Wednesday, April 12, 2006

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006

Volume CXLI, No. 48

www.browndailyherald.com

An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 UP FOR DEBATE Members of the Brown Debating Union qualify for a national competition, highlighting the group’s resurgence CAMPUS NEWS 5

KING FOR A DAY The naming of a female student as homecoming king at Maryland’s Hood College sparks controversy CAMPUS WATCH 3

A CHANGING CHINA Te-Ping Chen ’07 takes a tour of China, from the bustle of Beijing to the smoke of Shenyang OPINIONS 11

TODAY

TOMORROW

mostly sunny 63 / 49

am showers 60 / 45

Administrators detail plans for SciLi study center

BY CAROLINE SILVERMAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

A series of changes to the Sciences Library, tentatively slated to be completed by Spring 2007, will lead to a thorough redesign of the building’s bottom three floors and development of the Friedman Study Center. Planned changes include the addition of a café on the lobby level, a restructuring of the bottom floor and the inclusion of various study spaces ranging from computer clusters and study carrels to a “reading garden” and small, collaborative study rooms.

The renovation process, which is “scheduled to start after Commencement,” according to Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene, will be made possible by a donation from Susan Friedman ’77 and Richard Friedman ’79. As administrators gear up for the beginning of this process, they are looking to minimize disruption of student and faculty use of the library.

Regarding the initial start date, the University will attempt to time the construction so that it does not interfere with medical students studying for their board exams during the first two weeks in June, said Associate University Librarian Florence Doksansky.

Four million dollars is being spent on the project, according to Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior advisor to the president.

The project was designed by architect Steven Cassell of Architecture Research Office in New York City, according to Spies, who added the architects were “really good to work with in terms of their

After switching institutions, two long-time friends and administrators weigh in on the differences and similarities

BY SARAH GELLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Jacob Melrose / Herald

The bottom level of the Sciences Library, along with the first and second floors, will be redesigned to create the Friedman Study Center (see below). listening to students.”

The construction work itself will be carried out by the Rhode Island-based contracting firm EW Burman.

Greene said the Friedman Study Center project is one that has “moved pretty quickly. The gift really pushed the project along.”

Accommodating construction Doksansky said she doesn’t believe the library will need to close to accommodate construction, though she added it is likely only the Thayer Street entrance will be open during construction.

BUCC supports concept of a social choice fund

Council also discusses renewable energy, alcohol use among students

BY BRENNA CARMODY STAFF WRITER

At its meeting yesterday, the Brown University Community Council voted in support of a motion stipulating that donors “have the option of their new donations being invested in a social choice fund” but was reluctant to support the creation of such a fund at this time. The council also discussed recommendations about alcohol use on campus and the University’s efforts to increase energy efficiency.

The Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investing has made little ground since October regarding a possible social choice fund, according to Professor of Economics Louis Putterman, chair of the ACCRI. Such a fund “would provide donors with the option of designating their donations to Brown for investment in a fund that chooses stocks based on environmental, social, and corporate behavior criteria,” according to a Sept. 29 ACCRI proposal.

Putterman said his committee had been too involved in the process of divesting from Sudan to find “decisive answers” to questions posed by President Ruth Simmons and the Brown

Harvard and Brown: an administrative comparison

Corporation regarding a social choice fund.

Simmons said one fear is that a social choice fund could upset donors who want their money to go toward high-growth opportunities.

However, in response to fears that a social choice fund might generate lower returns for the University, Putterman suggested donors might give more money if it is directed toward socially progressive investments.

“If some monetary return were to be sacrificed it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, even in terms of monetary goals,” he said.

Courtney Hull ’06, a member of the ACCRI, spoke in favor of creating a social choice fund, saying the BUCC’s agenda has shown “a lot of values that we think should be represented in our investments.”

“Many more members of my class would be inclined to contribute if they knew the investments were in line with their values,” she said.

Also at the meeting, Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Behavior Nancy Barnett presented her findings on student alcohol use and presented recommendations from

Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3260

see BUCC, page 8

Courtesy of Brown University

“It’s going to be a challenge,” Doksansky said. “Nothing will be in the lobby or the lower level except for a security person.”

Temporary walls and plastic will be used on the lobby level as construction continues, but the library will remain open.

The duration of the construction and its effect on students’ use of the library will last “basically only one semester,” Doksansky said.

Accommodating construction while housing current offices and students who use the library will be complicated by a crunch for space in what is already a “very full” library, Doksansky said.

To ease this process, “we’re shifting the entire building,” she said, referring to the see SCI LI, page 4

Brian Casey moved out of his University Hall office in early January to become associate dean for academic affairs in another University Hall — at Harvard University.

He now sits in the former office of Vincent Tompkins ’84, who left his position at Harvard to come to Brown and who, coincidentally, now resides in Casey’s old office.

The two men did not actually switch jobs. Casey left his post as assistant provost at Brown to take over for Tompkins, and Tompkins became deputy provost here.

Casey and Tompkins are good friends, Casey said, having attended graduate school together at Harvard.

Having spent significant time at each university, both men have become familiar with the different administrations as well as each school’s general overall atmosphere.

Harvard in flux Like Brown, Harvard is undergoing many changes, including a review of its undergraduate curriculum and the departure of several high-level administrators, including President Lawrence Summers.

Both administrators have been involved with Harvard in the wake of the controversy surrounding Summers and the recent announcement of his resignation. In January 2005, Summers made comments regarding women’s innate ability in the sciences that raised eyebrows nationally and sparked see HARVARD, page 6

Harvard launches presidential search

BY STU WOO CAMPUS WATCH EDITOR

The governing body of Harvard University has formally launched its search for a successor to President LawCAMPUS rence Summers, announcing that, in contrast to the WATCH last presidential search, students and faculty will have official input in the process.

According to a March 30 statement on the university’s Web site, the Harvard Corporation will appoint two committees — one composed of students and the other of faculty members — to advise the search committee, which will be composed of six corporation members and three members from the Board of Overseers, the university’s second-highest governing body.

Though the corporation will ultimately choose the new president, one Harvard professor called the decision to include students and faculty in the search “a step forward.”

“It’s certainly better than not taking account of what the students might want and need … and what the faculty wants and needs,” said Judith Ryan, the profes-

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

sor of German and comparative literature who authored the no-confidence motion that precipitated Summers’ resignation.

“It’s a step forward on the part of the corporation and it shows that they’re going to listen to some of what we’ve been telling them.”

Ryan also addressed concerns from many at the university who believe that students and faculty should be included in the final decision-making process.

“Some people think it’s not ideal because it’s not one big, combined committee, but I can understand why (the corporation) is doing it this way,” she said.

“There’s a number of issues that students don’t know about, such as the administrative abilities of various candidates and so forth.”

But one group that feels excluded from the search is the graduate student body.

In an open letter to the Harvard community dated April 5, the student presidents of all 11 Harvard graduate and professional schools, as well as the president of the Harvard Graduate Council, called on the corporation to include “at least one see SEARCH, page 4 News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

THIS MORNING THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 2 Jero Matt Vascellaro

TO D AY ’ S E V E N TS “ ‘WHERE ARE HUMAN RIGHTS ...?’ READING A JIHADIST COMMUNIQUÉ FROM IRAQ” 3 p.m. , (Watson Institute) — Thomas Keenan of Bard College will speak about human-rights activism in Iraq. Sponsored by the Forbes Center for the Study of Modern Culture and Media and the Watson Institute.

COOKING WORKSHOP 5:30 p.m., (Olney House) — A workshop on traditional and contemporary Taiwanese food, part of Taiwanese Culture Fest 2006: Focus on Formosa.

ANTHROPLOGY SPRING FLING 5 p.m., (Giddings House) — Come learn about the anthropology concentration and eat free pizza.

“THE MAPPING IMPULSE OF MODERN CINEMA” 5:30 p.m. , (Brian Room, Maddock Alumni Center) — Professor Tom Conley of Harvard University will deliver the comparative literature department’s annual lecture.

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

MENU Deo Daniel Perez SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Buffalo Chicken Wings with Bleu Cheese Dressing, Carrot and Celery Sticks, Parsley Potatoes, Pancakes, French Toast, Home Fries, Grilled Breakfast Sausages, Meatball Grinder, Cheese Tomato Strata, Kale and Linguica Soup, Vegetarian Cream of Broccoli Soup, Magic Bars, Apple Turnovers

LUNCH — Vegetarian Corn Chowder, Country Wedding Soup, Chicken Fajitas, Vegan Tacos, Vegan Refried Beans, Mexican Succotash, Magic Bars

DINNER — Visiting Chef Dinner Special

DINNER — Visiting Chef Dinner Special

Homebodies Mirele Davis

10, 9, 8... www.browndailyherald.com RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

CROSSWORD

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Behind the times 6 Destiny 11 Self-conscious 14 Came to 15 Made in Cambodia, say 16 Kind of bag or ball 17 High-level government position 19 Legend on the ice 20 Speedskater Heiden 21 They’re for the birds 22 Place for a roast 23 Esteem 25 1975 victor over Connors at Wimbledon 27 Asked, as questions 30 Force 33 Rope 36 Aquarium denizen 38 Columbia, e.g.

39 Where an Aussie gets a degree 40 Where to find the first words of the four longest puzzle answers 42 Pizzeria staple 43 Dupe 44 Habituate 45 Head-to-head contests 47 Laser alternative 49 Beer fermenter 51 Slung fare 52 Rises 56 Splotch 58 Rub out 62 Emperor after Claudius I 63 Deborah’s “The King and I” costar 64 Assume liability for, as another’s loan 66 “Bravo, torero!”

