The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, S eptember 27, 2007
Volume CXLII, No. 77
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Weekend turmoil over elections leads to UCS code changes By Franklin Kanin Senior Staf f Writer
In the wake of alleged election irregularities at last week’s general body meeting, senior Undergraduate Council of Students officers played damage control over the weekend as council members privately expressed concerns about how the internal council elections were handled by President Michael Glassman ’09 and Vice President Lauren Kolodny ’08. At last Wednesday’s general body meeting — the first of the academic year — UCS held internal elections to fill several vacant executive board positions and name the council’s representative to the Undergraduate Finance Board. Some council members questioned the legitimacy of the race for appointments chair. The position had traditionally been voted on internally by the council, but last year UCS passed a “code change” to allow the appointments chair to be voted by the student body in the regular spring UCS elections, said Drew Madden ’10, who sponsored the code change last spring as appointments chair. In April, Tan Van Nguyen ’10 ran unopposed and was elected appointments chair by the student body. After that election, council members discovered that the UCS
Architect Diller looks forward to CAC project By Olivia Hoffman Staff Writer
Renowned architect Elizabeth Diller, whose New York City firm Diller, Scofidio and Renfro was recently selected to design Brown’s new Creative Arts Center, addressed a packed MacMillan 117 Wednesday. Diller discussed several of the firm’s recent projects in Wednesday’s lecture, including the Blur Building in Switzerland, which is constructed primarily from water and mist, and a dance piece called “Moving Target” that uses mirrors and video projection to avoid separating “the audience from the narrative space of the stage,” according to the firm’s Web site. Known for its interdisciplinary approach to architecture, Diller, Scofidio and Renfro has also been involved in projects such as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and Lincoln Center and the Highline in New York City. Though she told the audience it is too early to discuss plans for the Creative Arts Center, Diller expressed her excitement about beginning the design process for the new campus building. “What’s great about the project is that it doesn’t have a model,” she said. “We’re going to use a healthy continued on page 10
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Alum starts foundation for brain trauma By Jenna Stark Contributing Writer
Humm. Originally the team was invited to a ceremony with other national champions in June but was unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict with the Henley Royal Regatta. When the team was informed of the invitation, most members were awestr uck. Co-captain Emma Olson ’08 called it “a big surprise.” Elizabeth Boghossian ’09 was
A month after his graduation, Charlie Maddock ’04 was hit by a car and suffered an often-fatal traumatic brain injury. Two years later, in 2006, he founded the Charles Maddock Foundation, a nonprofit foundation that supports patients who have suffered brain trauma. Maddock was crossing the street in New York City when he was hit by a taxi cab and crashed through its windshield. He received several severe physical injuries, including a fractured jaw and shattered pelvis. The most critical injury, however, was the trauma to his brain, which swelled due to the impact of hitting the cab. Maddock was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital, where he underwent surgery to reduce the intracranial pressure in his skull. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, approximately 1.4 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, in the United States annually. Of that number, 50,000 die. Other long-term effects of TBI can include epilepsy and a greater risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. “I was one of the lucky ones,” Maddock told The Herald. After leaving the hospital, Maddock still had the difficult task of rehabilitating from the physical and emotional pain of his TBI. The affliction is often called an “invisible epidemic,” Maddock said, because people who survive a TBI are forever changed. Maddock said he does not remember anything from the weeks after the accident. Jonathan Meachin ’04, treasurer of the Charles Maddock Foundation and Maddock’s friend, said, “One thing I didn’t understand at all was this lack of memory from the first
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Rahul Keerthi / Herald
UCS members look on as Gabriel Kussin ’09 delivers his election speech as the only candidate running for communications chair. The meeting was marked by the aftermath of weekend discussions about alleged irregularities in last week’s internal elections.
constitution stipulates that the appointments chair must be voted internally, rendering Nguyen’s election illegitimate. A code change is not sufficient to amend the constitution, which requires a two-thirds
vote of the student body. “At the time, we didn’t realize that the positions to be openly elected were delineated very specifically in the UCS constitution,” Madden, now the UCS student ac-
tivities chair, said last night. “We didn’t have time to put a referendum (to amend the constitution) on the ballot.” continued on page 12
W. crew team recognized at White House By Yashua Bhatti Contributing Writer
A group of Bears was recognized by President Bush at the White House last week, and it wasn’t the College Republicans. The women’s crew team was honored by President Bush at the White House along with seven other NCAA championship teams last Friday. The team is the reigning NCAA Division I Rowing Champion, following its May triumph over the University of
Virginia, 58-54. The team has won a remarkable five national titles in the past nine seasons, but this was the first year it was recognized by the president at the White House. The crew was finally able to attend a White House ceremony this year after previous attempts by the Department of Athletics to glean an invitation were unsuccessful. Those attempts extended back to President Clinton’s administration, according to Director of Sports Information Chris
Former Mass. Gov. Swift speaks on leadership in crises By Nicole Dungca Staff Writer
Drawing from personal experiences during her time in public office, former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift shared various perspectives on leadership Wednesday by recounting lessons she learned during her tumultuous term as governor — one that included fiscal crisis, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the birth of Swift’s twin daughters. Speaking to a sparsely filled Salomon 001 that included Sue Carcieri, wife of Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65, Swift maintained a conversational tone in her lecture — titled “Rising to the Occasion: Public Leadership in Challenging Times” — as she punctuated her speech with
POST- ON DANCE AND PANTS post- dances its way through the first month of the semester with good tunes and good pants.
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jokes and stories, including details about her bouts with morning sickness and her first moments grappling with the events of Sept. 11. Swift, a Republican, served as governor from 2001 to 2003, after Gov. Paul Cellucci resigned to become the U.S. ambassador to Canada. When she signed on to be governor, she said, the state was in the throes of financial crisis — following years of economic prosperity, her term was a time of significant downturn for the state’s budget, she said. Handling the budget was one of the greatest challenges of her time as governor. Swift spoke as part of the John Hazen White Sr. lecture series. In its 36 years, the series has brought to continued on page 13 R.I. OUT OF SUDAN After lobbying from Brown students, Rhode Island has become the 19th state to divest from Sudan.
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Emmy Liss / Herald
Former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift spoke to a small crowd yesterday in Salomon 001.
CRIME LOG
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
VANISHING CHAIRS Seven chairs have been stolen from the President’s Dining Room in the Ratty since Sept. 11.
16 SPORTS
W. SOCCER WINS The women’s soccer team picked up its first win of the season Tuesday at home, defeating the U. of Maine.
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T oday Page 2
thursday, SEPTEMBER 27, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
We a t h e r
But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow
Today
TOMORROW
thunderstorms 82 / 64
rain 76 / 54
Menu Sharpe Refectory
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Corn Souffle, Mashed Red Potatoes with Garlic, Vegan Tofu Pups, Chicken Gouda Calzone, Hot Turkey Sandwich with Sauce, S’mores Bars
Lunch — Chicken Pot Pie, Broccoli Quiche, Mediterrnean Bar, S’mores Bars
Dinner — Pumpkin Raviolis with Cream Sauce, Sunny Sprouts, Braised Beef Tips, Rice Pilaf with Zucchini, Tapioca, Cherry Kuchen
Dinner — Chopped Sirloin with Mushroom Sauce, Vegan Roasted Vegetable Stew, Curried Shrimp with Coconut Ginger Rice
Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins
Sudoku Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.
Bubbly G | Joe Larios
Crusader Confessions | Daniel Byers
RELEASE DATE– Thursday, September 27, 2007 © Puzzles by Pappocom
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
C
o ssw or d Lewis Edited by RichrNorris and Joyce Nichols
ACROSS 1 Natalie’s “West Side Story” role 6 Sound from Secretariat 10 Challenge 14 Blood lines 15 “The __ of departure has arrived”: Socrates 16 Gabor and others 17 Where Velázquez’s “Las Meninas” can be seen 18 Auto pioneer Ferrari 19 Dandies 20 Start of a quip 23 Old tribal chiefs 25 Take in 26 Cover letter letters 27 Mama bear, in Málaga 29 It’s in one year and out the other 30 __ Fáil: Irish coronation stone 33 Quip, part 2 37 Basses, e.g. 38 Yossarian’s friend, in “Catch22” 39 Icelandic epic 40 Quip, part 3 45 Word in many Brazilian place names 46 “__ frost-flower and snowblossom faded ...”: Swinburne 47 Title for C. Dickens’s Defarge 48 G-funk sound creator, familiarly 49 Zero reaction? 50 Narrow groove 52 End of the quip 58 Overlook 59 Old pronoun 60 Better 64 Prevails 65 Saturn models 66 “Ninotchka” star 67 Exciting 68 Navy noncoms 69 Chair of Harpo Productions DOWN 1 Phil Rizzuto in 1950, e.g.
2 Fizzy prefix 3 England’s Portsmouth Harbour, for one 4 It has 28 states 5 Currently 6 “Moonstruck” Oscar winner 7 Like some shots 8 Anise-flavored liqueur 9 Saints or Devils 10 Friday’s creator 11 Declare 12 Really absorbed 13 Canadian pump name 21 Peak between Pelion and Olympus 22 Stevenson villain 23 Mudslide liqueur 24 As part of this document 26 Attempts 28 Have __ to pick 29 Online meeting place 30 1980s-’90s Kensington Palace resident 31 Rajiv’s mother 32 Quartz marble 34 Sweet suffix 35 Scrap
36 Kin: Abbr. 41 Buy or sell 42 Undependable 43 Playground comeback 44 Captive’s demand 49 Destructive 1965 Atlantic hurricane 51 Plot anew 52 Homecoming stragglers?
53 Yves’s lady friend 54 Hussy 55 Blender setting 56 Popular bar game 57 Mother of Sorrow, in an 1891 novel 61 Be human, in a way 62 Wizards’ gp. 63 “Stupid me!”
Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Classic How To Get Down | Nate Saunders
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9/27/07
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M etro Thursday, September 27, 2007
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Students successfully push for state Sudan divestment By Marielle Segarra Staff Writer
Simon Van Zuylen-Wood / Herald
Carl Barovier of the Pawtucket Police taught students at the Joseph Jenks Middle School Tuesday how to avoid gangs.
