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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD M ONDAY,

Volume CXLII, No. 32

RCH 12, 1 2, 2007 20 07

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

DPS, students disagree on meaning of stop data BY DEBBIE LEHMANN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Field stop data collected by the Department of Public Safety shows that officers conduct stops “in a professional manner” and do not use racial profiling, said Chief of Police Mark Porter. But one University official said the small data sample was not conclusive, and student activists say the data does not match up with their experiences. DPS stopped 202 people in 2006, 71 percent of them white, according to the report. Blacks made up 16 percent of people stopped, while Hispanics made up 2 percent and Asians made up only 1 percent. 10 percent of those stopped were recorded as being of unknown race. The report also found that 84 percent of people stopped were male. 70 percent of those stopped were unaffiliated with the University. 28 percent were students and 2 percent were staff members, according to the DPS report. Of those stopped, 31 percent were “temporarily detained,” 25 percent were interviewed in the field

Min Wu / Herald Neeta Pal ‘09 performed in the Odissi style of Indian classical dance in an act called “Moksha” at the SASA Cultural Show on Saturday evening.

SASA show spices up tradition

Social justice focus of student, alum conference

BY LINDSEY MEYERS ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

BY SARA MOLINARO METRO EDITOR

Traditional and modern elements of music, dance and comedy were effectively combined Saturday night when the South Asian Students’ Association presented its annual cultural show to an appreciative audience that ﬁlled Salomon 101 to capacity. The title of this year’s show, “Mazaa,” which is the Hindi word for pleasure, was an apt billing for the 13-act show, which struck a dy-

Criminal defense, environmental law, civil liberties and international law were among the many areas of expertise shared by alums who returned to campus this weekend for a two-day conference called “Advancing Social Justice Through the Law.” Over 100 people attended

ARTS & CULTURE namic balance between the old and new. Whether from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka or the Maldives, a number of South Asian cultures inﬂuenced the music, song, dance and comedy fetchingly presented by the show. There were kaleidoscopically colored garments in the Bollywoodinspired “Fashion Show,” choreographed by Afshan Ajmiri ’08, and rhythmically powerful music in the piece “East Meets West,” ably performed by percussionist Akshay Rathod ’10 and guitarist James Hinton ’10. The performance “Ek Ladki Ko Dekha,” a song from the classic Bollywood movie “1942: A Love Story,” provided a special treat as it ended with a serenade to a member of the audience. In addition to displaying South Asian culture, the show created a bridge to contemporary American music and comedy. A performance of South Asian dance and hip-hop, “Infusion” featured choreography by Brown Badmaash and included an Indian remix of Usher’s 2004 pop classic “Yeah.” Particularly effective were the comedy sketches, displayed on a screen between several of the acts. Humorously parodying both American and South Asian culture, these clips animated the crowd with barreling laughter. The emcees — Shyam Sundaram ’08, Binayak Mishra ’08 and Kumar Vasudevan ’08 — deftly provided hilarious comedy to the show.

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Brown daredevils scale University buildings BY OLIVER BOWERS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

They haven’t yet gained the notoriety of Alain “Spiderman” Robert, the urban climber who has scaled skyscrapers around the globe, but several student-daredevils are boldly ascending the walls of University buildings. Two weeks ago, two male undergraduate students, who spoke on condition of anonymity, scaled the face of the Graduate Center Bar and the wall underneath the Grad Center ramp. They call the activity “buildering,” a play on the

word “bouldering,” — a style of climbing without ropes in which rock climbers make short climbs that test strength and technique.

FEATURE The two students said they have also “chimney-climbed” into several sixth-story windows of Grad Center without ropes. “Chimney-climbing” involves scaling a rock-face, or building in this case, by bracing oneself between two closely spaced vertical surfaces. “We’ve pretty much climbed

everything on the Main Green,” said one of the students. He named Sayles Hall and Wilson Hall specifically and added that they have also climbed Barus Hall next to MacMillan Hall but were “kicked off” by officers from the Department of Public Safety. “It’s constantly an issue of whether Brown police will come,” the student said. The danger of getting caught continued on page 6 by the police, the students said, is one of the reasons they usually don’t use a rope. If a DPS offi-

Two male undergraduate students have taken to “buildering,” a style of climbing without ropes.

Divestment from Sudan, 1 year later Divest BY MATTHEW VARLEY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Kori Schulman / Herald File Photo Feb. 25 marked the ﬁrst anniversary of the Corporation’s vote for divestment from companies linked to the Sudanese government. Nearly 50 students demonstrated on the steps of Faunce last February to call for divestment from Sudan.

A NEW “ANARCHIST” Michael Dean ’09 has a new take on Dario Fo’s satire of bureaucracy, “The Accidental Death of an Anarchist”

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the conference, held in SmithBuonanno Hall. The conference was designed to “bring together like-minded people and to try to make connections between what people are doing on campus and outside of campus,” said Leo Beletsky MPH’04, one of the conference’s organizers and a law

and 24 percent received a warning. 15 percent of the stops were recorded as assisting the Providence Police Department with arrests, according to the analysis of the data. The Office of Institutional Diversity analyzed the field stop data, taking into consideration the proportion of each racial group in the community. Black male students, blacks unaffiliated with the University and whites unaffiliated with the University were all stopped disproportionately more than their base-rate percentages would indicate. Asians, Hispanics and white females were stopped disproportionately less than would be expected given their presence in the University population. Black male students made up 7 percent of stops and make up 5 percent of the student population, the analysis found. Blacks unaffiliated with the University made up 17 percent of stops and make up 14.2 percent of the Providence population. White male students made up

5 CAMPUS NEWS

February marked the ﬁrst anniversary of the Corporation’s vote to divest from companies linked to the Sudanese government. Brown was one of the ﬁrst universities in the nation to divest from Sudan in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region, where government-supported militia groups are perpetrating genocide against certain ethnic groups. Today, over 35 U.S. colleges and universities have divested, according to Scott Warren ’09 of the Darfur Action Network. “A lot of colleges became interested in divestment” following Brown’s example, Warren said, “and since

THREE ON TASK FORCE Three undergraduate students were named by UCS to the Task Force on Undergraduate Education

11 OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

then a lot of those colleges have taken action.” “Although Brown might not have had a ton of money invested in these companies, the momentum it has provided for other campaigns is at this point unquantiﬁable,” he said. Fourteen companies have since been added to the University’s investment blacklist, according to Professor of Economics Louis Putterman, who served on the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investing Policies for several years and chaired the committee at the time of the Corporation vote. Putterman said the University’s “do not invest” list comprises mostly energy companies based overseas, as it is currently illegal BIRDS, BEES AND BEARS Katy Crane ’07 investigates the effect that global warming is having on such diverse animals as birds, bees and bears in North America

for U.S. citizens to do business in Sudan. The ACCRI has worked to identify “those companies that were most actively engaged in … generating profits that were taxed by the Sudanese government without direct benefit to the ordinary population in the country,” he said. In its review process of corporations, the ACCRI — which comprises Brown faculty, students and alumni representatives — is aided by the independent research firms Institutional Shareholder Services and the Investor Responsibility Research Center as well as other universities involved in divestment, Putterman said.

12 SPORTS

continued on page 6 M. LAX BURNS FRIARS The No. 18 men’s lacrosse team had little trouble defeating Providence College 7-3 Saturday in securing its second straight win

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TODAY THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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WE A T H E R

MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

Chocolate Covered Cotton | Mark Brinker

TODAY

TOMORROW

mostly sunny 53 / 35

mostly cloudy 55 / 43

MENU SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — BBQ Beef Sandwich, Chicken Parmesan Grinder, Creole Mixed Vegetables, Country Wedding Soup, Vegetarian Six Bean Soup, Blondies, V Sugar Cookies

LUNCH — Meat Tortellini with Sauce, Cheesy Zucchini Casserole, Potato Vegetable Chowder with Ham, Vegetarian Japanese Noodle Soup, Raspberry Swirl Cookies

DINNER — Rotisserie Style Chicken, Italian Couscous, Artichokes with Stewed Tomatoes and Wine, Spinach Fettucini, Zucchini Lasagna, Strawberry Jello, Blueberry Gingerbread

DINNER — Grilled Mustard Chicken, Sweet and Sour Tofu, Chinese Fried Rice, Peas with Mushrooms, Cauliﬂower, Green Beans and Peppers, French Bread, Dutch Cherry Cake

WBF | Matt Vascellaro

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

Hi, How Are You | Alison Naturale

Deo | Daniel Perez

Puzzles by Pappocom

CROSSWORD

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 What blowhards do 5 “Not __ out of you!” 10 June 6, 1944 14 Humdinger 15 Climber’s toehold 16 Baptism or marriage 17 Chief Norse god 18 Settlers’ caravan 20 Obtains 21 Andy Roddick specialty 22 Easy marks 23 Lucky Luciano cohort Lansky 25 Something to doff 26 Can’t tolerate 29 Untanned animal skin 33 Explorer Sir Francis 34 Bridges 36 Edge of a canyon 37 Wash 38 Be worthy of 39 Skirt almost to the ankle 40 “__ Got a Crush on You” 41 Actress Allen of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” 42 Croc’s cousin 43 Sudden windfall 45 Experts 46 Palmer’s peg 47 Partner of desist 49 Artist’s chalklike crayon 52 Inspiration for Keats 53 Peel 57 What five answers in this puzzle are 59 Inkling 60 Turkish titles 61 Bit of “golden” nostalgia 62 Crab’s grabber 63 NCO two levels above cpl. 64 Carpenter’s grips 65 “Show Boat” composer Jerome DOWN 1 Online journal 2 Discourteous

3 Settled on the 32 Arab leaders 49 Sch. fund-raising ground 34 Infection fighters gps. 4 Puff from a 35 Start to amble? 50 Hits ÷ at-bats barrel 38 Yiddish stats: Abbr. 5 Forever congrats 51 Pirate’s loot 6 War’s opposite 39 Lone dissenter 54 Insignificant, as 7 Garden border 41 Joints with caps gossip tool 42 “Fill ’er up!” fill 55 A stone’s throw 8 A prima donna’s 44 Swear (to) from needs stroking 45 Parsons’ places 56 Daybreak 9 Strong inclination 47 Half of Miss 58 Peyton 10 Sexpert Muffet’s meal Manning’s Westheimer, 48 Bilko or Banks younger brother familiarly ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 11 Twice the radius: Abbr. 12 “Take __ from me” 13 Cravings 19 January warm stretches 24 Palindromic “before” 26 Deviate from the script 27 Concertgoer’s “Well done!” 28 Refuge 29 Drops from the sky 30 More than just peeved 31 Mason’s 3/12/07 surveying partner xwordeditor@aol.com

Deep Fried Kittens | Cara FitzGibbon

Cloudy Side Up | Mike Lauritano

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ARTS & CULTURE MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

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Orchestra features Brodsky ’09 and Antonio Baptista BY ALEX ROEHRKASSSE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Brown University Orchestra performed works by Michael Abels, Maurice Ravel and Tchaikovsky Saturday evening in a commendable performance under guest conductor Antonio Baptista. Featured pianist Bonni Brodsky ’09 — one of three winners of Brown’s 2006 concerto competition — offered up a rousing performance of Ravel’s “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in G Major,” which effectively showcased her ﬂawless technique and artistic elucidation. The performance opened with contemporary American compos-

er Michael Abels’ eclectic “Global Warming,” followed by the Ravel concerto and a forceful rendition of Tchaikovsky’s famous “Symphony No. 4 in F Minor.” Brodsky’s concerto performance was the most enjoyable of the three.

