man obsessed with global interconnectedness, his idea of “progress” is woefully limited by what he knows. He has seen the future, and it looks like New Jersey. He augurs a “mature new phase” in Bangalore’s steeland-glass future; but who authorized him to determine what is “mature,” and what does he mean by the term? In context, we can only presume that “mature” means wealthy.

The king of Bhutan, a tiny country north of India, famously coined the term “gross happiness product.” The king values the happiness of his people over their wealth. I do not have space here to defend this concept, and I’m not sure I wish to defend it, but I find it appealing on its face. Unfortunately, Thomas Friedman seems never to have considered the possibility that happiness and wealth could vary independently.

Of course, even if money can’t buy hap-

Twice a week, Friedman’s neoliberal drivel conflates free markets with freedom.

India with China.” Apparently, Friedman studied writing at the Alan Shawn Feinstein School for Bumbling Billboard Prose.

But we’ll leave the writing aside for now and concentrate on the extended metaphor that follows.

It seems that China and India are both roads. China is a smooth road, but it has a speed bump up ahead. You guessed it: communism.

“India, by contrast, is like a highway full of potholes.” Aw, Tom, say it ain’t so!

“But off in the distance, the road seems to smooth out, and if it does, this country

piness, it can buy lots of things. Development serves a clear purpose; no one would deny that the average Indian would benefit from improved access to a hospital.

The thorny problem, though, is how countries should develop, and it is here that Friedman’s myopia (perhaps mixed with a dash of ethnocentrism) blinds him to the dangers of American-style capitalism.

Cultural critic James Howard Kunstler tells Americans what they subconsciously know: blacktop and strip malls and chain stores are demoralizing and ugly. Jack Donnelly, in the American Political Science Review, argues that globalization has “created a largely isolated individual who is forced to go it alone against social, economic and political forces that far too often appear aggressive and oppressive.”

But variables like aesthetics and human dignity are much harder to quantify than economic growth, and Friedman would prefer to ignore them altogether. Forget your instincts, he croons; let the numbers tell you what progress is. When material gain and immaterial satisfaction coincide, Friedman is vindicated. But this is not always the case.

The irony of Friedman’s road metaphor is that India, despite its world-renowned train system, is currently building a huge highway — modeled on America’s Eisenhower Interstate, of course — that will split villages in half and send fuel consumption through the roof. But at least the businessmen will feel like mature dynamos as they speed to work.

Andrew Marantz ’06.5 ate the worst nachos of his life in Bangalore.

What would Karl do?

Could the Bush administration’s recent misadventures be part of a plot by Karl Rove to save the Republican party?

BY TREVOR GLEASON OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Members of President George W. Bush’s posse seem to have been playing some bizarre game of one-upmanship with one another for quite some time: “Betcha I can almost kill myself with a pretzel.”

“Oh yeah? Watch me head a committee that recommends my name for a nomination to the Supreme Court.”

“That’s kids stuff. Betcha I can shoot my friend in the face and not only stay out of any real trouble, but manage to make him apologize to me.”

For your average politician, that would have been a good time to throw in the towel. However, Bush has never been one to let anything discourage him, be it personal flaws, insurmountable odds or electoral law. Still, in order to improve upon manslaughter, Bush did something completely and utterly out of character — he threatened to use a veto. Seeing as he hasn’t actually vetoed a single thing in the past six years, he must have saved such a threat for something of paramount importance, right? Not quite; he threatened to use his veto power to halt any efforts to prevent the United States companies operating in Middle Eastern ports from outsourcing our port security to the Middle Eastern companies.

To be fair, the company planning to take over the ports, Dubai Ports World, is probably every bit as trustworthy as the British company that currently operates them. Passing ownership of six ports to

a company with a proven international track record of responsibly managing ports ranks fairly low on the list of potential threats to national security. In any case, the deal is a drastic failure in salesmanship on the part of the Bush administration. I can’t remember the last time a Republican president was attacked by Democrats for being weak on national security, but the fact that the Republicans by and large were just as outraged makes this especially memorable. Bush has pissed off both Democrats and Republicans, and I don’t think there’s any third party of reasonable size that hasn’t already sent out their annual order for Bush piñatas to beat in effigy.

While Bush may have found a roundabout way to achieve bipartisan cooperation, this has been only the most recent in a series of oddities that have kept his popularity spiraling downward. Leaving Iraq out of the equation for the moment, there are still plenty of public relations blunders — the Terri Schiavo fiasco, Katrina and Social Security privatization to name a few — that have been disasters for the administration.

