Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, M arch 5, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 28

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Clinton takes R.I., Huckabee drops out of race U.’s tax policy

Obama supporters at Brown ‘not going anywhere’

may keep politicos away

By Joanna Wohlmuth Senior Staff Writer

By Chaz Firestone Features Editor

Rhode Island’s presidential primary brought good news to members of Students for Hillary and the Brown College Republicans, who can now throw their support behind Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

With all precincts reporting, Sen. Hillary Clinton, beat Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, 58 percent to 40 percent. On the Republican side, another decisive win for Sen. John McCain was accompanied by the concession of his major remaining rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

“We are so, so thrilled to win Rhode Island,” said Craig Auster ’08, one of the leaders of Brown’s Students for Hillary group, which campaigned heavily for the New York senator in the Ocean State.

Members of the group spent hours going door-to-door to canvass, working at phone banks and volunteering at campaign headquarters in Providence, Auster said.

“Brown students were really involved, and I’m really proud of what we have done,” Auster said. “It looks like Hillary can maybe pull it off.”

The entire Rhode Island campaign — including a number of Brown students — gathered at McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon in downtown Providence to watch the returns.

Now that regional opportunities will be scarce, the group will make phone calls and perhaps plan some weekend trips, focusing efforts on Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary, Auster said.

Members of Students for Barack

out “much drama,” with a fairly constant flow of people coming in to vote. The numbers increased at the end of classes and during lunch, he said, adding that though he brought homework with him, he didn’t find time to “sit down and read.”

Marcus said he had to help several people with their ballots throughout the day. The mistake voters made most often was overvoting, or choosing more than the required number of delegates — six Democrats and eight Republicans.

“People chose more delegates multiple, multiple, multiple times,” Marcus said.

An especially strict interpretation of the federal tax code may be to blame for the dearth of political campaign events on campus, according to students and a University spokesman.

As a tax-exempt nonprofit organization recognized under the Internal Revenue Code, Brown is prohibited from participating or inter vening in political campaigns.

But Vice President for Public Affairs and University Relations Michael Chapman said the “antiquated” policy in place to protect the University — which explicitly forbids any use of campus facilities to further a political cause — “was drafted pretty narrowly.” The University may revise its policy in time for the presidential election in November, Chapman said.

The restrictive policy has already caused the last-minute rescheduling of one campus event and may have deterred other appearances by presidential candidates and their surrogates, who seem to have skipped over Brown in their statewide college tours. Sens. Hillar y Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., both made appearances last week at Rhode Island College, and their spouses have spoken at other Rhode Island schools — former President Bill Clinton held a rally at Bryant University and Michelle Obama spoke at the Community College of Rhode Island.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee both spoke at the Crowne Plaza

continued on page 6

continued on page 6

Kim Perley / Herald

Andrew Lim ‘08 and Janine Kwoh ‘09 get ready to vote at the Salomon Center.

College Hill voters head to the polls

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staf f Writer

Despite the dreary weather, 555 voters from Brown, the Rhode Island School of Design and the Providence community cast their votes in Salomon Center’s foyer on Tuesday.

The polling center, which was open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., saw 537 Democrat and 18 Republican ballots cast, said Warden Jennifer Storch. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., received 416 votes at the booth, while his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., received 114.

Storch said though she was hoping to see more people come out to vote, she thinks that many probably couldn’t find the booth.

continued on page 6

District 9 used to have other polling stations, both at the corner of Brook and Power streets and on Governor Street, but those were closed in order to cut costs, precinct volunteers said.

Approximately 40 minutes before the polls closed, the ballot counting machine broke down when a voter tried to insert both the ballot and its sleeve into it.

But a technician arrived before 9 p.m. to fix it, and the counting was completed successfully.

Zachary Marcus ’10, who volunteered to be one of the four supervisors at the polling place, said he didn’t mind committing time to it because he enjoys being involved in the political process.

He said the day went by with-

Simmons’ schedule: ‘A Faculty discuss financial aid, tenure profs. could riddle without an answer’ Assoc. come up for review

By Allison Wentz Staff Writer

When Community Assistant Julie Sygiel ’09 asked her residents last year at 111 Brown Street what activities

FEATURE they would like to plan for the Fall 2006 semester, all 13 students agreed — they wanted to dine with President Ruth Simmons.

Despite receiving about 600 invitations every year to events on campus and off, Simmons came to visit the residents and enjoy a home-cooked meal two months later.

“We were really happy that she accepted,” Sygiel said. “We wanted to show our appreciation to her for everything that she does for Brown and just get to know her better.”

But opportunities for Simmons to accept such invitations are rare be-

3

HIGHER ED

cause her calendar is often crowded with speeches, alumni events and international travel before the school year even begins.

“We worry about this every year, about the schedule getting locked in too early,” Simmons said. “By the time we start the year, the schedule is pretty full.”

“It’s a nightmare,” Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn said of the tightly packed schedule. “We call it a riddle without an answer.”

But Simmons always leaves some time in her schedule. “I really like spontaneity when it comes to students,” Simmons said. Students are “always surprised” when they send her an e-mail inviting her somewhere and she accepts, she said.

Simmons said she regularly receives invitations for events on campus, many of them casual requests from students asking her out for ice

paying for essays New study finds high number of athletes buy essays online

www.browndailyherald.com

continued on page 4

5

CAMPUS NEWS

two years earlier

By Jenna Stark Senior Staf f Writer

At its monthly meeting Tuesday, the faculty discussed the new financial aid policy, the University’s increased spending and a proposal by the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee to change the time frame for reviewing associate professors’ status.

TPAC proposed that associate professors be reviewed after 10 years of employment rather than after 12 years. The University has a “heavy” number of people who have been employed for the past decade — associate professors who should be reviewed, said Ruth Colwill, associate professor of psychology and chair of the Faculty Executive Committee.

Other universities have review

abortion lecture Retired Bishop John Shelby Spong to speak at Brown on abortion issues

11

OPINIONS

periods even shor ter than ten years, Colwill said. For example, Yale reviews associate professors after only five years of teaching.

Professors expressed concern that the shortened time frame would impact the criteria to become a full professor, while others endorsed the proposal, one professor saying that associate professors would no longer “languish for 20 years.”

“The proposal we have in mind won’t change the requirements, just change the time frame,” said one TPAC representative who spoke at the meeting. “Brown has accumulated over the years associate professors who have been serving a long time.”

President Ruth Simmons supported the proposed change in time frame.

“I don’t believe there should be a penalty for being a faculty member at Brown,” Simmons said. “A person who has been here for 12 years ­— at another university they

Unfair Loans?

Graham Anderson ‘11 questions the logic behind Brown’s financial aid and loan policy

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

partly, 51 / 32

would have been brought up.”

The faculty also discussed the University’s financial aid plan and other items that will receive increased funding.

Elizabeth Huidekoper, executive vice president for finance and administration, spoke with the faculty about the University’s budget. Huidekoper stressed the increased endowment and fundraising, but added that “Brown still lags behind its peers.”

The University’s fiscal year budget for 2009 includes a 3.8 percent increase in tuition and a 24 percent increase in endowment payout, according to Huidekoper’s presentation. The University will need to raise $56 million in new endowment funds but has only raised $20 million so far, and there are “big concerns” about raising the remainder, Huidekoper said.

The University’s increased expenditures also include a 20 percentage-point reduction in continued on page 4 tomorrow’s weather It’s beginning to warm up, though it would likely be even warmer if Brown had its very own nuclear reactor

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Menu

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Sweet Potato Fries, Sliced Turkey and Roast Beef, Italian Sausage Soup with Tortellini, Beef Tacos, Spanish Rice, Raspberry Squares

Lunch — Beef Tacos, Vegan Burritos, Corn and Sweet Pepper Saute, Sour Cream, Salsa, Pico de Gallo

Dinner — Pork Medallions with Portobello Sauce, Spinach Stuffed Squash, Quinoto, Corn on the Cob, Beets in Orange Sauce, Chocolate Sundae Cake

Dinner — Rotisserie Style Chicken, Spinach Quiche, Spanish Rice, Broccoli with Cheese Sauce, Mediterranean Shrimp Stir Fry

Sudoku

Dunkel | Joe Larios

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

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

© Puzzles by Pappocom

RELEASE DATE– Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle C r o sDaily swo rd

Opus Hominis | Miguel Llorente

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Mediterranean nation 6 Lukas of “Mars Attacks!”

10 Huron or Erie, to Yves 13 Give __: care 14 Egyptian president between Gamal and Hosni 16 Org. for docs 17 Game show pair 19 Part of 39-Down: Abbr.

20 Legal start 21 ’60s activist gp. revived in 2006 22 Coach Parseghian 23 Carpet feature 26 Family nickname 28 Like a pelvic wall 30 “You Give Love __ Name”: Bon Jovi hit 32 Bend, as a timber 34 Holy chests 35 Beetle used as a talisman 37 Polite addresses 40 Biblical pair 45 Capacitance unit 46 Finally 47 Office helper: Abbr.

50 Airport lineup 52 Target for an online filter 53 Handles roughly 56 H.S. students’ concerns 58 NBC show that did “Celebrity Jeopardy!” parodies 59 National org. with the slogan “every child. one voice” 60 Young fellow 62 Author Stoker 64 Sweater part 65 ’50s Hollywood pair 70 Place for a cat, maybe 71 Latin dance 72 Songwriter Sherman 73 Vinyl spinners 74 Relaxing places 75 __-garde DOWN 1 Google Earth offering

2 “Cold Mountain” heroine 3 Back muscle, briefly 4 Catcher 5 2001 Nobel Peace Prize recipient 6 Cuban capital 7 Santa __ winds 8 Plant bristles 9 Historic Vegas hotel 10 “Tortilla Flat” actress 11 Metroliner operator 12 Connecting waterways 15 Tabula __ 18 Tractor coupling 23 “Apollo 13” gp.

24 Rhyme scheme of the first verse of “Mary had a little lamb” 25 Former latenight host 27 Strong fleets 29 Cellist honored with a statue at Montserrat 31 Pub selections 33 Kitchen item 36 “Take On Me” band

38 Start of Kansas’ motto 39 Boulder hrs.

41 Fella 42 Knocks 43 Strong-ox link 44 www page format 47 Outrage 48 Ancient Persian governor 49 Floods 51 Easter cakes

54 Landon and an extraterrestrial 55 “__ Bulba”: Gogol novel 57 Arabian peninsula capital 61 Bedewed 63 16th-century date 66 Yao Ming’s gp.