REVIEW Her deliberate musical gestures were spot-on, nimbly leading the ensemble through both playful and passionate passages. “I thought she did a great job,” said Arlene Cole, teaching associate in music and Brodsky’s piano instructor at Brown. “It was a very difﬁcult concerto,” she added.

Brodsky usually plays cello with the orchestra. Cole said Brodsky’s multi-instrumental prowess enhances her ability to interact with the ensemble as a soloist. The concert’s opening piece, “Global Warming,” presented a mixture of ethnic textures ranging from Irish to Middle Eastern. The title of the composition doesn’t refer to any trend in climate — rather, it was inspired by Abels’ sense that international relations were rapidly improving at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Concertmaster Drew Nobile ’07 navigated the piece’s skittish violin continued on page 4

Tai Ho Shin / Herald The Brown University Orchestra, led by guest conductor Antonio Baptista, performed works by Abels, Ravel and Tchaikovsky Saturday night.

In “Anarchist,” railroad workers and reason thrown out the window BY MARIELA QUINTANA CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Rahul Keerthi / Herald The Sarah Doyle Women’s Center held a reception Friday for the opening of its month-long exhibit of works by Candice Smith Corby.

Smith Corby exhibit explores femininity BY CATHERINE GOLDBERG CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Sarah Doyle Women’s Center held an opening reception Friday for its month-long exhibition of works by artist Candice Smith Corby to celebrate Women’s History Month. The artist explores objects and spaces that have simultaneously been cherished by women and have conﬁned them from the American colonial era to the present day. Instead of using a typical stretched canvas, Smith Corby paints on materials traditionally associated with women and femininity, such as embroidered cloth-napkins, ﬂoral wallpaper, delicate doilies and small tapestries. One painting, rendered with del-

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REVIEW icate detail on a small napkin, contains a setting of blue Chinaware beneath a chair covered with a fabric of luscious pink and red ﬂoral designs. “Guten Appetit,” also painted on a napkin, depicts two images of the same woman — one about to swallow a frog and another about to swallow a key. The artist’s use of domestic materials makes the room look less like a conventional gallery and more like a home. Upon ﬁrst glimpse, each piece seems fun, quirky and almost cute. One might even be inclined to dismiss Smith-Corby’s works continued on page 4

Michael Dean’s ’09 adaptation of Dario Fo’s “The Accidental Death of an Anarchist” parallels the futile and ultimately frustrating deceits of the conservative 1960s Italian regime with the current American involvement in Iraq. Politically charged and incredibly absurd, the play was warmly welcomed and enthusiastically applauded Saturday night by the mostly student audience at Production Workshop. “The Accidental Death of an Anarchist,” which ran Friday to Sunday, opened in a sparsely decorated police station. But something was clearly amiss. The play’s action took place in Milan, yet the set oddly evoked the sweltering sultanates of the modern Middle East rather than the mod facades of Milan in the 1960s. Khaki camouﬂage formed the backdrop, and the interrogation room’s single open window looked out on a sandy cityscape. Arabian architecture swaggered in a mirage of desert heat outside, and a patriotic portrait of President Bush smirked inside just above the door. The stage design immediately set the tone for Fo’s fast-paced political satire ﬁlled with relentless mocking of government regimes and bureaucratic agencies.

A Nobel-winning playwright and a sharp political critic, Fo often centers his work on the corruption of modern society. The characters’ unrestrained monologues and wild rants reveal government exploitation but also illustrate bureaucrats’ brain-

REVIEW washed indoctrination and ignorance. Throwing logic and character development to the wayside, “The Accidental Death of an Anarchist” instead emphasizes storytelling and wild, dream-like fantasies to convey his political mes-

sage. Each of the characters is a cartoon-like caricature. From the play’s opening scene, wild, comedic energy abound as the strident Fool, played by Eileen Meny ’07, and the contained and determined Inspector Bertozzo, played by undergrad Sarah Tolan-Mee, duke it out. With loud and overly annunciated commands, Inspector Bertozzo attempts to conduct an interrogation into the death of a railroad worker and supposed anarchist who mysteriously fell out of the investigation room’s fourth ﬂoor window. But the Fool’s twistcontinued on page 4

ED I TO R S’ PI CK S MONDAY, MARCH 12 “Flavor Flav vs. Ms. New York: Perceptions of Black Women in Reality Television”: screening and discussion, Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, 8:45 p.m. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14 Reading by Rodrigo Garcia Lopes: McCormack Family Theater, 5:30 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14 and THURSDAY, MARCH 15 Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble: Grant Recital Hall, 8 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14 through SUNDAY SUNDAY, MA RCH 18 Fusion Dance Concert: Ashamu Dance Studio, through Saturday, 8 p.m. and Sunday, 2 p.m.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15 Keynote address by pulp writer and historian Will Murray, “Pulp Uncovered: How Pulp Magazines Changed America”: Smith-Buonanno 106, 6 p.m.

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MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

Orchestra features Brodsky ’09 and Antonio Baptista continued from page 3 solos gracefully, echoed ominously by the cello in the opening melodies. But the introduction of complex percussive textures confused the orchestra’s rhythmic sense, and Batista seemed tentative in his direction, rarely drawing his gaze away from his score to engage the performers. The concerto — inspired by the unlikely duo of Mozart and Gershwin — fused elements of early American jazz with traditional symphonic music. The opening Allegramente featured this interplay most prominently in gracious melodies interjected with staccato “um-pahs” and ethereal arrhythmic refrains that weaved in and out of potent blues scales.

Ravel modeled the second movement of his piece off of Mozart’s “Clarinet Quintet,” painstakingly constructing it “bar by bar,” according to the program. Opening with a solemn piano solo, its complex rhythmic divisions of the soaring melody gave way to the explosive playfulness of the ﬁnal Presto, after which Brodsky received a wellearned and emphatic standing ovation. Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4” saw the orchestra at its most heartfelt, and Baptista displayed comfort with the familiar piece. The darkly regal Andante passed only brieﬂy into sweet pastoral melodies before lapsing back into intense emotionalism. Frantic plucking in the strings characterized the third movement, interspersed with woodwind and

brass choirs in medieval fashion. In the dramatic ﬂight of the ﬁnal Allegro con fuoco, Baptista pushed the tempo furiously onward as if he feared Sayles Hall would collapse before the tense movement could ascend to achieve its climax. It was a powerful resolution to an impressive program. Baptista, who is one of Portugal’s leading conductors, was ecstatic with Saturday’s performance and expressed his deep pleasure in being able to conduct the orchestra. “If one day I have the accommodations, I would like to invite them all to Portugal,” he said through a translator — Manuel Possolo ’09, one of the violinists. A second performance of the same program was given Sunday evening in Sayles Hall.

Smith Corby exhibit in Sarah Doyle Center explores femininity continued from page 3 as decoration. But her work is not simply decoration. Instead she uses craft and adornment to make a powerful artistic statement. A wall-length piece, “A Good Wife,” is a particularly poignant, even disturbing piece that explores the ﬁne line between submissive acceptance and full acceptance by women of their designated role in society. In a portrait-like composi-

tion, a modern-day woman wears a George Washington-like wig and holds up her left hand in the “scout’s honor” salute. A ribbon that ﬂows around and above her lists all the things a “good wife” is presumably expected to do, including that she “takes his name,” “is always pleasant” and “is available.” Upon a closer look, intricate ﬂoral wallpaper patterns gracing the background become visible, as does the paper-thin material on which the

whole piece is painted. It then becomes all too clear that the work is not a revering portrait of a woman. Rather, it portrays a wife as wallpaper, an unnoticed ornament meant to fade into the background. Smith Corby explores the ambiguities of domestic space, but more subtly she investigates the assumed differences between craft and art and their intimate relationship to women. The exhibit runs until March 31.

In “Anarchist,” railroad workers and reason thrown out the window continued from page 3 ing, flip-flopping replies and frantic gesticulations make it hard to discern who is really in charge. Like the Fool in King Lear, Fo’s Fool takes on the role of the trickster and master magician. In contrast to the dense inspectors, the Fool gains shrewd wisdom and, ultimately, the upper hand. With his riddling rants and quick-witted games, the Fool puzzles his ostensible superiors. Animatedly played by Meny, the Fool bounds about the stage, in one moment sermonizing on top of the inspector’s desk, and in the next, on all fours growling and frothing like a rabid dog. The investigation into the railroad worker’s death spins wildly as the Fool infiltrates the police headquarters in the guise of an investigating judge. As a master puppeteer, he turns the inspectors on

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their heads and against each other, only to later supposedly aid them in a cover-up conspiracy. The first act culminates in a ludicrous rendition of the classic song, “Build Me Up, Buttercup,” led by the Fool as a gaggle of police goons awkwardly try to keep in step. As the Fool belts out the lyrics, the policemen’s hips rotate methodically and their arms pumps up and down mechanically like spastic robots. Met with delighted applause and laughter, this glorious and euphoric dance thrilled the audience and exemplified the infectious energy of student theatre. With the introduction of the crafty news reporter Feletti, played by Alicia Coneys ’09, the second act continues the adrenaline-charged pace of the first. But like all other characters, she too becomes susceptible to the Fool’s long-winded

banter and unpredictable ruses. Both Feletti and the timid, subservient Captain Pisani, played by Jing Xu ’10, are irreconcilably perplexed by the investigation into the railroad’s worker’s death. Pandemonium ensues as accusations of conspiracy theories and cover-up scandals sling back and forth. Deception and guises are discovered and swept away only for new ones to be contrived once again. One of the Fool’s many guises includes a prosthetic leg, which is itself a deceit — a fake of a fake, so to speak. As the play ends, the four-story fatal fall of the anarchist emerges as a bureaucratic scandal to conceal the corrupt relationship between the police and government. Just like the defenestrated body of the anarchist, it seems that all reason and rites have been thrown out the window.

