Thursday, September 6, 2007

The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, S eptember 6, 2007

Volume CXLII, No. 62

Deflecting subprime woes, U. endowment hits $2.8b

By Michael Bechek Senior Staff Writer

The University’s endowment reached nearly $2.8 billion at the end of the 2007 fiscal year and survived this summer’s subprime mortgage crisis because the collapse was anticipated by many of the University’s investment managers, President Ruth Simmons told the faculty Wednesday.

In her report at the first faculty meeting of the academic year, Simmons also revealed that the University was leaving open the possibility of renovating, rather than destroying, the damaged Smith Swim Center, saying that there was “some debate about whether to just put a new roof on the existing structure.”

The University’s endowment had a positive return of 0.6 percent in July, she said, because many investors had taken “overweight positions in international and emerging markets” to offset losses in U.S. equities.

The S&P 500 suffered a 3.2-percent decline in that month.

Brown’s positive return in the month compares favorably with that of Harvard University, which lost $350 million, or about 1 percent of its assets, with the July collapse of Sowood Capital Management, a hedge fund. However, coming off a record year in which its endowment increased from $29.2 billion in 2006 to $34.9 billion in 2007, Harvard still made a gain of 0.4 percent in July, according to a Sept. 7 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Brown’s endowment ended the fiscal year at $2.8 billion, up from $2.2 billion at the end of fiscal year 2006.

(The University’s fiscal year ends June 30.)

But Simmons warned that though Brown was “fortunate” not to have fared any worse from the economic conditions, “it appears that fiscal year continued on page 4

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Brown ‘will live with you forever,’ says convocation keynote

by Nicole Dungca Staff Writer

“The very act of reading is an act of profound displacement and boundary-smashing, charting the central voyage that takes place incessantly at this institution,” declared Professor of Comparative Literature Arnold Weinstein in this year’s keynote Opening Convocation address.

The highly esteemed Weinstein followed President Ruth Simmons in welcoming new students to the University’s 244th academic year.

After the new students poured through the historic Van Wickle Gates, Simmons heralded the 2,105 new members of the Brown community as a source of constant revitalization for a university that is always changing. The procession included 1,486 first-year undergraduate students, as well as Resumed Undergraduate Education students, transfer students and first-year students in the Medical School and Graduate School.

“Even for those of us that have been through this ceremony more than a few times before, it’s hard to miss the excitement and symbolism of that procession through the Van Wickle Gates to this opening convocation,” Simmons said.

The president touched on the various new additions to campus, mentioning the relocation of the Peter Green House, the tempo-

Rahul Keerthi / Herald

The class of 2011 marched through the Van Wickle Gates (above) shortly before President Ruth Simmons addressed new students (right).

rary swim center and other projects that were undertaken during a construction-filled summer for the University.

“There are new courses, new services, new buildings. Even the walkways and the sod under your feet are in many cases new, and

there is the promise of much more to come,” she said.

Simmons also spoke of “less visible” changes on campus, such as research projects tackled by various professors and efforts from the continued on page 6

RIPTA service now free for students, faculty and staff

By Irene Chen Senior Staff Writer

With the start of the school year always comes the need to furnish dorm rooms, buy supplies for the upcoming year and haul everything up College Hill — or, perhaps, pay a cab to lug it for you. But thanks to the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s U-PASS program, Brown ID holders can now ride RIPTA buses and trolleys for free.

Surrounded by shopping bags, Courtney Smith ’10 and Megan Litrownik ’10 praised the now-free U-PASS system. The girls hopped on a bus to the nearest Wal-Mart ­— swiping their Brown cards instead of paying $1.50 — and returned back to a stop on Thayer Street.

“I’m really happy with it,” Litrownik said. “I’ve already taken it more times than I did all of my freshman year.”

“This means no more cabs,”

Smith said. “The only problem is the schedule, but once you get it down, the buses are always on time, and the bus drivers are generally really friendly.”

Faculty, staff and students now only need to swipe their IDs to ride all RIPTA bus and trolley lines. RIPTA sends the University a monthly bill for the number of people riding the buses, but at a discounted rate.

Annual total costs to the University are expected to be approximately

$200,000.

Originally implemented in 2004, the U-PASS program offered halfprice tickets to the Brown community. University and RIPTA officials predict that the improved U-PASS program will double the number of Brown community riders.

Beth Gentry, director of business and financial services for Brown, said the program has been implecontinued on page 4

Protestors allege police brutality against BSR DJ

By Cameron Lee Staff Writer

Courtesy of Jonathan McIntosh

BSR host Alex Svoboda was arrested and sustained a leg injury at an Aug. 11 protest.

INSIDE:

3

METRO

www.browndailyherald.com

EDUCATION CHIEF OUT Director of Education Outreach Lamont Gordon ‘93 stepped down last month to focus on finishing his Ph.D.

5

CAMPUS NEWS

An August protest against the Jacky’s Galaxie restaurant chain has proven to be a bittersweet victory for the Providence chapter of Industrial Workers of the World. Though the IWW protestors, who were joined by members of Brown Students for a Democratic Society, had their demands met, IWW member and Brown Student Radio host Alex Svoboda suffered serious injury in circumstances that protestors allege constitute police brutality.

A Community College of Rhode Island student and host of the BSR shows “Bike Talk” and “Sound Bytes Your Ears,” Svoboda was marching down Mineral Spring Avenue toward one of the five Jacky’s Galaxie restaurants in North Providence on August

Medical merger A proposed merger may soon bring two-thirds of the state’s hospitals under one operator.

11 with roughly 40 other protestors when complications arose, said IWW organizer Mark Bray.

Protestors planned to march from Brooks pharmacy on Mineral Spring Avenue to Jackie’s Galaxy, about 10 minutes down the street, Bray said.

He said police told protestors to move from the street onto the sidewalk, but the protestors did not comply until a police car blocked their route, making further street travel impossible.

Most of the protestors had reached the sidewalk, and Bray was nearly there when he said he saw officers approach Svoboda, who was holding drumsticks and playing an overturned bucket around her neck.

Bray says an officer then grabbed Svoboda’s upper arm and pushed her backward, at which point “she recoiled with a drumstick because

15

OPINIONS

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

KIDNEYS FOR SALE? James Shapiro ‘10 proposes that the national ban on buying and selling kidneys be lifted.

it’s rather scary.”

Svoboda tripped backwards over the curb and fell, Bray said, and Francesca Contreras ’10, a Brown SDS member and protest attendee, said she noticed shattered glass in the area where Svoboda fell. After she got up, Svoboda was tripped by a police officer, Bray said. “Her leg was bent backward in the opposite direction as she was knocked to the ground, then cuffed,” he said. The police called paramedics immediately, who arrived within some 25 minutes, explained Contreras.

After paramedics arrived and transported Svoboda to the hospital, the protestors continued onward to Jacky’s Galaxie, Contreras said.

North Providence Deputy Chief continued on page 4

16 SPORTS

EUROTRIP The women’s soccer team went to Europe this summer to challenge some of the continent’s best.

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r

mostly sunny 78 / 62

Aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer and Jonathan Cannon

mostly sunny 84 / 64

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Cheese Tomato Strata, Wild Colonial Risotto, Vegan Tofu Pups, Louisiana-Style Calzone, Hot Ham on Bulky Roll

Lunch — Sloppy Joe Sandwich, Falafel in Pita Bread, Cauliflower au Gratin, Swiss Fudge Cookies

Dinner — Spinach & Rice Bake, Oven Browned Potatoes, Cajun Corn & Tomatoes, Spice Rubbed Pork Chops, Ice Cream Sundae Bar

Dinner — Roast Turkey with Sauce, Shells with Broccoli, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, Sweet & Sour Shrimp Saute, Butternut Apple Bake

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Sudoku 100 Years of Solipsism | Adrienne Langlois

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

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, September 6, 2007 © Puzzles by Pappocom

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

C

o ssw or d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris and Joyce Nichols

ACROSS 1 Further down 6 Scurry 10 1975 summer thriller 14 Yellowish colour 15 Noodle output?