67 In the style of 68 Kia Sedona, for one 69 Six-legged worker

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Free Variation | Jeremy Kuhn

xwordeditor@aol.com

3/5/08

Classic Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

T he B rown D aily H erald

By Derek Bowman (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

3/5/08

If you do one thing on College Hill today...

Enjoy a movie at the CineBrasil film festival Starting today; see Watson Institute Web site for schedule Free for Brown, RISD students

Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372

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H igher E d Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Online essay service Essaybay lures athletes Athletes make up almost half of online essay service’s customers

By Franklin Kanin News Editor

Athletes make up almost half of students who purchase essays online from EssayBay.com and most do so with the approval of their coaches, according to a study conducted by the custom essay site.

EssayBay writers prepare academic essays, job applications and resumes for their customers. In its “About Us” section, the Web site says it “connects writers with buyers that need custom essays, term papers, theses and dissertations and allows writers to offer their services directly based on the strength of their reputation and past results.”

A Feb. 14 article in the Miami Hurricane reported that a “customer profiling exercise” conducted by the British service revealed that more than 45 percent of EssayBay customers are athletes using the site to ensure their grades are high enough to qualify for sports scholarships and that 70 percent of those students have approval from their coaches. The study also found that over 90 percent of athlete customers are hoping for admission into a top university.

Jed Hallam, a representative for EssayBay, said the site offers more than most in the essay industry.

“Some places do free essays, but they’re not customized to the student’s requirements,” he said. “The market needs to advance far enough to where EssayBay is — where you can list a word count, an academic level. You can have someone from Oxford write your essay.”

Hallam described the process of buying and posting as a “reverse auction.” Buyers are able to link the topic of the paper and all the qualifications they want for it — length, grade they want to achieve, types of references they want and sources the writer should use — and then writers bid on the paper in terms of how well they think they can meet customers’ needs.

The practice of students buying essays on the internet can raise questions about academic honesty, especially with the recent controversy over coaches urging their athletes to use it, Hallam said. But he said he was not surprised that coaches told their athletes to use EssayBay. “In the U.K., we’ve seen parents and grandparents buying essays for a couple of years now to make sure their students are achieving what they set out to do,” he said. “For coaches to use the essays to ensure their athletes are getting scholarships and into the Ivies are no surprise, but apparently it’s become a surprise for America and the American education system.”

Several Brown athletes said they

understood what could lead students to buy an essay online. But they added that the practice is unethical and counterproductive.

Kent Holland ’10, who is on the men’s water polo team and also played the sport in high school, said he can understand the pressure that would lead students to buy papers from Web sites, though he said he had not heard of EssayBay specifically.

“Definitely in high school there’s a lot of pressure,” he said. “You’re kind of on a tight schedule — homework, classes, practice, then you come home and you have two hours to do work before you have to get to bed in order to get enough sleep for practice.”

But Holland said using this site just hurts students in the long run.

Students should not go to a school they would not be able to get into on their own, he said, because they will just struggle academically once they get there.

“If you’re at a school, like an Ivy, and you got there because of someone writing a paper for you, then you’ll struggle and you won’t get anything out of it,” he said.

Jose Yearwood ’08, who plays football for Brown, said balancing athletics and academics, though challenging, has given him a better perspective on life.

“I do agree that there’s pressure to balance the two, but that in itself is the challenge of being (a student athlete) — it’s a good kind of pressure,” Yearwood said. “Being a student athlete has made me a better person.”

Yearwood said there is nothing wrong with using essays from EssayBay as a reference to see what a good essay on that topic could look like. But if students turn in purchased essays and call them their own work, he said, they would be cheating.

“That just seems very disingenuous,” he said. “It’s basically just having someone do your work for you.

That’s like if I went to my buddy and said, ‘Hey man, do this test for me’ or ‘Hey, do my econ homework.’”

Despite Yearwood’s concerns, Hallam said plagiarism is not an issue for EssayBay because the Web site only serves as a conduit between the writers and buyers.

EssayBay even has a “Plagiarism Scanner” on its Web site where customers can ensure the essay they bought was not plagiarized. The Plagiarism Scanner section of the Web site asks, “Are you worried you may have accidentally plagiarized your essay or dissertation? Perhaps you’ve bought an essay from a custom essay company and want to check its originality? Do you really know that you’re absolutely safe from infringing ever tightening rules on plagiarism?”

“As far as we’re concerned, and from a legal point of view, it is up to that writer to decide what they will do,” Hallam said. “In terms of ethical code,” he added, “that is literally up to the writer and buyer.”

Thanks for reading.

Courtesy of ucdavis.edu

The UC Davis McClellan Nuclear Radiation Center is home to the newest research reactor in the US. It opened in 1990.

Regulators criticize warning of nuclear risks

By Christian Martell Staf f Writer

A report from an of fice tied to Congress that criticized nuclear security at universities has come under fire from some officials.

A spokesman from the Nuclear Regulator y Commission said the Government Accountability Office, which issued the report, “failed to hit the mark” in assessing security risks in campus nuclear reaction centers.

Eliot Brenner, director of public affairs for the NRC, told The Herald that the “lying bastards” at the GAO, Congress’s investigative arm, had “written a lot of really good reports over the years.”

“But this is not one of them,” he said.

The Jan. 31 report found that the NRC failed to increase security regulations for the 27 college and university nuclear reactors it currently oversees following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The GAO said that the fuel from reactors could be used by terrorists to create nuclear weapons or, if accidentally leaked, could harm citizens in the surrounding area.

GAO of ficials could not be reached for comment for this article.

Some institutions that house reactors include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Ir vine and at Davis as well as the University of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay campus, about 30 miles south of Brown’s campus.

The report recommends reassessing evacuation plans and police response in case of emergency, but Brenner and NRC spokesman Scott Brunell both said the validity of the report was questionable at best.

“They cited a document by the Idaho National Laborator y, even after the INL told them it had not been reviewed properly,” Brenner said.

The INL letter, included in the repor t, warned that citing the document would “detract from the technical credibility from the GAO report” and urged the GAO not to use the document.

“What part of ‘no’ don’t they understand?” Brunell asked.

The GAO repor t was a response to the findings of 10 Carnegie Fellows working at ABC News. The fellows investigated security at 25 colleges and universities and found “gaping security holes,” most noticeably at UC Ir vine.

In their Oct. 13 article, the fellows reported finding the door leading to the 250-kilowatt nuclear reactor propped open with a book — an out-of-print text called “The Dancing Bees.”

They found the facility in the basement of the chemistr y building with no real security measures to stop them from viewing the pool-like reactor.

The reactor at UC Ir vine has been in operation since 1969, George Miller, the director of the facility and reactor super visor, said in an inter view. In its time, it has ser ved in analyzing the bullets used in the assassination of President Kennedy, as well as other research ventures, he said.

Miller said the reactor poses no real threat to students.

“Students are much more

likely to be shot on campus than (harmed) by a terrorist accessing the reactor,” he said, noting that he has been there since 1969 and had never heard of a security breach.

When asked of security measures taken by the center, Miller said he could not disclose such information.

“I’m not allowed to say that after 9/11,” he said.

Terr y Tehan, director of the University of Rhode Island’s nuclear reaction center, said a Providence SWAT team would respond immediately in case of emergency. But he said such an incident is ver y unlikely.

“A terrorist is going to go for a place with more exposure so that they get more media attention,” Tehan said. “The center is just so small and so well protected, I can’t see anyone wanting to go in there.”

The 40-year-old reactor is housed in what used to be a fort and is located next to campus police.

Only pre-screened graduate students and professors have access to the facility, Tehan said.

When asked about the GAO repor t, Tehan described it as unfair.

“There are many dif ferent types of reactors,” he said. “You can’t review the little guys with the big guys.”

More money spent on security means less money spent on research, Tehan said. “What’s the point of having a secure facility if we can’t use it?”

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Popular pres. turns down ‘pub crawl’

U. spending heavily for financial aid, other benefits

Page 4

continued from page 1 cream, to tea on Valentine’s Day and, once, even “to go on a pub crawl.”

Students have also invited her to do things such as act in a movie, sing or dance.

Despite her desire to accommodate students’ requests when possible, Simmons is cautious not to accept invitations unless she knows what she’s getting into.

“Students usually ask me to do something silly. I know that it’s going straight to YouTube,” Simmons said.

“The one time I got suckered into something and didn’t know what I was doing was when I was asked to carry the Olympic Flame when it came to Providence, which meant you had to run with the flame,” Simmons recalled. “That, I would say, was not my finest hour.”

Simmons said she tries to send invitations, too, rather than just receive them. This year she invited the men’s soccer team to her house for dinner to recognize a successful

fall season.

Simmons also held a dinner for Brown employees last year in the downstairs kitchen of the Sharpe Refectory, and she is planning another this spring. The idea is to invite “staff that she doesn’t get to see, but who are working really hard,” Quinn said.

“It’s great fun to see how they work, where they work and it really just shows some appreciation for just how hard they work in the food service,” Simmons said.

Simmons also attends student events that are scheduled “well in advance,” like dance shows and athletic events.

Events that arise on shorter notice are less likely to drawing her presence. Jesse Maddox ’08, executive director of the Janus Forum, invited Simmons to give opening remarks for the group’s recent lecture: “Divided World, United Nations?: The Role of the U.S. Within the U.N.,” but she declined.

“I think we invited her a little too late for her to be able to make it,” he

said, acknowledging her busy schedule. Her not attending the event was “nothing personal,” he added.

In reality, with invitations filling her mailbox on a daily basis, Simmons turns most down.

“In essence, 95 percent of what comes in, you just have no chance of doing,” Simmons said.

Over the years, Simmons and her staff have developed certain “principles” to help choose which invitations to accept and which to decline, particularly when it comes to events that will take her away from College Hill.

Simmons seeks guidance from different offices and departments on campus, generally rules out any invitations for minor speaking roles and avoids being away at certain “peak times” of the year. She also is reluctant to turn down invitations from donors and other individuals who are “important to Brown,” she said.

But mostly, Simmons said, she returns to one basic rule: “If I do it, it should be good for Brown.”

continued from page 1 the maximum health care premium contribution that employees in twoperson or family plans pay, starting in January 2009.

Other University expenditures will include the hiring of 20 additional faculty, suppor t for an improved sabbatical program, increased financial aid and a greater stipend for graduate students, Huidekoper said.

While the University has high aspirations for the budget, administrators are aware that their goals may be difficult to achieve in the uncertain economic climate.

“The budget may be overly optimistic,” Huidekoper said. “We may need to make some mid-year, difficult decisions.”

Still, Huidekoper said the University would “stick” to its commitment to the new financial aid program.