Feds fund local anti-gang effort By Simon Van Zuylen-Wood Contributing Writer
PAWTUCKET —The city of Pawtucket will receive a federal grant of $122,951 for Gang Resistance Education and Training, an antigang program that trains police officers to teach elementary and middle school students to choose to avoid gangs across the country, announced Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., on Sept. 19. This funding is in addition to previous federal funding, which until September only supported two officers. Now, three officers — including Barovier — are certified to teach in Pawtucket. The of ficers are certified to teach students in three area middle schools and eight elementary schools. The 13-week middle school program focuses on seventh-grade students, who are considered old enough to understand the severity of gang-related issues, but who haven’t yet been recruited by gangs. The three middle schools using G.R.E.A.T. are Samuel Slater Middle School, Goff Junior High and Joseph Jenks Junior High, all in Pawtucket, about five miles north of the Brown campus. Pawtucket police officer Carl Barovier teaches at Jenks, located across the street from McCoy Stadium — home of the Pawtucket Red Sox. At 9:50 a.m. on Tuesday, Barovier walked in full uniform into a seventh-grade classroom, where geography class would usually have normally been held. This was the first day of G.R.E.A.T. for the 7th graders, who weren’t shy about participat-
ing. Barovier opened by asking if any of them knew of any big-time gangs. “MS 13!” a few kids shouted repeatedly from the back of the room. Though a good portion of class time was devoted to reading together from an educational booklet and talking about concepts like “respect,” Barovier didn’t hesitate to discuss the specifics of gang culture. He listed 11 prominent gangs in the Pawtucket area and asked students if they knew of them. A few students seemed to be competing with each other — or possibly with Barovier — to recognize as many gang names as possible. “It’s really cool for them to talk about it in class. A lot of the kids in the schools know who the gang members are,” Barovier said afterwards. He added that students are willing to talk about gangs until they have to claim any connection to members. “Snitches get stiches,” Barovier said. Though some students may not absorb ever y part of the lesson, Barovier said he’s confident its presence still deters students from joining gangs. The program makes steps in building better relationships outside the classroom between students and teachers — and between students and police officers. As part of G.R.E.A.T, students will take field trips to the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut and Museum of Science in Boston this year. Officers plan to hold mentoring sessions between students and parents to establish better study habits for students and to get parents
Student activists who have been lobbying the state since early 2006 to divest from Sudan saw the fruits of their work this summer. In June, Gov. Donald Carcieri ’65 signed into law a bill that mandates the divestment of the state’s pension funds from certain companies doing business in Sudan. The legislation, passed unanimously in the House and Senate in April, calls for the divestment of about $2 million from companies specifically cited as indirectly supporting violence in the Sudanese region of Darfur. According to many international experts, government-supported militia groups are perpetrating genocide against certain ethnic groups. Upwards of 200,000 individuals have been estimated to have been killed in four years of conflict in Darfur. The law makes Rhode Island the 19th state to divest from the countr y, said Scott Warren ’09 of the Darfur Action Network, a student group which has successfully lobbied Brown administrators, city officials and state legislators to divest. The University divested from Sudan in February 2006, and Providence divested in April of that year. Darfur Action Network students — “well-versed” in the details of the bill — arrived at the State House on the day of the vote and spoke to legislators individually, explained Colin O’ Brien ’10, another member
of the group. Students participated in hearings and attended press conferences, Warren said. They also worked closely with the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Joseph Almeida, D-Dist 12, and Sen. Rhoda Perry, D-Dist. 3, whose district includes Brown’s campus. Rhode Island was invested in two companies named among the “worst offending companies” by the Sudan Divestment Task Force, a national group that lobbies local governments to divest from Sudan,Warren said. Offending companies include Rolls-Royce, which provided support for Sudan’s oil industry and has since divested from the region, he said. The bill allows the state to reinvest in companies in Sudan if the pension funds are threatened — a provision that was important to legislators, Warren said. Frank Caprio, the state’s general treasurer who was elected in 2006, said he added state divestment from Darfur to his campaign platform after students discussed the issue with him earlier in the year. “They took the time to meet me and help make me aware of the issue,” Caprio said. Though the state has divested funds from culpable companies in Sudan, not all Rhode Island cities have divested their pension funds, Caprio said. The Sudanese government, which rarely responds to activism aimed at ending genocide in Dar-
Herald File Photo
Brown students have lobbied since early 2006 for legislators at the State House to divest from Sudan.
fur, has expressed opposition to the divestment movement, Warren said. On Saturday, twelve Brown students will attend a national conference in Washington, D.C., where they will lobby national legislators, O’ Brien said. The group will also help organize symbolic torch relays in Providence on Oct. 26, intended to link China — host of the 2008 Olympic games and a country with significant economic investment in Sudan — with the genocide in Darfur. Though the relay will not promote a boycott of the Olympics, students hope to send a message to China to stop “protecting” Sudan, Warren said.
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Courtesy of Brown Sports Information
The women’s crew team posed outside of the White House after receiving its award from President Bush.
Crew champs honored by President Bush continued from page 1 also incredulous upon hearing the news. “The first thing that came to mind is that I do not want to wear flip flops,” Boghossian said, a reference to the flap caused by some members of Northwestern University’s women’s lacrosse team wearing flip flops when being honored for their national title by President Bush in 2005. Upon arriving Friday at the White House, the Bears were welcomed by a hospitable White House liaison who gave them a thorough and memorable tour of the house. Some of the spots the team visited were the State Dining Room, the Blue Room and the East Room. The team was impressed by the house but also surprised by it. “It’s not as big as I thought it was. It’s like a (normal) house,” Olson said. After meeting with the University of Oregon baseball team, President Bush made his way over to the wom-
en in a cordial and jovial manner. The team was impressed by how much he knew about the program, said Director of Athletics Michael Goldberger, who also attended the ceremony. They enjoyed his upbeat and lighthearted demeanor, especially his facetiousness about the rivalry between Brown and rival — and Bush’s alma mater — Yale. Bush also offered his condolences to the team on the absence of Head Coach John Murphy and his wife Pheobe, an assistant coach. The Murphys’ son, Patrick, died on July 17, the Providence Journal reported July 19. “ We really appreciate him coming out to visit our team,” Boghossian said of the president. “(President Bush) took the time to be prepared and cordial and made our team feel special,” Goldberger said. After the brief meet-and-greet, last year’s captains Rachel Dearborn
’07 and Elizabeth Fison ’07 presented the president with a gift of a Brown hat and a framed poster of the team holding a banner after winning the National Championship. After a 45minute wait for the photographer, the team was finally able to take pictures with the president. The Bears were then led to the South Lawn and took their seats with the other champions, where the president delivered a short speech recognizing each team. During the walk to their seats the girls were serenaded by the United States Marine Corps Band, which played the University’s alma mater, “Ever True to Brown.” “It was a thrilling moment,” Goldberger said. The day ended with the president’s speech, in which he praised the athletic and academic accomplishments of the team, acknowledging that “Brown is the winningest women’s crew program in the history of the NCAA.”
Pawtucket anti-gang effort funded continued from page 3 more involved in their children’s education. “A lot of the problems with kids is they can’t get their homework done,” Barovier said. Of Jenks’ students, about 25 percent are foreignborn, and about 35 percent speak a language other than English, he said. Students’ problems in school are often compounded by the cul-
tural disconnect between parents and teachers, Barovier said. When parents can’t help their children with homework or school issues, the children can be quick to give up on their work. With schoolwork seemingly out of their control, students will look elsewhere for a way to make an impact — which can lead to their involvement in gangs, Barovier said. In August, the Department of Justice granted Pawtucket funding to control and prevent crime, and
six cities, including Providence, received similar funding this September. By contrast, Pawtucket’s recent grant will be used solely for gang resistance training. “This money will enable Pawtucket police officers (to) provide more children with positive alternatives to gang activity and enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods by stopping violence before it starts,” Reed, the state’s senior senator, wrote in a Sept. 19 press release. Pawtucket Mayor James Doyle said feedback about the program has been positive so far but admits “the jury is still out on this thing. We don’t have enough of a time frame to determine if there are any holes in the program or if it’s perfect.” Both Doyle and Barovier stressed that regardless of what kids were learning specifically, the establishment of a good relationship between the police and the students was a goal in itself. “A police officer is not a robot dressed in blue who is out to make everyone miserable,” Doyle said. Barovier said his relationships with students have improved since he arrived at Jenks. “I get the high five and the fist bump, when before it was ‘Yo, it’s five-oh, it’s the po-po!’ ”
c ampus n ews Thursday, September 27, 2007
protesting the war
Study finds racial segregation in nursing homes By Marc Mayes Contributing Writer
Emmy Liss / Herald Residents of Providence protested the war yesterday on the corner of Thayer and Waterman streets.