67 Coliseum 68 Like notebook paper 69 Student carrier 70 Golf’s __ Cup 71 Winter sliders

DOWN 1 Indiana athlete 2 In the know 3 Ferber’s Pulitzerwinning novel 4 Cross-country toppers 5 Poetic night 6 Actress Capshaw 7 Deadly Egyptians 8 Sidesplitter 9 Total drubbing 10 Cookout crasher 11 Potbelly attachment 12 Present 13 Sweater-to-be 18 Gets done with 22 Measure of resistance 24 Greenhorns 26 Dirty dog, as it were 28 Dramatic words of accusation 29 Criticize sharply 31 Wicked 32 Caustic solutions 33 One of Lyndon’s daughters 34 In a bit 35 Water-created depressions

37 Quaker pronoun 41 Hypothetically 46 Fork or knife 48 Poke 50 “The Morning Watch” author 53 River past Notre Dame 54 Pushed 55 Water lilies’ homes

56 “We’re not serving liquor,” on invites 57 Dilly 59 Kicked oneself for 60 One of the Brontës 61 Top banana 64 Pullman, for one 65 Mr. Hyde’s creator

Freeze-dried Puppies Cara FitzGibbon

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Caroline and Friends Wesley Allsbrooke

xwordeditor@aol.com

4/12/06

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is published Monday through Friday dur-

Business Phone: 401.351.3260

ing the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once

Robbie Corey-Boulet, President

please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage

during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER

Justin Elliott, Vice President Ryan Shewcraft, Treasurer David Ranken, Secretary

By Lynn Lempel (c)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

4/12/06

paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.

Subscription prices: $179 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2006 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

CAMPUS WATCH THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 3

Brandeis party is latest victim of binge drinking

BY ROSS FRAZIER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Brandeis University became the latest college to cancel events in response to pre-party binge drinking — or pre-gaming — when it indefinitely canceled its semi-annual Modfest party.

Before Modfest’s cancellation, which the university announced March 27, alcohol was available at the event to students of legal age. A higher number of ambulance calls and widespread reports of pre-gaming during this winter’s Modfest prompted administrators to place a moratorium on all future plans for the event.

“Modfest seems to have become an event which typically sends the message that the need is to get pretty floored,” Brandeis Dean of Student Life Rick Sawyer told the Justice, Brandeis’ student newspaper, in a March 28 article.

“We don’t have a lot of trouble on the weekend with regular activity. But it’s as if when there’s a Modfest, there’s a signal.”

But Damien Lehfeldt, a freshman at the Waltham, Mass., university, told The Herald, “Pregaming goes on before every single Brandeis-sponsored event.

Most freshmen who go to parties will pre-game before.”

Students including Lehfeldt and Edgar Ndjatou, a Brandeis student government official who opposes canceling Modfest, have said the college misunderstands the issue and that canceling one event will not address the larger problem of pre-gaming. “(The administration) is beating around the bush by canceling it because there are lots of other events with lots of pre-gaming.

Canceling Modfest doesn’t stop excessive drinking, which, as far as I can tell, is primarily isolated to freshmen, anyway,” Lehfeldt said.

“It’s unfortunate that a lot of people had to go to the hospital (the night of this winter’s Modfest), but I don’t think it was a failure. Why take away something that the entire community is looking forward to?” Ndjatou said in an interview with

Jacob Melrose / Herald

College administrators are trying to reduce pre-party binge drinking, or pre-gaming, which has become a problem on campuses nationwide. the Justice.

A broader trend The cancellation of a college party centered around drinking is not unique to Brandeis. Acting on concerns about underage drinking, police in Waterville, Maine, announced late last year that they would send undercover officers into parties at local Colby College. But the police later scrapped the plan and instead increased patrols on Colby’s campus.

Wellesley College banned all parties of more than 1,000 people after 16 students were injured in an event last spring.

At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, administrators have begun an extensive crackdown on alcohol that includes a ban on drinking games, a ban on large gatherings, police patrols of dorms and limits on how many containers of alcohol a student over 21 may have in his or her possession.

In May 2003, a UMass-Amherst pre-graduation party turned into a riot after 1,500 people upturned cars and started fires. Fifteen students were injured and 45 were arrested during the event.

More recently, officials in Hanover, N.H., have been trying to prevent Dartmouth College’s annual Tubestock party, in which inebriated students float down the Connecticut River on tubes and other flotation devices furnished by the

school’s Greek organizations.

At Brown, administrators did not cancel Starf*ck, Queer Alliance’s spring party, but QA called off the event, citing both alcohol concerns and increased monitoring from the University as factors in its decision. The University found itself in the national spotlight last semester after QA’s Sex Power God party, during which as many as 30 students were treated for alcohol poisoning.

Brown responds At Brown, Spring Weekend — an event not unlike Modfest — will be held on April 20 through April 22. According to Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president of campus life and dean for student life, multiple policies are in place to keep students safe during the event, which has a reputation for high levels of alcohol consumption.

Residential Peer Leaders and Community Directors will be assigned scheduled rounds, during which they must actively go through dorms looking for unsafe situations. In addition to that policy, which has been in place in past years, the University has made sure that an ambulance will be available exclusively for its use.

All advertisements for Spring Weekend are supposed to be tagged with a disclaimer that intoxicated students will not see BRANDEIS, page 6

College Roundup High school senior sues College Board over incorrectly low SAT score A high school senior whose SAT exam was scored incorrectly low is suing the makers of the exam and the company that was hired to score the tests.

According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit, filed Friday in Minnesota, is believed to be the first of its kind against the College Board since the organization announced last month that 4,411 students received incorrectly low scores and 600 students received incorrectly high scores from an October sitting of the SAT. The suit also names Pearson Educational Measurement, the for-profit company that graded the tests. Pearson, which has offices in Minnesota, has attributed the scoring error to unusually high humidity at its grading centers, which caused some answer documents to expand.

Those behind the lawsuit, filed by attorneys for an unidentified student from Dix Hills, N.Y., seek class action status. The lawyers want anyone who took the October test, except those who received a higher score, to join the lawsuit. They also want an order requiring adjustment of inflated scores and a refund of the test fee. Damages sought are unspecified.

Nearly 500,000 students took the October test, and the error affected less than 1 percent of the results.

Maryland college’s unusual choice

for homecoming king: a woman Administrators at a private liberal arts college in Maryland are reviewing its homecoming rules after students made a somewhat unusual choice for homecoming king: a lesbian.

The Associated Press reported that Jennifer Jones of Hood College beat out three men for the honor at the Feb. 18 homecoming dance. Jones said her victory was a plus for the Frederick, Md., college.

But not everyone is happy with Jones’ selection.

“She is not a man,” said Singleton Newman, a senior and candidate for homecoming queen, in the AP report. “It is a gender issue, and she is a woman.”

Santo Provenzano, who was in the running for homecoming king, said Jones’ selection hurt the competition. “It discourages guys from wanting to take part in the future,” he said, according to the AP. Hood’s student activities director told the AP that all homecoming events will be reviewed and possibly changed based on student input.

This was only the second annual homecoming at Hood, which didn’t allow male students to live on campus until 2003. Jones tried to run for homecoming prince last year, but the student committee would not let her on the ballot, even though she had the required number of signatures.

—Stu Woo

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006

Search continued from page 1 member of the graduate student body” on the presidential search committee.

There are currently about 13,000 graduate students at Harvard, comprising roughly two-thirds of the total student population. Ryan said the university will soon address the graduate students’ concerns, but she is unsure if they will play a role in the presidential search.

Facing his second no-confidence vote from Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in less than a year, Summers announced in February that he will step down from his position in June. Derek Bok, Harvard’s president from 1971 to 1991, will serve as interim president until the end of the presidential search, which is expected to last nine months to a year.

Various media outlets have speculated about Summers’ replacement.

Among the names often mentioned are two Harvard insiders — Elena

Kagan, dean of the university’s law school, and Drew Faust, head of the university’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study — as well as several outside candidates.

But most of the outsider candidates floated by the press have ruled themselves out for the position. Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger and Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow have told the student newspapers at their universities that they have no interest in leaving for Harvard.

Former Wellesley College and Duke University President Nannerl Keohane also ruled herself out in a March 15 Boston Globe article, and University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann told the Daily Pennsylvanian in a March 2 article: “I love what I’m doing at Penn and I plan to be here for the foreseeable future.”

The office of Brown President Ruth Simmons, one of the few frequently mentioned candidates, has continually declined to comment about leadership issues at Harvard.

SciLi continued from page 1 planned relocation of 600,000 volumes. Thirty thousand volumes have already been sent to the Library Collections Annex iat 10 Park Lane.

During the construction, Gateway Services will move to the Mezzanine, but some of the computer clusters and couches will remain.

Space on the Mezzanine “will be a little tight” with these new occupants, Doksansky said.

Staff currently housed on the bottom floor will be moved to the third floor after racks are taken out to make space for cubicles. These staff members will eventually return to their original office space when the project is complete.

“Soft seating,” including couches, will take the place of the racks removed from the third floor, Doksansky said.

Some librarians will also be temporarily housed on the sixth and seventh floors of the building, Doksansky said.

Construction of the Friedman Study Center was made possible, at least in part, by the fact that “material in the sciences is changing” to electronically based material, meaning that previous methods of storage have become unnecessary, Doksansky said.

For example, this trend has rendered the periodical racks currently on the bottom floor obsolete.

By removing the racks, the freed space provides an opportunity “to create a great study space.”

Study center features After construction, the bottom floor “will be the major study area” in the SciLi, Greene said.

Aspects of the renovation will include new furniture, and bathrooms will also be renovated. In addition, landscaping work will be done in the courtyards. Dokskansky said the four courtyards might be themed so that each represents one season.

The abundance of light provided by skylights inspired the architects to create a study space known as the “tanning” area, which will feature five lounge chairs, Doksansky said.

This space is adjacent to “the reading garden,” Greene said. In addition to “comfy” and stylish chairs and ottomans, the garden will feature novel, rock-shaped seating and clear plastic dividers to separate space. Doksansky likened these dividers to “trees” that will separate “the reading garden” from noisier space on the northern end of the lower level.

Spies said he thought the “reading garden” will “give some life” to the lower level and “help make a big space seem like a collection of small spaces.”

Gateway Services, which includes the circulation desk, will also move from the lobby to the bottom floor, allowing staff to better help students using the library’s services, Doksansky said.

The move of Gateway Services will make room for the café, which will occupy much of the lobby.

Because the café won’t have its own kitchen like Josiah’s and the Gate, it will be “more of a graband-go type of café,” Greene said.

At one of the faculty meetings, the “faculty asked for an espresso machine,” said Greene, adding that he believes faculty will definitely use the café because there is such a high “concentration of academic departments” in that area.

Greene said he hopes the café area will be a place where “faculty and students can interact informally.”