A recent CBS poll gives Bush a 34 percent approval rating, and even accounting for the poll sampling almost twice as many Democrats as Republicans, it is clear that nothing short of the second coming of

Jesus is going to pull Bush into positive territory before the 2006 elections. For most observers, this bodes poorly for Republicans this November. If the head of your party has a bulls-eye permanently affixed to his back, you certainly aren’t going to benefit much from being associated

recent Republican aptitude for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat is likely at least in part Rove’s doing. In my typically paranoid style, I therefore attribute Bush & Co.’s recent behavior to his Machiavellian scheming. Incapable of helping the Republicans by making Bush look good, Rove is planning instead to make Bush look so absolutely insane that Republicans will have no trouble differentiating themselves from the White House come November.

Since the crazier Bush appears the better Republicans will appear when they stand against him, we can expect the administration to pull no stops in its effort to fall on its sword. What can we expect to see in the next several months?

Plans to invade the moon as the logical next step in the War on Terror? Bush appointing his favorite horse to the Supreme Court, only to be wildly surprised when the horse follows almost an identical pattern of voting to Justice Breyer? Pay-Per View Death Matches between members of the Cabinet? If so, my money’s on Condi.

Only time will tell what horrors await.

However, I confidently feel that come Election Day, Cheney’s shotgunning of Quailman will be just a distant memory in light of the absurdities to come.

Rove is planning to make Bush look so insane that Republicans will have no trouble differentiating themselves from the White House. with him.

However, the “We can’t possibly lose” mentality has failed Democrats before, most recently when they realized that even when they fielded a war veteran against a man who spent Vietnam flying obsolete planes over the largely Viet Cong-free Texan countryside, they could still appear weak on national security. Then, as now, Democrats have failed to take into account the ultimate in political failsafe plans, WWKD: What Would Karl Do? Karl Rove, oft-considered the brains of the Bush White House if for no other reason than lack of competition, has long been hailed as the shadowy, Voldemortlike influence behind the Republican’s continued electoral success. As such, the

Don’t blame Trevor Gleason ’07, he voted for Kodos.

SPORTS WEDNESDAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · MARCH 8, 2006 · PAGE 12

Sports briefs: Schneider ’06 shakes cold, advances to Puckett’s legacy mixed, except on nationals; Jeppesen ’08 wins Player of the Week the diamond

Fully recovered Schneider ’06 qualifies for nationals After missing last week’s competition and completing only half of the previous one due to a debilitating cold, AllAmerican epeeist Ruth Schneider ’06 got her strength back at the NCAA Regionals Sunday in Cambridge, Mass. Schneider took fifth place in her event, qualifying for the NCAA National Fencing Championship for the third time in her career.

Schneider, who took 12th at nationals in 2003 and fifth in 2004, was the only Bear to qualify for the tournament, which will be held at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on March 16-19. Sabreist Olivia Partyka ’06 just missed the cut, finishing ninth in her event — one place shy of qualifying. But given her performance this season, Partyka could still be given an at-large bid.

Other notable performers from the women’s squad included Christine Livoti ’08 and Christina Salvatore ’09, who finished 13th and 15th, respectively, in the epee. Sabreist Charlotte Gartenberg ’08 took 15th in her event.

The men did not fare as well as the women, failing to place a fencer in nationals. Dan Mahoney ’07, who had an impressive sixth-place finish at last week’s Intercollegiate Fencing Association Championship, finished 19th after losing a 15-14 match to New York University’s Jacob Hadjigeorgis. Nick Bender ’09 turned in the men’s top performance, taking 12th in the foil.

—Charlie Vallely Women’s distance medley relay sprints into national top 10 The track teams headed to Boston this weekend, attending the highly competitive ECAC and Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America Championships. While only an elite few competed, the team posted top results.

The women’s distance medley relay squad of Naja Ferjan ’07, Akilah King ’08, co-captain Kelly Powell ’06 and Anna Willard ’06 won the event in a time of 11:15.90 to break the previous school record by 25 seconds. The performance moves Brown to a top-10 ranking in the country and earns the quartet All-East honors and a potential NCAA Nationals bid.

— Jilane Rodgers

M. lax falls hard to Pride, 14-4 The men’s lacrosse team (0-2) had a rough outing against Hofstra University Saturday, losing 14-4. The Pride put the Bears in the hole early in the game, as Bruno went scoreless in the first period, and trailed 6-0 at halftime.

The efforts of Jack Walsh ’09, Will McGettigan ’06, Will Davis ’07 and Brady Williams ’09 finally put points on the board for Brown in the second half, but the defense could do little to stop Hofstra’s Athan Iannucci, who posted a career-high five goals

BY STEELE WEST SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Dan Petrie ’07 was the only Bear to compete in the CSA’s top flight over the weekend. He dropped both matches he played to higher seeds.

see BRIEFS, page 6

see KLONICK, page 6

Ashley Hess / Herald

Keenan Jeppesen ’08 was named the Ivy League’s Player of the Week for his efforts in a win over Princeton and a near upset of the conference champion Quakers.