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Brief
Sigma Chi scholarships awarded Four students have been awarded the Fordyce Remsen Lozier and Mary Williams Horr Lozier scholarship, a renewable scholarship administered by the Rhode Island Foundation for current and former members of the Sigma Chi fraternity or their relatives. Joshua Lakin MD’09, Vincent Criscione ’06 MD’10, Jesse Maddox ’08 and Han-Hui Ling ’09 were each awarded scholarships of between $1,000 and $2,000 from the fund, which was established in 1993. Three of the students — Lakin, Criscione and Maddox — are past winners of the scholarship, said Jean Cohoon, a spokeswoman for the foundation. Criscione and Maddox, both current members of Sigma Chi, said they learned of the scholarship through other members of the fraternity. Lakin, who was a Sigma Chi brother at his undergraduate college, said he learned of the scholarship through Brown’s financial aid Web site for medical students. In his original application for the scholarship, Lakin recalls he wrote about how he was “hoping to do something in primary care” in the future — and, he said, after two renewals, he still hopes to specialize in family medicine and pediatrics. The scholarship is awarded once a year. Students must demonstrate a history of academic distinction as well as financial need, according to the application. — Linh Nguyen
A study co-authored by Professor of Community Health Vincent Mor found evidence of widespread racial segregation among U.S. nursing homes and a correlation between segregation and disparities in quality of care, particularly for blacks. Published in the latest issue of Health Affairs, the study found segregation was most acute in Midwest nursing home facilities and generally reflected patterns of residential segregation. Mor, chair of the community health department, served as the study’s principal investigator. “This study is one of the first to draw from inter-facility databases of resident information to address questions of disparity of care between nursing homes in a given metropolitan area,” Mor said. “Before 1999, when these data were computerized, it was difficult to study questions relating to quality of care beyond an intra-facility level.” The study, “Separate and Unequal: Racial Segregation and Disparities in Quality Across U.S. Nursing Homes,” is based on data from nursing home populations in 147 metropolitan regions in 2000. Researchers surveyed both nursing home population data and measures of quality of care in nursing homes and found that blacks were more likely to reside in nursing homes of poorer quality. Using a Dissimilarity Index that represented the proportion of nursing home residents who would have
to be moved to equalize the number of white and black residents, the study found that more than two-thirds of black nursing home residents were concentrated in fewer than 20 percent of the total number of nursing homes nationwide. Among the studied metropolitan regions, nursing homes in Cleveland showed the highest degree of nursing home segregation, and those in Columbus, Ga., were the least segregated. Boston’s nursing homes ranked among the least segregated in the country. Investigators evaluated nursing home quality based on nine indicators, such as registered nurse/ nursing staff ratios, nursing homes’ financial viability and deficiencies in care — such as the prevalence of bedsores or failure to provide residents with correct medicines or diet. Homes with concentrated black resident populations tended to have higher instances of care deficiencies, staffing shortages and financial insolvencies. Mor cited racial segregation and community structure as key factors in blacks’ unequal access to quality nursing home care. “Blacks become concentrated in some homes and not others because they go to nursing homes close to their old communities, so that it’s easy for them to stay in touch with their friends and social networks,” Mor said.“Especially in cities like Cleveland, residential areas are highly segregated, and thus nursing homes in those communities reflect community demographics. Since a greater percentage of
blacks are on Medicaid, which pays less than private insurance plans, nursing homes with concentrated black populations tend to have less money to hire staff, maintain their facilities and develop programs for residents.” Yet Mor said desegregation would not resolve the disparities in quality of care. “(The investigators of the study) are keenly aware of parallels between attempts to improve quality of public schools via desegregation, and clearly, desegregation isn’t a viable option for nursing homes,” he said. Mor and his fellow researchers, Senior Research Analyst Zhanlian Feng MA’99 PhD’02, Professor of Sociology Mary Fennell and Temple University professors David Smith and Jacqueline Zinn will continue to research and address segregation in nursing homes. Mor is particularly interested in the effectiveness of states’ efforts to eliminate disparities in nursing home care, including closing down dangerously underperforming facilities, instituting and enforcing legislation and regulation on quality of care and directly paying homes in order to hire more qualified health care staff. “The legacy of ‘separate and unequal’ is very pressing — empirically and historically, it’s difficult to attain and maintain separate and equal availabilities of quality service for blacks and whites regardless of the service,” Mor said. “But that’s the challenge: to make things equal even though facilities tend to serve separate racial populations.”
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Alum starts nonprofit for brain trauma patients continued from page 1
thanks for reading
six weeks afterward. ... It’s funny from the exterior — everything was amazingly the same, but it was a certain lack of patience and ... a shorter temper that was there.” “More than anything else, I was extremely nervous, extremely embarrassed,” Maddock said. “Every time I had to get out of bed, I had to put a helmet on because I only had half a skull.” Maddock remembers the frustration of watching his friends start their post-graduation lives. “It took a long, long time. I was able to start work about seven-and-a-half months after my accident.” In January 2006, Maddock began to work closely with Dr. Howard Riina, his doctor from New York Presbyterian Hospital, with the goal to help people who suffer from TBI — a goal that is being fulfilled by his foundation. “The guy who literally saved my life is now a close friend and works with me in this organization,” Maddock said. Meachin said the leaders of the foundation are working to recruit world-class doctors and strong team members. The long-term goals of the foundation include educating physicians on TBIs, raising funds for medical research to improve treatment and providing resources for those who have suffered a TBI. “The reason I wanted to do something, throughout my inpatient and outpatient rehab — it was reiterated to me constantly that had my accident occurred in some other place, had I been seen by less-educated physicians, I might not be here, and I certainly wouldn’t be the same person I was before my accident,” Maddock said. TBI has recently received national media due to the increasing amount of head injuries for soldiers stationed in Iraq. About 10 to 20 per-
Courtesy of charlesmaddockfoundation.org
Charlie Maddock ’04 (left) started the Charles Maddock Foundation with his doctor, Howard Riina (right), after Maddock suffered a brain trauma injury.
cent of the 35,000 screened “health returnees” from Iraq and Afghanistan had “experienced a mild TBI during deployment,” the New York Times reported in July. President Bush is seeking to improve military health treatment, including focusing additional attention to brain trauma caused by roadside bombs. The cost of implementing all the recommendations of a presidential panel on military and veterans health care would begin at $500 million a year currently and would jump to $100 billion annually once veterans aged. The new programs would also assign a coordinator to each patient and family to guide them through their recovery process. TBI has also made the national news because of the large number of NFL players with head trauma. In June 2007, late Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Justin Strzelczyk was found to have signs of a condition associated with the elderly or boxers with dementia. Strzelczyk is the fourth NFL player to be found with this condition, which is thought to be caused by repeated concussions on the football field. As of August 2007, the NFL has created new regulations that prohibit teams from returning players
who have suffered an injury that resulted in the loss of consciousness to games or practices. “In terms of things that younger students should be aware of is that it causes so much death,” Maddock said. Maddock and Meachin encourage Brown graduates who plan to live in New York City to become involved in the foundation. “One of the great things about the organization is that so many younger people bring their ideas and skills to help Jon and I build this,” Maddock said. “I think people have been really happy that their involvement with CMF has really had a reasonable affect.” In addition to starting the foundation, Maddock has worked for three years at Fidelity Investments. He plans to apply to business school in the future and will continue his work with the foundation. “There’s no way I would’ve spent so much time and dedicated myself so much outside of work, as cheesy as it sounds, to try to make the world a better place,” Maddock said. The one thing that’s special about this foundation is that it is founded and run by someone who survived, Meachin said. “It’s that much more phenomenal that Charlie is still here with us.”
c ampus n ews Thursday, September 27, 2007
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Hirth returns to Brown as a professor
Brief
By Robin Ulep Contributing Writer
Associate Professor of Geological Science Gregor y Hirth MSc’87 PhD’91 has traveled around the globe to perform research in geology, but now, his research has led him back to College Hill. A former Brown doctoral student, he received his master’s and doctoral degrees in geological sciences, conducting research in rock rheology, the study of the flow of material and the processes that allow rocks to form at high temperatures. After completing post-doctoral work at the University of Minnesota, Hirth worked as a research scientist in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1993 until last summer. “The big goal is to predict the behavior of the Earth by understanding the snapshots of today and making predictions from the past about what is going to happen in the future,”
Oona Curley / Herald
A new campus map — the first major overhaul since 1998 — is on display in Faunce Arch.
New map unveiled at Faunce Facilities Management has unveiled a temporarily redesigned campus map, updated with recent construction projects. The new campus map is displayed in Faunce Arch, and Facilities Management officials are asking for feedback from the Brown community on its ease of use. “The previous map was created in 1998. The campus has undergone significant change since then and the map required updating,” said Montgomery Combs, director of systems and services for Facilities Management. The new map more accurately portrays today’s campus. For example, the relocated Peter Green House, moved this summer from 142 Angell Street to the corner of Brown and Angell streets, is shown on the map in its new location. Recently constructed buildings, such as the Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences, which opened in 2006, are also now included. Students have noticed the map’s detail. “It shows much information, yet it is easy to read and understand for students and visitors,” Vikram Kedar ’11 said. Facilities Management will take feedback until Oct. 1. “We want to ensure that the members of the Brown community have an opportunity to provide input on an important tool that they will all be using,” Combs said. After incorporating any revisions, Combs said a permanent version of the campus map will be installed in Faunce Arch. — Hari Tyagi
Hirth said. “It is a bit of archaeology and history studies applying physics to fieldwork.” Hirth is not finished with fieldwork. With twenty years of research experience under his belt, Hirth is excited to have this opportunity to continue his research while teaching undergraduates. He said he came back to Brown for two reasons — “the Brown philosophy that brings together (a) liberal arts college with top-notch research university” and “the Brown faculty and students that challenge and help me to re-evaluate what I have learned from the field.” Hirth’s short-term plan is to gradually move back to the lab and re-assess the data garnered from his years of fieldwork. His long-term goal is the practical application of lab theories that have resulted from his continued geological fieldwork. Hirth was previously a research affiliate in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of
Oona Curley / Herald
Associate Professor of Geological Science Gregory Hirth MSc’87 PHD’91.