The University expects a $7.4 million increase in its financial aid budget, said Provost David Kertzer ’69 P’95 P’98. Changes include eliminating loans for families earning less than $100,000, reducing loans for all students and eliminating the parental contribution for most families earning less than $60,000.

Despite the University’s changes in financial aid, Brown will still have difficulty competing with other top universities, especially Har vard, Yale and Stanford, Kertzer said.

Many Universities have eliminated loans for all students, including Amherst and Bowdoin colleges, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania, Kertzer said.

Of students admitted to Brown who chose to matriculate elsewhere, the highest percentage attended Yale, Har vard and Stanford universities — at 13, 11 and 9 percent, respectively, Kertzer said.

These same universities have increased their financial aid plans the most dramatically.

The University will also compete with Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania, which have greater financial aid packages for higher-income families than Brown does.

The University “tilted” its financial aid plan toward the less-wealthy and is not as concerned about the “upper end” of the University’s population, Kertzer said.

Brown also has not budgeted for creating need-blind admissions for international students, but has “increased the marketable aid we’ve put into the international student pool,” Kertzer said.

The University has put “about 15 percent more international students on financial aid,” Dean of Admission James Miller ’73 said.

Har vard, Yale, Princeton and Dar tmouth all have need-blind admission for international students.

Read Reread Recycle

C ampus n ews Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Liberal bishop to speak about abortion

By Chaz Kelsh Senior Staff Writer

John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopal bishop from Newark, N.J., whose traditionally liberal views have often ruffled feathers among Christians, will speak here later this month about his views on abortion, after Students for Choice secured funding from the Kaleidoscope Fund and a national advocacy organization to bring him to campus.

The group originally sought funding from other sources, including the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, before it received money from the Kaleidoscope Fund, which was created by President Ruth Simmons in 2005 to foster intellectual diversity on campus. The fund has previously sponsored lectures by conservative thinkers including author Dinesh D’Souza, National Review managing editor Jay Nordlinger and Feminists for Life of America vice president Sally Winn.

The lecture will take place March 18 at 7 p.m. in List 120.

Students for Choice is aiming to have students look at abortion in a different light, said Amelia Plant ’10, one of the group’s leaders. Spong’s

views cannot be easily summarized as for or against abortion, Plant said.

“I like to think he’s pro-thinking about choice,” she added.

In a 1981 essay called, “A Plea for Wisdom,” Spong wrote that abortion was a “grave act that touches the essence of life’s sacredness” that “should be undertaken only for serious causes.”

“Abortion is a reality that cannot be treated lightly or disposed of quickly,” he wrote.

The lecture fits with the goals of Students for Choice, which has no religious affiliation, Plant said. “We’ve for a long time wanted to reach out to a broader audience,” she added.

Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn, who oversees the Kaleidoscope Fund, said the fund gives money primarily for events that could not be funded through other means. As groups apply for funding, she looks at “how much trouble they receive” while trying to get money, she said.

Although Quinn reviews applications for money from the Kaleidoscope Fund, the final decisions lie with Simmons, she said.

Quinn said Spong would bring a “diversity of opinion” to Brown.

“We don’t tend to have too many

religious figures on campus,” she said, characterizing Spong’s views on abortion as “somewhat controversial.”

When Students for Choice decided to bring Spong to campus, it began its search for funding to cover his speaker’s fee of $3,000, plus travel expenses. The group initally received $100 from the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, $250 from the Office of Institutional Diversity and $1,500 from Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom, a national advocacy group.

SYRF hosted a panel discussion on abortion last year with leaders from various faiths. Kaile Wilson ’10, who works as an intern for the national organization, applied for the funding over winter break. She said she received a check in early February from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, SYRF’s parent organization.

Although it did not cover Spong’s entire fee, the group was “pretty pleased” about the contribution, she said. “I was ready to go back to national and kind of grovel for more money,” she said. Students for Choice continued on page 8

Comedy competition comes to Brown

By Christian Martell Staff Writer

What do an Indian boy from Texas who goes by “G. Chocolate” and the Pope have in common?

Both earned a spot on the eightperson team representing Brown for RooftopComedy.com’s first annual National College Comedy Competition. Voting for the team was held last night in Salomon 001 after 10 contestants — including Chocolate, or Gaurab Chakrabarti ’10, and the Brown Stand-Up Comedy club’s “Pope” Adam Suzan ’08 — gave the audience a taste of their stand-up talent.

Created in 2005 by a group of “die-hard comedy devotees who were sick of working for the man,” RooftopComedy.com is based in San Francisco and serves as an online comedy channel featuring stand-up comedy video clips, according to their Web site. Their 2008 National College Competition starts off with on-campus contests held at 32 campuses across the country. Video clips of 16 regional winners will be featured online, and the four most popular comedians from the site will be chosen to compete at the national competition held in Aspen, Colo., on Memorial Day weekend for a $1,500 cash prize, according to the site.

“The competition serves as a platform for students to showcase their comedic talent,” said Jennifer Stokes, RooftopComedy.com’s college promotion rockstar.

Stokes was contacted by Suzan in early January to make sure Brown was one of the schools competing.

Stokes said that she loves visiting the range of college campuses because “each school in the competition is unique.”

The fourth comedian of the night, David Grabiner ’05 GS, told the audience he once read “parents hoping for a comatose daughter” on the bottom of the television screen while watching the news.

“Well, that’s setting the bar pretty low, right?” he asked. “Who wants a daughter anyway?”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Another comedian, Tom Flaherty ’08, joked about his housing experience in Sigma Chi, on the third floor of Olney House, last year.

“There was this disabled bathroom on the floor, but the building didn’t have disabled access. I always thought to myself ‘if a disabled person can get there you don’t need that bathroom,” Flaherty said. “You can shit anywhere.”

Grabiner and Flaherty will join Chakrabarti, Suzan, Billy Doyle ’09, Dustin Foley ’09, James Belarde ’10 and Alex Rosenberg ’11, a Herald copy editor, to make up the Brown comedy team.

The Brown team will compete against the Emerson comedy team April 8th in Boston. RooftopComedy. com will provide free transportation for all Brown students who sign-up through the Web site, Stokes said.

Students who become fans of the team online will be entered to win free round-trip air fare to the competition in Aspen, if a Brown comedian makes it to the finals.

The host for last night’s event was RooftopComedy.com comedian Lamar Williams. He started off the night with a stand-up routine and continued to interject jokes between the acts of Brown comedians.

“Old people are liars. They always exaggerate their stories,” he said. Lamar cited an episode with his grandmother where she “lied” about kicking someone for a nickel in her youth. He said he didn’t believe his grandmother was strong enough to kick someone for a nickel when she couldn’t even open a jar of mayonnaise.

“Yeah, I carry a can of mayo just in case an old person ever wants to lie to me,” he joked.

Ben Hagur, another RooftopComedy.com comedian, was also featured in the contest. One of his jokes referred to his godson’s favorite juice, Capri Sun. “The back of the box says Capri Sun is delicious, exciting and fun, but have you ever tried to get the straw in one of those? It’s not fun. I can never find the hole,” Hagur said. “I

kept having flashbacks to my senior prom.”

David Dean ’11 was pressured into attending by his friend and comedian Flaherty, he said. Dean said he left the contest “loving it,” though the competition was the first comedy show he’d seen at Brown.

Ne

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Watson program informs kids on Castro The consequences of Fidel Castro’s decision to step down as Cuba’s president are the subject of a one-day online lesson developed by the Watson Institute for International Studies. Designed for American high school students, the free teaching aid has been downloaded 1,152 times since it was made available last week, said Andrew Blackadar, a curriculum developer at Watson.

The lesson plan, titled “Castro’s Legacy and the Future of Cuba,” is the latest topic tackled by the Choices for the 21st Century Education Program, an educational arm of the Watson Institute. Since its founding 19 years ago, the program has produced 34 curriculum series pertaining to international affairs, Blackadar said.

First among the discussion questions the lesson plan suggests is, “What standards should history use to judge leaders?”

“Castro has occupied the American imagination for 50 years,” Blackadar said. The lesson exposes high school students to an array of perspectives on Castro’s resignation, from the remarks of world figures and groups to the commentary of bloggers and ordinary Cubans.

“The principle idea was that Castro’s legacy was a contested one, and we wanted to expose students to that,” Blackadar said.

The Castro lesson is part of a larger initiative called “Teaching with the News,” which seeks to turn important current events into “a form that teachers can easily use,” said Sarah Massey, a program associate for the Choices Program at Watson. Though it’s hard to measure the reaction to the lesson, Massey said, the program has received e-mails from teachers excited about the teaching aid.

“The goal is to get students to think about controversial, international issues,” Blackadar said. In general, curriculum units about genocide, the Middle East and Iraq have been especially popular, he added.

The Choices Program’s mission is “to empower young people with the skills, knowledge, and participatory habits to be engaged citizens,” according to the program’s Web site. Some of the main methods include developing teaching resources on world history and foreign policy and providing professional development to teachers, Massey said.

The United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan group funded

by Congress that promotes peaceful conflict resolution, is partially funding a one-week series exploring Cuba’s history and “engaging students in the controversies over (its) future,” according to a Feb. 21 news release by the Choices Program. The full curriculum unit about Cuba will be published this spring.

— Zunaira Choudhary

Page 6

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

At Salomon, Obama gets 416 votes, Clinton, 114 continued from page 1 A few voters were turned away because they were not registered to vote in Providence. Some were asked to go to other polling stations, though it is unclear if they did so, Storch said.

David Hahn MD’08 said though he is not registered to vote in Rhode Island, he went to the booth hoping he might be able to cast his ballot there.

Hahn, who would have voted for Obama, said he was disappointed he wasn’t allowed to vote.

But, Hahn said, he thinks Obama has a “strong foothold” in the state and is fairly popular among Brown’s medical and graduate students.

Robin Davis ’10, a California resident, said she decided to vote in Rhode Island because she feels her vote will carry more weight in the Ocean State.

In a state that is “overwhelmingly for Hillary, my vote for Barack Obama will go further,” she said.

But Carey Degenaro ’08 said

though Obama has rallied young voters behind him, she voted for Clinton, whom she sees as “firmer” and more likely to bring about change effectively.

Ethan Kirsch, who voted for Obama, said the Illinois senator is most likely to end the war in Iraq and “raise the stature of the United States in the world.”

“He’s inspiring,” Kirsch said.

“After seven years of demoralization under the heinous George Bush, the countr y needs some inspiration.”

Though Obama is Christian, his father’s Muslim background might make him less divisive, Kirsch said.

Julia Van De Walle ’08, who was the last to cast her vote at Salomon, said she was “really glad” to have made it to the booth just in time.