16 Russia’s __ Mountains 17 Corporate leader’s flying fleet?

19 Kind of beads or handles 20 Floors 21 Wall St. happening 22 Focused on, with “at” 23 Mogul’s fancy cars?

28 Locker room sprinkle 30 Becomes less cordial 31 “__ to recall ...”

33 “Rights of Man” author 34 Reviewer of bks.?

37 Cleric’s golfing successes?

40 G.I. mess crews 41 Capture fully, as one’s attention 42 River part 43 Sara Lee employee 44 Busy as __ 45 Plastic user’s accumulation?

51 Raipur royal 52 Onetime Burmese statesman 53 With 45-Down, Advent symbol 56 Theater prize 57 Theme of this puzzle 61 Kind of therapeutic bath 62 Fall preceder?

63 Foolish 64 Not cut out 65 Like much coastal weather 66 Things to put up DOWN 1 Hair piece

2 Cinco into cuarenta 3 Refs, at times 4 “... __ darkness comes on”: Bartram 5 Equip anew 6 Honey __ dressing 7 Orange drink 8 Prepared 9 Gives birth to 10 Groucho, at birth 11 Redolence 12 Have doubts 13 Some coasters 18 Place to unwind 22 Radiant 24 Clinched 25 Fishermen’s tools 26 Floor support 27 Super 28 Very little time?

29 “Pronto!”

32 It’s not to be believed 33 Asphalt worker 34 Cut from the short loin 35 Mod Squad pal of Linc and Julie

36 “Off the Court” autobiographer 38 Company named for a goddess 39 Target 43 Carefree 45 See 53-Across 46 Dominant tendency 47 Santa __ 48 Like many dirt roads 49 Serpent ending

50 Macabre 54 “Rule, Britannia’’ composer 55 Puts into action 57 Degree of considerable degree 58 Dom Perignon, e.g.

59 She married Dick twice 60 Animal with a silent first letter

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M etro Thursday, September 6, 2007

page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Gordon ’93 steps down as outreach director

By Simmi Aujla Metro Editor

The University’s first director of education outreach, who in his 16 months at Brown centralized information about the University’s disparate efforts to aid Providence public schools, stepped down last month.

Lamont Gordon ’93 left the University Aug. 3 to complete a Ph.D. in education at Harvard University, Kenneth Wong, professor of education and chair of the department, told The Herald.

A selection committee that includes members of the education department, the Office of the President and the Swearer Center for Public Service has already received nearly 40 applications for Gordon’s position, which is expected to be filled

by Oct. 1.

Gordon’s departure will leave the University without an education outreach coordinator for at least three months, but Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn said she doesn’t consider his departure a setback to the University’s efforts to aid local schools.

In February, the Corporation created a $10-million fund for Providence public schools as part of its response to the report of the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. The University’s highest governing body also waived tuition for ten Urban Education Policy students or students working toward masters in teaching.

Quinn told The Herald that Gordon’s efforts were a major first step in the University’s strengthened commitment to Providence public schools. “If we only did that, I think that’s an important aspect,” she said, adding that the University now has to evaluate the programs to learn what to do next as it reaches out to Providence public schools.

When Gordon came to the Department of Education at Brown in March 2006, Brown students and faculty were already volunteering in Providence schools, but no one knew exactly how many programs at the University aided local schools.

Gordon began surveying the campus — talking to diverse groups such as neuroscience and computer science professors and the director of the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center — about what they were doing to help Providence students.

In March, Gordon delivered a report to the Brown University Community Council summarizing Brown’s involvement. He also began putting his catalog of information on a Web site, which launched in June, to inform Providence students and teachers about Brown programs and to inform Brown students and faculty about the schools they could work in.

In all, Gordon collected information about the 52 volunteer programs Brown leads in more than 20 Providence public schools.

Gordon, who did not return a phone message seeking an interview

for this story, was working on his Harvard Ph.D. while at Brown, but he decided he wanted to focus only on his studies, Wong said. “He decided in the long run this would be the better thing for him,” Wong said.

Gordon also supported the UEP program, a year-long course of study designed to prepare graduate students to craft policy in urban public school districts. Wong credits the high employment rate of UEP graduates — 6 out of 8 students in the program have found jobs since their May graduation — to a database Gordon created for UEP students.

The program’s operating funds paid for half of Gordon’s position, while the president’s office covered the other half. This spring, President Ruth Simmons decided to renew the pilot position’s funding for another year, Quinn said, adding that Simmons “thought it would be valuable to go forward” with the position.

But Wong said he hopes the position will prove so indispensable to Providence and Brown that the University Resources Committee, which recommends the University’s annual budget, will eventually approve it as a permanent position. URC approval would ensure permanent funding for the position from the education department’s budget instead of from discretionary sources like the UEP program and the president’s office, Wong said. Gordon’s replacement could begin the process of receiving formal approval as early as January 2008.

Courtesy of www.brown.edu

Lamont Gordon ‘93 (right), pictured here in March, served as Brown’s director of education outreach until his resignation last month. While at Brown, Gordon catalogued all of the area schools served by Brown programs (see map above).

Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo

Page 4

Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

IWW protestors allege police brutality Endowment hits $2.8b continued from page 1 Paul Marino declined to comment on the incident. “All I can state at this time is that we’re still investigating the matter,” he said. “We are still conducting our investigation and we will be turning it over to the Attorney General’s office for review.”

Charges were filed against Svoboda, including “three counts of assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest,” Bray said.

Svoboda has since undergone four surgeries and has returned from the hospital, Bray said. Her leg is in a brace, and she will need to undergo physical therapy, he added.

In an Aug. 16 Providence Journal article, Officer Mark Mastin gave his account of the incident: “(Svoboda) pushed Patrolman (Jeffrey) Antonelli with both hands holding the drumsticks and said ‘(expletive) don’t put your hands on me.’ ” Mastin told the Journal he and Antonelli tried to grab Svoboda’s arms, but were prevented from doing so initially by the crowd.

“Patrolman (William) Shurick and I grabbed a hold of the suspect and advised her that she was being placed under arrest. She pulled her hands away and started swinging the drumsticks screaming ... As I tried to grab her arms she swung the drumsticks hitting our arms. In fear of our safety, we immediately grabbed her arms again and tried to take her into custody,” he said.

Svoboda declined The Herald’s request for comment on the incident. Her legal counsel, Robert Mann, also refused to comment, saying, “It’s a pending case.”

The protest was intended to pressure the owner of Jacky’s Galaxie restaurants, Kin “Jacky” Ko, to discontinue purchasing supplies from a New York-based supplier, Dragonland, that was violating several New York labor laws, Bray said.

These violations included paying workers $4.75 an hour, neglecting to pay overtime to workers and firing workers for joining a union, he said.

Ko said after the Aug. 11 protest and other demonstrations that he had already stopped doing busi-

ness with Dragonland and later testified to a superior court that he had done so.

IWW is a national labor organization, self-described as a union, that seeks “workplace democracy,” Bray said. Founded in 1905, the IWW has experienced a recent resurgence in some areas.

A handful of Brown SDS members joined IWW for the Aug. 11 protest, Contreras said, adding that they marched under the umbrella group Providence SDS, which is comprised of SDS members from various Providence schools.

A rally was held at North Providence High School on Aug. 26 to “bring awareness to the greater Providence area of the incident of police brutality, to demand that the charges against Alex and another member be dropped and that officers responsible be brought to justice,” Bray said.

Contreras was among those who spoke at the rally, which drew an estimated 300 people and received local news coverage.

Yet despite Svoboda’s injury, Bray said he views the Aug. 11 protest as an achievement. “At least we did accomplish our goal of taking one of Dragonland’s largest customers,” he said. Since the protest, Bray said, “the (IWW) has gotten a lot more publicity around Rhode Island.”

Contreras said she hopes the incident draws more attention to oppressed workers and instances of police brutality. “We can’t forget that just because we go to Brown this stuff isn’t happening just down the Hill from us.”

continued from page 1 2008 will be more challenging.”