Technology. His work has been published in journals including Geology, Nature, Earth and Planetary Sciences and Tectonophysics. He is also a member of the American Geophysical Union and a fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America.
c ampus n ews Thursday, September 27, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
7 chairs stolen from President’s Dining Room since Sept. 11 By Kristina Kelleher Senior Staf f Writer
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DAVIES IN MCCORMACK
CRIME LOG
The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 7 and Sept. 19. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring both on and off campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are currently under investigation by the department, the PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St. Friday, Sept. 7: 8:55 p.m. Event staff worker approached an officer and requested assistance for a male with a flask on Stevenson Field. The officer asked for the flask, and the individual handed it over. Sunday, Sept. 9: 1:52 a.m. Officer was dispatched to Archibald House for the report of a theft of a laptop. The student complainant reported that he left his room around 1:30 a.m. and went down the hall for approximately 25 minutes. When he returned, his laptop was missing. The door to the room was unlocked and left open. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time. Tuesday, Sept. 11: 4:28 p.m. Complainant reported that she parked her car on Arlington Avenue at approximately 7:45 a.m. Upon returning to her vehicle at 4:15 p.m., she discovered her passenger side front window was broken and her GPS and ashtray were removed from the vehicle. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time. Wednesday, Sept. 12: 1:05 p.m. Sometime between noon on Sept. 3 and 9 a.m. on Sept. 5, unknown person(s) took a “Welcome to Perkins Hall” banner from the wall on the southwest side of Perkins Hall. Friday, Sept. 14: 9:55 a.m. The Engineering Department reported that two computers were stolen from a lab in Barus and Holley sometime in the past two to three weeks. The security cables on both were cut. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time. 3:45 p.m. Employee stated that at approximately 3 p.m. she noticed one black leather chair unattended at the southeast corner of the Sharpe Refectory doors facing Patriots Court. The chair belongs to a set of approximately 25 located in the President’s Dining Room. Another employee stated that seven of the 25 chairs have been reported missing since Sept. 11. There are no suspects at this time. 7:24 p.m. Two students stated that they were playing soccer on Stevenson Field and had placed their wallets and cell phones near
the northeast side of the field. They said there was another group of persons playing at the southern end of the field sometime around 5:30 p.m. The other group left before they were finished. It was not until approximately 6:45 p.m. that they noticed their items missing. Saturday, Sept. 15: 12:47 a.m. Officer was dispatched to an off-campus residence on Governor Street for a report of excess noise. Upon arrival the DPS officer met with a Providence Police officer who informed him that the Providence Police arrived on scene and found over 250 people in and outside of the house. The Providence Police cited all the residents, who were Brown students, for excessive noise. 1:44 a.m. Of ficers were dispatched to Marcy House on Patriots Court for a report of individuals stealing property from Marcy House. Several Brown students surrounded a suspect who had attempted to steal a television. The individual was taken into custody by Brown police and was turned over to Providence Police for charging. 8:45 a.m. Complainant reported that he noticed his computer had been stolen from his room in Jameson House. He last saw it on Sept. 14 at 8:40 p.m. He noticed that it was missing on Sept. 15 at 8:45 a.m. 12:56 p.m. At approximately 12:30 p.m. a keg was confiscated from three students in Lot 88 near Brown Stadium due to the fact that no alcohol is allowed on University property during football games. Sunday, Sept. 16: 4:44 p.m. Two employees at 68-½ Brown St. reported their laptops stolen from their offices. They both reported that their office doors were locked. Monday, Sept. 17: 11:03 a.m. An employee at 70 Brown St. reported that a laptop computer was stolen sometime between Sept. 14 and Sept. 17 at 8:20 a.m. The computer was left unlocked on a desk. The room was reported locked, and there was no sign of forced entry or damage. Tuesday, Sept. 18: 2:28 p.m. Baseball coach repor ted that sometime between Sept. 15 at 4:00 p.m. and Sept. 16 at 9:30 a.m. someone cut holes in the baseball nets on Erickson Field used by pitchers during practice sessions. There are no suspects at this time. Wednesday, Sept. 19: 12:23 p.m. Complainant reported that sometime between 10:00 p.m. on Sept. 18 and 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 19, unknown person(s) smashed the passenger side front window of a vehicle parked on Williams Street, and an iPod and GPS navigation system were taken from the vehicle.
thanks for reading
Meara Sharma / Herald Poet Kevin Davies, participating in Brown’s Contemporary Writers Series, read some of his work to an audience at McCormack Family Theater yesterday evening.
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Thursday, September 27, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Architect for the Creative Arts Center speaks on her work continued from page 10
read share recycle Scott Kunstadt / Herald
Elizabeth Diller, a professor at Princeton University,opened the Graduate Student Symposium in Architecture and Urbanism in MacMillan Hall last night.
dose of our own experience.” Diller, an architecture professor at Princeton University, told the audience her unique design ideas come from her education as both an artist and an architect and that the Creative Arts Center project is particularly meaningful. “We’re very interested in what’s going to happen in this interdisciplinary building,” she said. Commenting on the innovative nature of her firm’s designs, Diller said Brown “took a big leap” by hiring them but that they “promise to be cooperative.” The building, which has a $42-million budget, will be located at 154 Angell St. Planning for the Creative Arts Center — now scheduled for completion in the fall of 2010 — has moved faster than University officials first anticipated, largely because of an enthusiastic response from University donors. Though the Corporation is requiring that the University complete all fundraising for the project before construction can begin, the “pent-up demand” for a creative arts space has made fundraising quite successful, Ronald Vanden Dorpel AM’71, senior vice president for University advancement, told The Herald earlier this month. Diller’s lecture was sponsored in part by the Cogut Center for the Humanities and a Graduate Student Symposium in Architecture and Urbanism. The symposium, called Urban Transformations/Shifting Identities, continues with a full day of events on Saturday.
W orld & n ation Thursday, September 27, 2007
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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Gunman in mask arrested Myanmar’s military supresses protests at St. John’s University By Edward Cody Washington Post
By Rocco Parascandola Newsday
NEW YORK — Fears of another Virginia Tech massacre gripped St. John’s University on Wednesday afternoon when a student was arrested after he was spotting walking through the campus carrying a powerful .50 caliber rifle and wearing a Halloween mask. The suspect, Omesh Hiraman, 22, an immigrant from Guyana, was arrested with the help of a police cadet and was being grilled by detectives Wednesday night. The loaded weapon, manufactured by Wolf, in Spain, carries just one shot, and while no other ammunition was found on Hiraman, police were searching his New York home for more bullets and for clues to what Hiram intended to do. He was supposed to be in a business class at the time of his arrest, police said, but walked right past it and did little to remain unobtrusive. The weapon, police said, was only partly concealed by a black plastic garbage bag, and his mask, which looks vaguely like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, turned heads as he walked through the campus. “He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt,” said freshman Kimberly Forrest, 18. “I thought it was strange that a person was wearing a hoodie and a mask.” Christopher Benson, 21, thought the same thing. Benson, a criminal justice major and NYPD cadet, says he was sitting on a bench in front of St. John’s Hall, talking on his cell phone to his
girlfriend, Erin, when he “saw this person walk past me with a mask ... and he was carrying what looked like a rifle.” Benson matter-of-factly told his girlfriend what he just saw and said he had to go. “Let me check this out,” he remembers telling Erin. Then, keeping a distance of 15 to 20 feet, as he learned in his cadet training, Benson followed Hiraman, who was walking “very fast.” About 45 seconds later, however, Hiraman turned a corner and was confronted by a security officer who grabbed the rifle. But Hiraman wouldn’t let it go, and Benson said he moved in, using his 6-foot-2-inch 230-pound frame to overpower the 5-foot-11 inch, 120pound suspect. Hiraman let go of the gun, and Benson pinned him against the wall of Marillic Hall, aided by other campus security officers. At that point, the school was locked down, all entrances and exits closed off as police conducted a building by building search, with a police helicopter hovering above looking for a possible second gunman, a notion fueled by the fact Hiraman at one point had his mask off. By 2:46 p.m. the student body was being notified by either e-mails or text messages, part of an upgraded emergency response system recently put in place in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting. Benson, in fact, got a text message on his phone as the drama was unfolding. By 5:30 p.m., with a number of frantic parents having raced to the school, the lockdown ended.
BANGKOK, Thailand — Ending nine days of restraint, Myanmar’s military rulers cracked down on protesting Buddhist monks Wednesday, with security forces firing warning shots, shooting tear gas canisters, swinging truncheons and making scores of arrests to suppress antigovernment marchers. The violence, despite appeals for negotiations from around the world, suggested that the junta has decided to put an end to what has become the most serious political uprising since 1988 in the nation also known as Burma, even at the price of more opprobrium from abroad. Maung Maung, secretary general of the National Council of the Union of Burma, an exile group based in Thailand, said he had reports from a Yangon hospital that four protesting monks were treated for bullet wounds and a fifth had died after being shot. The government said one person had been killed. Khim Maung Win of the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition media organization based in Norway, said eight people — five monks and three civilians — were killed, the Associated Press reported. The reports represent the first serious casualties in the near-daily protests that have shaken Myanmar for the past 10 days, swelling into an open challenge to the generals who have run the country for most of the last half-century. Despite the crackdown, thousands of maroon-robed monks, joined by cheering students and
Judge may rule next week on Craig’s plea By Paul Kane Washington Post
EDINA, Minn. — A Minnesota judge on Wednesday reacted skeptically to Sen. Larr y Craig’s bid to withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct in a Minneapolis airport restroom, asking why the Idaho Republican should be allowed to renew his defense. Hennepin County District Judge Charles Por ter said he would not rule on Craig’s request until next week and Craig softened his pledge to resign from the Senate by Sunday if his case was not resolved, announcing he would remain in office “for now.” “Today was a major step in the legal effort to clear my name,” Craig said. “The court has not issued a ruling on my motion to withdraw my guilty plea. For now, I will continue my work in the United States Senate for Idaho.” But in the small courtroom in this Minneapolis suburb, Porter noted that Craig admitted in August that his behavior in the restroom stall constituted a crime that “would arouse alarm or resentment of others.” “That’s what he did in his petition — admit what he did,” the judge said during the 40-minute hearing. Craig’s attorney, Billy Martin, argued that the senator did not consult a lawyer before making his guilty plea, which he mailed to the
court. At a hearing with a lawyer representing Craig, a judge would have asked the senator questions about the incident before accepting a plea, Martin said. But Porter cut off the attorney, saying “my speculation” is that Craig wanted to plead guilty. “If he intended to plead guilty, he would have said ‘yes’ to questions about whether he knew he had committed a crime,” the judge said. Craig, who was not in court, and his lawyers must convince Porter that it would be a “manifest injustice” under Minnesota law for the senator’s plea not be overturned. Martin argued that would be so because Craig’s actions were merely “innocuous” behavior, but that there was no verbal or physical contact that rose to the level of disorderly conduct. “None of those facts, your honor, in and of themselves constitute a crime,” he told Porter. The judge said that if he came down off the bench running at Martin, “shaking his fist” at Martin without ever punching him or yelling at him, that it would likely prompt the attorney to think the judge was tr ying to incite him. “It absolutely would,” Martin said. “Well, that’s disorderly conduct,” Porter replied. The judge asked only one procedural question of the prosecutors who after the hearing expressed confidence. “We feel
like we have a very strong case,” said Patrick Hogan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Airpor ts Commission, which oversees airport police. “I think the facts are clear.” Craig was arrested in June during an undercover sting conducted by police in a Minneapolis airport restroom while traveling between Idaho and Washington. A police officer said that Craig entered an adjacent stall. The officer, who had been responding to complaints about illicit sex in the restroom, said that Craig slid his foot toward him and reached under the stall waving his hand in a manner that the officer said gay men seeking sex use. The senator later said he “panicked” after his arrest and agreed to plead guilty to keep the case quiet because his home-state newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, was investigating his sexual orientation. But the Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, broke the story. In the firestorm that followed, Craig, who is married, called a news conference where (he) said he is “not gay.” If Porter accepts the plea withdrawal and schedules a trial on the original charges later this year, Craig would have to fight the criminal charges and a Senate ethics committee investigation. Craig has said he will not seek reelection in 2008 regardless of the outcome of his criminal case.