CAMPUS N EWS MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

NEWS

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Brown neuroscientist studies links between sleep and memory A Brown-led research team has found that the electrical activity in the brain cells of sleeping mice isn’t completely random — the team observed a “dialogue” between the hippocampus and the neocortex, areas of the brain where memories are made and stored. Mayank Mehta, assistant professor of neuroscience, led the research team that made the discovery. The team’s work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We’ve known for a century that the hippocampus and the neocortex are anatomically connected. But this is the ﬁrst time we’ve seen the effect of this connectivity in the brains of live animals,” Mehta said in a March 5 University news release. “The dialogue is quite unexpected and complex, suggesting that this ‘simple’ brain circuit is much more sophisticated than we imagined.” The researchers discovered that the slow and regular ﬁring of excitatory cells in the neocortex was echoed in three parts of the hippocampus, suggesting that the neocortex initiates and controls the communication instead of the hippocampus, according to the release. Mehta suggested, in a commentary published in the Nature Neuroscience journal in January, that memories are not stored during sleep but instead that sleep acts as a way to erase memories and create “a fresh page” for new memories, according to the release. Mehta’s work was supported by the Rhode Island Foundation, the Salomon Foundation, NARSAD: the Mental Health Research Association, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. — Kristina Kelleher

3 students named to College task force BY EVAN BOGGS STAFF WRITER

Three students were selected late last week by the Undergraduate Council of Students to serve on the recently created Task Force on Undergraduate Education. Jason Becker ’09, Fiona Heckscher ’09 and Kumar Vasudevan ’08 were chosen from 30 applicants during a week-long selection process that included written applications and interviews with UCS members, said Sara Damiano ’08, the UCS academic and administrative affairs chair, who was in charge of selecting the committee members. The task force was announced March 1 in a campus-wide e-mail from Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron and Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98. The committee, which will undertake a broad review of the College and its curriculum, will comprise 13 members, including 10 faculty, two of whom are also members of the University administration. “Demands on educated people are changing,” Vasudevan said of the task force’s importance. “We don’t need to give up our philosophy — it’s just adding onto what we already have,” he added. “I don’t think the discussion has ever reached the level it is at now on campus,” Becker said. Professors have begun to discuss revamping concentrations they supervise, and departments have begun to recognize that the New Curriculum may have shortcomings, he added. “Seems to me that the environ-

ment is appropriate for change right now,” Becker said. Vasudevan said his experiences as a South Asian studies concentrator pushed him to apply for the position. In a program he described as “diffuse” and lacking in strict requirements, Vasudevan found an atmosphere of academic inquiry he would like to spread across campus. “I was frustrated with the idea that I was forced to justify every class I was taking,” Vasudevan said, but he added that he now feels this process should be applied to other more restrictive majors. Vasudevan said the curriculum should require students to think about why they take the courses they choose regardless of whether they are required for a concentration. Becker said he is not taking his position on the task force with a single initiative or issue in mind. “I don’t have some power issues that I want to push forward,” he said. “I think I’m in a position where I can be appropriately critical and also appropriately defensive (on any issue).” For Heckscher, her role on the task force is simple: “Represent the student body,” she said. “I think the New Curriculum is no longer new, and it’s nice to see an acknowledgement of that and a rethinking (of the College),” Heckscher said. Thirty students submitted written applications, including a short personal statement on why they should be the student body’s representative on the committee, and

half were called back to be interviewed by UCS members. Students were chosen according to ﬁve criteria ranging from an applicant’s ability to critically evaluate their work with the committee to the potential diversity they could bring to the task force, Damiano said. The small number of students could prove a critical shortcoming for the committee, as it condenses sentiment of the undergraduate student body into the contributions of three representatives, Damiano said. “It’s very hard to have a sample of all the different concentrations,” Damiano added as an example of how the committee could overlook the perspectives of different campus groups. Adequate student representation on the committee is something Vasudevan and Becker said they would wait to evaluate, while Heckscher said she feels the number of student members is surprisingly high. “We have more student representation on any of our curriculum committees than any of our peer schools,” Heckscher said. “While I feel the more student representation the better, I’m happy that (administrators) have given (us) what they have,” she added. Though Damiano urged the new members to make their voices heard in meetings, she said she believes “the committee also needs to make an effort to engage the student body through forums or surveys or an e-mail address where students can send feedback.”

Science and society to graduate ﬁrst concentrators BY JOY NEUMEYER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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The science and society concentration will graduate its ﬁrst class of six seniors this spring. The concentration, which integrates sciences and the humanities to examine science’s social implications, was approved this year after several years of student and faculty initiative. “It’s a really important area of both scholarship and the world that really wasn’t being addressed,” said Professor of Biology Anne FaustoSterling PhD’70, who serves as the concentration’s adviser and chair of the Committee on Science and Technology Studies, which advocated for the concentration. Science and society provides “a context for how science is done, thought about and applied,” said Phil Brown, professor of sociology and also a member of the science and technology studies committee. Brown said the concentration’s inception began around eight years ago, when a group of faculty who “all had interest in different areas” of science and the humanities formed a study group that eventually became the committee. Even before the committee began the process of creating a new concentration, students pursued independent concentrations in the subject area. Even without a department, these students formed a department undergraduate group and began hosting outside speakers. “Students became really important allies in thinking about the

concentration and helping to design it,” Fausto-Sterling said. “It was 50-50 with students.” The concentration includes two required courses, SC 49: “Introduction to Science Studies” and SC 190: “Senior Seminar in Science and Society.” Students must also take three courses in one of several thematic tracks, such as gender and science or health and medicine. In addition, concentrators must take four courses in one of three sciences — physical sciences, life sciences or mathematics — and three courses in a category called science studies theory. Science studies theory courses include classes in rhetoric and modern culture and media. Fausto-Sterling said the concentration prepares students interested in medicine, public policy, law, museum studies and any academic disciplines. “It opens up all sorts of interesting work potential,” she said. Blanche Greene-Cramer ’07 said her plan to become a biomedical engineer changed when she realized she enjoyed the humanities as much as science. “I wondered how valid doing one or the other really was,” she said. Greene-Cramer eventually chose biology as her primary science, and health and medicine as her thematic track. She said her science and society concentration has given her “a fairly unique perspective. … I know the science behind a lot of what I’m studying, but I also have a critical humanities lens.” She has applied to a gradu-

ate program in public health and a joint master’s program between U.S. universities and the Peace Corps. Though Greene-Cramer said the concentration seemed “sort of unorganized” because it is so new and it was sometimes difﬁcult to “draw the connections between individual classes,” she concluded that “it’s a really great way to take advantage of the open curriculum at Brown.” Concentrator Daniel Sonshine ’07 said the “ways of thinking about subjects from different perspectives” was a valuable part of the concentration. Sonshine, who plans to attend medical school, said concentration advising was unorganized “since it’s new,” but that “it’s been a great experience.” “I could have come out of this school without knowing how to write a real essay,” he said, laughing. “Interest will just continue to grow” after this year’s graduating class of six students, Fausto-Sterling said. She noted that she has recently spoken with at least 10 to 12 sophomores interested in declaring science and society as their concentration. “It’s worked out much better even than we could have hoped for,” Brown said. “As soon as I read about the science and society concentration, I knew it was the one for me,” said Carly Lochala ’09, who plans to concentrate in science and society. “Exploring the ﬁeld of science from different perspectives really appeals to me.”

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Without a climbing wall, Brown daredevils scale University buildings, emulate Spider-man, dodge DPS continued from page 1 cer approached the students when they were using a rope, it would be harder for them to get away without leaving a $200 investment behind, they said. The builderers are not the ﬁrst students to climb Brown’s buildings. Devon Penney ’06 GS used to builder regularly two to three years ago as a Brown undergrad. “The big places I’ve gone to a lot are Barus Hall … and also the applied math building (180 George St.),” he said. On those buildings, he added, the “blocks are granite … it provides pretty good handholds, and you can make interesting routes.” Penney, a graduate student in computer science, said he used to mark the rocks needed for interesting “problems,” or climbing routes, with athletic tape. He has also climbed a wall near Smith-Buonanno Hall, he said. Penney sometimes would “builder in the middle of the night” at the Center for Information Technology as a study break, he said. Penney said two or three other climbers who were members

of the Brown Outing Club would often join him. At peak popularity, the climbs involved about four people. One of the more difficult climbs Penney’s group attempted was a traverse on Barus Hall. “You traverse across the (entire front of the building) facing Hope Street, then you climb over a railing … which is kind of scary. No one ever finished it because it was really difficult,” Penney said. Penney said he stopped climbing because DPS officers would not let his group continue to scale buildings. “Sometimes (DPS officers would) come by and say, ‘Oh, what are you doing? You should stop.’ We actually had our name taken down once, and they said, ‘You know, you’ve really got to stop doing this,’ so we actually didn’t do it much after that,” he said. DPS did not respond to numerous requests for comment. Though he does not builder much anymore, Penney said that “every now and then, I’ll jump on a building” or the side of a stairwell. He added that he’s working on some other projects “that are

1 year since Sudan divestment continued from page 1 After being reviewed by the ACCRI, information regarding companies linked to the Sudanese government is passed on to the Corporation. If the Corporation deems a company’s business practices unethical, it votes to withdraw existing investments or avoid future ones. However, the process of divestment is complicated by the fact that the University stock portfolio is in constant flux. “If we were to meet in November about a certain company and found out that Brown did own shares, by the time we made a decision — let’s say in December — Brown might already have traded it,” Putterman said. The University may still have indirect investments in blacklisted companies through commingled funds, such as mutual or hedge funds, which are invested by professional managers. So, according to Putterman, the University cannot prevent the purchase of stock in Sudan-affiliated companies “without pulling out from the portfolios entirely.” “The committee agreed with the investment office people that it could be extremely costly to the University to have to switch its portfolios,” Putterman said. The compromise was to “send letters to the investment managers of those commingled funds explaining to them the University’s policy with regard to investing in companies active in Sudan and our desire they not hold those companies,” he added. Harold Ward, professor emeritus of environmental studies, is currently chair of the ACCRI. Ward, a veteran member of the committee, said “shareholder re-

sponsibility has become a bigger issue” since he first joined the ACCRI in 1998. The work of the committee — which also recommended the University’s divestment from the tobacco industry in 2003 — is based on “reviewing proxy proposals that have raised social issues and making recommendations to the University on how it should vote its proxies,” Ward said. Issues considered include toxicity, workers’ rights, healthcare, employee benefits, working conditions, charitable contributions and lobbying expenses. Though many schools — including all eight in the Ivy League — have restricted or abolished investment in companies linked to Sudan, Ward said communication among the universities was limited, at least on an administrative level. “Students are a lot better at collaborating than faculty, it turns out,” Ward said in reference to the cooperation among the Brown Darfur Action Network and similar groups at peer institutions. “One of the things I hope to do this spring semester is to make some links a little stronger,” he added. Despite the successes of the University’s divestment campaign, Putterman noted that grim realities persist in Sudan. “Unfortunately the situation hasn’t improved at all. … We’re still sitting here and it’s still unfolding over there, so I have to feel pretty disappointed and not satisfied that we’ve done enough by any means,” Putterman said. Nevertheless, he added, “None of us as individuals or as members of the institution can be neutral” about the conflict in Sudan, and a policy of divestment is at least “one minimal step we could all take.”