The bottom floor will be organized so that quieter, individualized study areas are separate from noisier group rooms. Danielle Levine ’09 said she believes increasing the amount of quiet study space will benefit the SciLi. “The problem with the SciLi now is that, other than isolated spaces on the upper floors, the only other space is the Mezzanine, which is small and noisy,” Levine said.

More Herman Miller chairs, like those currently found at computers in the SciLi, will accompany 46 new computers.

The Mezzanine will be unchanged in the long-term, Doksansky said. According to focus groups, students “like the mezzanine,” Doksansky said.

24-hour study spaces Regarding 24-hour study spaces, “we haven’t decided yet” how exactly these will be incorporated into the plan, Greene said, though he acknowledged an “overall need” for such spaces.

When construction is complete, the Mezzanine, along with the lobby and bottom floor, will be able to accommodate 24-hour spaces, Doksansky said. Were a given area within the SciLi to become a 24-hour study space, after midnight it will be available only to students, she said.

“We’ll try to do whatever works for the students,” Doksansky said. “The Friedman Study Center gives us the opportunity to play with the 24-7.”

Greene said there isn’t demand for 24-hour study spaces every day of the week, but there is often a significant amount of late-night demand for study space.

In general, “the numbers don’t suggest there is extraordinarily high demand in the early morning hours as opposed to late night.”

Greene also said it is a “little hard to predict” how the spaces will be used.

In general, the goal of the renovations is “to get something done quickly and be able to benefit students who are currently here,” Greene said.

Greene called the project, “a near-term improvement that’s also very high-impact. I think it will be very highly used.” He added that “the location is excellent given where students live and how they traverse the campus.”

“This will be what I think will be viewed as a very successful transformation,” Spies said. “This is going to be a home run.”

Israeli cabinet declares Sharon incapacitated

BY LAURA KING LOS ANGELES TIMES

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.

JERUSALEM — Ariel Sharon’s outsized brown leather chair sat empty at his Cabinet’s table for the last time Tuesday as government ministers formally ended the stricken Israeli leader’s tenure as prime minister.

By a solemn and unanimous vote, the Cabinet declared Sharon, who has been in a coma since suffering a devastating stroke on Jan. 4, to be permanently incapacitated.

The vote was a formality, spurred by legal necessity. Sharon’s deputy, Ehud Olmert, assumed the duties of office on the night the 78-year-old leader suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke. His 100-day temporary tenure would have run out during the weeklong Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins at dusk Wednesday.

The vote officially transferred powers of the post as of Friday to Olmert, who is already in the process of forming a new government after his party’s victory in March 28 elections.

Although Sharon has been thought to have almost no chance of making a recovery that would allow him to return to public life, Tuesday’s declaration was for many here a melancholy milestone in what has been a drawn-out national drama.

“It is a difficult and sad day for all of us,” Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon told his fellow ministers.

“We never thought this moment would arrive.”

Sharon, a veteran army general who spent nearly all his political life as an unreconstructed hawk and a champion of the Jewish settlement movement, underwent a political sea change in his final two years. He oversaw Israel’s turbulent withdrawal last summer from the Gaza Strip and the uprooting of settlements whose strategic placement he had personally helped plan de-

cades earlier.

Olmert has been scrupulously careful in the more than three months since Sharon’s hospitalization to avoid any appearance of seeking to usurp his former mentor’s powers.

He worked out of his own ministerial offices rather than the prime minister’s bureau. And at every Cabinet meeting, starting with a shellshocked gathering the morning after Sharon’s stroke, Olmert sat to the right of his boss’ empty chair, which was big enough to accommodate the prime minister’s substantial girth.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Olmert left a small gavel that Sharon once used to call meetings to order untouched on the table, and spoke only briefly to ministers. “I thank the members of the government for their vote, and their trust,” he said quietly.

The centrist Kadima party that Sharon founded two months before his stroke won the largest share of seats, though not a majority, in parliamentary elections. That victory virtually ensures that Olmert will be the next prime minister. He is now in the midst of complex negotiations with rival parties to form a governing coalition.

Family and close friends have kept a vigil for Sharon at Jerusalem’s hillside Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem since the night he was rushed to the hospital from his Negev Desert ranch. Sharon, who has undergone eight separate surgeries since the stroke, received a CT scan on Monday that ascertained his condition was unchanged.

Sharon is expected to be moved at some point from the intensive care unit at Hadassah to a longterm care facility.

Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting was not entirely given over to a symbolic farewell. Ministers also ratified a plan to sever nearly all contacts with the Palestinians’ new Hamas-led government.

CAMPUS NEWS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 5

Revitalized union sends debaters to nationals

BY KRISTINA KELLEHER STAFF WRITER

After spending last year rebuilding, the Brown Debating Union sent four students to the American Parliamentary Debate Association Nationals at Fordham University this past weekend.

David McNamee ’07 and Donald Trella ’07 qualified for the national competition by winning a tournament during the APDA’s regular season, making them Brown’s full seed team. A full seed team means both members of the team have won a previous tournament. Brown, like other schools represented at nationals, also sent a free seed team made up of Vincent See ’06 and Cat Biddle ’06. A free seed team is one that is not required to compete against a seeded opponent in the first round. Both squads went 3-3 in the qualifying rounds and did not progress to the final rounds.

McNamee and Trella looked like they were destined for success Friday when they won all three of their rounds and were ranked third, but the two “just lost it” on Saturday and were defeated in the last three qualifying rounds, according to Trella.

In the tournaments running up to nationals, McNamee and Trella made a bit of debating union history. Trella and his hybrid partner, Mark Samberg from

Brandeis University, won a tournament at Mount Holyoke College in early March, guaranteeing Trella a trip to nationals. In mid-March, McNamee and Trella together won the Providence College tournament, qualifying McNamee for nationals.

“This is the first time in team history, at least as far back as accurate records have been maintained, that Brown has won two intercollegiate tournaments in a row,” Trella said.

Strengthening Brown’s program The debating union was in disarray until 2000 when Will Newman ’04 and Brookes Brown ’04 brought the team back to life.

After Newman and Brown graduated, the team needed a rebuilding year but is now squarely on its feet again, according to Vice President Trevor Gleason ’07.

McNamee, the debating union’s current president, acts as an “old granddad” for the team, moderating disputes, coaching novices and exercising his talent at crafting cases, Trella said.

But the reason both Trella and Gleason consider this year a comeback is the team’s newfound depth, which has produced strong performances from more than just its leaders.

Many novices, or first-year debaters, on the team, including Kat Read ’09, Ana Beth Van Gulick ’09, Susan Kovar ’09 and

Juila Heneghan ’09, have made it to novice finals rounds. Jennifer Tarr ’08 and Benjamin Groisser ’09 were ranked 16th and sixth nationally among fellow novices, according to Gleason.

The debating union also holds on-campus debates each semester, in which members of the union or campus groups take sides on “hot button” issues and try to bring other students into the debate. “That’s part of why (the Undergraduate Finance Board) continues to fund us,” Gleason said.

Topics discussed in recent oncampus debates have included issues like whether Sex Power God should continue. In the near future, the union plans to hold a debate about President George W. Bush’s stance on immigration.

The team also participated in some less traditional tournaments this year.

See and Biddle attended an international competition over winter break that used the British Parliamentary style of debate as opposed to the American Parliamentary style the team is used to. The British style emphasizes rhetoric, whereas the American style stresses a combination of rhetorical and analytical skills.

Nate Duckles ’08, who was ranked 12th nationally among novices last year, paired with Trella to attend a debate on intelligent design held at James Madison University in Virginia. Unlike

RICH PORT, RICH CULTURE

Austin Freeman / Herald

Carmen Dolores Hernandez, literary critic for El Nuevo Dia, opened Puerto Rican Cultural Week on Sunday in SmithBuonanno 106. at other tournaments, there was no set debating style, but rather Duckles and Trella were asked to participate in a public debate using practical argumentation.

Duckles and Trella came in 10th place and won a grant of $250 for the debating union. Their strong finish, along with the fact that the other three teams from APDA also finished within the top 10, convinced Trella of the strength of the league and the applicability of American and Brit-

ish Parliamentary debating styles to every type of persuasion.

When not competing, debaters become part of a “weird culture that honestly carries over into regular life,” Trella said. “It is kind of scary, actually.”

“I got my fraternity (Alpha Epsilon Pi) a volume discount of 15 percent off 50 pounds of beef jerky we were ordering, that’s how applicable experience in parliamentary debating is in daily life,” Trella said.

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006

Leader of subway strike is sentenced to jail

BY RAY SANCHEZ NEWSDAY

NEW YORK — Calling the 2005 transit strike “a very sad day” in the history of labor in New York, a judge Monday ordered Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint jailed for 10 days and fined $1,000 for criminal contempt.

Toussaint, seated behind his lawyers in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, appeared surprised at the order by Justice Theodore Jones. The sentence was stayed for 30 days.

“I am confounded by the tor-

Brandeis continued from page 3 be admitted to any events, Klawunn said. However, posters for the two concerts that will take place did not carry such disclaimers.

Klawunn, who chaired the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Social Events Policy and Procedures — which was established after Sex Power God and released its recommendations in March — said research on alcohol consumption indicates that implementing a combination of policies is the most effective response to pre-gaming.

“We know from the weekend in mid-November — the weekend of Sex Power God — that certainly pre-gaming is a problem at Brown,” she said.

tured tale of these negotiations,” Jones told a courtroom packed with Local 100 members and local politicians who attended the hearing in support of union leaders. “It is unfortunate that it had to come down to an illegal strike.”

Jones also imposed $500 fines but no jail time against the union’s secretary treasurer, Ed Watt, and recording secretary Darlyne Lawson.

Though Toussaint said after the hearing that his legal team would explore an appeal, one of his lawyers, Dan Bright, said one was unlikely because his cli-

ent essentially pleaded guilty to criminal contempt.

“Obviously we find the fines and sentences to be regrettable but we will deal with it,” Toussaint said.

In a statement, Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Peter Kalikow said the contempt rulings reflected “the gravity of the union’s decision to knowingly and willfully violate the law.”

The hearing continues Tuesday morning, with Jones expected to make a decision on poten-

Klawunn said administrators are addressing pre-gaming by taking advantage of the research and by working closely with students, faculty and staff.