other lay democracy activists, marched in two columns through the center of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, picking up support as they went, according to exile groups, news agency dispatches and images transmitted from the country electronically. Exile groups in Thailand estimated that the number of marchers and protesters on the sidelines reached more than 100,000 by the end of the afternoon, making it one of the largest demonstrations since the rebellion began. Other big gatherings were reported in Mandalay, the second-largest city, in Sittwe on the northwest coast and in several other towns across the country. The protesters came into the streets in defiance of orders handed down Tuesday evening banning gatherings of five or more people and imposing a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Yangon and Mandalay. According to exile sources and news agency accounts, one group clashed with police near the Shwedagon Pagoda, a revered shrine that has been the departure point for daily protest marches since the middle of the month. Monks burned two cars and some were beaten by police wielding truncheons, according to reports reaching the exile groups. A confrontation also erupted outside the Sule Pagoda, another shrine that has been the destination for marches, as young monks tried to force their way through a police line, the reports said. Several monks were seen being hustled away by police and driven off in trucks, the Associated Press reported. Exile groups in Thailand estimated that more than 200 may
have been arrested in all. One of those taken into custody, the AP said, was a prominent comedian known as Zarganar, who with other cultural figures had openly backed the monks. The shootings occurred during a third clash, near the Bahan district, Maung Maung said he was told by informants in Yangon. In response to the crisis, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he would dispatch his top Myanmar envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, to the region to tr y to arrange a meeting with the country’s leaders. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad expressed hope that Gambari could help “prevent” Myanmar leaders from continuing the crackdown and lead them toward negotiations. He voiced frustration that China and Russia, Myanmar’s closest supporters on the 15-member council, refused to support a tougher reaction. China’s U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said his government believes “sanctions are not helpful,” adding, “We hope the government and the people down there could sort out their differences and restore stability.” The bulk of Wednesday’s protesters marched through the city peacefully on the way to the Sule Pagoda. But they were turned back by a cordon of armed soldiers and police with tear gas and truncheons. It was near the Sule temple that several thousand government opponents were killed in 1988 by troops putting down protests against the military’s ruling State Peace and Development Council. continued on page 12
Mistrial declared in Spector murder trial in LA By Michael Muskal Los Angeles T imes
LOS ANGELES — The murder trial of Phil Spector ended Wednesday with the jury unable to decide if the legendary music producer had killed an actress he had known for only a few hours before her body was discovered in the foyer of his Alhambra mansion. On its 12th day of deliberations, the jury of nine men and three women told Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler that it could not reach a verdict and was split 10 to 2 after six ballots. It was not known what the majority favored. The jurors were asked by the judge if there was any hope of reaching a verdict. Each said no in the hushed downtown Los Angeles courtroom where Spector, 67, has been on trial since the end of April. He will remain free on $1 million bail. “We will try Phil Spector again,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley. Gibbons said her office was disappointed. Wearing a gray, pin-striped suit, Spector sat impassively as he had for five months. Spector, a record producer who reached the height of his fame almost two generations ago, was charged with killing Lana Clarkson, 40, an actress and nightclub hostess who
was found shot through the mouth on Feb. 3, 2003. The panel began its deliberation Sept. 10 after listening to more than 70 witnesses. On Sept. 18, the jury announced that it was deadlocked 7 to 5, which led Fidler to withdraw one of his jury instructions and give the panel new directions that many considered to be broader. Wednesday morning, the jury stopped deliberating after a total of more than 43 hours. Defense lawyers argued during the trial that Clarkson accidentally killed herself. They said she had been drinking and was despondent over her life and her lagging career. The jury tried to resolve its initial split. Earlier this week, the jurors asked for a video player, presumably to view videotaped statements that Spector’s driver, Adriano DeSouza, made to sheriff’s investigators. DeSouza testified that he saw Spector leave his house Feb. 3 with blood on his hand. He said Spector carried a gun and uttered five words that the prosecution insisted was a confession: “I think I killed somebody.” The defense has argued that testimony from DeSouza, who is Brazilian, can’t be trusted because his English is imperfect. Moreover, defense lawyers said, noise from a nearby fountain could have obstructed Spector’s comments.
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Special UCS election protocol follows weekend turmoil continued from page 1 Last Wednesday, Nguyen ran internally for this position against Erik Duhaime ’10 and Ellen DaSilva ’10. He lost to Duhaime in what was announced as a close race. A council member who requested anonymity said some UCS members thought they saw Glassman and Kolodny add two votes to the final tally in the appointments chair race. UCS members voted using secret ballots, which were counted by the vice president. Glassman told The Herald last night that some members of the executive board and other council members discussed their grievances with him and Kolodny at a meeting Sunday. Kolodny and Glassman showed the ballots from the appointments chair race to the people at the meeting to confirm that the election was not rigged, Glassman said. Another controversy stemming from last week’s meeting involved the election for the council’s UFB representative. Initially, only two freshmen — who had just been elected the night before as class of 2011 representatives — expressed interest in running for the position. After the two first-years left the room to wait to be called in individually to make a pitch for the position, Martin Bell ’10, who was voted to the council as an at-large representative and then was elected as Corporation liaison earlier in the meeting, implored that an upper-
classman with experience on the council run for the UFB representative position. Bell told the council that a freshman — lacking any “institutional memory” — could not provide adequate representation for UCS on UFB. Amid the increasing confusion at last week’s meeting, UCS Treasurer Jose Vasconez ’10 — who was UCS’s representative to UFB last year as a freshman — was interrupted by another council member as he attempted to refute Bell’s claim. Stefan Smith ’09 agreed to run and subsequently won the election. At the time, UCS members expressed concerns about Bell’s remarks and questioned whether Smith actually wanted the position, but the executive board ultimately determined that Smith was legitimately voted UCS representative to UFB. Glassman told The Herald that there is precedent for a council member to encourage upperclassmen to run for a position. The concerns about the internal elections prompted some UCS members to circulate a proposal for a vote to remove Glassman and Kolodny from their positions. The anonymous council member told The Herald that the proposal had garnered strong support by the time Glassman and Kolodny found out about it Friday night. The president and vice president spent the weekend on damage control, contacting various members of the council in an attempt to ameliorate the situation.
Glassman and Kolodny’s “political lives were at stake as they worked their way through the UCS executive board,” the anonymous council member said. Glassman told The Herald that Kolodny and he had a lot of “personal interactions” with UCS members when they heard of the concerns. He specifically cited the meeting Sunday night. The Sunday night meeting resulted in two major proposals to change council elections. At last night’s meeting, Glassman proposed the creation of an ad hoc committee to review how elections are run. The other major proposal was to reform the council’s election code. Madden wrote a proposal for special elections protocol that aims to avoid future controversy and confusion over internal elections. This proposal is slated to be voted on at next Wednesday’s general body meeting. As part of the fallout from the election irregularities, two council members who had been elected last week — Smith and Gabriel Kussin ’09, who was elected communications chair — resigned from those positions before last night’s meeting, saying that they would be more comfortable running again using the new special elections code. Both were voted to those positions in unopposed races last night. “There was a lot of confusion and a little bit of disappointment about how the elections were run in general,” Kussin told The Herald.
“I had no problem with specific elections, but problems with the way it was run.” Kussin said resigning and rerunning was his way of expressing concern over last week’s elections. “Some people thought it was overkill, but it was essential to not only gain the trust of everyone in the group but for ever yone to gain trust in the elected officials of the UCS,” he said. The new code was also used last night in an internal election for parliamentarian pro tempore. Madden beat At-Large Member Clay Wertheimer ’10 by a vote of 10-to-9 with two abstentions. Underscoring the unusual nature of the weekend’s events, Christina Kim ’07, a former council member who served as UCS elections chair in the spring, came to the general body meeting last night to tell UCS members that she was “disappointed” in their actions and behavior over the weekend. She urged them to stop wasting time with “petty procedural bullshit” and instead focus on acting as role models for the student body. Many council members told The Herald last night that they are satisfied with the resolution of the weekend’s concerns. Academic and Administrative Affairs Chair Rakim Brooks ’09 said at the meeting last night, “In short, many council members were uncomfortable with how things were run. It has been explained since then that that’s the way things have always been done.”