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kind of hush-hush.” Buildering has a history at Brown that extends at least 40 years. A book titled “A Climbing Guide to Brown University” was written in 1966 and can be found in the ofﬁce of the Brown Outing Club — it lists about 100 different climbs for buildings on campus, broken down by techniques used and ranked from 5.1 to 5.9 using the Yosemite decimal system, a climbing ranking system that is no longer popularly used. In the guide, a “balances and traverses” chapter lists climbs on the Rockefeller Library, Avon Cinema, Carrie Tower and the Van Wickle Gates. A chapter on “laybacks,” a technique common for crack climbing, has routes for climbs on Barus and Holley and Soldiers Arch. A “chimney” chapter lists climbs on Rhode Island Hall, and a “friction and miscellaneous” chapter gives routes for Faunce House. Penney said he has never tried any of the routes in the guidebook but speculated that many of the climbs would get students into trouble. “It’s not really the most condoned activity on campus,” he said.

Shane Schoepfer ’09, president of the Brown Outing Club, said the club does not condone or organize buildering at Brown, though he has heard stories. Last year there was discussion on the club’s listserv about rappelling down the Sciences Library, an idea that was “very quickly squelched” by Associate Dean of the College David Targan, the group’s faculty adviser, Schoepfer said. Buildering “is a sign of desperation,” Schoepfer said. “We don’t have a climbing wall here at Brown. It’s an amenity that virtually every other college in the country has at this point. … I think the fundamental fact about climbers is that they will climb things and — if there are not legitimate things to climb — they’ll ﬁnd something,” he added. Both students who were buildering Grad Center two weeks ago had a similar take. “In my mind, Brown doesn’t have any places to climb (such as a climbing wall). That’s insane for a school our size,” one of the students said. They did mention, though, that the wall under the Grad Center ramp is dotted with

“roots,” or pieces of rock grafted to the wall that serve as handholds and footholds for climbers. The students climbing Grad Center said the roots, which were placed by students, were already there when they began climbing at Brown. Schoepfer said that there is a petition circulating to have a climbing wall included in the Jonathan Nelson Fitness Center, which is currently in its planning stages. Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger said Assistant Director of Athletics Matthew Tsimikas have met with a number of students interested in a climbing wall. Goldberger said discussion is still underway about whether a wall is feasible and whether it might be built in the Olney-Margolies Athletics Center or the planned new ﬁtness center. Besides trips to Rhode Island’s Lincoln Woods State Park, Schoepfer said the outing club makes a trip to the Rhode Island Rock Gym every Sunday night. Usually, 12 to 15 students show up, he said. “It’s probably the best outlet for climbing addicts on campus right now,” he said.

Students, alums discuss achieving social justice through the law continued from page 1 student at Temple University. The conference featured a series of panels on topics such as gay rights, environmental law, criminal defense and drug regulation. The panels included faculty moderators and alumni speakers who work in the relevant ﬁelds. Providence Mayor David Cicilline ’83 gave the conference’s opening address, discussing his path to politics through legal training and work as a juvenile public defender. Cicilline, who co-founded the Brown Democrats while a student at Brown, called being a public defender a “positive and meaningful experience” but said he felt he could have more of an impact on disadvantaged youth by working in politics. Cicilline said he ran for mayor in 2002 — as former Providence Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci faced corruption charges — because he “really believed that we needed to do something differently” and that the city would be best served by an open, honest government. Cicilline wanted to use his administration to “show that people’s lives could be improved by an honest government,” he said. After discussing his experiences with social justice and the law, Cicilline urged students in the audience to become involved in change. “We need the passion, idealism and energy of young people,” he said. “You have enormous power as students of this University to help effect social justice and public policy.” The conference’s keynote address was delivered by James Forman ’88, a law professor at Georgetown University and former Supreme Court clerk who worked as a juvenile public defender for several years. He was the co-founder of the Maya Angelou Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. — named for Forman’s godmother — which actively recruits students involved in the juvenile justice system or the abuse and neglect system. In his speech, Forman discussed encountering “the broken

systems” that lead children to juvenile court, such as bad school systems and violent neighborhoods. He said many of his clients had special education or mental health needs that went unaddressed, even if the child was not sent to jail. These experiences led him to help found a program where children in this system could work in a pizza restaurant and, later, the charter school. “Our society believes that there is a category of children for whom it is too late,” Forman said. “Those are the kids that we thought society was wrong about.” Forman answered a question from the audience about why he chose to found a small school as a result of the problems he experienced as a juvenile defender, instead of working on a larger problem. “No single thing that you do is going to solve the problems of society,” he said. “If you had told me when I was an undergrad that I was going to start a school that would only serve 300 students, I would have told you, ‘You’re crazy! I’m going to ﬁx America!’ ” The conference’s panels were an opportunity for alums working, volunteering or organizing in certain ﬁelds to discuss their work and how students can become involved in effecting change. One panel, titled “Using the Law to Achieve LGBT Equality: Marriage, Children and Beyond,” featured three alums who have been involved in litigation attempting to achieve equal rights for same-sex couples. The panelists included Wendy Becker ’83, a professor of social work at Rhode Island College who was a litigant in a suit calling for out-of-state couples to be able to marry in Massachusetts; Courtney Joslin ’94, currently a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Santa Clara University who previously worked as an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Aaron Schulham ’93, the legislative director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The panel discussed an array of issues, such as child adoption

for same-sex couples, the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment of 2005 and the effect of civil unions on the legal status of same-sex couples. They also emphasized the importance of public education campaigns, which can build support for or against simultaneous lawsuits. Becker said activists and lawyers in Rhode Island have coordinated their efforts in public campaigns, legislation and litigation. She said their collaboration has resulted in a common message that “we need to be telling stories about families as opposed to stories about the law.” Noah Wiener ’09, one of the student organizers of the conference, said the alums were “excited about the conference” and agreed to attend for free, only accepting payment for reimbursement of travel costs. He said it is beneﬁcial for student groups on campus to be able to link with alums who are working on similar issues. Getting alums to attend the event was not difﬁcult, Beletsky said. “Everyone loves coming back to Brown,” he said. “It just makes sense to people that this is happening at Brown.” The second day of the conference focused mainly on plans for the future of the conference as attendees discussed the need for broad campus dialogue about social justice issues and for networking opportunities between students and alums, Beletsky said. The conference will be held again next year and is tentatively scheduled for early March. “It was a no-brainer to decide �to hold it again,” Beletsky wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Wiener said the conference was funded by grants from the Swearer Center for Public Service, the Brown Alumni Association, the Taubman Center for Public Policy and the Program in Public Health. Student groups who helped organize the event included the Brown chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Queer Alliance and the Social Justice Network, Wiener said.

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Olmert, Abbas meet, agree to more meetings JERUSALEM (Washington Post) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met here Sunday for the second time in less than a month, but made little progress on reviving peace talks, exchanging prisoners or resolving differences over the nascent Palestinian power-sharing government. The two-hour meeting came as the Bush administration is pressing the two sides, which have not engaged in formal peace negotiations in more than six years, to begin talks again as soon as possible. But Olmert and Abbas are both operating from weak political positions, and neither side expected the meeting to produce any substantive agreements. Palestinian ofﬁcials said they were encouraged by Olmert’s pledge to continue contacts with Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, even after his Fatah party joins Hamas in a power-sharing government scheduled to be announced later this month. Olmert had threatened previously to end contacts with Abbas if he allowed Fatah to participate in a government with Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that does not recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist.

Senator calls for Attorney General’s resignation WASHINGTON (Los Angeles Times) — U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has so politicized the Justice Department that he should step down for the sake of the nation, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat said Sunday. Citing recent disclosures about the FBI’s improper use of administrative subpoenas to obtain private records and the controversy over the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys in December, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that Gonzales, who previously served as White House counsel,“is no longer just the president’s lawyer but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution.” Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, charged that under Gonzales, the Justice Department has become even more politicized than it was under President Bush’s ﬁrst attorney general, John Ashcroft.

Research pioneer Theodore Brunner, 72, dies (Los Angeles Times) — Theodore Brunner, a retired University of California, Irvine, classics professor who helped establish the world’s largest computerized database of the Greek language, revolutionizing the way scholars research ancient texts, has died. He was 72. Brunner died Wednesday of lung cancer at his home in Laguna Beach, Calif., his wife and research partner, Luci Berkowitz, said Saturday. A man who had spent his life immersed in Greek and Latin letters took an unusual career detour after retiring in 1998 — he became a reserve officer for the Laguna Beach Police Department. In 1966 Brunner arrived at UC Irvine, which was then just a year old, to start the classics department and become its first chairman. Six years later, then-graduate student Marianne McDonald, the daughter of Zenith TV and radio pioneer Eugene McDonald, gave the university $1 million to create a computerized database of Greek literature. The goal of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, launched in 1972 with Brunner as its founding director, was to collect all of the Greek texts that have survived since antiquity and digitize them. They included the first recorded manuscripts of the epic poet Homer, the comedies and tragedies of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, the histories of Thucydides and the epistles of early Christian theologians — everything written in Greek through the sixth century.

Rising food prices hits India NEW DELHI (Los Angeles Times) — The trouble brewing for India’s government is also brewing inside millions of cooking pots across the country. Onions and lentils are essential ingredients in Indian cuisine. But in some parts of the country, prices for these staples have shot up by more than a third over the last six months, putting heavy pressure on household budgets—and the ruling Congress Party. With the party’s popularity flagging, reining in inflation has become a top priority for the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In a speech last week before Parliament, Singh said he expected India to maintain an economic growth rate of 9 percent in the coming fiscal year — one of the highest in the world — but he acknowledged the need to tackle rising prices. “That precisely is the concern that I have” Singh told the Lok Sabha, or lower house. “We are trying to curb inflationary pressure without adversely affecting the strong growth impulses which now characterize our economy.” For months now, inflation of about 7 percent has stoked fears that India’s economy is overheating. The central bank has pushed up interest rates several times to curb the trend. That and other measures have led to recent signs that the momentum of price hikes may be slowing. But the squeeze on the pocketbook of the “aam aadmi” — the common man, in Hindi — has exacted a political toll. Voters drove Congress from power in the states of Punjab and Uttarakhand late last month, in major part because of anger about the higher cost of living.