M. squash posts encouraging results at individual tourney

Ashley Hess / Herald

Small m. track contingent impressive at IC4As Despite being without many of its members, the men’s track team had a very strong showing at the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America on Sunday. The Bears recorded multiple top10 finishes, led by Jamil McClintock ’08, who set a school record in the 55-meter hurdles. McClintock’s time of 7.44 seconds earned him fourth overall in the meet and All-East honors in Brown’s final competition of the indoor season.

Paul Raymond ’08 had yet another impressive outing for Bruno in the same event. Coming on the heels of his victory in the 60 m at Hapes, Raymond posted a top-

I must have been around eight or nine when the legend of Kirby Puckett first appeared on my radar screen.

Sprawled on the floor of my family room, I sorted through a new pack of baseball cards as my father watched a game on TV. Red Sox players got their own pile, Yankees KATE KLONICK players another.

KLONICLES For everyone outside my anti-pinstripe dichotomy I questioned my dad as to whether they were even worth collecting.

Between innings, I held up my pile of unknown player cards to dad, who sorted them out, telling me stories about each.

“Oh!” he said suddenly. “Cool!

You’ve got a Kirby Puckett.”

“Who’s Kirby Puckett?” I asked, thinking only of vacuum cleaners and Nintendo characters.

“He’s one of the most loveable, talented men in baseball.” My dad paused, looking with a smile at the game on TV. “Everybody loves Kirby Puckett. Everybody.”

After my father’s glowing endorsement, so did I. He became one of the few players I interrupted my American League East obsession to root for, one of the few players for whom I specifically combed Sports Illustrated. By 1996, when his time with the Twins was cut short by glaucoma, Kirby Puckett embodied what I loved about baseball: he was heart and grit, humility and teamwork, talent and resolve. He was small-town-boy-makesgood. He was the genuine article.

There’s almost no need to spend time lauding the things that made Puck, who died on Monday from a stroke, so great. In the coming days his lifetime statistics will be trotted out in every sports page in America. He’ll be described as a scrappy, butterball Hall of Famer who carried the Twins on his back to two World Championships.

He’ll be remembered for a dazzling career, tragically and suddenly abbreviated by near blindness.

But the Legend of Kirby Puckett goes deeper than commemorating him as the second youngest member of the Hall of Fame, at 45, to pass away after Lou Gehrig, who died at age 37. Or his undisputed status as the greatest player to ever grace the Twin

Three members of the men’s squash team participated in the Collegiate Squash Association’s individual competition from March 3 to 5 in Amherst, Mass., to cap off what has been an impressive year for Brown squash.

Herald Sports Photographer Dan Petrie ’07 was Brown’s sole qualifier in the Potter, or first division, but two Brown players, Edward Cerullo ’08 and David Krupnick ’06, qualified for the Molloy, or second division. Another of Bruno’s top players, Breck Bailey ’06 would likely have competed in the first flight but was unable to compete due to a knee injury.

Petrie, the 26th seed, drew a formidable opponent in the first round, the seventh seed from Harvard, Ilan Oren.

Unfortunately, Petrie struggled to pressure Oren, who secured the match in straight games 9-1, 9-1, 9-1.

The loss gave Petrie a date with No. 23 Vincent Yu of Princeton in the consee M. SQUASH, page 8

and seven points. The Pride out-shot the Bears 42-18.

The Bears shoot for their first win of the season today at the University of Hartford.

—Jilane Rodgers

W. hoops loses out on bye, will face Big Green Friday The women’s basketball team is now officially a tri-champion and will need two more victories to secure the Ivy League’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Wins last night by Dartmouth and Princeton forced a three-way tie with the Bears (12-2) atop the Ancient Eight standings for the first time in Ivy women’s history. Because all three squads went 2-2 against each other and 10-0 versus the rest of the league, a nationally televised coin toss was held during halftime of the men’s University of Pennsylvania-Princeton game to determine who would receive the first round bye in the two-game playoff.

The Tigers were the beneficiaries of the flip and will play the winner of Brown and Dartmouth’s game, which will take place at Yale on Friday at 7 p.m. The winner of that contest will go on to face the Tigers on Sunday at 2 p.m. That game will also be played in New Haven.

— Herald staff reports BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8 SKIING: USCSA National Championships (at Sugarloaf, Maine) M. LACROSSE: at Hartford