“We haven’t just canceled this or that event, but instead, we’re taking a multi-pronged approach to preventing pregaming,” she said.

She added that self-reported rates of consumption collected by the University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies indicate the amount of pre-gaming at Brown is similar to the national average.

The social events committee made a bevy of recommendations, including finding more space for events, expanding the role of RPLs and establishing subsidies for events where alcohol is not served.

The committee also recommended establishing and en-

forcing a policy of not allowing intoxicated students into an event. Klawunn acknowledged that intoxicated students do still get into parties, though, and that extra staffing could help prevent this from happening.

“It can be difficult for a student party manager to turn away a peer or a friend, so for larger events there should be someone else managing the door,” she said.

The Office of Student Life is working with the Undergraduate Council of Students, the Undergraduate Finance Board and other student groups to address how to fund the increased costs of holding a large event if student groups are required to hire a professional party manager, which was one idea that came out of the ad hoc committee’s discussions, Klawunn said.

see SUBWAY, page 8

Harvard continued from page 1 protest from the university’s own faculty, among others.

“The act of a president stepping down is considered a very big deal up here,” Casey said.

He added, “The feeling I picked up is that people were weary, that this has been a long, noisy, public, painful process and after the president resigned there was just this sense of weariness.”

Because Summers announced his resignation only five weeks after Casey arrived, Casey said he did not feel quite so affected by the departure. “I didn’t really have enough time to work with him,” he added.

Casey said aside from the departing president’s statements in early 2005, he did agree with most of Summers’ ambitions.

“He called for a rigorous look at the undergraduate curriculum, improving multidisciplinary sciences, planning (the expansion of Harvard’s campus), all of which were very important institution goals,” Casey said.

Tompkins, who was at Harvard during the Summers crisis, said it “was certainly a significant distraction, but everyone was doing their best to focus on the principle tasks at hand, which are always teaching and research.”

“I think it affected the morale of some of the faculty,” Tompkins added. “My way of coping in moments like that is to keep my head down and get my work done.”

Casey compared the situation at Harvard to former Brown President Gordon Gee’s departure in 1999.

“After a president leaves, there’s this moment when a university just catches its breath,” Casey said.

Cambridge and Providence Though Casey left Brown, he has “only very kind things to say” about the University.

“Harvard is much bigger as an institution,” Casey said, citing the large number of graduate and professional students. “You can be anonymous here in a way you can’t be at Brown.”

Tompkins also commented on Harvard’s large-scale feel, particularly from an administrative standpoint.

“It’s a much more complicated institution, in terms of the administration making decisions that affect the university, so it’s harder to get things done,” Tompkins said.

Casey echoed this thought, saying, “you can get things done more quickly at Brown — from my old office I could confer with the president, the dean of the faculty, etc., and all in one day. You really have to understand the system here to get things done. I miss

Brown’s scale.”

Casey said his responsibilities have shifted from dealing with “large, institutional initiatives” in the provost’s office to the more specific task of faculty hiring and appointment. He added, however, that the two tasks are not actually all that different.

“A lot of what I was doing at Brown was helping to implement the Plan for Academic Enrichment, the most important part of which was to hire faculty,” Casey said.

Casey and Tompkins both commented on the enthusiasm surrounding the Plan for Academic Enrichment, something else that Casey has missed since leaving Brown.

“You saw Brown as participating in a national and intellectual conversation in ways it might not have before. The growth of the faculty, the development of Ship Street and the Life Sciences Building — all these changes showed Brown as an institution with extreme ambitions,” Casey said.

Commenting on the non-academic atmosphere at Harvard, Casey said, “The Main Green at Brown is always filled with students, whereas Harvard Yard is never filled with students. You just don’t see that here.”

Harvard does have some advantages over Brown, Casey said, mostly relating to its greater resources and more esteemed reputation.

“Harvard’s better resources do allow you to be very ambitious with the quality of faculty that you’re trying to hire,” Casey said.

“It does have a place on a national stage so when you’re recruiting faculty one of the things you’re offering them is to play on that stage.

An avid swimmer, Casey said Harvard also has a better swimming pool.

Overall, Casey and Tompkins said the universities are actually quite similar.

“The basic similarities derive from the fact that they are two of the finest institutions of high education in the world. They are very comparable in terms of quality of students, faculty and basic values that they are both here to promote,” Tompkins said.

Tompkins said the main difference stems from the type of curriculum that is offered. Harvard’s curriculum has a broader focus, Tompkins said, but “both institutions are striving to produce an outstanding education, even though they go about that in a different way.”

Casey suspected that students who choose to attend Brown are choosing “a different kind of academic experience.”

Nonetheless, “it’s amazing how many connections there are between the two institutions,” Casey said.

WORLD & NATION THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 7

Hundreds of thousands rally in cities large and small

BY SONYA GEIS AND MICHAEL POWELL WASHINGTON POST

PHOENIX — Victor Colex came marching out of the shadows Monday, draped in American flags from his hat to his measuring tape and demanding recognition from a nation he regards as his own.

Typically, the 37-year-old Mexican-born worker earns $7 to $8 an hour building new fences in this fast-growing region. But this Monday he joined a 100,000-strong river of humanity, from mothers pushing strollers with flag-waving toddlers to slouching construction workers to old men wearing wide-brimmed cowboy hats, all marching on the state Capitol to demand that Congress not criminalize illegal immigrants.

“We are not asking for favors,” he said. “We only want to work, for our families and parents and children. We want what’s just.”

Across the United States, in the nation’s largest cities and some of its smaller towns, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and children of immigrants, labor unions and civic associations took to the streets in an immigrant “Day of Action.” The hope was that their chants might echo in the halls of Congress, where lawmakers have debated immigration legislation for weeks.

The turnout numbers cumulatively soared into the hundreds of thousands. Fifty-thousand people snaked two miles through an immigrant neighborhoods in Atlanta. San Francisco, Austin and Madison, Wis., each had rallies that attracted 10,000. An estimated 3,000 people took to the streets of Garden City, Kan., a farming community in the southwest corner of that state. In New York City, 30,000 people of various hues and nationalities — not least young Arab American women wearing Calvin Klein hijabs — took a thumping, chanting walk down lower Broadway.

At least 350,000 people rallied in downtown Dallas on Sunday, and organizers now talk of an economic boycott in a collective demonstration of muscle.

The atmosphere Monday was festive. Anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric bubbles near the boiling point in Arizona, where the Minutemen patrol the border regions and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., has endorsed guest-worker legislation that would require immigrants who are working illegally to return to their countries when their visas expire. But few hints of discord could be heard in Phoenix.

In fact, some immigrants spoke of being inspired by the numbers in the streets Monday and by the failure so far in Washington of any legislation that would crack down on illegal immigrants. Daniel Quintero, a native of Mexico and now a legal resident here, walked with wife, small daughter and baby. “I was a person who would say this isn’t

going to make a difference,” he said. “But with the first march, there was a change in the government. I think we are making a lot of noise, and we are going to continue to.”

Eliz Gerardo, a 17-year-old high school junior, stood in the sharp Southwestern sunlight with her friends. She wore a sticker: “Somos America, We Are America.” Immigrant high school students have led impromptu walkouts for weeks.

But Gerardo said her mother called in and asked permission for her to leave school Monday.

“My parents are immigrants,” she said. “We Mexicans are not here to fight against Americans. We’re here to become Americans.”

The sense often was that immigrants were surfacing Monday, emerging into the spotlight by the thousands from the restaurants and gardening companies and hotels where so many labor. Eduardo Romero, a 32year-old Peruvian immigrant who works near Madison, said the size of the rally drove home just how many Latinos live there.

“There are so many immigrants supporting this economy,” he said. “Something has to happen one way or another.”

In Oakland, Calif., the Rev. Antonio Valdivia, pastor of St. Louis Bertrand Catholic Church in East Oakland, gripped a palm frond like a walking stick and led a 5,000-strong procession down the middle of International Boulevard. Many waved American flags. Some, such as Elizabeth Arce, marched for their parents.

“I’m not illegal, but my parents are,” she said Farther south, in Santa Ana, janitor Jose Hernandez waved an American flag in one hand and a Mexican flag in the other.

“We are looking for respect,” he said. “I want papers for everyone, my family and me.”

Many demonstrators drew no distinction between those who live here legally and those who lack documents. To be an immigrant, they said, is to live along a continuum. In Lake Worth, on the southeast coast of Flori-

da, 4,000 demonstrators rallied in the 90-degree heat. Several crews from Somerset Landscaping showed up, a group nearly evenly divided between the legal and the illegal.

Enrique Garcia said his company knew the crews would take time off to come to the rally. “It’s been all over the place for two weeks. We came here to show solidarity for our people,” he said. “There is not enough work in Mexico, and we love America.

We are America.”

At that same rally, a group of young men wrapped in Mexican flags declined to give their names to a reporter but spoke bluntly in Spanish of their work. “We take the jobs Americans don’t want,” said an 18year-old with a full grill on his teeth. “They are too lazy or too scared.”

Another one laughed and added: “Or too scared of the sun.”

Monday’s demonstrations were in no fashion spontaneous eruptions. The organizing took weeks, and by this past weekend organizers in many cities had passed out fliers everywhere in immigrant neighborhoods—taping them to lampposts and to bakery and laundry windows.

Ethnic newspapers and Spanish-language radio and television stations thumped on the need for a big turnout. Hoy, a New York Spanish-language newspaper, declared: “Ready to Make History.”

Pastors spoke from pulpits and union rank-and-file workers made phone calls. Mary Crump from Bethpage, Long Island, listened to the bishop of her United Methodist Church endorse the New York march from the pulpit Sunday. “He said to come so here I am,” she said.

Hillary Exter, a college administrator in the Bronx, came for reasons of personal history.

She is the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants who fled czarist Russia, and she wanted to show solidarity with a new generation of immigrants. “I can’t imagine they came with a visa,” Exter said of her grandparents. “Their situation was not at all different from now.”

House GOP worried about fallout from tough immigration bill

BY JONATHAN WEISMAN WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — In the wake of this week’s massive demonstrations, many House Republicans are worried that a tough, anti-illegal-immigration bill they thought would please their political base has earned them little benefit while becoming a lightning rod for the fast-growing national movement for immigrant rights.