Disbelief,worry in wake of U.S. Attorneys’ ﬁrings BY RICHARD A. SERRANO, RALPH VARTABEDIAN AND SAM HOWE VERHOVEK LOS ANGELES T IMES

WASHINGTON—The corpse was never found. Nor could police in Phoenix turn up the gun. They did have a suspect, but most of the evidence against Jose Rios Rico for shooting Angela Pinkerton came mostly from addicts and drug dealers. U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton didn’t think the case merited the death penalty. But his superiors in Washington overruled him in August — they wanted the ultimate punishment. Charlton is one of eight U.S. attorneys recently ﬁred by the Bush administration. Their departures, which normally might have gone unnoticed, have sparked political outrage on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are charging that the Republican-led Justice Department removed competent prosecutors for political reasons, including two instances in which prosecutors did not bring charges that might have helped Republican candidates. The growing dispute is beaming a spotlight on the inner workings of federal law enforcement and its linchpin U.S. attorneys system. It is

a system whose dynamics are rarely in public view — the tug and play between prosecutors in the field and top Justice officials in Washington; the efforts by regional offices, where cases are tried, to set their own priorities and guard their autonomy; the clashes that occur when those local decisions run into the dictates of Washington. The cold war between the Justice Department and the 93 districts can be all the more strained the further they are from Washington. Indeed, the eight fired prosecutors included two from San Diego and one each from Washington state, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. In Seattle, John McKay had followed his older brother into the top spot at the U.S. attorney’s office. He also had an eye on a federal judgeship someday. Instead, he got bounced, he said, after senior White House officials became displeased over his inaction during a 2004 recount in a razor-thin governor’s race, which a Democrat ultimately won. In Little Rock, Ark., H.E. “Bud” Cummins III was pushed aside, he was told, to make room for a GOP operative for White House political guru Karl Rove. In San Diego, Carol Lam notched

her belt with the conviction of Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of Rancho Santa Fe, only to become embroiled in a political spat with Washington over illegal immigration. She, too, was let go. Also shown the door was David Iglesias of Albuquerque, N.M. Democrats charge that his departure is linked to veiled attempts by two Republican lawmakers to speed up an ongoing Democratic corruption scandal before last year’s midterm elections. U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president and serve at his pleasure. They can be fired at his whim. But what has made these job actions remarkable is that most of them were done the same day, Dec. 7. The firings were followed by a strong hint from Washington that the group not make any noise in the press or before Congress. As originally structured, the system gave prosecutors leeway to decide which cases to take, when to serve subpoenas and whom to target with indictments. Washington has tended to serve a supporting role, providing resources and expertise to carry out investigations and trials, and prodding the district offices on the president’s top priorities, such as immigration and drugs.

Abortion-issue converts viewed with suspicion BY JANET HOOK LOS ANGELES T IMES

WASHINGTON — He is indisputably the most liberal Democrat running for president in 2008. He wants the U.S. out of Iraq -— and fast. He supports national health insurance. He’s against the death penalty. And Rep. Dennis Kucinich is for abortion rights. At least, now he is. As recently as five years ago, the Ohio Democrat was so far from liberal orthodoxy on abortion policy that he earned a 90 percent rating from the nation’s leading antiabortion advocacy group. That journey underscores a rarely acknowledged fact about abortion, one of the most emotionally charged issues in American politics: Previous candidates for the nation’s highest offices have switched sides on this issue too. Among them have been such heavyweights as Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Al Gore and Richard Gephardt. This year, Republicans are trying to come to grips with the 180degree turn on abortion executed by Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has become a top-tier presidential contender and the favorite of many GOP conservatives. Romney until just a few years ago firmly supported abortion rights — he reversed field in 2004 and now calls himself “pro-life.” That has spurred a pressing debate among conservative Republicans over whether they can trust him to be a true champion of the antiabortion position. As the history of abortion maneuvers show, voters have come to accept some changes of heart as sincere and durable. Reagan, for example, eventually became a hero of antiabortion activists even though, as California governor, he signed a law vastly expanding legal abortion. But at other times, voters have

viewed abortion converts — whether they shifted to favor or oppose abortion rights -— as lacking commitment on a fundamental issue. Gephardt abandoned a measure significantly restricting abortion, which endeared him to Democratic Party activists just before he ran for the 1988 presidential nomination. But the switch contributed to an unflattering view of him as a political opportunist without firm principles, which weakened him as a candidate. A similar image dogged Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, as he had also evolved from a conservative to a liberal position on abortion and other issues. That is a cautionary tale for Romney. His abortion conversion faces especially deep skepticism because it is one of many issues — including gay rights and gun control -— where he seems to have been inconsistent. “It’s part of such a glaring pattern of flip-flops on issues across the board,” said Gary Glenn, president of the conservative American Family Association of Michigan. “You need a scorecard to keep up with Mitt Romney’s daily machinations on where he is today versus where he was yesterday.” Among Republicans, Romney is not alone in drawing suspicion from abortion foes. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is reviled by many activists for supporting abortion rights. And some con-

servatives worry that abortion is a low priority for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in spite of the fact that he recently reafﬁrmed his support for overturning Roe v. Wade. Still, no candidate has spent more time and energy addressing the issue than Romney. While he was a Senate candidate running against Democrat Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts, Romney portrayed himself as a committed supporter of abortion rights, as he did again when he ran successfully for governor in 2002. But Romney says he was turned around in 2004 by the debate over embryonic stem cell research. A discussion with scientists about destroying human embryos for research, he says, led him to the broader conclusion that legalized abortion “cheapened the value and sanctity of human life.” Tr ying to persuade skeptics that his change of heart is sincere, Romney likes to point to Reagan and other political leaders who under went long-lasting abortion conversions. As California governor, Reagan in 1967 signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country, legalizing the procedure in cases in which a woman’s mental or physical health was at risk. Reagan “agonized” over the legislation, recalled former Reagan aide Edwin Meese, and took a week out of his schedule to talk to doctors, clergymen and psychiatrists about the issue.

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Skiers finish seventh at Nationals, O’Hear ’07 named All-American continued from page 12 On Wednesday, the Bears competed in the giant slalom, which is usually their stronger event. But they struggled to an eighth-place finish. In the field of 101 competitors, O’Hear led Brown with her 13th-place performance. She completed her first run in 1:07.73 and her second in 1:05.65 for an overall time of 2:13.38, less than four seconds behind winner Lea Lozar of Sierra Nevada. Sophie Elgort ’08 was Brown’s next finisher, taking 38th overall with a total time of 2:22.77, and Handbury rounded out the scoring with her time of 2:24.33, good for 43rd overall. Mallory Taub ’08 also competed for the Bears, finishing 49th. Anna Bengtson ’09, one of the team’s strongest skiers, had a rough day and failed to complete

her first run. Bruno had a better showing in the slalom on Friday, finishing fi fth. O’Hear continued her success, finishing sixth out of 93 competitors in the event. She recorded times of 49.52 and 49.46 for her first and second runs, respectively, for a total time of 1:38.98. Lozar claimed first again, winning in a time of 1:36.62. Handbury finished a strong 18th in 1:43.21, and Bengtson bounced back from Wednesday’s mishap and took 24th in 1:44.83. Elgort also finished impressively, posting a total time of 1:48.23, placing her 32nd. Meghan Casey ’08 did not complete her second run as she was disqualified for a gate violation. Although the team finished in the top 10 in the nation, the Bears were still crestfallen. “We’re pretty disappointed,” Handbury said.

Bengtson was also saddened. “We had mistakes here and there. It wasn’t what we were hoping for, but I wouldn’t say it was bad,” Bengtson said. “But it wasn’t good either.” Though the Bears did not achieve their goals at Nationals, they had a season many teams would envy, winning Regionals for the ﬁrst time since 2004. The team should be competitive next season as it returns all the skiers who participated at Nationals, except for O’Hear. O’Hear looked back on the last race of her collegiate career as bittersweet. “We had a great time out in Winter Park,” she said. “We entered Nationals on a pretty strong note. We expected to do well at Nationals but … we made the best of the situation.”

DPS releases 2006 data on people stopped by ofﬁcers continued from page 1

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54 percent of field stops involving students affiliated with the University. Whites made up 69 percent of stops of those individuals unaffiliated with the University. DPS started collecting data on the gender and race breakdown of those stopped by officers in the fall of 2005, hoping to gain information about the types of stops being conducted and the results of those stops. This initiative came as part of DPS’ Early Warning System, which follows potentially problematic incidents and identifies officer behavior that may require review or intervention. Though DPS began collecting data for internal review purposes, it

released the report in response to concerns about negative community perceptions about the department. The release of the first report emphasized DPS’ ongoing effort to enhance integrity and transparency, Porter said. “It is critical that we continue our efforts of enhancing our professional integrity and commitment to this community,” Porter said. “One way of demonstrating our efforts is by making these reports and other department procedures and services available to the community.” Because there were so few stops, however, it is hard to draw meaningful conclusions from the report, said Brenda Allen, associate provost and director of institutional diversity, who analyzed the data. “The field stop data is the closest thing we had to address concerns about racial profiling,” Allen said. “The general conclusion is that we have the potential to build a database, monitor the data and then when we see a problem we can intervene and be more proactive.” Allen said it is important to ensure that DPS is collecting the right data. “This was really a case where data collected for one purpose ended up being useful for another,” Allen said. “But there might be other things of interest, and if we’re using this data for another purpose, we need to make sure we have the right data.” Still, Porter said the data has been “extremely valuable” to the department. For example, in response to the large number of people in the unknown race category, DPS has eliminated the category altogether and trained officers on the proper protocol for recording race. Porter said the data “certainly tells us that we’re not racial profiling,” but he said it also shows that the department needs to improve

communication with the community. “It still doesn’t solve the major issue of how we as a department can continue to build trust,” Porter said. “We need a trust where people can feel that our data is consistent with what we’re actually doing.” Indeed, some students said the data was questionable and contrary to anecdotal evidence. Shane Easter ’10, a member of the Coalition for Police Accountability and Institutional Transparency, said the statistics were “very suspicious.” “It just doesn’t match up with what we’ve talked to students about,” he said. Easter also expressed concern about the data collection, saying DPS’ control over the process makes it hard to verify that the data is credible. “Obviously DPS doesn’t want to be seen as a racist organization,” Easter said. “As it currently stands, the data collection is certainly a good thing to do. We just need to figure out how to do it well.” Josh Teitelbaum ’08, another member of Co-PAIT, said the way DPS handles field stops has been the central focus of the group’s recent meetings. He said the group is “very concerned” about the way the department conducts and records stops. Co-PAIT members said they hope to present DPS and the University administration with a policy proposal regarding field stops. Though the group has not come up with a proposal, members have several ideas — for instance, Easter said DPS could give a form of receipt to people who are stopped. “The way the data collection is being done right now, it doesn’t serve a purpose other than to better DPS’ image,” Easter said. “CoPAIT is trying to give it a purpose.”