Van De Walle, who voted for Obama, said she would not have come if her friends had not urged her at the last minute.

“Now I can say ‘I did my part,’” she said, proudly showing her “I Voted” sticker.

College Republicans will now support McCain continued from page 1 Obama also spent the day going door-to-door and making phone calls urging supporters to vote for the Illinois senator, said Max Chaiken ’09, Brown’s chapter coordinator for the group.

“It was a long day, and it has been a long couple of weeks,” said Chaiken, who is also a Herald opinions columnist. “We don’t know what will happen in the national picture, but we are not going anywhere and will keep working hard.”

The Obama campaign was somewhat successful in Rhode Island, Chaiken said, noting that the candidate won in the city of Providence, 51.3 percent to 47.8 percent.

But Obama was less successful in the state as a whole.

“The only reason tonight has an effect on our plans is because there is less opportunity to be directly involved,” Chaiken said. “We have little to do from Rhode Island except making phone calls.”

Clinton also won Ohio by 12 percentage points with 88 percent of precincts reporting, and she took Texas by 4 percentage points with 77 percent of precincts reporting, according to CNN. Obama won Vermont by 22 percentage points

with 86 percent of precincts reporting, and with only early results in, Obama was leading Clinton in the Texas caucuses, CNN reported.

The Brown College Republicans — who are governed by a national committee — are not permitted to endorse a candidate during the primaries. But now that Huckabee has conceded, they will be free to actively support John McCain, an Arizona senator, said group President Marc Frank ’09.

The group is “very excited” and “pleased that John McCain is now our official nominee,” Frank said.

After former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, “the club has been 100 percent for McCain,” without a single member supporting Huckabee, he added.

Frank said the group has been largely inactive up until this point because of the restriction on supporting an individual candidate. McCain’s win was a “forgone conclusion,” Frank said — which meant Republicans at Brown didn’t have to be very active during the primary season.

Later this semester, the members will begin canvassing for McCain. But for now, Frank said, they are “enjoying watching the Democrats beat each other up.”

Min Wu / Herald

A student casts his vote yesterday in the lobby of Salomon Center.

Kim Perley / Herald

Two Obama supporters show their support by marching in downtown Providence.

Tax-exempt status restricts campaigning continued from page 1 Hotel in Warwick.

Meanwhile, not one representative from the Democratic or Republican presidential field has appeared on campus.

“Brown is enforcing this more strictly than any school I’ve heard of,” said Max Chaiken ’09, chapter coordinator of Students for Barack Obama and a Herald opinions columnist. “Other schools in the country — even in the state — don’t enforce it as strictly as Brown does.”

Chaiken said the policy has profoundly limited his group’s ability to support its candidate. A recent event the group organized — a discussion session with actor, University of Pennsylvania visiting professor and vocal Obama supporter Kal Penn — had to be moved from Alumnae Hall to Thayer Street’s Blue State Coffee after facing resistance from the Student Activities Office, he said.

Caleb Weaver, Rhode Island communications director for the Obama campaign, said the venue change, which occurred the night before the event, was “motivated

by Brown’s policies.”

“After looking at what the policies were about having political events on campus, it was determined that it was an easier option to move it to the coffee house nearby,” Weaver said, adding that an on-campus location would have been preferred.

Chaiken criticized Brown’s lastminute veto, citing Penn’s appearances at other Rhode Island colleges as evidence that hosting the actor would not have jeopardized the University’s tax-exempt status.

“Kal Penn made appearances at Bryant University, at URI, at CCRI,” Chaiken said, “and none of them had a problem hosting him.”

Equal access for all candidates does not mean free access, Chapman said, pointing out that Penn would have been allowed to speak on campus had Students for Barack Obama paid the $200 rental fee that any candidate or surrogate would have been charged.

“To avoid any perception that we are endorsing the candidate, we must rent out the room,” Chapman said. “They definitely were not pushed out.”

Tom Dougan, vice president for student affairs at URI, said the university’s policy on inviting speakers was less restrictive but still within the IRS guidelines, which prohibit organizations like Brown and URI from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for

elective public office,” according to the IRS Web site.

“By allowing a candidate to speak at our campus, we don’t feel as an institution that we are endorsing him or her,” Dougan said. “We are providing a forum, and that’s always been our interpretation.”

Dougan added that hosting political candidates and surrogates on campus positively influences students to be politically minded.

“It’s great for students to get very actively involved in the political process,” he said. “Having political speakers here certainly encourages them to do that.”

Not all recent campaign events held off-campus have been there as a result of the restrictive policy.

Though Chelsea Clinton stumped for her mother last week at Viva Bar on Thayer Street, a campaign spokeswoman said the younger Clinton preferred the off-campus venue.

“Chelsea’s been holding events at young people hangout spots,” said Jennifer Bramley, deputy communications director for the Clinton campaign in Rhode Island. “We did want to be in that area and ended up at Viva, which we know is a gathering place for different people from Brown and outside.”

Still, Chaiken and other politically active students said the University’s resistance to political events is nothing new. Craig Auster ’08, who co-chairs Brown Students for Hillary, recalled difficulties a year ago when his group sought to invite former Democratic National Committee chair and senior Clinton adviser Terry McAuliffe to campus.

“The only way he was allowed to come was if the Brown Democrats sponsored the event and he remained completely neutral,” Auster said. “He wasn’t even allowed to mention the candidates by name.”

McAuliffe did speak to the Democrats in List 120, but did not stump for Clinton in his speech.

Auster shared Chaiken’s view of the policy, calling it “a disservice to the students and the Brown community as a whole.”

Marc Frank ’09, president of the Brown College Republicans, also expressed confusion and frustration with the University’s policy. Though he said McCain’s success on Super Tuesday obviated the need for an on-campus rally, Frank said he had Brown’s policy in mind when he advised Huckabee’s campaign to hold its rally off of College Hill.

“The Huckabee campaign called us last week asking if they could hold their rally at Brown,” he said.

“I know that it’s against Brown’s policies so I told them it would be

better to hold it elsewhere.”

Though the policy didn’t affect his group too harshly, Frank said he thinks it is ill-founded. “They claim that legally they’re required to do that, but that doesn’t make sense to me because if you watch CNN, the debates are almost always at a college,” he said. “I think it’s kind of a bogus policy.”

Chapman said the University has recognized the shortcomings of the policy, which states that “University facilities and services may not be used by or on behalf of an outside organization or outside individual whose purpose is to further the cause of a candidate or political party.” In response, Chapman said he and other University officials are looking to revise the policy to make it “more balanced” in time for the general election this fall.

“We’re revising those rules so we can stay in the IRS’s guidelines for 501(c)(3) organizations and give Brown students and the community the ability to hear from political candidates running for office,” he said, adding that the revisions will be released “in the near future.”

In the meantime, Chapman said the University will operate on a “guiding principle” that should allow political candidates to speak on campus.

“We want to treat all candidates the same and give them equal access to campus facilities,” he said.

Chapman said the University has already applied the guiding principle, offering Barack Obama a chance to speak in the OlneyMargolies Athletic Center after a request from his campaign.

“He wanted a bigger venue” than the OMAC, Chapman said. “But if Senator Hillary Clinton wanted to come to Brown, we would make the OMAC available to her.”

Though Chapman maintained that a change has been made in attitude if not in official policy, Chaiken told The Herald that the University’s actions aren’t always in line with the new principle.

“I haven’t seen evidence of that principle,” Chaiken said. “We moved Kal Penn off campus because the University called and said we could rent the room or move it off campus.

My experience with the University has not been eased by this guiding principle, if it exists.”

Chapman emphasized that the new policy will be more accommodating than the old one, which he said was “narrowly tailored.”

“The goal is to abide by the IRS rules,” he said, “while at the same time trying to make it as easy as possible for the Brown community to hear from political candidates.”

N ational p rimary R esults Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Clinton regains footing

By Peter Wallsten Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — In winning New Hampshire a few weeks ago, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared, “I found my own voice.” But it was a much different voice in the closing days before Tuesday’s voting that carried her to victory in Ohio and Texas — and which now lets her make a strong case for extending the Democratic presidential race into the spring and possibly beyond.

Gone was the misty-eyed Clinton who scored points showing her human side. Gone was the gracious Clinton who, just two weeks ago, drew thunderous applause for expressing her pride in running against Barack Obama.

The new voice was angrier, sharper and far more negative toward Obama — a voice that at one point bellowed at her rival, “Shame on you,” as she pushed back against what she said was an unfair attack.

She ran a television ad suggesting that the youthful Obama could not be trusted if a world crisis forced the president from bed in the middle of the night. She questioned his ethics by repeatedly raising questions about his relationship with a disgraced supporter who, by the luck of the draw for Clinton, is the target of a federal corruption trial that began Monday in Chicago, where Obama lives.

And, highlighting a meeting between a top Obama aide and the Canadian government, she painted him as a typical, two-faced politician who told the voters one thing about his intention to change the North American Free Trade Agreement but with a wink and a nod assured a foreign government he would not follow through.

In each case, Clinton put Obama on defense in areas that have long been his biggest strengths. And in each case, she seemed to finally

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

figure out how to make her brand of “experience” compete with a mantra of “change” that had spurred Obama’s 11-contest win streak going into Tuesday’s voting and peeled away key components of Clinton’s base.

Media exit polls showed that Clinton’s new voice brought some of her old supporters back to her side: The New York senator won women, white men and lower-income voters in Ohio, and she won women, whites and Hispanics in Texas.

And Tuesday night, as a testament to that core constituency, she dedicated her Ohio win to “all those who have been counted out but refused to be knocked out.”

Obama retains his delegate lead. But Obama’s campaign had argued that a strong showing Tuesday would pressure Clinton to step aside. His campaign manager had predicted that Clinton would “fail” and that Obama’s string of wins and his delegate advantage would be insurmountable.

Now, after Tuesday, such talk sounds far less convincing.

Instead, as the candidates eye more contests in the coming weeks, and with a crucial showdown set for April 22 in Pennsylvania, Clinton can point to her wins in big states such as Ohio, California, New Jersey and Arizona to make a case that she deser ves the chance to fight for the nomination just as much as her rival.

And she can argue that Obama, who exacerbated Clinton’s attacks on him by seeming to shade the facts around his aide’s meeting with the Canadian government, is ill-equipped to take on Republican John McCain in the fall. She can plead her case to the public and, more important, to the nearly 800 party bigwigs known as superdelegates who may cast decisive votes at the party convention in August.

Obama will highlight what

O bamarama

Min Wu / Herald

A supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., stood by Faunce Arch supporting his candidate.

O n th e hom e front

Kim Perley/ Herald

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., will stay in the race after wins in Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio Tuesday. may be a slim delegate lead once voting ends in June.