House Republicans rushed through legislation just before Christmas that would build hundreds of miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, mandate that businesses verify the legality of all employees through a national database, fortify border patrols and declare illegal immigrants and those who help them to be felons. After more lenient legislation failed in the Senate last week, the Housepassed version burst into public this week, as hundreds of thousands of protesters nationwide turned out to denounce the bill.

Tuesday, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., issued a joint statement seeking to deflect blame for the harshest provisions of the House bill on the Democrats, who they said showed a lack of compassion. “It remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony,” Hastert and Frist said.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, DMass., fired back that “there’s no running away from the fact that the Republican House passed a bill and Senator Frist offered one that criminalizes immigrants.”

House Democrats acknowledged they helped block Republican efforts on the floor last December to soften the Republican-crafted section declaring illegal immigrants to be felons, but they said ultimate responsibility for the bill rests with the Republicans, who voted overwhelmingly for its passage.

“The Democrats were not going to do anything to make it easier for Republicans to pass an atrocious bill,” said Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Tuesday’s maneuvering underscores how the immigration

issue has mushroomed into a fierce political debate with potentially large political stakes heading into the November congressional elections. The hundreds of thousands of protesters in the streets Monday vividly demonstrated the power of the issue, which some strategists say threatens to undercut President George W. Bush’s long-standing hope of making Hispanic voters a GOP constituency.

“There was political calculation that they could make this the wedge issue of 2006 and 2008, but it’s not playing out that way,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz. “This has galvanized and energized the Latino community like no other issue I have seen in two decades, and that’s going to have electoral consequences.”

Republicans say they could accept that sentiment if they believed they had won political points from the GOP’s restive base. But for all the negatives, they don’t have many positives to show for their efforts.

“From the standpoint of those who would applaud the House’s stand, I’d say we have not gotten sufficient credit,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., a reliable supporter of House leaders. “I’m somewhat distressed that they have not gotten word of what we’ve done.”

The politics of the issue have shifted markedly since the House acted. Republican lawmakers are increasingly saying they will now consider some avenue to grant illegal immigrants access to lawful employment.

And Democrats who voted for the House bill with an eye on their political futures or to preempt feared attacks from conservatives are rethinking their position.

Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, a bill supporter, was greeted by protesters and shouts of “Migration is not a crime” in February when he opened his Ohio gubernatorial campaign office in Cleveland. Now, he regrets his vote, campaign spokesman Jess Goode said.

The 36 Democrats who voted for passage included Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo. — whose brother, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., has railed against the House measee IMMIGRATION, page 8

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006

Subway continued from page 6 tially ruinous $3 million contempt fines against the union.

The judge is also being asked by state lawyers to suspend the union’s ability to automatically collect dues from members.

The penalties would cripple the union, according to Local 100 lawyers.

“The potential danger to the continued existence of the union rests with the adjudication of these fines,” Jones said.

Seated in the courtroom amid dozens of Local 100 members in blue-and-red union Tshirts were the parents of firefighter Matthew Long, 39, who was critically injured after being struck by a charter bus while riding his bicycle to work during the strike.

Eileen Long said her son was a former triathlete who must

now use a wheelchair. He still faces three or four operations for a crushed pelvis and multiple fractures. The Long family has filed a lawsuit against the union.

“I don’t take pleasure in Mr. Toussaint going to jail for 10 days,” she said. “I didn’t ask for the situation. The situation came at his doing. I feel justice is semi-done. The people of New York were held hostage and my son was the victim.”

Before sentencing, Toussaint spoke before the court, saying that the strike was provoked by the MTA’s insistence on creating a new pension tier for transit workers. “The authority’s attitude in these negotiations was cavalier and provocative,” he said.

Neal Abramson, an MTA lawyer, told the court that Toussaint failed to demonstrate even a “small smattering of contrition for the harm to the citizens of this city.”

BUCC continued from page 1 the Campus Life Advisory Board Subcommittee on Alcohol and Other Drugs.

Barnett presented part of her study on pre-gaming, or binge drinking before parties, and the use of prescription drugs, marijuana and alcohol by freshmen and sophomores at three New England colleges. The level of heavy drinking experiences, meaning the consumption of five or more drinks in one sitting, among firstyears during Brown’s orientation coincided with the roughly 40 percent of freshmen who engage in this activity nationally, Barnett said.

At Brown, this level dropped off in late October of last year, presumably because of Parents’ Weekend. It also fell the week after Sex Power God and during final exams. “The trajectories seem to be driven by times of year,” Barnett said.

Margaret Klawunn, associate vice president of campus life and dean for student life, said next year’s orientation will be changed to try and curb the level of heavy drinking. Incoming first-years will be asked to complete an online quiz about the University’s alcohol policy, sexual assault and academic and non-academic disciplinary systems before arriving on campus. Many BUCC members also asked about the possibility of more late-night non-alcoholic events during orientation.

While many of the subcommittee’s recommendations were similar to those of the Ad Hoc

Immigration continued from page 7 sure — and Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., who may find it difficult to tap into the mobilizing Latino vote in his run for the Senate this year.

Although much has been made of last week’s failed efforts in the Senate to forge a bipartisan measure to toughen border security while creating a system to allow many of the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants here to achieve legal status or citizenship, the actions in the House late last year have received little attention until now.

House GOP leaders had rushed lawmakers back to Washington for a rare December session to vote on the immigration measure, hoping to give their members an accomplishment to brag about over a long winter recess. But it was the deft maneuvering of Democrats that preserved the bill’s most infamous provision, declaring illegal immigrants felons, and that provision has helped turn the bill into a political albatross for some Re-

Softball continued from page 12 gers scored three runs in the second inning, and the Bears could not manufacture any runs. Again, Brown generated only three hits and advanced just one runner to second base.

Though Brown struggled offensively this weekend, the performance of the young players

Committee to Review Social Events Policy and Procedures, it also suggested more training for Residential Peer Counselors, the recruiting of more juniors and seniors as counselors and the implementation of regional peer boards. These boards, which would be made up of students, would “improve communication and improve implementation of the guidelines (for residence halls),” Barnett said.

The subcommittee also recommended that alcohol education beyond orientation could prevent abuse. Barnett’s study shows that the only alcoholsafety information students remember from orientation is how to contact Emergency Medical Services.

Another suggestion was to give breath alcohol monitors to EMS personnel, though Barnett advocated against making readings readily available to students because they would have incentive to one-up their friends’ marks.

To combat off-campus drinking, the subcommittee recommended that the University work with area liquor stores to prevent sales to minors and remind students living off campus that University policies still apply to them.

The BUCC also heard from the Environmental Task Force, which recommended that the University decrease its overall energy use by 5 percent within the next 14 years.

The task force recommended that the University invest in equipment and programs to increase the efficiency of both old

and new buildings. This would lead to a 1 to 2 percent reduction in total building energy utilization each year. The task force also advocated that the University prioritize efficiency improvement projects.

“Projects with 20 percent or higher return on investment should be funded now and completed by 2010,” said task force member Kate Brandt ’07.

Other task force recommendations included the creation of a monitoring and reporting structure for consumption and emissions reduction, the drafting of a fuel strategy plan, the purchase of more energy-efficient University vehicles and promotion of an information campaign on conservation opportunities.

“If successful in strategy … (the University) can reduce emissions and utility costs by 20 percent,” said Kurt Teichert, resource efficiency manager for Facilities Management. “This would mean a $40 million utility bill versus a $50 million one by year 2020.”

Jenna Horton ’08, a representative from the Brown Environmental Action Network, asked the University to purchase 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2010. “Providence has set a goal of 20 percent by 2010,” she said. “If we want to be a leader, let’s set it five points above.”

“I know the budget is tight, but renewable energy is important to us,” Horton said.

“This is something we have to work very hard at. … We need to set a high bar,” Simmons said of efforts to increase the University’s use of renewable energy.

publicans, Democrats say.

The bill, written by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., was passed in a matter of hours, nine days before Christmas. Just seven amendments were allowed to come to a vote, none of them fundamentally altering the legislation.

Sensenbrenner’s committee bill included the felony provision, but when he took it to the House floor Dec. 16, he offered an amendment to downgrade the offense of being an undocumented worker from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The Democratic leadership pushed its members to vote against the amendment, and 191 Democrats did. Only eight Democrats voted with Sensenbrenner.

“It was an ugly bill in most respects, the felony stuff, the wall and no amendments,” said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who tried to add a guest-worker provision but was not allowed a vote. “The leadership saw this more as a statement than a policy, but I think in the end we would have been better off had we been more deliberative.”

With so little debate, press

coverage was minimal, and what coverage there was got little notice in the holiday bustle, Republicans say.

“We’re victims of our own success,” said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. Sensenbrenner’s bill is getting attention now, not so much from Republican base voters but from Spanish-language radio shows and Latino activists who have made it the focus of marches that have drawn more than a million protesters into the streets. One sign at the National Mall on Monday read, “Sense, not Sensenbrenner.”

In a letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last week, Sensenbrenner charged that all but eight Democrats “decided to play political game by voting to make all illegal immigrants felons.”

But Democratic votes alone did not seal defeat. Sixty-five Republicans voted against it, too, including anti-immigrant firebrands such as Rep. J.D. Hayworth, RAriz., and moderates such as Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, voted against the amendment and the bill just a few weeks before he was elected majority leader.

was encouraging. Princeton and Penn boast the top two lineups in the Ancient Eight, and Brown was able to keep them in check for the most part.

“Our pitchers are improving with every game,” McCreesh said. “The one thing that you cannot substitute is experience. And with every game that goes by, our pitchers are gaining more experience and more confidence.”

Though Brown has gotten off

to a slow start, there is still a long way to go in the season and the team believes it can still contend for the Ivy title despite presently sitting in last place.

“In this league, anything is possible,” Wirkowski said. “If we pull everything together, we can be very successful.”

Brown returns home this weekend to take on Ivy rivals Harvard on Saturday and Dartmouth on Sunday.

WORLD & NATION THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 9

Iranian president confirms uranium enrichment

BY KARL VICK WASHINGTON POST

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Iran has enriched uranium, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Tuesday.