Simmons struck a confident and ambitious tone in her remarks, announcing that the Campaign for Academic Enrichment is ahead of schedule to reach its $1.4-billion goal. Last year saw several University fundraising records, she noted, including $182.7 million in total cash receipts and $34.6 million for the annual fund.

She praised the work of the University’s fundraisers, saying, “Our advancement operation is frankly one of the best in the Ivy League.”

Describing what she felt when talking to fellow university presidents, Simmons said, “I feel very much that we are part of the pack.”

“It’s important that Brown be seen as a competitor,” she said.

Responding to several faculty

members’ remarks expressing contentment at the sunny state of the University’s finances, Simmons said, “We need more.” She later added that she wouldn’t mind seeing the endowment reach “a robust $5 billion.”

There are still a lot of initiatives the University needs capital to undertake, Simmons said. Alluding to the collapse of a major bridge in Minneapolis in August, Simmons said issues of decaying infrastructure had confronted the nation this summer and that as an institution “with 200year-old buildings,” Brown should be prepared for these future costs.

In her report to the faculty, Simmons also announced the hiring of 43 new faculty members.

Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98 announced in his report to the faculty Wednesday that a task force to examine the University’s classrooms was created over the summer.

Brown ID holders can now ride RIPTA for free continued from page 1 mented by the University for a variety of reasons.

“The primary purpose of the program is to help address parking congestion on the East Side, particularly in close proximity to Brown by providing alternative modes of transportation,” Gentry said, adding that some parking lots were lost last year to construction. “Another side benefit is, public transportation is a more environmentally friendly approach than driving.”

Alexandra Cervenak GS, who just moved to Providence, recounted College Hill parking horror stories and said she’s lucky her Thayer Street residence makes using RIPTA easy.

“It used to be $1.50, even if you were just going downtown,” Cervenak said.

“I’m glad to have reliable, free public transportation.”

Programs like U-PASS exist across the country, but Gentry said Brown’s program is one of the first in Rhode Island to include faculty and staff in addition to students. Gentry hopes that the program, especially a new bus line slated to directly link Barrington and Thayer Street, will encourage staff and faculty living in that area to commute to work using public transportation.

The new program will also be beneficial to students who participate in activities beyond College Hill, such as research and community projects.

Alan Flam P’05, senior fellow at the Swearer Center for Public Service and senior associate University chaplain, has been taking freshmen around Providence to introduce them to possible volunteer opportunities around the community.

“Now I can tell them ... all you need is your ID and you can come back whenever you want,” Flam said.

Flam said the University is sending a good message to the community by paying for the U-PASS program.

“This represents a fairly significant source of revenue for public transportation, which can only be good ­— just another way Brown is investing in its community,” Flam said.

Elizabeth Ochs ’07.5, who volunteers at the Southside Community Land Trust and works with local advocacy group People to End Homelessness, said the program could facilitate learning beyond the confines of Brown’s campus.

“Providence’s sites and people have a lot to teach us all,” Ochs wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. RIPTA and the University agreed to a twoyear contract, but Gentry believes the program could continue.

The cost to the University is based on an expectation that Brown will meet increased ridership statistics, which Brown and RIPTA will closely monitor.

Mark Therrien, RIPTA’s assistant general manager for planning, said he believes that the partnership will benefit RIPTA as well as the Brown community.

Therrien said he thinks the switch from a discounted price to a fully subsidized pass will increase student ridership. “Students make their decisions quickly, so they usually haven’t planned to buy their passes,” Therrien said. “We as an organization have to react to their needs.”

Turn to Page 9 for The Herald’s guide to RIPTA.

c ampus n ews Thursday, September 6, 2007

page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Hospital merger could relocate Butler, create medical conglomerate

By Kristina Kelleher Senior Staf f Writer

Rhode Island may soon see twothirds of its hospitals’ services under the control of a single hospital conglomerate known as Lifespan, which on July 27, announced its intention to merge the state’s two largest hospital groups — Lifespan and Care New England. The planned merger must still undergo federal and state reviews before ground can be broken on an envisioned south Providence medical complex akin to Boston’s Longwood Medical Area.

Lifespan and Care New England came close to a merger in 1998 but withdrew the plans 23 months later, reported the Providence Journal on July 28. The same article said this merger would create the “biggest company of any kind doing business chiefly in Rhode Island.”

The organization’s annual patient care revenues would near $2 billion dollars, and the new group would employ 17,600 workers, Lifespan’s Senior Vice President and Chief Physician Officer Arthur

Klein told The Herald.

Klein sees the merger as a longterm strategy for the hospitals to improve health care deliver y in Rhode Island. The size of the conglomerate would reduce the cost of business functions, allowing for more investment in clinical programs, and in particular, for systemwide information technology upgrades, he said.

The envisioned south Providence medical center would add to the current campus of Rhode Island Hospital and the Women & Infants Hospital by relocating Butler Hospital to the site.

The hospitals’ plans, as reported in Lifespan’s July 27 press release, call for selling or developing the 110-acre campus of the current Butler Hospital and building a new psychiatric hospital at the site, including a new brain-science institute.

Klein is careful to point out that the state must approve Lifespan’s projected vision before any official planning will take place.

The new Lifespan organization would include the current Lifespan hospitals: Rhode Island Hospital

— including Hasbro Children’s Hospital — in south Providence, Miriam Hospital also in Providence, Bradley Hospital and Newport Hospital in Newport. The merger will also affect the current Care New England hospitals, including Kent Hospital in Warwick, Butler Hospital and Women & Infants Hospital in south Providence, which shares a campus with the Rhode Island Hospital.

While the University has no official control over the merger, Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences Eli Adashi said he “sees some possibilities” as a result of the proposal. The new Lifespan would include all but two of Brown’s affiliated teaching hospitals — excluding only the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the independent Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket — which would mean “less fragmentation” for the program, Adashi said.

Adashi, like Klein, foresees that the hospital consolidation is the first step toward the developChris Bennett / Herald

continued on page 6

A merger would include most Brown teaching hospitals, including Rhode Island Hospital.

CS prof aims to improves Internet privacy

By Andrew Kurtzman Staff Writer

Courtesy of brown.edu

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Anna Lysyanskaya

Few consumers realize how much of their personal information can be gathered by commercial Web sites that require users to create unique accounts and divulge personal information — or how easily databases storing such information can be hacked. But now, thanks to Assistant Professor of Computer Science Anna Lysyanskaya’s research into “zero-knowledge proof,” or ZKP, companies may soon be able to identify Web site subscribers without knowing their real identities, dissociating the individual user from any usage data collected about him or her while logged in.

“My hope is that there will be

a standard for how authentication should be done online. (Companies) should never ask for more information than they need,” Lysyanskaya said. ZKP has the potential to reduce the amount of personally identifiable information collected by companies.

As an example of a simple ZKP, Lysyanskaya described holding a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle behind a black sheet with a small, Waldo-shaped hole. By moving the puzzle behind the screen such that Waldo — and only Waldo — is visible through the hole, Lysyanskaya can prove that Waldo exists in the puzzle without revealing his location.

Similarly, a ZKP would allow users to show an online newspaper that they have subscription access to the Web site’s content without revealing

their identities to the newspaper.

According to Lysyanskaya, the best solution for true privacy on the Internet is to minimize the amount of information demanded of users.

“Everyone should get together and say privacy matters,” she said.

“People should not give away information that they don’t have to.”

Lysyanskaya’s work in cryptography and ZKP began with her dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which she has continued to refine.

Her work is beginning to pay off.

In its September/October 2007 issue, MIT’s Technology Review magazine recognized Lysyanskaya as one of the world’s “top young researchers under age 35,” with work that is “changing our world.”

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Page 6

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Medical merger may be in store

Proust marks Convocation

continued from page 5 ment of a substantial biomedical complex in south Providence in the next five to 10 years. The University is considering placing the Warren Alpert Medical School in the vicinity of this proposed complex in near future, he said, adding that the proximity of the medical school to such a consolidated hospital complex could create a medical center akin to that of the Longwood Medical Area in Boston.

Adashi also imagines the consolidation could have farreaching implications for the Providence cityscape, suggesting that the Jewelry District would attract biotechnology and medical research firms and become “an attractive downtown area.”