2006 DPS Stops by Race Asian Hispanic Black

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MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

Mahr: Out-of-this-world bracket advice continued from page 12 see a small but devastating lower seed pick apart the foundation of a weak higher seed, just consider that it might be work that is too destructive for someone as dainty as Cinderella. Oh, how I hate Ohio State My previous contempt for the Buckeyes notwithstanding — and I realize that this is a fine line to cross with something as objective as bracketology — I feel they are the weakest of the No. 1 seeds and do not see them getting past the Sweet 16. I grudgingly acknowledge that Greg Oden had a beastly Big Ten tournament and is starting to peak at the right time, but I am not sold on the success that Ohio State had against a very mediocre conference schedule. For those who point to its two wins against Wisconsin, I argue the Badgers are not that good. Most important is the fact that the Buckeyes lack the offensive firepower that most championship teams display. With Oden and the rest of the Thad Five, they should be averaging at least 70 points per game and yet they struggle to get to 60 a fair amount of the time. If you are looking for that token No. 1 seed that is overrated, look no further than Columbus. My pick for the freshman who will shine the most At this stage of the season — and considering the reputation he has already started to burnish — Kevin Durant is hardly a freshman, so I will exempt him from this category. But watching the thrilling Big 12 championship game between Kansas and Texas, I came away gushing about one particular first year — Sherron Collins of the Jayhawks. Not only is he a talented driver and shooter, he also has the testicular fortitude of a player that can contribute in March. On a team that is loaded with already-established talent, Collins is unafraid of handling the ball and taking big shots down the stretch — something that could prove extremely valuable to the Jayhawks, who despite all that talent, lack a true go-to player that wants to take over in gut-check situations. Don’t be surprised to see Collins making the big plays down the stretch should Kansas get far — which it should — and be locked in a tight one. My termites I needed an excuse to break out my addition to the March Madness lexicon, so here are some of my upset picks: For the token 12-over-5 pick, I pick Old Dominion over Butler.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

In my opinion, the Bulldogs have spent all season riding their preseason NIT victory to a high ranking and an overblown reputation. They looked less-than-stellar in their most recent loss to Wright State, and it’s more exciting to watch paint dry than to watch their offense — a bad sign in a tournament where a good offense is a must. Old Dominion, meanwhile, is a strong representative from the Colonial Athletic Conference, which has proven to have its share of giant killers. There have only been a handful of 14-over-3 victories in NCAA history, but this year I’m going to go out on a limb and pick Oral Roberts over Washington State in the first round of the East Regional. Caleb Green of the Golden Eagles is an incredibly dynamic scorer and has the potential to be one of those superstars of the first weekend that single-handedly wills his team to victory. And remember, this team has already proven capable of slaying the giants — Green had a monstrous 20-point, 11-rebound, 8-assist performance in Oral Roberts’ 78-71 upset of Kansas earlier this season. Whoever wins the UNLV-Georgia Tech game will beat Wisconsin in the second round. When it comes to Big Ten teams in the tournament, every five years or so, it has a couple teams go far in the bracket, but most of the time its teams sorely disappoint and are usually done by the end of the first weekend. The Badgers have not looked good recently, shooting nothing but bricks ever since their brief tenure as the No. 1 team in the land. Alando Tucker just looks tired, and he is not getting any help from his team. Just as teams are prone to peak at the right time, they can also start sliding at the worst time — and I think Wisconsin fits that description. My picks I like Florida, Kansas, Georgetown and Texas A&M to make it to Atlanta, with the Jayhawks beating the Hoyas for the title. Of all the Final Four teams, Kansas has the easiest road and will be in the best shape physically by the time the field is narrowed down to four. Plus, it is the hottest team entering the tournament this year, and in 2006 Florida showed the value of entering the tournament on a winning streak. So get comfortable in your favorite chair and start working on your Gus Johnson impersonations — it’s tourney time.

Chris Mahr ’07 needs more than one hand to count the number of pools he has entered.

No. 18 m. lax stop Friars for second win continued from page 12 Attackman Kyle Hollingsworth ’09 had the most statistically impressive performance of the day, tallying two goals and an assist. But it was the defense that carried the day. Co-captain Bobby Shields ’07 led a strong defensive effort that allowed only a paltry three goals. Brown has only allowed 21 goals through three games. The suffocating defense was highlighted by another strong game from goalie Jordan Burke ’09, who made seven saves on 10 shots. The Bears also received impressive defensive play from classmates Reed Deluca ’08

and Brian Sharnick ’08. Deluca and Sharnick each caused multiple turnovers and controlled the ﬁeld. “They directed the defense and did well individually against Providence’s top attack,” Shields said. He added that the offense and midﬁeld aided the defense by putting a lot of pressure on PC. “The offense did a great job riding after possessions. (Providence) couldn’t get the ball out, and we got a lot of extra possessions,” Shields said. In the fourth quarter, the defensive man-down unit came up big. Following Hollingsworth’s second goal, which put Brown up 7-2, Brown had a string of six

straight penalties. Tiffany could not fault the team’s aggression because he felt physical play was a key for his team, but at one point he did have to tell them reluctantly to “bring it down a little.” Fortunately the man-down unit played well, allowing only one Friar goal in the extended penalty time. The tough all-around team defense is a testament to Brown’s cohesion. “The systems and scheme are really coming together,” Shields said. The Bears will look to maintain their momentum in their next test on Tuesday, when they play host to Bellarmine University at 4 p.m.

No. 60 m. tennis feasts on Leopards, Rams in two 7-0 wins continued from page 12 at second doubles, Hanegby and Chris Lee ’09 also defeated Eric Wiley and Steven Benezra by a score of 8-1. Meanwhile, Gardner and Kohli overwhelmed Lee Kojanis and James Murphy 8-0 at third doubles. Singles play proceeded just as smoothly, with the Bears winning all six matches in straight sets. Hanegby took a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Guarino at ﬁrst singles, and Ratnam earned a 6-2, 7-6 win over Wiley at second singles. In the third singles match, Thomas trounced Kojanis 6-0, 6-0. Harris said he was pleased with the performance by Thomas, who has sustained several injuries this

season. “It’s good to see (Thomas) back on track,” Harris said. At fourth singles, Pasanen continued the sweep, defeating Benezra by a score of 6-3, 6-2. “I’m playing where I should be playing at this time in the season,” Pasanen said. “There’s still room for improvement. Hopefully, I’ll keep improving and peak during the Ivy League season.” The Bears took two more wins at ﬁ fth and sixth singles. Gardner triumphed 6-4, 6-4 over McGranaghan, and Scott won 6-2, 62 against Murphy. “We did a really good job today of coming out and putting our hard hats on,” Harris said. “We put some really good work

in. We were efﬁcient, and at the same time, we played at a really strong level.” Brown will next compete in the Blue/Gray Invitational in Montgomery, Ala. The 16-team competition runs from March 15 to 18 and marks the beginning of the Bears’ outdoor play. “It’s a totally different game outdoors,” Hanegby said. “We have to get used to the weather and the wind. It’s a much slower game.” According to Harris, the team will begin practicing outdoors this week in preparation for the Blue/ Gray Invitational. “The number one thing is getting outside,” he said. “It’s a big jump from playing inside to playing outside.”

E DITORIAL & L ETTERS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

STAF F EDITORIAL

Everyone into the pool March is often a time of anticipation. Spring is just around the corner and most of us have put midterms behind us. But, most of all, March is about Madness. Today, college basketball fans and apathetics around the country are busily poring over their brackets, trying to determine whether tiny Davidson College can upset Texas A&M (no way), if Ohio State can make it to the Final Four (definitely) or where the heck Oral Roberts is (Tulsa, Okla.). March Madness now rivals the Super Bowl in the American consciousness. The tournament has become so popular that CBS, which will be streaming live video of the first few rounds on its Web site, has reportedly created a “Boss Button.” Clicking on the button brings a fake spreadsheet onto the computer screen of fans watching the games at work, and mutes the audio feed, leaving some to wonder — why call in sick when you can get paid to watch the tournament? Though businesses across the country may experience a dip in productivity beginning Thursday at noon when the tournament starts, people all across the country are now in on the tournament excitement. Elementary school students, office assistants and even Facebook devotees are all joining pools. Filling out a bracket and keeping track of how “your” teams are doing is now a rite of spring. Though Brown did not receive an invite to the Big Dance for the 21st straight year, this week is no time for Bears basketball fans to hang their heads in despair. As a college student, the best time to watch the tournament is without any rooting affiliations that might cloud one’s bracket decisions. Think of those jaded University of Pennsylvania students in Philadelphia who think their Quakers can scratch out a few wins in the tournament — and think of their busted brackets after Penn gets pummeled by Texas A&M. Brown fans know better than to expect Penn, now led by former Brown basketball coach Glen Miller, to go deep into the postseason. March is even tougher for students at major basketball schools. You can bet a $10 entry fee that those poor kids in East Lansing, Mich., are talking themselves into believing that North Carolina is vulnerable and Michigan State can make another run to the Sweet Sixteen. But the Bruno faithful remember that Michigan State would have lost to Brown in the first game of the year if Brown guard Damon Huffman ’08 hadn’t suffered a knee injury in the first half. Even without Brown in the tournament, students have a reasonable excuse to wake up at noon Thursday but not go to class. For some, the next few days are among the most enjoyable of the year — unless of course the No. 15 seed you had in the Sweet Sixteen ends up getting blown out Thursday afternoon. So at the Ratty today, enjoy debating exactly how much better Kansas is than Texas, whether Florida can repeat as National Champions, if Pittsburgh will beat Wright State and — since many of you will base your picks on this process anyway — which teams boast the coolest uniforms. Enjoy the Madness.