“I’m announcing officially that Iran has now joined the countries that have nuclear technology,” Ahmadinejad said in a carefully staged speech carried live across Iran. “This is a very historic moment, and this is because of the Iranian people and their belief. And this is the start of the progress of this country.”

Standing before a sweeping backdrop featuring doves around an Iranian flag, Ahmadinejad said the country was moving toward enrichment on an industrial scale for power plants, not the weapons that the Bush administration and other governments say are Tehran’s real goal.

“We are saying again that the nuclear technology is only for the purpose of peace and nothing else,” Ahmadinejad said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, traveling with President George W. Bush to Missouri Tuesday, told reporters that the news suggests Iran is “moving in the wrong direction.”

If it continues down that path, he said, the United States will consult with other allies about how to respond.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the breakthrough came Monday at the pilot enrichment plant located in Natanz, in the desert south of Tehran.

“I am proud to announce that we have started enriching uranium to the 3.5 percent level,” Gholamreza Aghazadeh said, specifying the low level used to generate electricity. “This achievement has paved the way for Iran to start its industrialscale production and, to enter this stage, we are trying to put in operation a complex of 3,000 centrifuges” by mid-March of next year, Aghazadeh said.

Another senior Iranian official, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, offered still more details in an interview with the Kuwait News Agency.

“Iran has put into operation the first unit of 164 centrifuges, has injected (uranium) gas and has reached industrial production,” he said during a visit to Kuwait, the agency reported.

“We should expand the work of these machines to achieve a full industrial line. We need dozens of these units to achieve a uranium enrichment facility.”

The announcement came midway through a 30-day period the U.N. Security Council gave Iran to cease all work toward enrichment, although the body threatened no specific punishment if Iran continued. The Bush administration and other

governments say Iran’s nuclear program, while ostensibly dedicated only to producing electricity, is a front for development of a nuclear weapon.

Enriching uranium is the pivotal step for either. Enriched to a low level of about 3.5 percent, uranium will fuel a power plant. If enrichment continues to much higher levels it can provide the explosive power for atomic weapons.

But enrichment on any scale appeared likely to escalate the stakes in the showdown over Iran’s program. The current showdown began when Iran resumed pre-enrichment steps in a nuclear program it had agreed to freeze after it emerged from the shadows more than two years ago.

In a briefing at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “I’d rather wait and see what our experts say about it.”

Asked if the United States had a contingency plan for dealing with Iran, Rumsfeld said the Defense Department always has various contingency plans under discussion dealing with potential scenarios around the world. He stressed that the United States is currently on a “diplomatic track” with Tehran.

“There is concern about Iran,” Rumsfeld told reporters. “It is a country that supports terrorists.

It is a country that has indicated having an interest in weapons of mass destruction.” But he said it was not useful to “get into fantasy land” when it came to discussing U.S. options against Iran.

Mohammad ElBaradei, who heads the International Atom-

ic Energy Agency, is scheduled to visit Tehran. The agency is charged with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“When ElBaradei arrives in Iran, he will face new circumstances,” Rafsanjani said, according to the Kuwait news agency.

The announcement raised some new questions. The references to “industrial scale” enrichment, for example, suggested Iran considered itself as having moved beyond “research,” the level it promised during negotiations to maintain for several years.

As for governments skeptical of Iran’s intentions, Ahmadinejad said, “I advise them: Don’t create hate in the Iranian people’s hearts.”

“What we are doing today and what we are doing in the future will be in the framework of Iranian rights and according to the regulation of all people’s rights in the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the Iranian president said. The agency has consistently differed with Iran on that point. It has cited Iran for withholding details of its nuclear program, which the Tehran government kept secret for 18 years.

“We believe in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Ahmadinejad also said, affirming Iran’s membership in a pact that, during tense moments, Iranian officials have threatened to quit. “We believe in improving international regulation. In that respect we continue our activity toward nuclear technology for industrial use.”

Bomber kills dozens at Pakistani celebration

BY MUBASHIR ZAIDI AND HENRY CHU LOS ANGELES TIMES

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 47 people were killed and more than 100 injured Tuesday when a bomber blew himself up in the port city of Karachi at a massive gathering to celebrate the birthday of the prophet Muhammad, authorities said.

The deadly blast struck during an outdoor evening prayer service at a Karachi park. Afterward, angry mobs lashed out at security forces, setting dozens of vehicles ablaze, including ambulances and fire trucks, and also damaging two move theaters.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Karachi, on Pakistan’s southern coast, has been the scene of sectarian violence in the past between the country’s majority Sunni Muslims and its Shiite Muslim minority.

Thousands of Sunni worshipers had massed in Nishtar Park, Karachi’s biggest venue for religious and political gatherings, to mark Muhammad’s birthday, a national holiday here. Karachi police chief Niaz Siddiqui told reporters that bomb squads had checked out the site in advance and discovered nothing.

“We are suspecting that the suicide bomber came to the venue along with a small rally, which merged into the gathering. He was close to the stage ... and he blew himself up when the prayers were nearing their end,” he said after visiting the blast site.

Preliminary investigations indicate that the attacker used as much as 11 pounds of explosive, Siddiqui said.

The explosion was so powerful that it seemed to shake the entire park, witnesses reported. A local sect leader said he was lucky to have stepped down from the dais moments before the blast.

“As I went off the stage, I heard a powerful blast and there was blood all over. Most

www.browndailyherald.com

of our leaders who were on stage have been killed,” the man told reporters.

The dead included at least two prominent Sunni clerics from the area. Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao confirmed late Tuesday that 47 people were killed, a number likely to rise.

“Strict security arrangements were made, but there was pressure due to a number of processions,” Sherpao said.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the blast, promising that those who orchestrated it would “not go unpunished,” according to a statement issued on Pakistan’s state-run news agency. He directed authorities to beef up security measures at mosques around the country.

Television footage of the scene in Nishtar Park showed carnage and chaos, with bodies lying on the ground and other bloodied victims being carried off by frantic survivors.

More than 40 dead bodies were brought to Jinnah and Abbassi Shahhed hospitals, where doctors operated Tuesday night on more than a dozen severely wounded patients, hospital officials said.

Just hours before the blast, Musharraf delivered a speech here in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, calling on religious leaders to speak out against terrorism and curb the use of houses of worship as places for fomenting discord and hatred.

“We have to eliminate terrorism, and all of you should support our efforts in this respect. We have to develop tolerance and contain extremism,” he said.

Religious leaders appealed for calm after Tuesday’s attack, which came hard on the heels of another tragedy in Karachi.

On Sunday, at least 30 men, women and children were trampled to death in a stampede at a mosque.

In February, two days of clashes between Sunnis and Shiites in northwestern Pakistan left at least 38 people dead.

EDITORIAL/LETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 10

STAFF EDITORIAL

A president’s silence Outsiders in attendance may have been somewhat surprised at the start of Saturday’s lecture by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. President Ruth Simmons, an academic leader of a relatively small Rhode Island university, drew noticeably more applause than the former First Lady and prominent Democrat. Indeed, the response provided further evidence that most Brown students and community members love their president dearly.

Simmons’ consistent eloquence, compelling life story, demonstrated fundraising ability and obvious intelligence surely contribute to her popularity. In a Herald poll released in February, 86.7 percent of students expressed approval of Simmons’ job performance. The only concrete complaint voiced with any regularity about Simmons is that students would like to see more of her on campus.

But a recent development that has already raised eyebrows at Brown could potentially damage both Simmons’ reputation and her effectiveness. About two weeks ago, Harvard University formally convened a committee to search for a new president following President Lawrence Summers’ February announcement that he will step down in June. Several media outlets, professors and experts have mentioned Simmons as a strong candidate for the job — the most high-profile post in academia — but she has consistently declined to comment on the matter. We have watched candidate after candidate publicly declare that they’re not interested in the Harvard spot, from former Wellesley College and Duke University President Nannerl Keohane to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger.

So Simmons’ silence indicates she has at least a minor interest in leaving Brown to take up Harvard’s presidency.

Few would question Simmons’ fitness for the Harvard presidency or her desirability as a candidate for the job. She has been a successful president at two prestigious institutions, she is a woman, she is black, she has a Harvard degree and she is a consensus-builder. But her fitness for the position aside, we believe it is not becoming of a college president — or any leader — to have anything but complete focus on and investment in the job at hand.

Agree with her goals or not, it is fair to say that Simmons has thrived at Brown: she has established the slavery and justice committee, expanded the faculty, mounted a massive fundraising campaign, pushed forward physical development of the campus and generally attained a position of adoration and respect. But the perception that Simmons is eyeing a plum job at Harvard, accurate or not, could derail support for her many projects and hurt her reputation in the long term. We believe, after five years, that Simmons and Brown have been an excellent fit. We hope she stays for another five — and lets the Brown community know she intends to.

D A N I E L L AW L O R

LETTERS Course Announcement Bulletin obsolete now To the Editor: The headline on the article, “Paper course bulletin will eventually become obsolete, registrar says” which appeared in The Herald April 8, should have read “Paper course bulletin has been obsolete for five years.” The Course Announcement Bulliten is out of date by the time it is put in student mail boxes. University Registrar Michael Pesta notes that the CAB has information on graduation requirements, but this information could easily be put on the Registrar’s Web site. If it were online, it could be indexed more efficiently to make the information easier to update and easier to access. Cindy Swain ’09 point-

ed out that the CAB allows students to view several courses at once, unlike the to Brown Online Course Announcement. This only points out a failure in the online presentation of course data and requirements. The CAB is a waste of money, paper and time on the part of the registrar. The only reason the CAB still exists is because the online course announcement system is insufficient and has been for years.

Daniel Leventhal ’07 April 11

The Herald will never be obsolete.