The merger would also have long-term benefits for the state, Klein said. Strengthening the par tnership between Brown and the new conglomerate is “critical to our mutual ability to attract biomedical business to the state,” which is in turn critical to its economic health, he said.

But first, regulators at the federal and state levels must sign off on Lifespan’s new vision to improve the health care and economy of Rhode Island.

“Once we’ve gotten the green light, we can start talking about planning and operation,” Klein said.

continued from page 1 staff and volunteers that enabled the Campaign for Academic Enrichment to reach the $1 billion mark.

Simmons explained that the University has never had a larger faculty — 43 new faculty members joined Brown this year.

“All of this effort and all of these improvements are in the service of one aim — to make possible at this university the highest level of scholarship with the highest degree of integrity. … So your march through those gates and your presence on this historic green renews our enthusiasm for the 244-year-old mission for this university,” she said.

Weinstein is entering his 40th year of teaching at Brown.

His address, “Reading Proust, Tracking Bears, at Brown,” was in reference to the literature of Marcel Proust and William Faulkner.

His discussion on Proust resonated with first-year students, who were required to read “How Proust Can Change Your Life” by Alain de Botton over the summer.

Weinstein’s speech, which detailed key scenes from both Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past” and Faulkner’s “Go Down, Moses,” was an homage to books and the importance of learning to read “the books of your culture,” he said.

He used a scene from Proust in which the narrator flashes back to foregone, idyllic memories to describe how Brown will represent an indelible part of its students’ lives.

“All of you who are about to undertake a year of study at this institution are on the threshold of the sets of experiences that will live within

you forever. … It will become a part of the living sediment of your brain and heart and memory,” Weinstein said.

His references to tracking bears came from Faulkner’s short story “The Bear,” in which the narrator learns to hunt bears through their tracks. Weinstein likened the tracks to words — they first seem like “cryptic markers” before you learn to read them, he said.

“The project of education itself is little more than learning to translate such markers into their fuller — sometimes unbearably fuller — dimensions,” he said.

“On this day when we celebrate the opening of this university, I wish you happy reading and happy hunting,” Weinstein said in closing.

After Weinstein’s speech, Simmons asked the community to “take care to remember the many students who begin this year with the weight of loss, fear or isolation upon their shoulders.”

She referred to the campus of Virginia Tech, those still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, and those “shut down by war and censure.”

She also mentioned campuses feeling “the sting of intimidation,” alluding to her public condemnation of the suggestion by the Union of College and University Professors in Great Britain to isolate Israeli academics.

“Let us renew a commitment to be a community of rigorous inquiry, a community of mutual respect, a community that values academic freedom, a community that pays more than lip service to diversity and a community that returns something to the public good,” she said.

World & Nation thursday, September 6, 2007

the brown daily herald

PAGE 7

Experts doubt decrease in Iraq violence

Apple to drop iPhone price by $200

by Karen DeYoung Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government who contend that the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. Accord-

ing to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers — most of which are classified — are often confusing and contradictory. “Let’s just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree,” Comptroller General David Walker told Congress Tuesday in releasing a

new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also included in last month’s pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military descontinued on page 12

Oscar-winning actress Miyoshi Umeki, 78, dies

by Dennis McLellan Los Angeles T imes

Miyoshi Umeki, the Japaneseborn singer and actress who became the first Asian performer to win an Academy Award, for her touching role as Red Buttons’ wife in the 1957 film “Sayanora,” has died. She was 78.

Umeki, who also was known for playing the housekeeper on the TV series “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” died of complications of cancer Aug. 28 at a nursing home in Licking, Mo., said her son, Michael Hood.

Umeki had been a singer and nightclub performer in post-war Japan, where she recorded popular American tunes for RCA Japan under the name Nancy Umeki, before moving to the United States in 1955 and signing with Mercury Records.

She was a regular on the musical-variety show “Arthur Godfrey and His Friends” before she was cast in the role of Katsumi, the young Japanese woman who becomes the bride of an American Air Force sergeant played by Buttons in the film version of James A. Michener’s best-selling novel

of romance and racial prejudice in post-war Japan.

Both Umeki and Buttons won supporting actor Oscars for their roles as the doomed newlyweds.

Umeki also gained acclaim -and a Tony Award nomination as best actress in a musical -- playing Mei Li in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song,” which ran on Broadway from 1958 to 1960.

In addition to her son, Umeki is survived by two grandchildren and extended family members in Japan.

by Michelle Quinn Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Inc. on Wednesday dropped the price of its most popular iPhone by $200, a declaration that the company plans to play aggressively in the cell phone market.

The 8 gigabyte iPhone will cost $399, down from $599, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said. The company plans to phase out the 4 gigabyte version.

“Apple wants to be more of a legitimate player in the mobile market than people thought,” said Gene Munster, senior research analyst for Piper Jaffray. “It will hurt them in profitability for the first few quarters, but it will boost the demand for the iPhone.”

Jobs said he wanted to “put iPhones in a lot of stockings this holiday season.”

The company also unveiled an iPod that connects to wireless networks, as well as a slew of other music and video products and services that most likely will accelerate Apple’s growing dominance in digital entertainment.

Jobs said Apple remained on track to sell its millionth iPhone by the end of this month. The product, a combination cell phone, Internet device and digital entertainment player, launched June 29.

Among the new line of iPods is one called iPod Touch that, like the iPhone, operates via a touch-screen.

Equipped with an Internet connection, this iPod will sell for $399 for the

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one with the most storage.

IPhone users will be able to buy ring tones for their phones from iTunes, and along with owners of iPod Touch they will be able to buy music from iTunes directly from the Internet, no longer having to first download to their home computers and then sync to the device.

In addition, Apple announced a partnership with the coffee giant Starbucks. People in the coffee stores will be able to see the song playing in the stores on their iPhones or iPod Touch devices and buy it.

The announcements came after a week of speculation about what the Cupertino, Calif.-based company was planning to do next. Rumors, ranging from Apple adding the Beatles catalog to the introduction of a “Nano” phone, pushed up the stock.

Since it launched the first iPod in 2001, Apple has become the No. 3 music retailer in the U.S., behind WalMart Stores Inc. and Best Buy Inc. Jobs said the entertainment market was rapidly evolving and that in 2006, 32 percent of all new U.S. releases were digital downloads, not on CD. For the ring tones, available next week, Jobs said that iPhone owners would be able to pick from 500,000 participating songs. Customers will be able to buy the song for 99 cents and then spend an extra 99 cents to use the song for a ring tone.

Apple will begin selling video iPod Nanos later this week. The new video Nanos come in a 4-gigabyte version at $149 and an 8-gigabyte version at $199.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Thursday, September 6, 2007

page 9

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Five Tips: NAVIGATING PROVIDENCE In Providence, take advantage of the Green Line Trolleys that stop by the bus tunnel and the Thayer Street Starbucks every 20 minutes.

One trolley has a circuit that goes from Kennedy Plaza, up past the bus tunnel and across the East Side, stopping at East Side Marketplace, and then heading back to Kennedy Plaza.

The other trolley makes the same circuit, but instead of starting and stopping at Kennedy Plaza, it continues on to Federal Hill.

Check the signs on the front of the trolleys for details on which trolley goes where.

The Herald Guide to Free RIPTA

Inbound

1. Bring your Brown I.D. and the University will pick up the tab.

2. For a fun day trip, take along your bike. You can put it on specialized racks on the front of the bus.

3. Don’t be afraid to get lost! All RIPTA routes end where they start, so worse comes to worst, you waste a bit of time and get a sightseeing tour of Old Rhody.

4. Use RIPTA’s Web site to look up schedules and a detailed system map. Remember, outbound routes are those headed away from Kennedy Plaza; inbound routes head back home.

5. You will meet some unique people on RIPTA, bus drivers included.

It’s part of the RIPTA experience. Embrace it.

Wal-mart Cranston

Rt. #19

Roger Williams Park Zoo #20 The zoo is home to over 1,000 animals representing some 140 species, including polar bears, snow leopards, moon bears, giraffes and elephants. The park contains lots of grassy areas and even a lake with waterfowl.