Federal judge in Oregon voids provisions of Patriot Act By Dan Eggen Washington Post
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Oregon ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional, marking the second time in as many weeks that the anti-terrorism law has come under attack in the courts. In a case brought by a Portland man who was wrongly detained as a terrorism suspect in 2004, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Patriot Act violates the Constitution, because it “permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”
“For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success,” Aiken wrote in a strongly worded 44-page opinion. “A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised.” The ruling in Oregon follows a separate finding on Sept. 6 by a federal judge in New York, who struck down provisions allowing the FBI to obtain e-mail and telephone data from private companies without a court-issued warrant. The decision also comes amid renewed congressional debate over the government’s broad powers to conduct searches and surveillance in counterterrorism cases. Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Wednesday night that the administration “will consider all our
options” in responding to Wednesday’s ruling. Aiken’s ruling came in the case of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer who was arrested and jailed for two weeks in 2004 after the FBI bungled a fingerprint match and mistakenly linked him to a terrorist attack in Spain. The FBI used its expanded powers under the Patriot Act to secretly search Mayfield’s house and law office, copy computer files and photos, tape his telephone conversations and place surveillance bugs in his office using warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In a settlement announced in November 2006, the U.S. government agreed to pay $2 million to Mayfield and his family and it apologized for the “suffering” that
the case caused him. But the pact allowed Mayfield to proceed with a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, resulting in Wednesday’s ruling by Aiken, who was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 1997. Mayfield’s attorneys said in a statement that Aiken “has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation’s most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one’s own home.” The Oregon and New York rulings are the latest in a series of lower-court rulings that have called into question provisions of the Patriot law, which Congress approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Lawmakers have since amended the law, partly in reaction to some earlier rulings.
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Myanmar’s military supresses protests continued from page 11 The soldiers who put down the 1988 uprising had been transferred into Yangon, then the capital, from outlying areas because of fears that the city’s normal garrison would not move against civilians. According to Maung Maung, there are signs that similar hesitations are arising in the Myanmar military this time. A declaration from a group calling itself the People’s Patriotic Armed Forces Alliance was circulated among exile groups. In it, the authors described themselves as military officers and called on fellow officers to disobey if ordered to fire on protesting monks, students or democracy activists. “On behalf of soldiers, we the People’s Patriotic Armed Forces Alliance seriously and categorically warn the SPDC’s top brass that if they solve the present situation with violence rather than seek peace, divergences would emerge inside the armed forces and defiance or mutiny would break out,” the statement said, using initials for the junta. Maung Maung said there was no way to judge the authenticity of the statement or how many officers it represented. But he added that someone identifying himself as a Myanmar intelligence officer had posted comments on an exile blog Wednesday morning saying that similar sentiments have emerged in Myanmar’s internal security services. With foreign correspondents generally barred from entering Myanmar, information and images of events have been spread by e-mail and cellphones. This has frustrated the military’s attempts to prevent reporting on the protests, but also has made journalists dependent to some degree on untrained and highly engaged sources passing along what they hear. The contrast is stark between such modern communications and the robed monks leading the uprising. In a nation where more than 80 percent of the people identify with the Buddhist faith, the monks have long been seen as a source of guidance, inspiration and moral authority. In that light, the junta was reluctant to be seen attacking them. “The monks are leaders of the community,” Maung Maung said. Most of the monks in the streets during recent days are students from teaching monasteries, Maung Maung said, and some of their elders have called on them to return to class. But the monks’ leadership role had precedents in Myanmar’s struggles against foreign domination and political oppression and, according to reports and images from the streets, they seem to have enlisted wide popular support.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
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Reil: Celtics should look Swift speaks on leading during crises forward to good year continued from page 1
continued from page 16 fair, Al Jefferson, a 2009 first round draft pick, another first round pick (received from the T-wolves in an earlier deal) and cash considerations. That’s basically a whole team (plus dinner?) in exchange for one man. At this point I don’t even feel like it’s necessary to explain why Garnett is going to make a huge impact. He will average 20-plus points per game and get double digit rebounds. Also, KG has never had much of a supporting cast and should flourish alongside Pierce and Allen. Where does this place the Celtics in the super-competitive Eastern Conference? I’d say right near the top. The Detroit Pistons, though still a great team, are not the juggernaut they have been in years past. Another season under LeBron’s belt means Cleveland should be better than last year, but due to the Cavs’
stagnant offseason, it won’t be by much. The rest of the Eastern Conference should be pretty standard, with a bunch of mediocre teams rounding out the playoff schedule. If KG, Pierce and Allen can stay healthy — and this is a gargantuan if — the Celtics will have a good shot at reaching the NBA Finals. Whether they can win it all is a whole other question, and the answer is probably no … so I won’t get into that here. So from this day forward I will hold my head up high. I am a Celtics fan, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. From now on, I will wear my colors proud … I will bear my Celtic green for all to see … I will pick my nose and wipe it under YOUR desk, and I won’t even care. Until next time, Keep it Reil.
Shane Reil ’09 picks his nose a lot.
W. soccer picks up first win, beating Maine 2-0 continued from page 16 With the lead, Brown had little trouble controlling play the rest of the half, out-shooting Maine 14-7. The team had several chances to add another goal, including a crowded goal line scuffle in the 53rd minute when Phillips was down and unable to get the ball. Only once, in the 74th minute, was goalkeeper Steffi Yellin ’10 heavily pressured. A hard-hit shot by Jordan Pekrul of Maine from the center of the goal box forced Yellin to leap up and deflect the ball into the crossbar and back onto the field, where it was eventually cleared away. Yellin ended the game with two saves in the shutout. Moments later, in the 78th minute, Brown added an insurance goal when Cunningham, assisted by Anne Friedland ’08 and Paige Reidy ’10, perfectly placed an 18-
yard shot into the right corner of the goal. It was Cunningham’s first goal of the season and Friedland’s second assist of the game, including her pass to Carney before the Bears’ first goal. After the game Head Coach Phil Pincince noted that Brown has played a tough opening schedule, with two top-25 opponents in their first six games. “I think our players were hungry,” he said. “This was a great game for us. From start to finish, we were very consistent.” Both Coach Pincince and the players felt the win would help prepare the team for conference play, which begins on Friday. “Hopefully this is the beginning of a winning streak for us as we go into Ivies,” Slater said. Brown will play 2006 Ivy League Champion Columbia in New York on Friday.
campus media mogul Ted Turner ’60, National Public Radio political correspondent Mara Liasson ‘77, Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and “Hardball” host Chris Matthews P’05. “The power of the purse that governors have is actually probably one of the most extraordinary powers that they have. … I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we could stimulate the economy,” Swift said in her speech, noting that governors have a more difficult time stimulating the economy than officials on the federal level. While discussing those difficulties, she narrated two stories in which constituents aired their views on her work as governor. In one, a young boy thanked her for including a substantial amount of money for mental health care. “For me, that was a great opportunity to remember that there are human costs to everything that you do,” Swift said. “When you set a budget, you’re really setting a public agenda. You’re defining your priorities and just trying to figure out what’s important.” Another story focused on an opposite reaction — she recounted an incident in which an old acquaintance asked her why she cut den-
tal care from the state’s Medicaid program. Although sometimes uncomfortable, listening to other viewpoints is essential, she said. “However more difficult that making those very big decisions and important decisions is, by having those interactions with those people who are being impacted or disagreeing with you, I think it’s incredibly important that you listen respectfully and with an open mind to those who don’t agree with you in any leadership challenge,” she said. Swift dealt with crisis again after the Sept. 11 attacks, as she described her decision not to cancel a special election that was occurring on the day of the attacks. Swift also spoke of her experience working with officials with whom she had not previously interacted to properly respond to the attacks. Swift said she was a bit uneasy working with a completely new group of people, but that she needed to step out of her comfort zone to make the best decisions. “In a real crisis, subject matter expertise should trump familiarity. Surrounding yourself with people ... who knew what terrorism might be, who knew what the right response was … not with the people who knew what I ate for breakfast every morning, was a really important lesson in leadership, ” Swift said. Women in leadership was an-
other key subject for Swift, who represents a number of firsts for women — she was the youngest woman to be elected to the Massachusetts State Senate when she was 25, the first female governor of Massachusetts and the first governor of any state to give birth while in office. Although she applauds the progress women have made in the workplace, she said she found that the integration of work and family is the leading challenge for women in leadership. “I use the term ‘integration’ and not ‘balance’ because ‘balance’ connotes that you’re always sacrificing one to give to the other, which may in fact happen. But I think the goal is that you can be a good mother, a good father and contribute to a job or a leadership opportunity that’s important to you, in a way that doesn’t require you … to sacrifice one for the other,” she said. Swift said that even more progress can be made for women in leadership — during the question-andanswer session, she described the number of elected women leaders in the United States as “abysmal.” After Swift left office in 2003, she became a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in its Institute of Politics. Currently, she is involved with a consulting practice for various educational companies.
E ditorial & L etters Page 14
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Staf f Editorial
Making the move It’s just over three weeks into the new academic year, and juniors are already considering whether to live off campus next year. Each year, about a thousand students decide to forgo the stress of the housing lottery and the institutional furniture of Brown dorm rooms. Living off campus gives students a significantly more independent experience, but juniors considering making the off-campus move should be wary. Off-campus living offers benefits that can’t be enjoyed in the dorms. For many students, it is their first exposure to the residential real world — whether that means paying utility bills or realizing that Facilities Management won’t come to clean up the vomit from a weekend night gone bad. Fortunately, College Hill is a perfect environment for green college seniors to get acclimated to living on their own. With Brown’s environs somewhat isolated from the rest of Providence, students can get accustomed to living in a city and maintaining their own household — albeit on a small scale — without getting thrust into too many unfamiliar situations or being financially burdened too heavily. Still, it can be overwhelming for students to face the myriad problems that arise when living off on their own. When trying to juggle a full courseload and many other demands on a student’s busy life, returning home to an off-campus apartment with a broken Internet connection, a heating and cooling system that probably doesn’t work and a leaky shower ceiling probably about to send an unsuspecting showerer into the kitchen below can get pretty frustrating. When problems start to arise in an off-campus apartment, it doesn’t take long to realize that the landlord isn’t nearly as responsive as the University. After three years of having hard-working Facilities Management employees quickly address leaky faucets, broken doorknobs and scurrying mice, many seniors living off campus find that their landlords aren’t as quick to respond to complaints. Many students don’t completely understand their rights in the tenantlandlord relationship. Landlords ultimately have the upper hand over students — both because they’ve been landlords longer than students have been tenants and because the limited amount of housing near campus makes for a seller’s market. But what are students expected to do when the off-campus experience turns into trouble? The University should take a more proactive approach in educating students about their rights in lease agreements. The online tutorial that everyone must navigate reminds students to pay their monthly rent, take the trash out on time and exercise good judgement when engaging in “social activity.” But Brown doesn’t do much to link students to information and resources about off-campus living., unlike, say, Providence College. The PC student life Web site has an extensive off-campus living section that informs students about the responsibilities landlords have under state law and city zoning ordinances. How many off-campus students know that they can make necessary repairs of up to $125 in certain situations and rightfully deduct the money from the next month’s rent? Students now debating whether to live off campus face a tough choice — one that has significant social, financial and personal implications. We don’t think that administrators should do the dishes or take out the trash for off-campus residences, but it would be useful to get relevant information about tenant rights without having to go to PC’s Web site.