Send a letter to letters@browndailyherald.com

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

Gabriela Scarritt, Allison Kwong, Night Editors Taryn Martinez, Copy Editor Senior Staff Writers Simmi Aujla, Stephanie Bernhard, Melanie Duch, Ross Frazier, Jonathan Herman, Rebecca Jacobson, Chloe Lutts, Caroline Silverman Staff Writers Justin Amoah, Zach Barter, Allison Erich Bernstein, Brenna Carmody, Alissa Cerny, Ashley Chung, Stewart Dearing, Kristina Kelleher, Hannah Levintova, Hannah Miller, Aidan Levy, Taryn Martinez, Kyle McGourty, Ari Rockland-Miller, Chelsea Rudman, Kam Sripada, Robin Steele, Spencer Trice, Ila Tyagi, Sara Walter Sports Staff Writers Sarah Demers, Amy Ehrhart, Erin Frauenhofer, Kate Klonick, Madeleine Marecki, George Mesthos, Hugh Murphy, Eric Perlmutter, Marco Santini, Bart Stein, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Account Administrators Alexandra Annuziato, Emilie Aries, Steven Butschi, Dee Gill, Rahul Keerthi, Kate Love, Ally Ouh, Nilay Patel, Ashfia Rahman, Rukesh Samarasekera, Jen Solin, Bonnie Wong Design Staff Adam Kroll, Andrew Kuo, Jason Lee, Gabriela Scarritt Photo Staff CJ Adams, Chris Bennett, Meg Boudreau, Tobias Cohen, Lindsay Harrison, Matthew Lent, Dan Petrie, Christopher Schmitt, Oliver Schulze, Juliana Wu, Min Wu, Copy Editors Chessy Brady, Amy Ehrhart, Natalia Fisher, Jacob Frank, Christopher Gang, Yi-Fen Li, Taryn Martinez, Katie McComas, Sara Molinaro, Heather Peterson, Lela Spielberg

Send a guest column to opinions@browndailyherald.com Apply to be a regular columnist at opinions@browndailyherald.com

Print media forever!

Print media forever!

Print media forever!

Print media forever!

CORRECTIONS POLICY The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible.

Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C O M M E N TA R Y P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

LET TERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

A DV E RT I S I N G P O L I C Y The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

OPINIONS

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 11

Last stop: Beijing After 3,000 years of history, re-imagining China in the 21st century

BY TE-PING CHEN OPINIONS COLUMNIST

BEIJING — By all accounts, I got to Beijing at least 10 years too late. The city’s expatriates like to wax eloquent on the days before the streets became clogged with cars and an influx of foreign investment in the 1990s turned the city into an aroundthe-clock construction site. With 3,000 years of history, Beijing may still retain its status as a great symbol of Eastern antiquity, but by the time I arrived, the city so often romanticized as the seat of China’s past grandeur looked to me more like a sprawling, heavily congested strip mall.

In a country that for centuries remained resistant to outside influence, it is curious to see how hungrily Chinese officials are courting the foreign dollar today. Once, the Forbidden City shrouded China’s emperor in mystery; today, Starbucks does brisk business from within the city’s towering gates. For years, China’s emperors made it illegal for foreigners to learn Mandarin, for fear of spreading Western influences. Today, as Beijing prepares to host the 2008 Olympics, English is everywhere, from street signs to storefronts. Westernstyle shopping centers such as Wangfujing Street — a glitzy commercial hub showcasing international haute couture — are similarly omnipresent.

Rome may not have been built in a day,

but the explosive construction in eastern Chinese metropolises like Beijing with the onset of economic liberalization in 1978 might make us re-evaluate that old adage. Over the past two decades, as skyscrapers and shopping malls have burgeoned throughout the city, only 2 percent of Beijing’s original architecture has gone unchanged. Throughout Beijing there are

characteristics, or Chinese socialism with capitalistic characteristics — either way, the city leaves you wondering in what image the country will be remade. And, furthermore, at what cost?

In a developing country of 1.3 billion people, it’s not surprising that such questions are generally sidelined. Take Liaoning Province, a northeastern region in Manchuria where the urban unemployed make up nearly 26 percent of the population. Through the windows of an 11-hour train ride from Beijing toward the province capital, the view is a dreary watercolor of endless sorghum fields still withered from wintertime frost. Closer to the cities a rainbow ticker-tape of trash starts to litter the fields where cows stand tethered in dumps. The irrigation ditches turn stagnant and black, choking on their own fetid waters. Gray-wood shacks, like a sprawling monochrome of dull, brick grays and steel blues, punctuated only by the sight of factory smokestacks spewing fumes, encircle the province capital.

After leaving the glass-and-steel cages of Beijing’s high-rises and the sleek countenance of its endless shopping malls, traveling through Liaoning’s mountains and fields last week was a welcome change.

But entering the capital of Shenyang, it began to feel as though I’d never left: the same ads featuring Chinese women with bleached hair, the same superstores and fast-food restaurants. The same cloying, noxious scent of smog and sense of urban dislocation.

Between ailing state-owned-enterprises and the demise of the iron rice bowl,

Beijing leaves you wondering in what image the rest of China will be remade. And, furthermore, at what cost? miles of traditional hutong neighborhoods slated for demolition where the Chinese character chai — destroy — is spray-painted on every building, scrawled like some eerie scarlet letter.

During the Cultural Revolution, thousands of Mao’s Red Guards stormed China, burning temples, books, artifacts and any other symbols of ancient culture they could lay siege to. Fast forward three decades, and, as centuries-old hutongs — some built as early as the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century — are obliterated by the block and replaced by modern high-rises and sleek office space, it’s hard not to feel that history is repeating itself. Beijing is a nexus of conflict between economic expansion and cultural preservation, a struggle that is being played out throughout all of China. Call it capitalism with Chinese

Liaoning’s officials are increasingly turning to foreign direct investment to bulwark the economy, buoyant over the fact that in 2004, foreign direct investment in the region increased by 52 percent. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to feel bleak when the urban poverty of workers living in shantytowns is even uglier than the rural poverty they left behind, and the ever-present smog and anonymous high-rises of modernizing cities like Shenyang seem perhaps even uglier still.

And yet, back in Beijing, while some decry the city’s changes as nothing short of cultural annihilation, people everywhere will tell you that life inside is improving.

Xinhua reports that almost 80 percent of Chinese say they feel positively about their quality of life — though it’s also worth noting that nearly four times as many urban residents as rural residents say otherwise, despite the fact that the average urban income is triple that in the countryside. Certainly, the eager throngs lining up in the McDonald’s on Wangfujing Street make it clear that people have more money to spend. As Beijing’s makeover speeds up in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics, who has time to mourn? In a city with an everchanging skyline, where the lines between tradition and modernity, communism and capitalism and East and West are increasingly losing all relevance, this is what progress has come to look like. And perhaps it is good, after all, that things are changing.

Riding the bus through Beijing, I tell myself that over and again like a mantra, watching the city pass itself by like a dream.

Te-Ping Chen ’07 is still waiting for spring.

The belly and its taboo dance in Egypt In Egypt, belly-dancing capital of the world, the dance is ‘respected’ only if done in private

BY NATALIE SMOLENSKI OPINIONS COLUMNIST

When I turned 17, I wanted just one thing for my birthday: belly-dancing classes. The dance’s beauty, grace and creative costumes, along with its strong connection to Arabic music, made it a natural choice of hobby for me. I eventually managed to convince my reluctant parents to fund the first month of classes, and after that, I was hooked. I am now 21, and there has not been a year since my 17th birthday when I haven’t taken at least some formal and informal instruction on how to move my hips, feet and shoulders to the rhythms of the Middle East.

Unfortunately, not everyone shares my enthusiasm, or even respect, for belly dancing. Initially I thought this was an American problem, where the media have exotified belly dancers and pretty much anyone who can put on a costume can find a gig and an audience. However, to my surprise, condemnation of the dance was far more acute in Egypt, whose belly-dancing community is the best known in all the Arab world.

The low public image of belly dancing in Egypt surprised me. After all, dancers are essential at weddings and on many other occasions, where people shower them with money and compliments.

Songs featuring lyrics and pop beats inviting listeners to belly dance become huge hits in Egypt, where they play on radio for months and even years. Videos of belly dancers can even be found at most supermarkets. The performance circuit is filled not only with local danc-

ers, but also with foreigners who travel the world in search of an Egyptian dance education. The best dancers become household names and often gather great wealth. Some well-known 20th-century dancers have even become cultural icons who starred in countless films and who won the hearts of their nation and millions of Arabs around the world. Yet I have discovered that winning people’s hearts is not the same as winning their respect. With regards to the latter, belly dancers still have a long way to go.

I perceived the taboo status of dancing early after my arrival in Egypt.

Ever the fan of Arabic music, I took every opportunity to dance at parties and events where my favorite songs would play. Whenever I would start to move, however, the girls who had been standing beside me in the crowd would move away and watch demurely from a distance, often with disapproving looks.

Some would dance with me, but only for a few moments before modesty overtook them. The boys, for their part, didn’t quite know what to make of me. Once, after I danced for a while to an improvised drum solo at a party, an Egyptian student asked me, “Are you sure you don’t have an Egyptian grandfather or something?” But he would not speak to me further. Clearly, my dancing made people uncomfortable.

My experience was corroborated by

girlfriends who came to Egypt from the West. One had expressed an interest in putting on a belly-dance performance for the American University’s talent show but was vehemently discouraged by her Egyptian friends. Even in my Arabic class, I got the message that belly dancing is less-than-favored. My Arabic teacher contrasted its self-evident sexuality with dances that “lift the spirit,” such as ballet. Also, during one of our

has compounded the difficulties belly dancing faces in winning public acceptance. When the late Tahiyya Karioka, perhaps the most famous belly dancer of all time, left her performance career and began to wear the Islamic veil, she exemplified the public shift towards conservatism which has caused an exponential increase in the number of women covering up in the Arab world and a corresponding lack of tolerance for women who choose to publicly bare their bodies for any reason.

But the veil only guards against the eyes of the public; it does not pass a verdict on the dance itself. Underneath, almost all Egyptian women know the dance; it is passed down from generation to generation and therefore has little chance of dying out. I was initially surprised, for instance, to see a woman wearing the niqab, a full black gown that only reveals the eyes, attend one of my belly dancing classes.

Belly dancing is simply one point of contention in a period of social ferment in the Middle East. Because of my own unabashed love for the dance, I can only hope that the Arab societies which gave birth to such an expressive art form will come to embrace its public performance with the same open enthusiasm I feel.

Winning people’s hearts is not the same as winning their respect. With regards to the latter, belly dancers still have a long way to go in Egypt. in-class listening exercises, we watched an interview on al-Jazeera in which a famous Egyptian psychologist referred to dance as “of course . . . the lowest form of art.”