A good adventure now that the sub museum sank.

T.F. Green Airport

Bristol

#14, #20

#60

Check out Colt State Park, which is on Narragansett Bay and offers four miles of bike paths along the bay. The park is over 464 acres large and offers picnic tables and large playfields. There is no entrance fee.

Or, there’s the Audubon Environmental Education Center, with a 33-foot life size right whale, a tide pool, the Narragansett Bay and other interactive exhibits. Situated on a 28acre wildlife refuge, the center also has walking trails with a quarter-mile boardwalk through fresh and saltwater marshes and is located near the East Bay Bike Path.

The Breakers Mansion

Narragansett Beach #14, #64 A popular beach among the college set — though beware, they charge for admission.

#60, #67

One of the largest summer mansions located in Newport, it was originally purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who redesigned it to create a 70-room palazzo in an Italian Renaissance style, inspired by 16th century palaces of Genoa and Turin. There are 11 mansions with over 80 acres of gardens. Tickets can be purchased individually to tour each mansion, and are also available in packages to visit more than one property.

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Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

British could allow creation of experimental hybrid embryos

by Rick Weiss The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Capping a months-long scientific and ethics review, British regulators Wednesday said they were prepared to allow the creation of embr yos that are part human and part animal for use in medical experiments.

The ruling by the Human Fertilisation and Embr yo Authority, which oversees human embr yo research in Britain, means that two previously submitted proposals to create hybrid embryos — on hold while the authority considered whether it would even look at them — will now be considered in detail.

Final decisions on those proposals, widely anticipated to be positive, are expected in November.

The prime goal of the research is to make embr yos from which embryonic stem cells that may be medically useful can be extracted.

The embryos would be made by injecting human DNA into cow or rabbit eggs whose own DNA has been largely, but not fully, removed.

Until now, scientists making human embr yos for research have generally used human eggs from women treated with hormones, a procedure that poses medical risks and so raises ethical concerns.

But opponents have argued it is no less unethical to create partly human embryos solely to harvest

their stem cells, and some have raised the specter of rogue scientists growing the embr yos into weird human-animal creatures.

The embryo authority Wednesday acknowledged those concerns and promised to watch the field closely.

“This is not a total green light for ... hybrid research, but recognition that this area of research can, with caution and careful scrutiny, be permitted,” the agency said in a statement.

Among the questions the group of scientists, philosophers and others struggled with was whether hybrid embryos are “human.” Had the group decided “no,” it would have lacked control over the research under the terms of its charter.

Some organizations vocally opposed the experiments, as did the nation’s chief medical officer, citing a lack of public support. But the British Medical Association and Britain’s major science funders, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, lobbied hard for a positive ruling, along with several Nobel laureates and others.

Although more than half of British adults recently surveyed said they suppor ted research using human embryos, only 35 percent supported the creation of embryos that are “mostly human and a small amount of animal genetic materials” — the kind of research being

proposed for now — and nearly half said they were opposed.

Many expressed concern that the work constitutes “meddling with Nature” and might lead to moretroubling experiments. Others said they feared that some hybrid embr yos — which scientists call chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail — might be transferred to women’s wombs, where they might develop.

British regulations demand that all human embr yos used in research be destroyed within 14 days after their creation. Supporters also point to research suggesting that chimeric embr yos have little potential to survive beyond the earliest stages of development because of incompatibilities between their human and animal strands of DNA. “I know ever yone’s worried about the `cow-man,’ but everyone needs to take a deep breath,” said Lawrence Goldstein, director of the stem cell program at the University of California at San Diego. “It’s unlikely in the extreme that you could get a viable organism this way.”

A few scientists in the United States have acknowledged efforts to make human embryos using cow or rabbit eggs, generally with marginal success. Such experiments are legal in the United States if no federal funds are involved.

www.browndailyherald.com

Thursday, September 6, 2007

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Youth suicide rates rose after decrease in antidepressant prescriptions

by Shankar Vedantam The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Warnings four years ago that antidepressants were increasing suicidal behavior among young people caused a precipitous drop in the drugs’ use — a drop that coincided with an unprecedented increase in suicides in that age group, a new study has found.

From 2003 to 2004, the suicide rate among Americans younger than 19 rose 14 percent, the most dramatic one-year change since the government started collecting suicide statistics in 1979, the study found. The rise followed a sharp decrease in the prescribing of antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil after parents and physicians were confronted by a barrage of warnings from the Food and Drug Administration and international agencies.

The data suggest that for every 20 percent decline in antidepressant use among patients of all ages in the United States, an additional 3,040 suicides per year would occur, said Robert Gibbons, a professor of biostatistics and psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who did the study. About 32,000 Americans

commit suicide each year.

Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said, “We may have inadvertently created a problem by putting a `black box’ warning on medications that were useful.” He added, “If the drugs were doing more harm than good, then the reduction in prescription rates should mean the risk of suicide should go way down, and it hasn’t gone down at all — it has gone up.”

The new finding, published in the September issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, is the latest shoe to drop in a roller-coaster controversy spanning more than four years. In 2003 and 2004, the FDA issued a series of warnings that clinical trials had detected an increase in suicidal thinking among children and adolescents taking a class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), compared with those given sugar pills. In late 2004, the agency called for a “black box” warning on the drugs to call attention to the potential risk, and expanded it last December to include young adults.

The warnings led to a broad de-

cline in SSRI prescriptions for all patients younger than 60, Gibbons said. Prescription rates continued to rise among those older than 60, and this was the only group in which suicides dropped between 2003 and 2004, his study found.

The study included the Netherlands, which saw a 22 percent decrease in antidepressant use between 2003 and 2005. The suicide rate among youngsters there increased by 49 percent in that period.

“We are seeing some clearly unintended consequences, but these consequences have a huge price that is being paid,” Gibbons said.

The trend lines do not prove that suicides rose because of the drop in prescriptions, but Gibbons, Insel and other experts said the international evidence leaves few other plausible explanations. Previous studies have shown that U.S. suicide rates are lower in counties where antidepressant use is higher, and a study in July of more than 200,000 depressed veterans found that those taking an antidepressant had one-third the risk of suicide of those who were not.

The new study was largely funded by the federal government.

Pfizer, which makes Zoloft, provided

some money for data collection, Gibbons said, but was not involved in carrying out the study and did not review the results before they were published.

The FDA required the blackbox warnings on the drugs’ labels to prompt doctors to closely monitor patients they put on antidepressants, because of some evidence that the risk of suicide is highest shortly after treatment begins. Gibbons said that the decision was misguided and that the situation called for better education of physicians, not warnings.

Thomas Laughren, director of the agency’s division of psychiatry products, said, “FDA is obviously concerned about possible negative impacts of labeling changes but also feels a strong obligation to alert prescribers and patients to possible risks associated with the use of antidepressants.” He added, “We will continue to monitor antidepressant use and suicide rates, and will take appropriate regulatory actions as new data become available.”

FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said the agency probably would solicit the advice of a committee of independent experts before making any significant labeling change.

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Page 12

Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Report: Bad times in Iraq continued from page 7 ignated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington.

“If a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian,” the official said. “If it went through the front, it’s criminal.”

“Depending on which numbers you pick,” he said, “you get a different outcome.” Analysts found “trend lines ... going in different directions,” compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. “It began to look like spaghetti.

Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was the escalating number of attacks between

rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that have consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military’s statistics. “Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite on Shiite and Sunni on Sunni violence, except in certain instances,” the spokesman said, “we do not track this data to any significant degree.”

Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen — recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaida — are also excluded from the U.S. military’s calculation of violence levels.

High Notes: NFL contract negotiations can be a headache continued from page 16 be solved by giving a fat contract to a stud wide-out. That’s a great idea if you’re the Red Sox and have an infinite amount of projectile money to throw at players, but football has a salary cap. So after Oakland gave Moss roughly $8 million per year in both 2005 and 2006, their junior varsity offensive line pioneered their 4-12 and 2-14 seasons. What happened after 2006? Moss complained about Oakland’s losing, a result in large part because they overpaid for his services, and decided to take less than half his current salary to join the Patriots, a team notoriously stingy for never paying contract holdouts (see: Deion Branch).