T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD Editors-in-Chief Eric Beck Mary-Catherine Lader

Executive Editors Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf

Senior Editors Stephen Colelli Sonia Saraiya BUSINESS

EDITORIAL Lydia Gidwitz Lindsey Meyers Stephanie Bernhard Stu Woo Simmi Aujla Sara Molinaro Ross Frazier Jacob Schuman Michal Zapendowski Peter Cipparone Justin Goldman Sarah Demers Erin Frauenhofer Madeleine Marecki

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Features Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

PHOTO Eunice Hong Christopher Bennett Jacob Melrose

Photo Editor Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

General Manager Mandeep Gill General Manager Ally Ouh Executive Manager Darren Ball Executive Manager Dan DeNorch Laurie-Ann Paliotti Sr. Advertising Manager Ofﬁce Manager Susan Dansereau PRODUCTION Design Editor Steve DeLucia Copy Desk Chief Chris Gang Graphics Editor Mark Brinker Graphics Editor Roxanne Palmer Web Editor Luke Harris POST- MAGAZINE Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan Mindy Smith

Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor

Steve DeLucia, Matthew McCabe, Designers Karen Evans, Alex Mazerov, Meha Verghese, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Oliver Bowers, Zachary Chapman, Chaz Firestone, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, James Shapiro, Michael Skocpol Staff Writers Susana Aho, Taylor Barnes, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Irene Chen, Nicole Dungca, Thi Ho, Rebecca Jacobson, Tsvetina Kamenova, Hannah Levintova, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Zachary McCune, Nathalie Pierrepont, Marielle Segarra, Robin Steele, Allissa Wickham Sports Staff Writers Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Megan McCahill, Marco Santini, Tom Trudeau, Steele West Business Staff Dana Feuchtbaum, Kent Holland, Alexander Hughes, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Kaustubh Shah, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Lindsay Walls Design Staff Brianna Barzola, Aurora Durfee, Sophie Elsner, Christian Martell, Matthew McCabe, Ezra Miller, Sarah Raifman Photo Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho Shin Copy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Catherine Cullen, Erin Cummings, Karen Evans, Jacob Frank, Ted Lamm, Lauren Levitz, Cici Matheny, Alex Mazerov, Ezra Miller, Joy Neumeyer, Madeleine Rosenberg, Lucy Stark, Meha Verghese

PETE FALLON

LETTERS SDS: Raytheon protest was well-founded To the Editor: In her recent letter to the editor (“SDS protest was a disservice,” March 8), Megan Collins ’08 made several points that we feel are worth addressing. She claims our protest challenged intellectual diversity at Brown. We do not believe this to be the case — refusal to allow groups affiliated with war to use university resources is well within the precedent of Brown University’s understanding of intellectual diversity. For example, Brown divested from companies profiting from the genocide occurring in Sudan and abolished the ROTC program. We also feel it is important to point out that telling us to take our opinions elsewhere, as Collins suggested, stands in stark opposition to intellectual diversity. Collins claims that our anti-war viewpoint is not representative of public opinion on campus. The general anti-war feeling on campus is well-documented, but furthermore, SDS is in favor of, and working toward, the establishment of a student union to provide both student power and the democratic infrastructure that would allow statements representative of the student body to be possible and impacting. Collins suggests that our presence was impeding her job search and making Brown look bad. We strongly disagree. Demonstrating that there are students at Brown who are aware of what Raytheon, the world’s fi fth largest military contractor, does — and who are willing to do something about it — reinforces the image of Brown students as independent, courageous and dedicated. We do not want to impede anyone from getting a job but simply wish Brown to

endorse socially responsible companies rather than arms manufacturers. We fully agree with Collins, however, in her suggestion to protest war proﬁteers off-campus. In fact, we invite Collins and the rest of the Brown community to protest at the international headquarters of Textron (the makers of cluster bombs and military helicopters) in downtown Providence. We will be meeting at 1 p.m. at Faunce Arch on March 19 to march to Textron Tower. Alex Ortiz ‘09 Alex Tye ‘10 Amy Littleﬁeld ‘09 Bucky Rogers ‘07 Donata Secondo ‘10 Ella Chary ‘07 Ingrid O’Brien ‘07 Jason Hitchner ‘10 Nicole Carty ‘10 Noah Wiener ‘09 Margaree Little ‘08.5 Mike da Cruz ‘08.5 Rick Ahl ‘09 Robin Peckham ‘10 Senia Barragan ‘08 Will Emmons ‘09 Will Lambek ‘09 Will Pasley ‘07 Vale Cofer-Shabica ‘09 Brown Students for a Democratic Society March 9

CORRECTION An article in Friday’s Herald (“Clocks spring forward Sunday,” March 9) incorrectly stated that, in previous years, daylight-saving time began on the third Sunday in April. In fact, daylight-saving time had previously started on the first Sunday in April. A photograph in Friday’s Herald (“Radio star,” March 9) was incorrectly credited to Chris Bennett ’07.5. The photographer was Rahul Keerthi ’09. 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. COMMENTAR Y POLICY 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. LETTERS 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. ADVER TISING POLICY The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O PINIONS MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

PAGE 11

Stop and think ADAM CAMBIER OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Forty-three years ago this week, in March 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese arrived at her apartment in the wee hours of the morning after a long night of working as a manager at a local bar. As she walked the 100 feet from her car to her apartment, a man appeared out of the shadows and stabbed her twice in the back. She cried out for help, and the man ﬂed. Over the course of the next half hour, as Genovese continued to cry out for help, the man returned and murdered the barely conscious young woman. During the attack, dozens of neighbors heard her pleas and failed to so much as call the police. Over the next few weeks, media coverage of Genovese’s murder exploded as America lamented the apparent hard-heartedness of its citizens. One of the silent witnesses to the attack summed up her lack of action by telling a reporter that she just “didn’t want to get involved.” Kitty’s legacy has served as a cautionary tale for people worldwide about the dangers of apathy. As tragic as Genovese’s death was, her untimely death has fueled a disturbing development in modern times — profoundly stupid men doing profoundly stupid things in an attempt to play the hero as they stupidly try to stop what they think is a rape in progress. These men mean well, but they’re not terribly bright. They’re the kind of people who have worn through at least two copies of “The Boondock Saints” on DVD and who read police blotters thinking “I could have prevented this from taking place, if only I had been there.” The ﬁrst widely-publicized instance of this burgeoning trend comes to us from the town of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. One evening,

39-year-old James Van Iveren was sitting leisurely in the apartment he shares with his mother. He was chatting up teenage girls on MySpace, or questing World of Warcraft in the instances of Orgrimmar or whatever would-be vigilantes do in their spare time. Suddenly, he heard a noise coming from the upstairs apartment. This noise sounded suspiciously like a woman screaming for help. Could it be, he thought? Had his long-awaited chance to be the knight in shining armor ﬁnally arrived? Not wanting to waste any opportunities, Van Iveren grabbed his handy cavalry sword and stormed upstairs.

against the man’s throat (I bet you didn’t actually think he had a sword). “Where is she?” he shouted, much in the way that Jack Bauer would ask a terrorist, “Where’s the bomb?” He then proceeded to have his neighbor show him that he was actually alone in the apartment by having him open every closet door. Satisﬁed, and perhaps mildly disappointed that no actual rape was taking place, Van Iveren returned home to his mother while his neighbor called the authorities. Once the police arrived, he showed them his ﬁlthy DVD in an attempt to show that the screams

As tragic as Genovese’s death was, her untimely death has fueled a disturbing development in modern times — profoundly stupid men doing profoundly stupid things in an attempt to play the hero. Meanwhile, Van Iveren’s upstairs neighbor had settled in for the evening to enjoy some of life’s more Dionysian pleasures. He opened up the grimy DVD he had rented from the poorly lit back room of his local Hollywood Video, popped it in the player, dimmed the lights, cracked open a cold one and began to watch. A grin slowly crept across his face as a woman named “Nectarine” shrieked in ecstasy on his TV screen. Before this anonymous upstairs neighbor knew what was what, Van Iveren kicked down his front door. He pushed his neighbor up against the wall, pressing his sword

emanating from his apartment were not coming from a woman in fear of her life, but instead from Nectarine. The police then went downstairs and arrested Van Iveren on charges of criminal trespassing, criminal damage and disorderly conduct while using a dangerous weapon. To add insult to injury, they also conﬁscated his sword. As scary as it seems, Van Iveren has an even more dangerous counterpart. Across the pond, in a suburb south of Stockholm, a sixty-something taxi driver saw two young men chasing a half-naked woman down the street. Naturally, he assumed that the scant-

ily-clad lass was about to be raped. A sensible person would have shouted at the young men to scare them off, or perhaps might have honked their horn. They may have called the police. This taxi driver, whose anonymity was protected by the courteous Swedish press, was not one of these people. He looked at the supposed rapist. He looked at his gas pedal. He looked back at the rapist, and he floored it. “Hit pedestrian now, ask questions later.” His taxi lurched forward and knocked one of the young men over, ending the chase for good. As you might assume from the fact that I am writing this, the scene witnessed by the taxi driver was not an attempted rape. Instead, one of the young men was the woman’s boyfriend, and she had stormed out in a prissy huff after the two of them had a fight. In an attempt to reconcile, the woman’s boyfriend chased after her to try and get her to come in from the cold. Instead of winning back his girlfriend, he won a free trip to the emergency room. The taxi driver is now being charged with serious assault. Kitty Genovese would have been thrilled to have a man who lives with his mother rescue her with a cavalry sword, or to have an AARP card-toting cab driver run over her attacker with a taxi. As nice as that would be, there’s such a thing as taking good Samaritanism too far. I think that the moral of today’s column can best be summarized by the musical stylings of Buffalo Springfield. So, loyal readers, I urge you — stop, think, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s goin’ down. Paranoia strikes deep, and into your life it will creep. It starts out when you’re always afraid — you step out of line, and the man comes and takes you away.

Adam Cambier ’09 likes to hit pedestrians, but not because he thinks they’re rapists.