“The key question is whether both campaigns have a stor y to tell on Wednesday morning,” said Democratic strategist Michael Feldman. “Can Senator Clinton make a credible argument about her electability in a way that keeps the uncommitted superdelegates in place and allows the campaign to move forward?”

But as Clinton once again finds her voice, many Democrats worry that her new style and tone could damage the party’s chances in November.

Her wins Tuesday make it unlikely that Clinton would heed advice to alter what has become a winning strategy, but she may begin hearing from some party leaders that she should, at a minimum, tone down her attacks on Obama.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, once a rival for the nomination, warned in a television interview Sunday that the negativity between Clinton and Obama “could be campaign fodder for Republicans in the fall.”

He cited the Clinton ad in which a narrator warned of a crisis unfolding in “a dangerous world” at 3 a.m. and asked, “Who do you want answering the phone?”

Richardson said he was concerned that as the campaign continues to unfold in the seven weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, “that this just continues, this negativity, personal attacks. ... Those are not helpful ads.”

In fact, exit polls suggested that the dangerous world ad was helpful to Clinton. Though recent contests showed voters divided over who was most qualified to be commander in chief, the exit surveys in Texas and Ohio found that voters there overwhelmingly rated Clinton as most qualified to lead the armed forces — a return to the impression many voters had held throughout 2007.

But if Texas and Ohio are any indication, the negativity will take its toll. Exit polls published by CNN showed that barely more than four in 10 Democrats said they would be satisfied no matter which candidate won the nomination.

Election Returns (as of 2 a.m. Wednesday)

Rhode Island Clinton - 58% Obama - 40%

Rhode Island McCain - 65% Huckabee - 22%

Texas (primary) Clinton - 51% Obama - 47%

Texas (primary) McCain - 51% Huckabee - 38%

Texas (caucus) Obama - 56% Clinton - 44%

Ohio McCain - 60% Huckabee - 31%

Ohio Clinton - 55% Obama - 43%

Vermont McCain - 72% Huckabee - 14%

Vermont Obama - 60% Clinton - 38% Source: CNN.com

Page 8

GOP senators go tough on immigration

By Nicole Gaouette Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON ­— Senate Republicans are set to announce Wednesday the hardest-hitting package of immigration enforcement measures seen yet — one that would require jail time for illegal immigrants caught crossing the border, make it harder for them to open bank accounts and compel them to communicate in English when dealing with federal agencies.

Most of the bills stand little chance of being debated in the Democrat-controlled Congress, but the move by some of the Senate’s leading Republicans underscores how potent the issue of immigration remains, particularly during a presidential election year.

The bills give Republicans a way to put pressure on the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to take a tougher stance on immigration. They also reflect a shift toward harsher immigration rhetoric and legislative proposals from both parties since Congress failed to pass a comprehensive overhaul in 2007.

The package, an enforcement smorgasbord assembled by at least eight lawmakers, consists of 11 bills, but could expand to include as many as 14. Some elements echo House bills, but others go beyond House proposals.

One would discourage states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants by docking 10 percentof highway funding from states that continue to do so. Another would extend the presence of National Guard on the border and a third would end language assistance at federal agencies and the voting booth for people with limited English ability.

A bill by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who is leading the effort, would impose a maximum twoyear jail sentence on someone caught crossing the border for a second time.

“The point is to reinforce the idea that most of us here feel that we need to make enforcement and border security a first step to solving the overall problem,”

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., one of the sponsors.

Although Congress usually avoids tough legislation during an election year, Vitter insisted that he and his colleagues could still get something done. “There are concrete steps we can take.

None of us see any reason to waste this time,” he said.

Other bills in the package would: • Block federal funding from cities that bar their police from asking about immigration status.

• Give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to use information from the Social Security Administration to target illegal immigrants.

• Require construction of 700 miles of fencing along the Southern border, not including vehicle barriers.

• Impose sanctions on countries that refuse to repatriate their citizens.

• Deport any immigrant, legal or illegal, for one drunken-driving conviction.

• Enable local and state police to enforce federal immigration laws Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harr y Reid, D-Nev., said the Republican proposal “falls far short of what is needed.” Democrats want to combine enforcement with a guestworker program and a way to deal with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Reid “continues to support legislation that is tough on people who break the law, fair to taxpayers and practical to implement,” Manley said.

But Democrats also have begun embracing a tougher stance on immigration as well. A confidential study assembled for the Democratic leadership earlier this year urged them to start using tougher language. Democrats have focused on offering opportunity to immigrants, but the study by two think tanks urged them to begin speaking in terms of “requiring” illegal immigrants to become legal and about what’s best for the United States.

Many House Democrats have gone a step further, endorsing an enforcement-only bill by freshman Democratic Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina that would bolster border security and require employers to verify their workers’ legal status with an electronic verification system.

The SAVE Act has drawn 140 co-sponsors, 48 of whom are Democrats, many of them vulnerable freshman who won seats from Republicans.

The Democratic leadership dislikes Shuler’s bill and has refused to schedule a debate. Republican leaders are considering collecting signatures for a special petition that requires House leaders to bring a bill up for debate if 218 members sign. There are 198 Republicans.

Angela Kelley, director of the Immigration Policy Center, said Senate Republicans might be trying to match their House colleagues. “They might feel they’re being upstaged by House Republicans,” she said. But she also suggested the Senate bills could provide political protection to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the likely GOP presidential nominee.

Conservatives consider Republican front-runner McCain soft on immigration. McCain, along with the Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, has backed giving illegal immigrants some form of legal status, which conser vatives consider “amnesty.”

If McCain endorsed the Senate package, that could “create a platform for McCain to look tough on immigration, create distance from Ted Kennedy and erect a shield around the amnesty charge,” Kelley said.

Besides Sessions and Vitter, the bills are being introduced by GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

U.S. generals say Iran still a force in Iraqi politics

By Peter Spiegel and Julian Barnes Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON ­— Two top U.S. military commanders said Tuesday that Iran continues to train and direct violent Shiite militia inside Iraq and is attempting to permanently weaken the Iraqi government.

Iran has become the biggest longterm threat to Iraqi stability and is encouraging radical elements among the Shiite population to continue attacks even as some prominent militia leaders push for cease fires, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who just completed a 15-month assignment as day-to-day commander in Iraq.

“This is about keeping, in my opinion, a weak government in Iraq,” Odierno told reporters at the Pentagon. “I think Iran benefits from that.”

Navy Adm. William Fallon, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, was more conciliatory during a Senate hearing, saying the visit to Baghdad a day earlier by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a “mixed bag” because it offered an opportunity for Iraqi leaders to push Iran to take further steps to stop the flow of weapons and bombs into Iraq.

But pressed by members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Fallon said there was still evidence Iran was training militants and providing them with weaponry.

“I have yet to see anything since I’ve been in this job in the way of a public action by Iran that’s been at all helpful in this region and particularly ... in Iraq,” Fallon said.

Iran’s role in Iraq remains an intensely debated issue among U.S. policymakers. While many accuse Iran of continued meddling, others credit Iranian restraint with helping

Students for Choice invite a bishop with a different view continued from page 5

Sullivan ’11 a four-time Ivy rookie continued from page 12 Bears ultimately fell. Muldoon twice won Ivy League Rookie of the Week last season, when he was Brown’s leader in points with 32.

Muldoon is on the same track this season, having put in six goals to go along with three assists in the Bears first two games.

Peter Sullivan ’11 jumped out to a hot start in the men’s basketball game against Penn on Saturday; for his effort, he received his fourth Ivy League Rookie of the Week award this season. Sullivan dropped 13 in the first half against the Quakers, fueling the Bears to 30-point halftime lead against the traditional Ivy League powerhouse Quakers. Sullivan is now averaging 10.2 points and 3.2 rebounds per game in conference play this season, with the second-place Bears heading into their final two games of the season this weekend.

to bring down the level of violence in Iraq over the last year.

Most visibly, there has been a sharp decline in Iraq of sophisticated roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, also called EFPs, which American officials allege are manufactured exclusively in Iran.

In addition, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the most prominent anti-American leader in Iraq, recently extended a cease-fire by his loyalists despite his close ties to Iran.

But Odierno said the importance of al-Sadr’s cease-fire has been overstated and that Iranian operatives have been working to peel off radical elements of al-Sadr’s militia, known as the Mahdi Army, to continue fighting.

Odierno noted that Ahmadinejad was able to travel Iraqi roads unmolested by violence during his two-day visit to Iraq, citing it as evidence that Iran could start and stop Shiite-backed attacks at will.

“Whenever a visitor would come from the United States, we’d either foil a rocket attack or the rocket attack happened,” Odierno said.

“That’s because it was being done

by Iranian surrogates. And when the government of Iraq holds a meeting, there tends to be rocket attacks. Why is that? Because it’s done by Iranian surrogates.”

Odierno, who was recently nominated to become vice chief of staff of the Army, said he agrees with Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the overall commander in Iraq, that the ongoing troop withdrawals should pause after July when force levels return to prebuildup numbers.

He also suggested that Petraeus’ next scheduled set of recommendations for the Iraq campaign, due to be presented to Congress in April, may be too soon to determine whether troop reductions can continue through the end of the year.

then looked to the Office of the Chaplain for additional funding, but was denied, Plant said.

There was a simple reason the office was unable to give the group money, according to University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson.

“We don’t have any,” she said.

But there were other reasons, too, Nelson said. Her office “wouldn’t have sponsored (the lecture) for fear of alienating someone whose voice we might not even have ever heard,” she said. She added the office must be an “inclusive” place, adding that Spong is an “extremely bright guy with a lot of broad-ranging thoughts and ideas” who promotes “pluralism within the tradition.” But because the chaplain’s office has no distinct tradition, she said, there is a “real need to be careful.”

She said it would have been “careless on our part” to have sponsored the lecture.

Associate University Chaplain Henr y Bodah, who is Catholic, agreed. “The whole abortion thing is very controversial,” he said. “The funds are very limited, and the chaplain’s office has to be seen as chaplains without taking sides.”

Neither Nelson nor Bodah said they objected to Spong’s lecture, even funded at the University’s expense.

“This is a university. I don’t see

why anybody should be excluded a priori,” Bodah said.

Nelson said the chaplain’s office helped to endorse the group’s proposal to the Kaleidoscope Fund. She said Spong would enrich the discussion about abortion. The idea that choice is blind support for abortion “doesn’t describe anyone I know,” she said.

In the end, the Kaleidoscope Fund gave Students for Choice $1,500, which covered almost all of Spong’s fee. The group also received $100 from the Office of the Dean of the College for publicity.