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 Amy Ehrhart Jason Harris
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Letters Quigley ’10 wrong on same-sex marriage To the Editor: While I admire Sean Quigley’s ’10 willingness to take a controversial stance (“On the machinations of ‘sophisters, economists and calculators,’ ” Sept. 26), I believe that his ideas are deeply flawed. At the heart of Quigley’s argument is that since marriage laws have deep traditional roots, it would be “a staggering form of intrusion” into our culture to legalize same-sex marriage. However, tradition does not automatically mean a custom is just and should be upheld. In certain primitive cultures, cannibalism has long been practiced. Would Quigley then make the case that if a particularly bright cannibal came to Brown, prohibiting him to kill his roommate and eat him would be “a staggering form of intrusion?” Certain traditions are valid, but Quigley glosses over the righteousness of only allowing heterosexual marriages. He asserts that because marriage laws mirror traditional marriage customs, it is absurd for homo-
General Manager Mandeep Gill Executive Manager Darren Ball Executive Manager Dan DeNorch Laurie-Ann Paliotti Sr. Advertising Manager Office Manager Susan Dansereau
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sexuals to claim that these laws are oppressive. Yet, this argument is absurd. In Saudi Arabia, for example, laws that prohibit women from driving are a reflection of traditional attitudes toward women. Thus, would Quigley try to argue that barring women from driving is not oppressive? The establishment of a democratic government in America and the abolishment of slavery were both radical acts that broke with eons-old traditions, yet nobody asserts that today we should have a king of America or slaves. The legalization of same-sex marriage may seem outrageous to some, yet when future generations look back on it, they will see it as a just act analogous to those that made our society great. Great societies like America are not built on tradition, but on a willingness to disregard tradition. Danny Sugar ‘11 Sept. 26
Bernstein ’09 inconsistent on the Walk To the Editor:
Business
Steve DeLucia Catherine Cullen Roxanne Palmer
frances choi
In his recent column (“Why the Walk is Worth It,” Sept. 25) Ben Bernstein ’09 makes an impassioned defense of the construction for the Walk that will connect Pembroke campus to Lincoln Field, citing such benefits as: “By consolidating the campus so that Pembroke students can feel both safe and a part of the Brown community, the Walk will improve the daily lives of hundreds of Brown freshmen each year.” However, just a couple weeks ago, Bernstein included
in his column (“State of the University,” Sept. 12) some derisive criticism of the intented construction, including: “Having happily spent my freshman year living on Pembroke and walking past the Bio-Medical Center or Thayer Street shops to get to the Main Green, I can say from personal experience that the pathway is unnecessary.” Just because someone needed to point it out. Henry Harrison ‘09 Sept. 26
post- magazine Hillary Dixler Melanie Duch Taryn Martinez Rajiv Jayadevan
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Aditya Voleti, Steve DeLucia, Designer Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Max Mankin, Alex Mazerov, 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, Amanda Bauer, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Aubry Bracco, Caitlin Browne, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, Isabel Gottlieb, Thi Ho, Olivia Hoffman, 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 Philip Maynard, Aditya Voleti 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
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. C ommentary P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. L etters to the E ditor P olicy 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. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.
O pinions THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2007
page 15
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
A stop-loss order for planet Earth DON TRELLA Opinions Columnist I know that until George W. Bush leaves the White House, the argument I’m about to present is a meaningless one, because the chance of my proposal being implemented is literally zero. However, when that glorious day comes, it’s not unreasonable that a thing such as this could happen. My twopart proposal is simple, and it is this: First, the next president should, within his or her first 100 days in office, sign the Kyoto Protocol (unless we can globally negotiate something better), actually abide by it, and use its international influence to get other stragglers to similarly quit the dirty carbon dioxide emissions habit. Second, the president should propose and get the rest of the world to sign on to a global, irrevocable treaty that would ban all new oil and natural gas exploration on Earth. Obviously, the second proposition is really the part of my argument I’m going to spend the most time defending, given that people have been talking about signing Kyoto for eight years now, whereas no one to my knowledge has proposed this. It might sound too simple, or too rigid, or too radical. I say bring on the criticism, because empirical evidence suggests it’s the only thing guaranteed to shift the bulk of investment capital into alternative energy sources and actually bring clean energy technology from “the near future” (where these promising innovations have seemingly always lingered) to the present, once and for all. It would put us on the clock.
Such an agreement would also be an insurance policy on ourselves and on our own weak-willed nature when we are tempted with the ever-elusive petroleum. Even Bush himself has admitted America is “addicted to oil” … and so is the rest of the world. Current exploration efforts by the six “supermajor” oil conglomerates remind me of Jack Lemmon in the scene from “The Days of Wine and Roses,” where Lemmon, playing a recovering alcoholic, is in his fatherin-law’s greenhouse and forgets in which plant he has stashed his bottle of whiskey.
and guaranteed to leave him with a headache tomorrow. While a worldwide ban on future exploration wouldn’t immediately stop global warming or slow its pace, one thing it would do is place a hard cap on how much environmental destruction we can inflict: all the oil in the currently tapped reserves of the world. Now, burning all of that oil is still more than enough to put a lot of stuff underwater if we run through all of it, but maybe by implementing this plan, we wouldn’t even have to exhaust the world’s
The president should propose and get the rest of the world to sign on to a global, irrevocable treaty that would ban all new oil and natural gas exploration on Earth. When he cannot find it, he smashes the plants one by one on the ground, destroying them in frustration until he finally finds the bottle, collapses on the ground and drinks it until he passes out. The prospect of drilling up the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, or the north coast of Greenland so we can find a few million more barrels to guzzle down is remarkably similar to the behavior of Lemmon’s character throwing the plants in search of his precious bottle — destructive to nature and to himself, unsustainable,
known oil either. We’ve learned that as control of various world governments shift back and forth between different parties, we cannot count on those new governments to keep their nations in line with the environmental treaty rules (like Kyoto). The United States is a good example of this. Recently, Canada has become another, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s new government trying to withdraw Canada from Kyoto (against the opposition of the House of Commons and
the Senate), bizarrely choosing to run the risk of a no-confidence vote over the issue even though Kyoto has widespread support in Canada. So having lost faith in world governments (including my own) to be honest and refrain from manipulating their CO2 emissions statistics (or to just plain find ways out of their obligations to the planet and to future generations), I believe only a treaty like the one I am proposing is guaranteed to work. You might be able to manipulate data or just pull out of emissionsreduction-based agreements, but it’s pretty hard to hide an offshore platform or a big pipeline. And since no energy company would want its competitors to benefit from being the only ones to break the rules, you can be sure global coercive pressure to enforce the rule would be strong. ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Total S.A. (a.k.a. “the supermajors”) would all have to radically restructure their corporate goals, philosophies and investment strategies. The intuitive first step would of course be shifting all the exploration and drilling money into research and development for renewable energy technology. We obviously don’t have to quit our oil addiction cold turkey. However, continuing to explore is like promising to quit drinking after we buy just one more bottle of Wild Turkey. With courageous leadership and a strong agreement on a global oil and natural gas exploration moratorium, the world’s people can work together to wean ourselves off of oil.
Don Trella ’08 does not count strokes of good fortune while ‘shootin’ fer some food’ as oil exploration.
In support of Simmons and academic freedom ZachARY townsend Opinions Columnist While perfectly aware of the corporate and worldly side of the university, historian Richard Hofstadter said that the university as an institution is “committed to certain basic values of freedom, rationality, inquiry and discussion.” Inquiry, protected by the aegis of academic freedom, produces a diversity of views — “a citadel of intellectual individualism” — that at the same time must claim support from the society it critically and unstintingly examines. With this in mind, I want to praise President Simmons’ strong stance against the University and College Union’s motion to boycott Israeli universities — indeed, against even the discussion of such a motion. The motion is a political one, aimed to attack Israeli politics through Israeli universities. The search for objective truth is something quite distinct from politics, and any push toward a politicized university will be likely to produce mere opinion, rather than knowledge. Some would argue that the political is everywhere, and the university is no exception. Thomas Haskell articulates this view in his essay “Justifying the Rights of Academic Freedom” by saying that “the pervasiveness of the political is commonly presented as a plain and palpable fact of the sort that only fools or knaves could deny.” However, he goes on to say that “in fact it is the predictable outcome of a hermeneutics of suspicion to which all of us resort to in our most cynical moments, when we are eager to project our own aggression outward into the world.” In other words,
the political is not everywhere — it is just everywhere when you are cynical. In truth, the UCU resolution to boycott, and much of the discussion that is prompted by such a resolution, is a thin, one-dimensional affair, bearing little resemblance to the subject of political science or anything else that should exist in the university. Even the discussion of the boycott attacks
other part of the world is not an option for people who are dedicated to the core principles of the academy.” Three years ago, writing about the University’s divesting from Israeli businesses, I said this: “I find the movement to be insidious and tantamount to racism itself. Divestment seems less about human rights, and to be more a tool to perpetuate armed conflict in which there
The UCU resolution to boycott, like much of the discussion that is prompted by such a resolution, is a thin, one-dimensional affair, bearing little resemblance to the subject of political science or anything else that should exist in the university. and punishes Israeli academics, who are our brethren in academic inquiry. I wish to quote President Simmons’ excellent words on this topic: “A boycott of the sort (UCU) is considering — a measure that attempts to silence or marginalize the scholars of an entire nation — is inimical to those fundamental principles and could do great harm to colleges and universities.” She continues by saying that “supporting such a boycott of scholars from Israel or any
are no winners or losers, a conflict in which Brown as an institution cannot choose sides.” I stand by that statement — Brown cannot take sides in the Middle Eastern conflict. But it must take sides in the question of whether Israeli universities have the right to exist and whether Israel academics have the right to free inquiry. Brown must be for freedom of speech everywhere, freedom to write everywhere and freedom to learn for every student.