The odd part about all of these contract negotiations is that there is a conflict of interest not only between the player and the team, but sometimes the player’s desire to win and his desire for money. When every team has equal resources, as they do in the NFL, the teams that spread their payroll most efficiently will have success. Everybody has the right to do whatever is in their power to get the contract they want, but once you sign it, don’t hold out. If you truly want to win, that’s bad for you and your team.

Ben Singer ’09 was holding out on writing this column until he realized he wasn’t being paid.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Action on climate change

by Michael A. Fletcher The Washington Post

SYDNEY, Australia — One of the first agreements to emerge Wednesday from meetings between President Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard was a pledge to take joint action to combat climate change.

It is an issue that neither leader has been closely associated with in the past. Both Australia and the United States failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 United Nations-led effort that set goals for major industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which cause global warming.

Bush and Howard have attacked the Kyoto treaty, with its binding goals for reducing emissions and its exclusion of developing countries, as making no sense for their countries or the environment. That stance led to widespread criticism, even in their home countries. But as the politics of climate change in both countries shifts — with a consensus forming to battle a problem now seen as urgent — so too have the public postures of Bush and Howard.

Now, both men are trying to position themselves as leaders of a new plan for battling climate change, relying not on mandator y goals but making it easier to share clean energy know-how with developing countries.

Climate change is one of the key issues on the agenda for the leaders of 21 Asian and Pacific nations gathering her for their annual summit. Howard, who is hosting the gathering, is pushing leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, called APEC, to agree to a climate change statement before the meeting ends.

Howard announced a domestic plan earlier this year to create an emissions “cap-and-trade” system for Australian industry that would place limits on greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The systems create a financial incentive for reducing pollution, while protecting fossilfuel-burning industries, by allowing them to essentially buy credits from other firms that do not exhaust their emissions caps.

Bush, meanwhile, has been pushing for a climate change regimen that, unlike Kyoto, would include developing nations and give countries a voice in setting goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

“This is not something you would have seen two years ago or three years ago,” said an Australian official, who asked for anonymity so as not to offend the United States.

Bush has invited the European Union and 12 countries — including rapidly developing nations such as China, India and Brazil that are not party to Kyoto — to a climate change meeting in Washington later this month. Bush hopes that meeting will set the stage for a larger U.N.backed meeting to be held in Bali later this year.

“I know some say, well, since he’s against Kyoto he doesn’t care about the climate change,” Bush told reporters. “That’s urban legend that is preposterous.”

Bush pointed out that United States last year reduced overall greenhouse gas emissions while growing its economy — a development that experts attributed to favorable weather as well as the marshaling of new technology unrelated to government initiatives.

However, it is an achievement Bush hopes to build on and export.

The agreement with Australia adheres to the kind of framework Bush

is pushing for combating climate change. Bush is advocating what his aides call a comprehensive approach that promotes new technology — including new types of nuclear power plants — discourages deforestation and encourages countries to move away from burning fossil fuels.

“What this statement shows is the common approach of the United States and Australia, and the intent to address the problems of climate change and energy security comprehensively and in an integrated fashion,” said Dan Price, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.

But the divergent interests of fully industrialized and still-developing countries are making it difficult for negotiators who are still trying to win agreement from all the world leaders gathering here for the summit.

Many developing countries are reluctant to set even nonbinding targets for reducing emissions — something they believe could undermine their economic growth. Moreover, they say, more developed countries should take the lead on the issue.

But Bush and others say that climate change efforts are rendered virtually meaningless if they do not include developing nations.

“If you really want to really solve the global climate change issue, let’s get everybody to the table,” Bush said. “Let’s make sure that countries such as China and India are at the table as we discuss the way forward.”

The divide between rich and poor countries has hindered climate change efforts for years. But Bush administration officials are hoping that the growing urgency around the issue may prod countries toward agreement — if not here, then at the Washington conference, or in subsequent meetings.

“We’ve received a lot of questions about some of those proposals. And we anticipate a full and robust discussion,” said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “I think it will take some time beyond that.”

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E ditorial & L etters Page 14

Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Riding RIPTA It may seem like a small measure, but Brown’s adoption of a free transportation arrangement with RIPTA is a smart move for many reasons, students’ habitual laziness and the pain of rising gas prices among them.

Of course, students could make trips downtown and to local sights and off-the-Hill spots before, but we’re glad the University realizes that the appeal to college students of free anything cannot be underestimated. The all-free, all-the-time U-PASS — which works on RIPTA buses with the swipe of a Brown ID — is a substantial upgrade from its previous incarnation as a 50 percent discount pass.

Brown isn’t the first school to wisely arrange free public transportation for its students — the University of Washington and several Chicago schools have recently done the same.

It’s a good idea for any campus community, but especially one like ours, with a parking crunches that limits the use of student-owned cars.

And as gas prices continue to spike and major cities seem to perpetually increase public transportation fares, $200,000 for a year of free transportation for nearly 10,000 people strikes us as a good deal — one we hope will benefit dozens of faculty and staff­­. The new bus line slated to link Barrington — a popular hometown of choice for Brown professors — with Thayer Street is a great incentive for faculty to ride RIPTA. In a state as small as Rhode Island, attracting as many riders as possible to the public transit system usefully vests in citizens concern for the future of their public transport system. Hey, it even promotes responsible energy use among Lil’ Rhody’s residents.

The interaction between our campus and surrounding Providence is bound to grow. As the University continues its physical expansion, students, faculty and staff will be shuttling between the Jewelry District and College Hill far more often.

But Brown technically has only agreed to a two-year contract with RIPTA, to be evaluated based on University participation. That’s why it is important, now, to get off the Hill and actually take advantage of U-PASS. Plenty of interesting, quirky trips within Rhode Island are now at our fingertips, a handful of which are in our RIPTA guide on page 9. So head over to the bus tunnel and the Thayer Street stop — or grab one of the green trolleys that runs around campus — and venture elsewhere in Lil’ Rhody one of these Saturdays. There’s never been a better time to do it.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Eric Beck Mary-Catherine Lader

Executive Editors Stephen Colelli Allison Kwong Ben Leubsdorf

Senior Editors Jonathan Sidhu Anne Wootton

editorial Lydia Gidwitz Robin Steele Oliver Bowers Stephanie Bernhard Simmi Aujla Sara Molinaro Ross Frazier Karla Bertrand Jacob Schuman Peter Cipparone Erin Frauenhofer Stu Woo Benjy Asher Jason Harris

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

photo Christopher Bennett Rahul Keerthi Ashley Hess

Photo Editor Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

Business Mandeep Gill General Manager Darren Ball Executive Manager Dan DeNorch Executive Manager Laurie-Ann Paliotti Sr. Advertising Manager Susan Dansereau Office Manager

production Steve DeLucia Catherine Cullen Roxanne Palmer

Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Graphics Editor

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Managing Editor Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor

Steve DeLucia, Designer Catherine Cullen, Erin Cummings, Lucy Stark, Copy Editors Senior Staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Zachary Chapman, Irene Chen, Chaz Firestone, Isabel Gottlieb, Nandini Jayakrishna, Franklin Kanin, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, Michael Skocpol, Nick Werle Staff Writers Susana Aho, Taylor Barnes, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Aubry Bracco, Caitlin Browne, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, Isabel Gottlieb, Thi Ho, Andrew Kurtzman, Cameron Lee, Hannah Levintova, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, Anna Millman, Joy Neumeyer, Marielle Segarra, Robin Steele, Allissa Wickham, Meha Verghese Sports Staff Writers Andrew Braca, Han Cui, Amy Ehrhart, Kaitlyn Laabs, Eliza Lane, Kathleen Loughlin, Alex Mazerov, Megan McCahill, 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, Jihan Chao, Aurora Durfee, Sophie Elsner, Christian Martell, Matthew McCabe, Ezra Miller Photo Staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Tai Ho Shin Copy Editors Ayelet Brinn, Erin Cummings, Karen Evans, Jacob Frank, Ted Lamm, Lauren Levitz, Cici Matheny, Alex Mazerov, Ezra Miller, Joy Neumeyer, Madeleine Rosenberg, Lucy Stark, Meha Verghese

Clarification An article in Wednesday’s Herald (“First-years test Banner registration,” Sept. 5) stated that first-year registration took place from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday. Online registration for freshmen in fact ended at 7 p.m.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy 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.