Students agreed that Spong’s lecture will raise interesting questions and present an unusual perspective.

The lecture will provide “a lot of food for thought,” said Wilson, who added that the left must court the religious right if it is to win more reproductive rights.

Christina Cozzetto ’10, the leader of Students for Life, said she was “not thrilled about” Spong’s lecture, but said she thought it would “definitely make people think.”

She said that she did not take issue with the lecture’s funding, adding that it made “complete sense” for the Kaleidoscope Fund to be used for speakers like Spong.

Even so, she added, “his arguments are never going to hold water with me.”

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

UConn gains on riders with last show approaching continued from page 12 Keefe was pointed in Open Flat, but did not pin. Tasindi pinned fifth in Intermediate, good for two points, and Emily Bourdeau ’10 took sixth in Novice. The Bears’ struggles allowed UConn to build a nine-point lead.

“A lot of us, myself included, had trouble on leads in the flat,” Bogdonoff said. “I’m sure it will be something we focus on in training this week.”

Brown was able to get a couple points back from the Huskies in the final two events, as Stephanie Carmack ’08 pinned third in Walk Trot Canter and Jill Grif fith ’10 took first in Walk Trot.

Sarah Morris ’08 and Emily Cole ’08 also earned blue ribbons for the Bears, but they were non-

point riders.

“Overall I thought we rode pretty well,” Bogdonoff said. “We just had a couple tough draws and a couple tough calls from the judges, which were things we couldn’t control. We gave it our best effort.”

Bruno finished the show with a total of 24 points, six points behind UConn and 12 behind Post. The Bears lead the Huskies 307-306 in the regional point standings.

“I know in the past Johnson and Wales has been a tough barn to predict how things are going to go,” Bogdonoff said.

“We’re going to train really hard this week and put ever ything we have into next week’s show,” he said. “We have been such a solid team all year, it’d really be a shame if we lost out on Zones in the last show.”

Baseball’s fastballs lead to split with Bama’s Blazers continued from page 12 seven innings.

Bruno again got on the board first, taking a 1-0 lead in the first, but Silverman surrendered a tworun homer in the bottom of the inning. The Bears regained the lead with a two-run third inning and then scored three runs in the fourth, when UAB walked in a run and right fielder Nick Punal ’10 singled home two more, giving Brown a 6-2 lead.

The Bears added another run in the sixth, while the Blazers managed just one more run, giving Brown a 7-3 win.

On Saturday night, Will Weidig ’10 struggled in his first start of the season, giving up six runs in seven innings in a 9-6 loss for Brown.

The Bears jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning behind designated hitter Conor Reardon ’08, who drove in the first run with an RBI double and later came around to score. Reardon went 3-for-3 with two RBIs in the game and had a breakout weekend, going 5-for-13 with three RBIs, three doubles and five runs scored. Reardon’s performance was especially impressive since he has missed the past two seasons due to injury.

“I was definitely surprised,” Papenhause said. “I had seen him play in the fall, and he’s a great natural hitter, with a lot of talent at the plate, but he definitely exceeded what I thought he could do.”

In the second inning, shor tstop Matt Nuzzo ’09 singled home another run, but in the bottom of the inning Brown’s lead began to erode. Weidig gave up a single and two walks to load the bases with nobody out, and UAB cut the lead to 3-2 with a fielder’s choice and a bunt single.

Weidig was perfect over the next three innings, and RBI doubles by Reardon and tri-captain left fielder Ryan Murphy ’08 increased the lead to 5-2 in the bottom of the fourth.

In the bottom of the sixth, though, the Blazers struck for four runs to take a 6-5 lead, and the Bears left two runners on base in the top of the seventh.

The bullpen surrendered three more runs to UAB in the bottom of the eighth, but the Bears looked poised for a comeback. Bruno cut the lead to 9-6 and had runners on

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first and second with only one out.

But consecutive fly ball outs stranded the runners, dropping Brown’s record to 1-2.

“We thought we could have played better,” Papenhause said.

“We had that game in our hands, and we should have been able to win it.”

On Sunday, another freshman, Matthew Kimball ’11, took the mound for Brown. Kimball turned in a strong performance, allowing just one run in five innings, while four Bears had multi-hit games en route to an 8-5 victory.

The Bears took a 3-0 lead in the second inning, when Papenhause scored on a fielder’s choice and catcher Matt Colantonio ’11 had a two-run single. Colantonio reached base four times in five plate appearances, with two singles and a pair of walks.

The Blazers picked up a run in the bottom of the second, and neither team scored again until the bottom of the seventh, when UAB roughed up Matt Boylan ’10 for three runs on four hits to take a 4-3 lead.

But the Bears came roaring back in the top of the eighth. First, Punal drove home Eno on a sacrifice fly to tie the game, and later in the inning, Nuzzo was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give Brown a 5-4 lead. Papenhause delivered a sacrifice fly to give the Bears an insurance run, and a throwing error on Zrenda’s ground ball gave them two more runs.

Pitchers Vita and tri-captain Rob Hallberg ’08 protected the lead, as the Blazers managed one run in the ninth but no more.

For the most part, the team was happy with its performance this weekend.

“I thought we did really well for the first series of the season,” Papenhause said. “I’ve been here three years, and this was the best we’ve ever played on the first weekend in all my time here.” Bruno started last year 1-8, so the two wins on the first weekend of the season are already an improvement for a team that won the Ivy League title last season.

At the end of this week, Brown will travel back down south to Gainesville, Fla., for a three-game series against the University of Florida.

W. lax gets five scores by Nunn ’09 continued from page 12 utes. Less than three minutes after halftime, Vitkus scored her second goal of the game. But North Carolina turned on the play that made it No. 6 in the country and stole the remainder of the game as the Bears struggled to hold on.

“We came out really hard because we went in with an underdog mentality; that’s how we really played in the first half,” Justine Lupo ’08 said. “They were shocked that we came out that hard, so they definitely came out that much harder in the second half.”

Bosica, who started the game slowly with only one goal in the opening period, exploded for four goals in the second half. After UNC’s first goal of the half by Julia Ryan, Bosica began her rally and went on to score two unassisted goals. DeTolla responded for Bruno with an unassisted goal of her own, but it wasn’t enough.

Bosica countered with two more to put the Tar Heels up, 9-8, with 13:33 remaining in play, and from there they never looked back.

“I think we just started to run out of steam and let the little things

get away from us,” DeTolla wrote in an e-mail to the Herald.

North Carolina finished the game by scoring three more times to put the final at 12-8. Nunn said that the score didn’t reflect the Bears’ play.

“Although we lost by four the game was much closer,” she wrote in an e-mail. “We kept it competitive until the very end.”

Although the Bears lost, many players noted that the team was content with its play and that it took that high morale into the next game. Although Davidson is not as highly ranked as their previous opponent, the Bears said they try to be equally prepared for every team.

“We prepare the same way for any team and disregard rankings because we believe on any given day, any team can win,” wrote Meghan Markowski ’10 in an email.

However, a decrease in the speed of play definitely made a difference, and Brown found it difficult to adjust. The game was mostly back and forth, but the Bears, unable to modify their play to a slower pace, ultimately

fell to Davidson at the end of the second half.

Brown started the scoring just 1:36 into the game with a goal from Molly McCarthy ’10. The teams traded goals throughout the game, starting with an answer from Davidson’s Becky Horton, who would score two more times.

Nunn answered with her first of two goals on the day to put Bruno ahead, 2-1. Davidson scored twice more but Brown had the final say in the first half when Nunn scored again to tie the contest at three with 11:45 remaining.

Brown started the second half with intensity, breaking the horsetrading by scoring two unanswered goals in the first five minutes. The first came from Kara Kelly ’10 who was quickly followed by DeTolla.

But the Wildcats, down 5-3, started to counter and, about a minute after DeTolla’s goal, Horton brought Davidson within one. The last 10 minutes of the game saw two more Wildcat goals, unanswered

by Brown, to give Davidson a 6-5 lead at the final whistle.

The Bears are back on the turf today at 5 p.m. when they host BU.

www.browndailyherald.com

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

Inviting discourse Starting to get jealous of your friends at Rhode Island College? With primary season only just behind us, the one odd aspect of all the attention that the nation paid to our humble state was that no candidates — or their family members — were allowed to speak right here at Brown.

As it turns out, the explanation for the lack of political speeches on campus may come down to an outdated University policy. Brown is a registered nonprofit, exempt from millions of dollars in federal taxes, and one condition of such status is that it cannot participate in political campaigns.

Certainly no one would wish to jeopardize that exemption — an essential part of what allows us to be a functioning educational institution — in order to tr y to influence an election, right?

This restriction on nonprofit organizations didn’t grow out of some ideological separation like that of church and state — under which, ideally, people would disavow any connection to the other issue. Instead, it’s just a measure intended to prevent organizations masquerading as charities from exerting undue power over the electoral process.

Philanthropic foundations, political think tanks and educational groups all fall under these nonprofit regulations — and they can act toward any social or political goal save exerting influence “on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office,” according to the IRS’s Web site.

It’s not exactly hard to figure out where to draw the line, though.

The IRS gives specific guidelines about inviting candidates that are pretty lenient — allowing anyone to speak as a candidate as long as other candidates have the same chance to speak, there’s no fundraising and the university in question is clear that the invitation is not an endorsement.

Br yant University, Community College of Rhode Island and RIC all figured it out — so why couldn’t we? With all due respect to these fine colleges and universities, we expect that at least some candidates would have spoken here if they had been allowed to do so. Even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tried to make an appearance on College Hill, according to the College Republicans.

And though we appreciate the optimism (or is it naivete?) of University spokesman Michael Chapman in hoping that a change in the policy today would help students and community members “hear from political candidates,” there’s no need to obscure the truth: It’s too late.

We can only hope that 2012’s primar y season will, somehow, bring the nation’s eyes back to Little Rhody. That time around, Brown will have a chance to bring political discourse to the center of campus, where it belongs.