President Simmons wrote a letter to the UCU outlining our support for Israeli universities, but that is not enough. It is our duty to give more than quiet words to this debate hidden in ill-publicized letters. We must give our support through proudly pronouncing our values across the campus, country and world. There are those who say Simmons was not objecting to a ban, which might be okay, but was rather objecting to a debate, which is not. To those people I can only reply that some debates, in some venues, are not worth having. There is no doubt that questions and debates need to happen. Perhaps the most germane one is this: Does Israeli policy deny the educational rights of Palestinians? A question like this one should drive our discussion, one in which reasonable people can passionately disagree. Those now campaigning for a debate on whether to ban Israel universities contribute not at all to larger issues. The distortions of fact and hyperbole of expression that are inherent in the framing of such a debate must be rejected with the same vigor with which we embrace the ideals of freedom for academics everywhere, including in both Israel and Palestine. Brown has moral obligations. We cannot retreat from the big issues of society, the world and our time. We cannot become cynics paralyzed by our own disdain, and we must not become social, political and moral isolationists. To that end, the University and President Simmons must be especially vigilant on issues that directly impinge upon the very heart of the university and academia.
Zachary Townsend ’09 shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
S ports T hursday Page 16
Thursday, September 27, 2007
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
Love of the game brings Britner ’07.5 back from injury By Jason Harris Assistant Sports Editor
Pop! An athlete’s worst nightmare. The moment when he knows it’s bad. When he knows he will spend the better part of a year relearning how to walk. For an athlete, that moment is a bigger test than any overtime play. Men’s soccer co-captain Matt Britner ’07.5 knows this popping too well. Twice in the past three years, Britner has felt the “pop” of an ACL tear. It took him seven months to recover from the first injury, in 2005. While rehab was difficult, Britner had the maturity to stay positive. “You have to keep a positive mindset because you see (your teammates) out there,” Britner said. Britner tried to keep his spirits up himself, but he also had a strong support system. “We have fantastic trainers,” he said. “I was in there every day and they were great.” In addition, the team made a special effort to keep Britner involved. “We tried to be as inclusive as possible,” said Head Coach Mike Noonan. Britner often traveled with the team to away games that year and stayed close with his teammates throughout the recovery process. Seven months later, Britner was training again. He began his senior season, in 2006, in his familiar position in the middle of the Bears’ backline. In only the second game of the season, he felt the pop of the ACL tearing again — only in his other knee. “The second time around, I knew what to expect,” he said. “It was
Sports in Brief
Big weekend garners Davies ’08 wide recognition In the men’s soccer team’s first five games, forward Dylan Sheehan ’09 carried the offensive load, scoring a goal in all of Brown’s games. Last weekend at the Adidas San Diego Classic, Sheehan’s counterpart at forward, Kevin Davies ’08, stepped up to take some of the weight. Davies was named to the College Soccer News National Team of the Week and to Soccer America’s Men’s Team of the Week after stellar performances in a 3-2 win over the University of San Diego on Friday night and a 2-2 tie against the University of California at Irvine on Sunday. The Brown striker was in on each of Brown’s five goals in the tournament, hitting the back of the net twice in each game and finding Sheehan for the game winner against USD. The big weekend left Davies tied with Sheehan for the team lead in goals with six. His finishing touch this weekend also netted Davies Ivy League Player of the Week honors. The Bears will need Davies’ scoring to continue when they face Boston University at home on Oct. 2 and, moving forward, as they head into Ivy League play.
—Jason Harris
Ashley Hess / Herald
After suffering ACL tears in both knees the past two years, Matt Britner ’07.5 has come out strong this season, leading the 6-0-1 men’s soccer team’s defense.
both a positive thing and a negative thing.” When Noonan first walked into the trainer’s room after the injury, he knew it wasn’t good. “It’s hard to describe how I felt when I was given the news,” Noonan said. “It took the doctor 10 minutes to collect himself to give Matt the news.” However, Noonan was confident that Britner would have the maturity to come back again.
“If it was going to happen to anyone ... he has the character to come back,” Noonan said. Though Britner was disappointed, he could do nothing but look forward and cheer on his teammates. He had a lot to cheer about as Brown advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season. “It’s frustrating watching and knowing you have no chance of helping them,” Britner said. The second time around, recov-
ery took 10 months. Britner was able to begin practicing again only at the beginning of the summer. This season, as a captain and central defender, Britner is finally back playing the game he has worked so hard to return to over the past few years. At first, it was slow going as he relearned the pace of college soccer, just as he relearned how to walk in his rehab. “I am still a little rusty,” Britner said. “But I don’t go in any less aggressive.” Noonan agreed, saying that Britner has just begun to turn the corner the past few games. “It took the first few games for Matt to get back,” he said. “But the last few games he has been back to his old self. He is the linchpin for the whole team.” In addition to Britner’s solid play, he has led a defense that has given up only seven goals for a team that is off to a 6-0-1 start. “Two years ago we had a great defense record when I was a sophomore,” Britner said. “I was not sure how it was going to be this year, but we haven’t missed a beat.” Britner said that his job as captain has been made easier by the leadership of co-captain and fellow defender Stephen Sawyer ’09 as well as a number of other players. “The team chemistry is good,” he said. “Steve helps a lot and there are really eight or nine guys on the team who can lead.” Britner has been very pleased with the team’s fast start. Though he has moved beyond the injuries, there is always a small reminder. “I have to warm up pretty well,” Britner said. “Sometimes I feel like I have the body of a 70-year-old man.”
W. soccer captures first win of the season BY Christina Stubbe Contributing Writer
The women’s soccer team beat the University of Maine, 2-0, thanks to a dominant second half Tuesday night at Stevenson Field. Brown, in its first win of the season, was led by goal scorers Kellie Slater ’10 and Lindsay Cunningham ’09. The Bears moved to 1-5-1 on the season. Strong defensive efforts by both teams marked an evenly played first half. Possession changed rapidly, with each team getting an equal number of shots on goal. The Black Bears, however, had the advantage with five corner kicks, one of which nearly resulted in a goal. In the 24th minute, Maine forward Laura Martel connected with a cross by midfielder Kim Stephenson, rocketing it toward the far right corner of the net. But Brown midfielder Mollie Mattuchio ’08, playing her first game of the season after recovering from injury, jumped up at the goal line to head the ball out and save the go-ahead goal. The half ended in a 0-0 tie. Brown began the second half aggressively, getting several shots in the first few minutes before scoring just nine minutes into the half. On the play, Slater received a pass from co-captain Kerrilynn Carney ’08 just inside the 18-yard box on the left side of the field. Slater, who had slipped by the defender, arced a shot past diving Maine goalkeeper Jasmine Phillips into the upper-right corner of the net.
Celtics give hope to hungry fans Isn’t it amazing how quickly things can change? Just a few months ago I was embarrassed to be a Celtics fan. Seriously, every time one of my boys brought up basketball, it made me feel like I just got caught wiping a booger under my desk. Not only did the Shane Reil Celts own the Are You For Reil? worst record in the Eastern Conference last year, 24-58, but also people were actually accusing the team of tanking the season for a draft pick. Which, of course, was absolutely correct. The Celtics started off the season a respectable 10-13 (remember, this is the Eastern Conference — you don’t even need to play .500 ball to make the playoffs), but that success was as fleeting as Lindsay Lohan’s singing career. The Celtics lost star forward Paul Pierce to a foot injury and subsequently dropped 23 of their next 25 games. After all of this, we ended up with only the fifth overall pick in the draft. Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down. By draft day I felt like the Celts were Will Ferrell in “Anchorman,” “Blades of Glory” and/or “Talladega Nights.” A onceproud franchise down on its luck, dirty and unshaven. It seemed like all hope was lost. Then came the Ray Allen trade. You have no idea how happy I was when this happened. I have literally been dreaming of having Allen in a Celtics jersey since I saw “He Got Game” … in 1998. Sure, Ray is 32 years old and has bad ankles, but he did average 26 points per game last year. On the court Allen’s veteran presence will surely take a lot of pressure off of Pierce’s shoulders. Allen figures to be quite an upgrade off the court as well. I remember when I was 13, Allen, then in his fifth professional season, won the first-ever Magic Johnson Ideal Player Award. From a public relations standpoint, this is a major upgrade from Sebastian Telfair, winner of the 2007 Possession of a Handgun while Driving with a Suspended License award. Was that an award? I can’t remember. Anyway, even more exciting, Celtics General Manager Danny Ainge spent the rest of summer working on a blockbuster deal, which landed Boston future Hall of Fame for ward Kevin Garnett. However, Garnett didn’t come cheap. In return Boston sent the Timberwolves Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telcontinued on page 13
SCOREBOARD TUESDAY, SEP. 25 W. SOCCER: Brown 2, Maine 0 Ashley Hess / Herald
Kellie Slater ’10 scored the women’s soccer team’s first goal Tuesday against the University of Maine as the Bears recorded their first win of the season.
Slater’s goal gave Brown its first lead of the season. When asked about the sequence after the game, Slater credited midfielder Melissa Kim ’10 for shielding her from the Maine defenders,
allowing her to have what she called “a pretty easy shot.” It was the first goal the Maine defense had allowed in three games. continued on page 13
WEDNESDAY, SEP. 26 Volleyball: Brown 3, Rhode Island 0 F. Hockey: UMass 2, Brown 1 THURSDAY, SEP. 27 M. water polo: at Connecticut College