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O pinions Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

page 15

Mi Casa No Es Su Casa Gentrification in East Austin and Other Neighborhoods MICHAEL RAMOS-LYNCH Opinions Columnist Gentrification is the complex and interrelated consequences of people moving into a residential area and purchasing a property significantly more expensive than the properties of the surrounding area. Gentrification is often associated with an increase in property values and rents as well as transformations to the neighborhood’s culture. Higher property taxes usually force the original residents of the communities to move out.

Yet, though gentrification displaces residents from their communities, it does have some benefits. When new wealthier residents move into poor neighborhoods, crime rates often decrease, infrastructure improves and the neighborhood’s economy develops. The problem is that the benefits of gentrification unequally help the newer, wealthier residents, which in turn helps to raise property taxes even further and, ultimately, displaces even more of the original residents.

In an April 19, 2005, article in USA Today, Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor is quoted at saying that gentrification was not harmful to a neighborhood. He mocked the general attitude of gentrification opponents: “We were angry when the middle class moved out of the city; now we’re angry when they move back.”

Vigdor’s assessment is not only overly simplified — its implications are tinged with racism. Institutional racism ranging from the American slave trade to unequal educational

opportunities to the refusal of banks to give loans to families of color has made it extremely difficult for people of color to enjoy the same financial success as whites. Vigdor suggests that the poor people of color in underprivileged neighborhoods are irrational because they are upset no matter where middle class white people live. However, poor residents in cities are actually upset because, as history demonstrates, they are either marginalized or

who moved to the suburbs want to move back to the neighborhoods they originally left. In some cases, people from the suburbs are moving into more urban areas that never even experienced “white flight.”

Along with many other famous neighborhoods, such as Northwest Fort Lauderdale and Boston’s North End, my neighborhood in East Austin, Texas, has experienced a high level of gentrification. Most East Austin

Poor residents in cities are upset because, as history demonstrates, they are either marginalized or displaced or both whenever white middle-class people want to move. displaced or both whenever white middle-class people want to move. When the white middle class abandoned urban areas, their absence and the loss of their tax base eroded inner-city public schools and greatly decreased available employment.

Now, more than 50 years later, gentrification is increasingly common, as many people

residents are African-Americans and MexicanAmericans, largely due to past city policies that forced people of color to live on the east side of the city.

According to Rick Hampson, who wrote the article in USA Today, “In the predominantly Latino working class barrio of East Austin, the new Pedernales Lofts condominiums have

raised adjacent land values more than 50% since 2003. Last fall, someone hung signs from power lines outside the lofts saying, ‘Stop gentrifying the East Side’ and ‘Will U give jobs to longtime residents of this neighborhood?’”

In addition to concerns about displacement, some of the original residents of the neighborhood feel that the new white middle class residents will threaten the culture of the neighborhood. During a meeting in November 2005, Susana Almanza, co-director of People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources, an East Austin based non-profit organization, said that some of her new wealthy neighbors complain to the police that many of the original residents play their music too loud, say that they have “too many cars,” and condescendingly tell them that their children “run wild.”

The signs from Pedernales demonstrate legitimate concerns that a sudden influx of middle class residents will not solve the common problems of the inner city. Gentrification forces poor people of color to find new ways to survive: new work, new schools, new connections and new homes — while the white middle class are able to live closer to work and enjoy their newfound proximity to the expensive downtown nightlife. Though resolving the problems of gentrification requires complex responses – not least the eradication of institutional racism – an immediate solution is for conscientious individuals to not move into neighborhoods where the average property value is significantly less than the property they intend to purchase.

Michael Ramos-Lynch ’09 is full of East Side pride.

Rethinking kidney markets

BY JAMES SHAPIRO Opinions Columnist Last year, 3,916 Americans died waiting for a kidney transplant. About 70,000 Americans are on the national waiting list for a kidney, and most of them undergo dialysis — a painful, invasive, continuous and time-consuming set of medical procedures that temporarily treat kidney disease. The federal government should address these problems by lifting the ban on kidney sales immediately.

According to recent data, the median wait for a kidney transplant is four years. Thousands of patients don’t have enough health or good fortune to hold out for that long. There were about 17,000 kidney transplant surgeries performed in 2006, but far more than 17,000 new patients joined the waiting list during the same period. Furthermore, the waiting list understates the actual number of needy patients since it excludes many indigent, elderly and unhealthy people.

The ban, implemented in 1984, makes it a federal felony to provide valuable compensation to an organ donor. Yet monetary payment provides one of the most powerful incentives to donate. The restrictions have created a state-imposed purgatory for everyone suffering from kidney disease. Patients, deprived of the opportunity to provide financial compensation, will always outnumber willing donors by a wide margin.

In a legal kidney market, patients would compensate donors for the inconvenience and mild health risks associated with transplant surgery. Many people oppose kidney markets,

viewing them as exploitive or unfair. In reality, kidney sales would reduce exploitation and promote equity.

Critics of kidney sales often imagine grisly scenes in which rich patients harvest organs from the desperately poor. But studies of kidney donors indicate that the long-term health risks associated with kidney transplantation are nonexistent or minor. People normally have two functioning kidneys, but they only need one.

A 1997 study tracked 430 people who donated kidneys between 1964 and 1994. Not

vide a compelling argument for a total ban on kidney sales. A commercial truck driver runs the same risk of death each year. Unless one also favors a total ban on commercial trucking and numerous other professions with tempting salaries but unhealthy effects (boxing, construction work, coal mining, profootball, etc.) minor health risks cannot justify prohibition.

In all likelihood, the ban on kidney sales hurts the very people it aims to help. One recent study estimated that the legal market price of an American kidney would be about

Patients, deprived of the opportunity to provide financial compensation, will always outnumber willing donors by a wide margin. a single subject died of kidney disease. A 1992 study compared the health of 57 donors and their siblings. The medical evaluations, conducted 20 or more years after surgery, indicated no significant health differences between the two groups.

Kidney donors do face a 0.03 percent chance of death or irreversible coma resulting from the surgery, but that does not pro-

$20,000. That sum would give donors the resources to buy a car, pay off debts, support their family or help pay for a house. These things will prove substantially more important to some adults than one extraneous appendage.

Instead of exploiting donors, an American kidney market would forestall the truly exploitive transactions that occur outside of

the United States. Every year, droves of wellheeled travelers from Europe and the United States flock to Iran, Pakistan and Bulgaria to buy kidneys on the black market. These organs often come from unwilling victims.

While American donors enjoy state-of-theart, minimally invasive, low-risk surgery, foreign “donors” are slashed down the side in a frequently debilitating and rarely hygienic procedure.

The exploitation of would-be donors is a powerful reason to endorse kidney markets, not reject them. But critics may still object that a kidney market does not offer equal access to treatment. The only patients who can buy a kidney on the market are those who can afford one.

As it turns out, kidney sales would make healthcare outcomes more equal. Chronic dialysis treatment costs about $100,000 more than the combined expense of a kidney, transplantation surgery and post-operative treatment. Whoever currently pays the bills for dialysis patients (most health care in the US is provided by third parties, not patients) would save millions of dollars per year by funding transplants for rich and poor patients alike.

Right now the only people buying kidneys are those rich enough to travel abroad and acquire them from ethically suspect sources.

So why is the government banning consensual arrangements that would save thousands of lives, alleviate suffering, increase equal access to healthcare and give money to those who need it most? People are dying to know.

Former Herald Senior Staff Writer James Shapiro ’10 will pay $50,000 for a heart.