Even the term “dancer”— raqqasa — is loaded with negative connotations; the word by itself is understood to mean “belly dancer” in Arabic, and thus conjures up her taboo image. For instance, calling someone the “son of a dancer” — ibn raqqasa — is a huge insult in Egypt.

I once made the mistake of calling myself a raqqasa in front of an Egyptian friend of mine. He quickly corrected me: “No no, you are not a raqqasa . . . you are someone who likes to dance!”

The Islamic revival of the last 30 years

Natalie Smolenski ’07 is so joining that new belly-dance troupe when she gets back to Brown this fall.

SPORTS WEDNESDAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · APRIL 12, 2006 · PAGE 12

Late rally keeps baseball rolling against SHU

BY CHARLIE VALLELY ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Aaron Eisman / Herald

Devin Thomas ’07 went 2-for-3 and hit his third home run of the season yesterday.

Softball bats silent in Ivy opening weekend losses to Penn, Princeton

BY JUSTIN GOLDMAN ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

After using spring break to warm up its offense, the softball team’s bats went cold this weekend as it opened the Ivy League season with only one win in four games.

The Bears (1-3 Ivy, 11-21 overall) split a doubleheader with the University of Pennsylvania, winning 2-1 and losing 8-0 on Sunday, the Bears were swept by Princeton 3-0 and 4-0 on Monday.

“The lack of offensive production was particularly frustrating in the Princeton games because our pitchers pitched well enough to win,” said Head Coach Pam McCreesh. “We just have to be able to hit when they are pitching well.”

The weekend started off well for the Bears, who received another great pitching performance from Michelle Moses ’09 in the first Penn game. The first-year allowed only one run on six hits while striking out two and walking only one.

Brown did its offensive damage in the third when Mary Seid ’06 and Amy Baxter ’08 led off the inning with back-to-back walks. Jaimie Wirkowski ’06 then moved each runner up with a sacrifice bunt, which set the table for Melissa Ota ’07. She came through with a two-run single.

Those two runs were all Moses needed, as she continued to confuse and stifle the Quakers’ hitters.

“The first game against Penn was very well played by both teams,” McCreesh said. “We got the timely hits that we needed to come out on top.”

Brown, however, was not so lucky in the second game. Trailing only 1-0 going into the sixth inning, the Quakers’ bats came alive, exploding for seven runs, including a gland slam and a solo home run to break the game wide open. Though Brown did have six hits, it struggled to produce many scoring chances. The Bears advanced a runner to second base only twice in the contest and could not produce a hit with runners in scoring position.

“We just couldn’t get that timely hit that we got in the first game,” McCreesh said.

“We had the chances but just could not capitalize.”

Trying to get the bats going in the first game against Princeton, Bruno ran into reigning Ivy League Pitcher of the Year Erin Snyder. She pitched brilliantly, allowing no runs on only two hits while striking BROWN SPORTS SCOREBOARD TUESDAY, APRIL 11 BASEBALL: Brown 9, Sacred Heart 7 M. LAX: Harvard 10, Brown 6 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12 BASEBALL: vs. Rhode Island (DH), 2 p.m., Aldrich Dexter Field

out 19 hitters.

All the runs Snyder would need came in the first inning, when the Tigers scored what proved to be the winning run off of a bunt single. Bruno could not get anything going offensively, as only Seid and Kelsey Wilson ’09 were able to get a hit off Snyder.

“You have to give Princeton all the credit in the world,” McCreesh said. “We just could not do anything on offense.”

On the mound, Moses and Kristen Schindler ’09 kept Brown in the game, giving up only three runs on six hits.

“It’s extremely difficult when your pitchers are pitching well and you can’t produce offensively,” tri-captain Wirkowski said. “Our pitchers are pitching their hearts out and our defense is playing well, but we need to be able to score runs for them.”

The second game of the doubleheader was more of the same for Brown. The Tisee SOFTBALL, page 8

Third baseman Matt Nuzzo ’09 entered yesterday’s game in the top of the eighth inning as a defensive replacement, but it was his offense that made the difference.

Nuzzo hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to cap a fourrun rally and give the baseball team a 97 win over Sacred Heart University. The Bears, who improved to 8-13 and 5-0 at home, have won six games in a row and eight of nine since opening the season with 12 losses.

The Bears trailed 7-5 heading into the eighth. First baseman Eric Larson ’06 and catcher Devin Thomas ’07 led off the inning with back-to-back singles, and both moved up a bag on a wild pitch. Pinch hitter Jeff Dietz ’08 drove in Larson with a sacrifice fly, and shortstop Robert Papenhause ’09 followed with a single to drive in Thomas from third. With the score tied at seven, Nuzzo hit his first career homer off of reliever Bobby McKee, launching it over the screen in left field.

“I’m just happy to contribute to the team in any way I can,” Nuzzo said. “I got lucky with a hanging curveball, and I stayed through it.”

Pitcher/second baseman Bryan Tews ’07 said the team was excited to see Nuzzo come through in the clutch and begin adjusting to collegiate pitching.

“I think a lot of the guys were really happy for him,” Tews said. “He’s been playing a great third base, and his bat is getting better and better each game. So I think it’s great if he can break out here …

If our freshmen start hitting too, it’s going to be pretty tough to get through our lineup.”

Nuzzo was not the only first-year to make a positive impression. Pitcher Joe Rued ’09 recorded his first career win, giving up three runs (only one earned) in five innings of relief, striking out six and walking two. Rued took over for starter

Paul Costa ’07, who gave up four runs on nine hits in four innings of work and struck out six while walking one.

Tews said Rued delivered on the promise he showed in fall practice.

“He came in really loose and didn’t let anything bother him,” Tews said. “He got ahead of guys with first strikes and he did a great job.”

The Bears took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when shortstop Dan Shapiro ’09 singled Thomas home. But the Pioneers scored three in the third and another run in the fourth to go ahead 4-1.

The Bears responded in the sixth with a four-run outburst that gave them a 54 lead. Leftfielder Danny Hughes ’06 had an RBI groundout, and Larson hit a sacrifice fly to center. Thomas, the designated hitter for the day, hit a two-run homer to close out the scoring, finishing 2-for3 with three runs scored. The home run was the catcher’s third of the season — one less than he had all last year.

Sacred Heart took advantage of two Bruno errors in the seventh to tie the game. It scored two in the eighth to jump ahead before the Bears rallied for the victory.

With their winning streak intact, the Bears will play a doubleheader today against their only Division I intrastate rival, the University of Rhode Island. The games were originally scheduled for April 5 but were pushed back due to rain.

Today’s games will be the Bears’ sixth and seventh in a four-day span. Co-captain Hughes said the stretch has been tiring, especially because two of the games went to extra innings. But he added that the Bears will be ready for URI, which has played four games in four days.

“It’s a lot of games, and you do get tired,” he said. “But (URI is) in the same boat, and you know what you’re going to get when you play a good team like Rhode Island.”

The first game starts at 2 p.m. at Dexter Aldrich Field.

No. 17 Harvard turns out the lights on m. lax 10-6

BY CHRIS MAHR SPORTS STAFF WRITER

After a strong first half that saw five different players score, the men’s lacrosse team struggled mightily after intermission in last night’s match-up with No. 17 Harvard.

The Crimson controlled the ball and the game from the outset of the second half as Brown was outscored 5-1 over the final 30 minutes en route to a 10-6 loss, the team’s fifth straight.

“They had the ball the whole second half and that was reflected by the faceoffs,” said Head Coach Scott Nelson. “And it’s never good when (your opponent) outshoots you as much as (Harvard) did.”

Despite doing all they could to halt a four-game losing streak dating back to March 18, the Bears saw their Ivy record dip to 0-2 (2-7 overall) after the loss.

“We gave our best effort and played with a lot of heart and intensity,” said midfielder and co-captain Grant Derkac ’06. “I don’t know what else to say.”

Bruno’s defense was caught napping to start the game. Harvard jumped out to a 2-0 advantage when attackman Greg Cohen beat two Brown defenders to score the game’s opening goal. Then, after defenseman Bobby Shields ’07 had a pass picked off with goaltender Nick Gentilesco ’06 away from the net, Harvard capitalized to go up by two.

The Bears rebounded from their rough start with three unanswered goals from attackman Kyle Wailes ’06, midfielder Jeff

Hall ’08 and attackman Dave Madeira ’07.

The lead lasted only 10 seconds though, as Harvard tied the game at three off the ensuing faceoff. The score stayed that way until the end of the quarter, bringing a frenetic first period to a close.

“Both teams came out playing with intensity and causing turnovers,” Nelson said. “Our guys played as hard as they could play.”

Both teams managed two goals in the second quarter, although Brown dodged several bullets in the process. The biggest was when a strong Harvard ride caused a turnover deep in Brown’s zone, but Gentilesco came up big for the Bears with a save on the subsequent breakaway opportunity by Harvard. Brown failed on several other clears in the quarter as well, but none of them proved costly.

Whereas the first half was very much a back-and-forth affair, Harvard dominated the second half. Attackman Brooks Scholl beat his defender one-on-one to break the 5-5 deadlock just 1:13 after the break, and the Crimson never looked back. Harvard won all three faceoffs in the third quarter and seemed to get to every loose ball for the rest of the game. The visitors from Cambridge scored a trio of unanswered goals after Scholl’s tally, including a backbreaking coast-to-coast effort by defenseman Peter Doyle that put them up 9-5 in the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, Brown had trouble generating any sort of offense of its own. The Bears managed just three shots in the third

period and 12 for the second half, a direct consequence of Harvard’s miserly ball control during the last two quarters.

“We just played too much defense in the second half,” Derkac said.

Despite the discouraging end to what started out as a promising game, the Bears cannot afford to hang their heads. Their gauntlet of an Ivy League schedule gets no easier as they travel to Franklin Field on Saturday to take on No. 7 University of Pennsylvania.

“It’s a pride issue,” Derkac said when asked about the team’s mindset for the rest of the season. “Two losses in the league doesn’t look so good, but in the Ivy League anything can happen.”

Ashley Hess / Herald

Goaltender Nick Gentilesco ’06 made 12 saves against Harvard last night.