The birds, the bees and the bears KATY CRANE

OPINIONS COLUMNIST

Over the past few weeks, a recurrent theme in the news has been the bizarre pollutionrelated animal story. Bees are abandoning their hives in swarms and ducks have been dying under mysterious circumstances — not to mention the polar bears. Actually, not mentioning the polar bears turns out to be a major part of the Bush administration’s plan for dealing with climate change, according to a memo sent to government biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service last week. Polar bears have been on American wildlife ofﬁcials’ minds lately, now that global warming has started causing Alaskan sea ice to retreat. The bears have been forced to change their hunting patterns, which means that they are passing much closer to Alaskan coastal villages. This change has led to more cases of bears injuring people, as well as more cases of people killing bears. In the long run, though, it is the polar bears that are in the greatest danger. Some scientists predict that by the end of the century the bears’ sea ice will disappear completely in summer, leaving them unable to survive. Last week, according to the New York Times, the Fish and Wildlife service circulated a memo for biologists and wildlife ofﬁcials who are requesting permission to travel to Scandinavian countries. The memo suggests that permission will only be granted if

the person applying for it “understands the administration’s position on climate change, polar bears and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues.” Now that the memo has been leaked to the public, of course, the countries that the ofﬁcials will be visiting know all about the directive. The administration has backpedaled to the extent that the scientists can now discuss the polar bear situation “over a beer.”

pollinate their crops have been ﬂying away from their hives and not returning. Beekeepers are especially puzzled by the bees’ tendency to abandon healthy hives with plenty of honey and pollen in them — the bee equivalent of leaving the house with the lights on, the dryer running and dinner on the table. One possible culprit is a new pesticide, which may be causing the bees to lose their sense of direction and die of cold

Beekeepers are especially puzzled by the bees’ tendency to abandon healthy hives with plenty of honey and pollen in them — the bee equivalent of leaving the house with the lights on, the dryer running and dinner on the table. That seems rather a pity; it would have been fun to imagine Scandinavian environmentalists cleverly tricking the hapless American scientists into saying the words “polar bear.” The polar bears are not the only creatures to stray from their usual haunts. In half the states in the country, a mass exodus of honeybees seems to be underway. Up to 70 percent of the bees that farmers depend on to

or starvation because they cannot ﬁnd their way home. Another possible explanation is that the bees are “stressed out,” a judgment that many people in the beekeeping industry seem to agree with, whether it explains what is happening. In order to meet the demands of American commercial farms, the bees have to be continually trucked around from

place to place — treatment for which they are simply not designed. We may associate bees with unending work for its own sake, but apparently we are still capable of working them to death. On the bright side, whatever killed 850 ducks in Colorado this winter seems to be slowing down, as ducks are turning up dead in much smaller numbers. Most of them were found near sewage treatment plants, where chemicals in the water stripped the waterprooﬁng from their feathers. Without their natural protection against cold water, the ducks simply got wet and froze to death. The story has at least a partial happy ending — 40 ducks are being nursed at a sanctuary, and others have already been restored to health and released. But while the news may have only depressing things to say about our treatment of all creatures great and small, there is always hope for all creatures robotic. Scientists have now invented a robot salamander to help them study how life on land evolved. The robot, which moves with the S-shaped wriggle of a real salamander, enjoys swimming and long walks on the beach — or at least is capable of both. Given that scientists built a robot cockroach two years ago, these could be the ﬁrst steps toward the creation of a full robot menagerie. Who knows? Perhaps the summer of 2100 will see robot polar bears off the coast of Alaska, swimming blithely around where the sea ice used to be.

Katy Crane ’07 manages to mention salamanders in all her columns.

S PORTS M ONDAY MONDAY, MARCH 12, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

No. 18 m. lax defrocks Friars BY JASON HARRIS SPORTS STAFF WRITER

Jacob Melrose / Herald Kyle Hollingsworth ’09 scored two goals in the men’s lacrosse team’s 7-3 victory over Providence College on Saturday. The pair of tallies matched his goal output from his entire freshman season.

The men’s lacrosse team traveled across town to defeat Providence College 7-3 on Saturday. The win moves the No. 18 Bears to 2-1 on the season. Brown took control of the game early, pressuring PC at every turn. Senior co-captain and attackman David Madeira ’07 put the Bears on the board first with a goal just over five minutes into the game. Madeira missed Brown’s first two games due to injury, but he didn’t miss a beat in his debut. Despite the quick start, the Bears were unable to extend their 1-0 lead in the first quarter due to the staunch Friar defense. Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90 was impressed with Providence’s defensive effort at the outset. “The PC coaching staff had a good strategy and good personnel,” he said. “They had an outstanding goalie that made some big saves when we broke the defense down.” Brown’s coaching staff matched wits with PC and made some adjustments as the game progressed into the second quarter. Tiffany credited Assistant Coach Jon Thompson with “(making) some counters and adjustments in the middle of the game that the men really responded to.” With the new strategy in place, the Bears took a 3-0 lead in the

middle of the second quarter and went into halftime leading 3-1. They extended the lead to 5-1 midway through the third quarter on a goal by midfielder Will Davis ’07. Davis is the only Bear to score in all three games so far this season. The game ended without much drama. Brown got a goal from midfielder Mike Bernard ’07 and two more scores from Thomas Muldoon ’10 to cap the 7-3 victory. Last week Muldoon received Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors for his hat trickj, including the game-winner, against Hofstra University. The freshman added to his highlight reel this weekend when his second goal came from a nearimpossible position on his back. “Muldoon dodged hard, was hit and fell on his back, where he shot it and somehow found the net,” Tiffany said. Muldoon leads a strong group of 10 freshmen, all of whom saw playing time Saturday. Each newcomer has embraced his role on the team. “The coaching staff is fortunate with this group,” Tiffany said. “They are excited to do whatever they can.” He also pointed to the fact that, as a spring sport, the coaches were able to spend four or five months with the freshmen before the season commenced, whereas many fall sports are forced to throw their freshmen right into their seasons.

Despite the disappointing team ﬁnish, the Bears did turn in some solid individual performances. The most notable of those came courtesy of captain Kelly O’Hear ’07, who earned All-American team status for the fourth straight year. She placed sixth overall.

As much as it may fly in the face of sports lexicon, I have a problem with the use of the Cinderella analogy. I can appreciate the idea that a previously unheard-of team can be transformed into the belle of Chris Mahr Mahrtian Encounters the ball, but I think the word is misused. Maybe it is just my secret love for classic Disney movies, but if you are going to draw a comparison between sports and pop culture, it is only fair for all the parallels to be accounted for. Unlike Cinderella, who winds up with the prince in the end, all those smalltime schools go straight home after the clock strikes midnight (with the exception of George Mason last year). Cinderella goes from rags to riches and stays rich. The NCAA Cinderellas, unfortunately, go back to rags. Thus, I am suggesting a new metaphor for all those small-time programs that pop up for the first few rounds every March — termites. It may not have the aesthetic appeal as our beloved Cinderella, but it is a more accurate descriptor. Think about it: they appear when unsuspecting conference powerhouses have started to weaken and wreak havoc on any such teams lacking a firm foundation. But when they come up against that badass, exterminatorof-a-team that is built to withstand March Madness, the extermination is quick and one-sided. Am I really expecting “Tourney Termites” to replace Cinderella as the most commonly used sports phrase in the NCAA tournament? Well, I am a realist, so I will say no. But if and when you

continued on page 8

continued on page 9

Ski team lands in 7th at Nationals, O’Hear ’07 named All-American BY MADELEINE MARECKI ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The ski team fell short of what it hoped to accomplish at the U.S. Collegiate Ski Association National Championships held in Winter Park, Colo., on March 5-10. Brown ﬁnished seventh as a team, two slots lower than last season’s ﬁ fth

place performance. National powerhouse Sierra Nevada College dominated the competition, winning both the slalom and giant slalom events. Brown’s MacConnell Division rivals Boston College and Colby-Sawyer College posted impressive team efforts, capturing second and third, respectively. The Bears tied the Ea-

gles and the Chargers for ﬁrst at Regionals just two weeks earlier. In Colorado, however, Brown could not overcome the different conditions presented by the Rockies. “The variables were against us,” said Elisa Handbury ’10. “(In Colorado) there was warm, soft snow while we have ﬁrm, colder conditions in the East.”

Out of this world bracket advice

M. tennis sweeps URI, Lafayette BY ERIN FRAUENHOFER ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The men’s tennis team has rarely been challenged by an opponent during the spring season and it went another weekend without facing a serious threat to knock it from the ranks of the nation’s elite. The 60th-ranked Bears recorded two 7-0 victories on Friday, over the University of Rhode Island and Lafayette College to move to 13-3 on the year. “Today was great,” said co-captain Eric Thomas ’07. “Everyone had a lot of energy, and the fans got everyone ﬁred up. We were really able to play our game.” The Bears began their sweep

of the Rams by easily winning the doubles point. At first doubles, cocaptain Dan Hanegby ’07 and Basu Ratnam ’09 defeated Henrik Almstrom and Dixon Simmons by a score of 8-3. Saurabh Kohli ’08 and Zack Pasanen ’07 dismantled Andrew Costin and James McGuire 8-1 at second doubles to take the point. Joe Scott ’08 and Noah Gardner ’09 overpowered Adam Gart and Kyle Duffy 8-1 at third doubles to finish off the sweep. “Joe Scott got his first doubles win in his career at Brown, which is great,” said Head Coach Jay Harris. In singles play, Hanegby was the only Bear to be challenged, winning the first singles match in

SPORTS SCOREBOARD FRIDAY, DAY MARCH 9 DAY, BASEBALL: No. 2 South Carolina 13, Brown 1 SKIING: 7 of 19 at USCSA Championships NO. 60 M. TENNIS: Brown 7, Rhode Island 0; Brown 7, Lafayette 0

SATURDAY, ATURDAY MARCH 10 ATURDAY, BASEBALL: No. 2 South Carolina 11, Brown 2 EQUESTRIAN: 1st of 10 teams, Connecticut College Show NO. 18 M. LACROSSE: Brown 7, Providence 3

W. LACROSSE: No. 3 Maryland 19, Brown 6 SOFTBALL: Brown 6, Youngstown State 3; Brown 8, Morgan State 4 W. TENNIS: vs. Rhode Island

SUNDAY, DAY MARCH 11 DAY, BASEBALL: No. 2 South Carolina 9, Brown 4 GYMNASTICS: Brown 185.225, Southern Connecticut 183.750 SOFTBALL: Youngstown State 5, Brown 2; George Mason 5, Brown 2 W. TENNIS: vs. West Virginia

three sets. He dropped the first set to Almstrom 4-6 and then bounced back to take the next two sets, 62, 6-3. “It was a tough match,” Hanegby said. “(Almstrom) was a big guy, and he had good serves. I had a tough time returning his serves.” In Brown’s remaining five singles matches, no one gave up more than two games. Thomas dominated Costin 6-1, 6-1 at second singles, and Pasanen soundly defeated Simmons 6-0, 6-2 at third singles. In the fourth singles match, Kohli beat Gart by a score of 6-0, 6-0. Gardner and Scott rounded out the trouncing at fi fth and sixth singles with wins of 6-0, 6-1 and 61, 6-0 over McGuire and Stephen Conroy, respectively. “We played a very efficient match,” Pasanen said. “We came out and took care of what we needed to do.” The Bears made short work of the Leopards in the evening match. At first doubles, No. 30 Thomas and Ratnam routed Paul Guarino and Matt McGranaghan 8-1, and continued on page 9

Jacob Melrose / Herald Noah Gardner ’09 won two matches at No. 5 singles and two matches at No. 3 doubles to help men’s tennis beat Lafayette and Rhode Island without dropping a match. Gardner was one of only two players to play in the maximum of four matches over the weekend.