S ports T hursday Page 16

Thursday, September 6, 2007

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

W. soccer tours Europe for competition and culture

By Whitney Clark Contributing Writer

On June 5, the women’s soccer team began a 13-day tour of Europe, playing five games and a small tournament. Visiting four countries and stopping in almost a dozen different cities — including Rome, Munich, Venice and Milan — the team competed against some of the top professional teams in Western Europe and took the opportunity to enjoy the cultural experience.

A day after arriving in Europe, Brown played G.S. Roma Femminile, a B-league team from Rome.

With two goals from Lindsay Cunningham ’09 and one each from Jill Mansfield ’07 and Kellie Slater ’10, the Bears began their tour on a high note with a 4-0 win. Goalkeepers Brenna Hogue ’09 and Steffi Yellin ’09 contributed to the shutout.

After their short stay in Rome, Brown moved on to Florence, where it played Gioiello Firenze, a top Aleague team. The Bears fell 1-0 in a game decided in the last two minutes of regulation, thanks to a goal from a player on the Italian national team.

“They played a lot more in the air, and they were very accurate,” said co-captain Julia Shapira ’08 of the European teams Brown faced.

Many members of the team also said that the European women’s game was heavily influenced by the men’s style of play.

“You don’t see women taking dives in the U.S,” said Head Coach Phil Pincince. Some players complained that some fouls called in the European games would not have been called in NCAA games.

However, Brown adapted to the difference. Two days after their first loss, the Bears took a bus to Bergamo, Italy, to play Atalanta, another top A-league team. Although Brown had little time to recover from its previous game, it had enough en-

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

Lindsay Cunningham ’09 led the women’s soccer team to a winning record on its tour of Europe over the summer.

ergy to stage a comeback. Down 1-0 at halftime, Slater found the back of the net with her second goal of the trip, putting Brown back in the game with only 10 minutes left. Then, with only two minutes left, Melissa Kim ’10 gave the Bears the lead with a goal off of a direct kick from about 20 yards out.

Brown played its fourth game in Ragensberg, Germany, a town just outside Munich. Matched up against S.C. Rasenberg, one of the weaker

teams on the tour, Brown won in a blowout, 7-1.

The final game of the tour took place in Switzerland, the fourth and final country the Bears would visit on the trip. The game was held in Zurich and the Bears played FCC Zuchwil, coming out with their first tie of the trip, 1-1.

Brown then returned to Italy for a three-team tournament. Playing a pair of 45-minute games, the Bears beat the host team, Como 2000, 1-0,

but finished second in the tournament after falling to Tourino by the same score.

Though the trip was exhausting — the players had little time to relax between playing games and sightseeing — Pincince felt his team gained valuable experiences both on and off the field.

“There was definitely improvement,” Pincince said. “It allowed us to develop our players and gain confidence in each other.”

New water polo coach in for the long-term

By Peter Cipparone Spor ts Editor

Since the closing of the Smith Swim Center in Januar y, Brown’s men’s and women’s water polo teams have gone through some significant changes. The closure forced the women’s team to finish its spring season at other pools, and the men’s team has practiced ever ywhere from Seekonk High School to Wheaton College in preparation for its regular season, which begins Saturday.

To cap it all off Brown introduced new Head Coach Felix Mercado on Aug. 22 to replace Jason Gall. However, Mercado made it clear that he’s planning on putting a stop to the sea of changes.

“I’m ripping up my resume,” Mercado said. “I think Brown’s looking for someone who’s dedicated to the program, and they’ve found someone.”

Mercado, who will coach both the women’s and men’s teams, replaces Gall, who departed to take a head coaching position at California State University, Bakersfield, on July 20. Immediately after being named to the position, Mercado started practice with the

men’s team.

Mercado comes to Brown from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he oversaw the club program for both men and women. Last year, in his second year as head coach, he was named the College Water Polo Association Division III Coach of the Year for the men’s season. When leading the women’s team, Mercado compiled a 30-3 record and reached the Club National Championships. Despite his success at his former school, Mercado was ecstatic to get the chance to coach on the Division I level.

“This is my dream job,” Mercado said. “The support here has been unbelievable, and the team has been on board with ever ything I’ve had to say.”

Amid the changes surrounding the University’s construction of a temporar y pool, Mercado is looking to provide some muchneeded stability at the helm of the program. Todd Clapper coached the Bears water polo teams for four-and-a-half years but left in 2004, and Joe Linehan was named head coach in 2004. Linehan never coached a game before giving way to Gall in September of 2004. But Mercado has no plans to leave

anytime soon.

“I think Brown was looking for someone who would be committed to the program and not use the job as a stepping stone to bigger programs,” Mercado said. “If the University wants dedication, they found the right person.”

Mercado’s biggest adjustment will be the elevated competition at the Division I level. His only coaching experience at the highest level of collegiate play came this spring when he ser ved as an assistant at Hartwick College, one of the women’s team’s main rivals, and helped lead the Hawks to a fifth place finish at the NCAA Championships.

But Mercado is no stranger to Division I coaches. He worked with Gall at camps when both had just moved to the Northeast. He said the two were “able to establish a friendship with (each other) as new kids on the block.”

Mercado seems to relish the opportunity to work at a Division I level, saying that he enjoys having “more to work with as far as talent” since his move to Brown.

This fall, the men’s team will have no home matches and will practice at other schools all season as the temporar y pool is

Courtesy of Brown Sports Information

Felix Mercado

scheduled to be completed in Januar y, according to Mercado.

The team will play numerous games at the Har vard pool in Cambridge, Mass., and will also travel to Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference league games.

But the new head coach is not making excuses.

“The guys definitely know what it takes to win,” Mercado said.

“I expect us to compete for the ECAC title. We’re kind of the dark horse in the ECAC because of the pool situation, but we feel good about our chances. It wouldn’t shock us if we won the title.”

Let’s make a deal The 2007 NFL season starts today, and wouldn’t you know it, JaMarcus Russell, the first overall pick of this year’s NFL Draft, is still without a contract.

This isn’t surprising. Ever y year, veteran NFL players dissatisfied with their contracts and rookies fr ustrated with their prospective Ben Singer deals decide not to High Notes show up to training camp. For rookies, this is a gamble. By not participating in camp, you might get your team to give you a more lucrative contract.

But if the team doesn’t give in, not only are you stuck with whatever deal it chooses to give you, the time you spent away from training camp has reduced your value to the team.

If your team ends up releasing you because you can’t agree on a contract, your value as a free agent won’t be helped by the fact that you have played in zero NFL games yet already have a track record of being tough to cooperate with.

But my beef isn’t with rookies. The fact that the NFL Players Association is utterly impotent doesn’t help them out. It is completely within a player’s right to argue for any contract he wants. Nor do I have anything against players who are given the franchise tag, which allows each NFL team to lock one of their would-be unrestricted free agents into a one-year deal. In this case, the player has not signed a contract and is still forced into terms under which to play. Think about it — if you just finished the last year of a five-year deal with your job and you were hugely productive in your last year, you’d be ticked off if your company forced you to work another year before you could try and seek out other offers.

My problem is with players who have already signed contracts but who hold out because they think they aren’t being paid enough. Everybody knows the key example of this: Terrell Owens. In 2005, he was set to earn $3.5 million as a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles.

He thought this wasn’t enough given how he played the year before so he held out. Let’s say Owens had an abysmal year in 2004 ­— would the Eagles pay him less money in 2005 because he underperformed his contract? Absolutely not, because it’s a contract. It’s something you sign to guarantee a transaction of services (playing time) for compensation (money). If Owens or any other player thinks it’s within his rights to disobey his contract when his play exceeds expectations, he should be prepared to be paid less when he underperforms as well.

But aside from contract holdouts, there’s a deeper conflict that underlies most players’ dissatisfaction with their salaries. Take wide receiver Randy Moss, for example. During his seven years with the Minnesota Vikings, he put up stellar stats and went to the Pro Bowl five times. But when it came time to renegotiate, Moss was displeased with the money the Vikings were willing to give him for a contract extension. But the Oakland Raiders, fresh off a swell 5-11 season, decided that their problems would continued on page 12