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier editorial Arts & Culture Editor Robin Steele Asst. Arts & Culture Editor Andrea Savdie Higher Ed Editor Debbie Lehmann Features Editor Chaz Firestone Asst. Features Editor Olivia Hoffman Metro Editor Rachel Arndt Metro Editor Scott Lowenstein News Editor Mike Bechek News Editor Isabel Gottlieb News Editor Franklin Kanin News Editor Michael Skocpol Opinions Editor Karla Bertrand Opinions Editor James Shapiro Sports Editor Whitney Clark Sports Editor Amy Ehrhart Sports Editor Jason Harris Asst. Sports Editor Benjy Asher Asst. Sports Editor Andrew Braca Asst. Sports Editor Megan McCahill

Senior Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang Stu Woo Business Darren Ball General Manager General Manager Mandeep Gill Susan Dansereau Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Manager Lily Tran Sales Manager Public Relations Director Emilie Aries Jon Spector Accounting Director Claire Kiely National Account Manager University Account Manager Ellen DaSilva Darren Kong Recruiter Account Manager Credit Manager Katelyn Koh Ingrid Pangandoyon Technology Director Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Asst. Photo Editor Sports Photo Editor

post- magazine production Steve DeLucia Production & Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Asst. Design Editor Copy Desk Chief Catherine Cullen Adam Robbins Graphics Editor

Matt Hill Rajiv Jayadevan Sonia Kim Allison Zimmer Colleen Brogan Arthur Matuszewski Kimberly Stickels

Letters The indefatigable sanctimony of the armchair quarterback To the Editor: Zack Beauchamp’s recent column, (“The failure of (non)-intervention,” March 3) demonstrates the inability of the American left to suggest a positive foreign policy beyond an inarticulate whine fueled only by revisionist hindsight.

Bemoaning U.S. military disasters such as Vietnam and Iraq (II) while crying foul at U.S. non-intervention in conflicts such as the Rwandan genocide and, ironically, failed rebellions against Saddam Hussein, Beauchamp presents an insightful and highly original critique: if it turned out wrong, it must’ve been a bad idea. But if we revoke Beauchamp’s narrow hindsight, ever unavailable to an actual policymaker, we might ask: What if these socalled disasters had succeeded? Would not the people of South Vietnam have been better off avoiding the scourge of communism along with the people of South Korea?

Had we been blessed with a competent defense secretary, would Iraq not have benefited from the removal of Saddam Hussein?

Beauchamp goes on to contend that our military endeavors (or lack thereof) fail whenever they are motivated by the need to defend American interests and, what’s more, that American interests are an immoral motivating factor for military action or inaction. While this first claim is causally absurd prima facie, the latter contention

Managing Editor Managing Editor Features Editor Features Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor

Chaz Kelsh, Designer Catherine Cullen, Erin Cummings, Jennifer Grayson, Madeleine Rosenberg, Copy Editors Michael Bechek, Caroline Sedano, Michael Skocpol, Night Editors Senior Staff Writers Sam Byker, Nandini Jayakrishna, Chaz Kelsh, Sophia Li, Emmy Liss, Max Mankin, Brian Mastroianni, George Miller, Alex Roehrkasse, Caroline Sedano, Jenna Stark, Joanna Wohlmuth, Simon van Zuylen-Wood Staff Writers Stefanie Angstadt, Caitlin Browne, Marisa Calleja, Noura Choudhury, Joy Chua, Sophia Lambertsen, Cameron Lee, Christian Martell, Anna Millman, Evan Pelz, Leslie Primack, Marielle Segarra, Melissa Shube, Catherine Straut, Gaurie Tilak, Matthew Varley, Meha Verghese, Allison Wentz Sports Staff Writers Peter Cipparone, Han Cui, Lara Southern Business Staff Diogo Alves, Steven Butschi, Timothy Carey, Jilyn Chao, Pete Drinan, Dana Feuchtbaum, Patrick Free, Sarah Glick, Soobin Kim, Christie Liu, Philip Maynard, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Paolo Servado, Saira Shervani, Yelena Shteynberg, Robert Stefani, Lindsay Walls, Benjamin Xiong Design Staff Jessica Calihan, Aubrey Cann, Serena Ho, Rachel Isaacs, Andrea Krukowski, Joe Larios, Joanna Lee, Alex Unger, Aditya Voleti, Pete White Photo Staff Oona Curley, Alex DePaoli, Erik Maser, Kim Perley, Quinn Savit Copy Editors Ria Ali, Paula Armstrong, Kim Arredondo, Ayelet Brinn, Aubrey Cann, Rafael Chaiken, Stephanie Craton, Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Julianne Fenn, Jake Frank, Anne Fuller, Josh Garcia, Jennifer Grayson, Rachel Isaacs, Joyce Ji, Jenn Kim, Tarah Knaresboro, Ted Lamm, Alex Mazerov, Seth Motel, Lisa Qing, Alex Rosenberg, Madeleine Rosenberg, Elena Weissman, Jason Yum

is almost as vapid as it is repugnant and warrants a wincing examination.

First, with an unlimited number of lamentable geopolitical circumstances and events and yet extremely limited manpower and resources, our military is faced with the inescapable economizing problem — since it cannot take all comers, what standard should inform its involvement or non-involvement in world affairs? Quite obviously, just as a corporation is morally responsible first to its shareholders and then to the public, so too the United States armed services are obliged first to preserve, protect and defend those who foot the bill for their operations and on whose behalf they are constituted. But just as with a corporation, the left has decided that the right to pursue one’s own interests is supplanted by the prerational whims of pseudo-statesmen and academics, whose collective emotional compass, we are told, ought to guide the lockstep march of us lowly, ill-informed constituents of hoi polloi. After all, who better to handle your money and your military than a sniveling man-child so paralyzed by fear of making an actual decision that he opts for the career of an armchair quarterback?

Peter Catsimpiris ’08 President, Students for Liberty March 3

Simulator should have been formally referenced To the Editor:

photo Rahul Keerthi Meara Sharma Min Wu Ashley Hess

F ranny choi

It is with displeasure that I read the article regarding the Space Club’s most recent acceptance into the competitive Microgravity University experience sponsored

by NASA-JSC (“Space Club’s boldest to attempt NASA ‘Vomit Comet,’” March 4). NASA Public Relations does not deem the name “Vomit Comet” appropriate for public media attention and, while certainly less “interesting,”

the nickname “Weightless Wonder” is preferred. As one of the graduate student mentors for the club as well as a past president and twice-participant in the NASA-funded program, I am upset with the title usage and obvious lack of research into the NASA-sponsored program.

Lillian Ostrach ’07 GS Brown Space Club President, 2004-2007 March 3

Corrections A person in a photo caption in Tuesday’s Herald (“W. tennis serves up Orange crush at the Pitz,” March 4) was identified as Brett Finkelstein ’09. In fact, the person is Kelly Kirkpatrick ’08.

Due to a league reporting error, an article in Monday’s Herald (“M. hockey ends regular season with shutout,” March 3) said the men’s hockey team is seeded 12th in the playoffs. It is seeded 11th.

C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

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O pinions Wednesday, March 5, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Five problems with the primaries

BY TYLER ROSENBAUM Opinions Columnist Even in the wake of the Electoral College’s colossal failure in 2000, it seems that Americans have resigned themselves to that quirky institution through which they filter votes when selecting a president. After all, the Founding Fathers themselves came up with it! It couldn’t possibly be a bunch of useless nonsense. Either way, by partially democratizing the Electoral College we have ensured that diversions from the popular will are rare and, since a repeat of 2000 is incredibly unlikely, the College is not hugely detrimental to democracy in America.

The primaries, on the other hand, are seriously problematic. I know that a good many of you readers are tired of hearing about the primaries; they have been going on for two months, and the run-up to them lasted God knows how long. You can’t open the paper or watch the news without seeing something about Obama, Clinton or McCain. Well to tell the truth, I’m sick and tired of it all as well. The presidential primaries should be completely rethought.

The first problem is that the delegate selection process is so drawn out. Every year the primaries move earlier, and yet the conventions stay put in summer and early fall.

This election dutifully followed the trend: The first vote to determine the candidates in the November 2008 election took place on Jan. 3 in Iowa — a full 307 days before the actual election and 153 days before the last state has its say. Petty squabbles over who is allowed to vote early and who is not led to the disenfranchisement of Democrats in Florida

and Michigan (states that account for nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population) and led the Republican party to penalize offending states by halving their delegations.

Honestly, what is so difficult about having everyone vote on the same day? All Americans vote in unison in the general election because any other situation would give undemocratic, unfair and undue weight to one set of voters over another. It shouldn’t be different when we’re narrowing down the candidates.

In previous elections, many voters expressed

has 3.5 times as many delegates per resident as Texas, and Vermont has three times as many delegates per resident as California.

Furthermore, Rhode Island, Montana and Delaware also make out like bandits when compared with New York, Illinois and Ohio, and this trend holds even when superdelegates are removed from the picture.

Nevertheless, one could argue that a certain amount of electoral bias is an acceptable price to pay in the interests of federalism. The biggest outrage is not the subtle disparities

In previous elections, many voters ended up selecting the lesser of two evils. And no wonder they are dissatisfied with the results. frustration with their options in November and ended up selecting the lesser of two evils.

And no wonder they are dissatisfied with the results — even in this unusually competitive contest, all but five candidates had already been eliminated before Super Tuesday by voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina (which account for 3.6 percent of America’s population). In addition to favoring early voting states, the primary system also heavily dilutes the votes of the more populous states. In the Democratic primary, Wyoming

in voting power, but the entirely anti-democratic influence of superdelegates. Among Democrats, superdelegates will comprise 19.6 percent of voters in the convention. These delegates represent no one but themselves when selecting a candidate and, given the closeness of this race, could determine the final result. This is less of a problem on the Republican side, as their unelected delegates only account for five percent of the votes at their convention.

The final (and most shameful) problem

with the current system is the persistence of the caucus. Parties in fourteen states decided to use caucuses to allocate delegates to their conventions in 2008. While many idealize caucuses as the height of participatory democracy, they ignore the ugly irony that the caucuses seriously depress voter turnout.

Caucuses require that voters travel to a certain location at a certain time on a certain day and remain there for hours. In so doing, caucuses effectively disenfranchise large swaths of the population and ensure disproportionate representation for fanatical partisans. Washington State is an excellent example, since it held both a caucus — which it used to allocate delegates — and a non-binding primary. In the caucus, Obama won 68 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 31 percent, whereas in the primary the split was only 51-46 for Obama.

Almost three times as many people voted in the primary, despite the fact that its outcome is not binding on the delegates.

The primaries are fundamentally flawed.

While presidential candidates are no longer chosen in a dark, smoky room by corrupt politicians, we still have a long way to go.

Every state should vote on the same day, and conventions and delegates should be replaced with a more representative national vote. This national primary would end the egregious disenfranchisement perpetrated by the caucuses and would put all American citizens on equal footing. When this important process is taken out of the hands of unrepresentative states and radical partisans, our democracy will be stronger and maybe, just maybe, we’ll have some better choices come November.

Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 hates participatory democracy

The illogic of Brown’s financial aid loan policy

BY GRAHAM ANDERSON Opinions Columnist Before I enrolled at Brown, my father pointed out what he believed to be a significant contradiction within the University’s financial aid policy. Certainly it is a contradiction that can be found in the financial aid policies of other universities as well, and indeed there may very well be a reasonable justification for the contradiction. But I have racked my brain long and hard and still cannot discover a good justification. Allow me to sift through the logic of Brown’s financial aid philosophy as I see it, and then highlight the contradiction that my father pointed out to me.

It has long been the case at Brown that for students whose families earn more money, a greater portion of their financial aid package is in the form of student loans. Brown’s new financial aid policy, approved by the Corporation on Feb. 23, will continue this loan-burden inequality. While students whose family income is under $100,000 will no longer have student loans — and that alone sounds very good when trumpeted in a press release or a speech — students within the $100,000 to $125,000 family income bracket will have $3,000 in loans a year, those in the $125,000 to $150,000 bracket will have $4,000 in loans a year and those in the $150,000-and-up bracket will have $5,000 in loans a year.

Brown claims that it meets 100 percent of demonstrated financial need. Obviously this is not true; if it were, then there would have been no need to “enhance” financial aid nor for the Office of Financial Aid to suggest in its brochure that families “consider borrow-

ing a private education loan” beyond ones’ financial aid package from Brown. But we will assume for now that Brown does meet 100 percent of demonstrated financial need, as this is a central assumption of Brown’s overall financial aid policy.

Now, what is the nature and purpose of a student loan? In a sense, the student is promising to study for a college degree in return for a fairly reasonable loan, and the student will pay back the loan once he or she receives a

college; it is not meant to be paid off by the parents after their son or daughter graduates from college. A corollary assumption is that a college degree will provide the student an opportunity to earn enough money to pay off the loan, making it a good investment for one’s future. Furthermore, Brown seems to assume that students will have fairly equal earning power once they graduate. If this were not at least implicitly assumed, then students would receive differing amounts

The structure of Brown’s financial aid loan policy seems to imply that students from richer families will earn more money when they graduate. college degree and is a productive, incomeearning member of society. Since we are assuming now that Brown meets 100 percent of demonstrated financial need, then a student loan could not possibly be a way of putting a student into debt under the guise of providing financial aid for the student, now could it?

Furthermore, it should be noted that a student loan is a student loan and not a parent loan. A student loan is meant to be paid off by the student after he or she graduates from

of student loans based on career goals and concentrations — a mathematical economics major aspiring to be a hedge fund manager would receive a larger loan-burden than, say, an education major aspiring to be a public school teacher.

Herein lies the contradiction: Brown seems to assume that all its undergraduates will enter the workforce with fairly equal earning power, but the structure of Brown’s financial aid loan policy seems to imply that students

from richer families will earn more money when they graduate.

Obviously not all of us will graduate from Brown with the same earning power in the workforce. Our incomes will be dependent on our concentrations, our grades, what sort of jobs we pursue and other factors like these.

Furthermore, many of us will go on to graduate school after Brown, which is a situation in which student loans become particularly dangerous to one’s future financial well-being.

But it should not be the case that students from richer families will always earn more money when they graduate from Brown. Indeed I really doubt, or at least would like to doubt, that Brown believes that to be the case either.

And this begs the question: Why is Brown going to put a student loan burden only on those who come from families that make more than $100,000 a year?

Personally, I do not want to try and answer that question. I would like Brown to answer that question, and answer it bluntly and honestly. Perhaps my logic is wrong somewhere, and if that is the case, then I would like Brown to clarify why it is wrong. Really, though, I think that the contradiction arises because somewhere in the rhetoric of Brown’s financial aid philosophy the University makes a statement that is not true. Either a student loan is really meant to be paid off by the parents, despite the fact that it is called a student loan, or Brown is quietly putting an undue loanburden on certain students under the guise of meeting 100 percent of demonstrated financial need. I suspect the latter is true, and I believe that most students would agree.

Graham Anderson ’10 lives in a dizzying web of contradictions

S ports W ednesday Page 12

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

W. lax, and its record, go south

By Whitney Clark Spor ts Editor

From the looks of the first half, it appeared the women’s lacrosse team was going to upset No. 6 North Carolina on the Tar Heels’ home turf.

Instead, a second-half rally by UNC handed the Bears their first loss of the season. Brown was defeated, 12-8, on Thursday at Chapel Hill, followed by a close 6-5 loss to Davidson on Sunday. The Bears’ record is now 1-2, while UNC improved to 4-0 and Davidson climbed to 2-2.

The Tar Heels started the scoring in the Thursday game, gaining an early 2-0 lead. But the Bears weren’t fazed by the early advantage and quickly responded with a few goals of their own. In a span of just 2:17 Brown moved ahead with three consecutive goals, one from Jadie DeTolla ’08 and two back-to-back goals from Jesse Nunn ’09.

The rest of the first period was characterized by back-and-forth scoring. Nor th Carolina began the seesaw by regaining a 4-3 lead with goals from Kristen Taylor and leading scorer Megan Bosica, who scored about halfway through the period. The Bears answered with a goal from Kelly Robinson ’09 at 16:55, followed by one from Lauren Vitkus ’09 at 20:16 to put Brown ahead 5-4. The Bears went into the break with a 6-4 lead after Nunn’s third goal of the half.

Despite starting the second half in the same way they finished the first, the Bears were unable to hold their intensity for the entire 30 min-

Ashley Hess / Herald

continued on page 9

Jesse Nunn ’09 had five goals over the weekend in two close losses to UNC and Davidson. Nunn helped the Bears almost beat the No. 6 Tar Heels.

By Megan McCahill Assistant Spor ts Editor

Athletes receive accolades as winter season winds down

By Jason Harris Spor ts Editor

The women’s track team’s secondplace finish at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships at Cornell on Sunday was a culmination of the indoor season, and a number of individuals were awarded for the part they played in the team’s success.

Natasha Smith ’11 claimed First Team All-Ivy honors for winning the pentathlon at Heps.

Smith was spurred on by victories in the high jump and shot put and a second-place finish in the 60-meter hurdles.

Nicole Burns’ ’09 time of 55.78 seconds in the 400-meter dash was good for first place and the corresponding First Team All-Ivy award, while she received Second Team All-Ivy for her second-place finish in the 200-meter dash.

The only other victor y and subsequent First Team All-Ivy award was on the men’s side, as David Howard ’09 triumphed in the shot put. Howard has been one of the top per formers all season for the men’s side, which struggled to a seventh-place finish at Heps. Howard also picked up fifth for the Bears in the weight throw.

The women were aided by four other second-place finishes.

On the track, Samantha Adelberg ’11 received Second Team AllIvy honors for the 800-meter run and Smita Gupta ’08 received the same in the 3,000-meter run. In

Equestrian struggles, setting up hurdles for next week

the field, Danielle Grunloh ’10 and Grace Watson ’11 both finished second as well.

Five Br uno wrestlers also received end-of-the-year awards heading into the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championship this weekend. Tricaptain Levon Mock ’08 improved on Second Team All-Ivy awards in the past two seasons with a firstteam selection in the 285-pound weight class. Mock received the honor despite missing a number of dual meets this season, though he did go 3-0 in Ivy League duals.

He also has a chance to qualify for the NCAA tournament with a strong performance this weekend.

Tri-captain Jeff Schell ’08 was named Second Team All-Ivy for the second time in his career. As a sophomore, he received the award in the 125-pound weight class, but this year he proved his versatility, picking up the honor in the 133-pound class. Schell’s only Ivy League loss came at the expense of the First Team All-Ivy selection.

Tri-captain Mark Savino ’08, Matt Gevelinger ’09 and Branden Stearns ’09 also received Honorable Mention.

Men’s lacrosse attackman Thomas Muldoon ’10 received his first-ever Ivy League Player of the Week award for his four goals, which helped Brown rally against Hofstra on Saturday, though the continued on page 8

A lackluster fourth-place finish at the Mystic Valley Hunt Club on Saturday left the equestrian team with only a one-point lead over second place UConn in Region 1, setting up a must-win situation for the Bears at the final regular season show next Saturday at the Johnson and Wales Equestrian Center.

Brown had a commanding lead after the fall portion of the schedule, but that lead has been steadily diminishing throughout the spring semester, shrinking from 21 points before the first show of the spring at UConn to just one point heading into next weekend. The Bears must beat UConn next week in order to clinch the Regional Championship and earn a berth to the Zone 1 Championships, where the Region 1 winner will compete against three other schools for a chance to go to Nationals.

UConn finished second on Saturday behind Post University, but the Bears and Huskies are so far ahead in the regional standings that only their relative positions matter for Zones.

“We knew coming into the show on Saturday that our lead has been slipping, so it was really important for us to do well,” said Emma Bogdonoff ’10. “We did the best we could, but unfortunately it didn’t turn out exactly they way

we wanted it to.”

Competition in the fences divisions started the show, and the Bears got off to a slow start after Elizabeth Giliberti ’10 took fifth place in Open Fences, netting only two points for the Bears.

Normally Whitney Keefe ’08 is the point rider for Open Fences, but because she was feeling sick Head Coach Michaela Scanlon pointed Giliberti instead of Keefe.

The change in point riders was really a moot point, as Keefe matched Giliberti’s finish.

Brown bounced back after a strong performance by Bogdonoff in Intermediate Fences.

Riding at her home barn, Bogdonoff earned a blue ribbon in the event and gave the Bears seven crucial points.

“Being at my home barn was a little bit of an advantage, because I know all the horses and was able to tell the girls a little bit about all the horses,” Bogdonoff said. “Still, you never know how a horse is going to react in new situations. I knew the horse I drew for fences well enough to know it wasn’t a great draw, so I was pretty nervous about how I’d do, but it turned out surprisingly well and I came in first.”

After Irmak Tasindi ’08 finished of f Brown’s scoring in fences by taking one point with a sixth-place finish in Novice, the Bears moved to the Flat divisions. continued on page 9

Baseball splits series in Birmingham

By Benjy Asher Assistant Spor ts Editor

The baseball team went 2-2 in their opening four games against the University of Alabama at Birmingham this weekend in a series that saw surprisingly good early-season performances from several players. Brown lost the opener 4-1 on Friday, and then got its first win of the season, 7-3, on Saturday, before blowing a three-run lead in a 9-6 loss later that day. On Sunday, the Bears closed out the series with an 8-5 win to even their record.

In Friday’s game, the Bears got a quality start from Josh Feit ’11, who was making his collegiate debut.

Feit pitched five innings of shutout ball, and was pulled after throwing 101 pitches.

Second baseman Ryan Zrenda ’11 scored Brown’s only run of the game in the third inning, when he came home from third on a grounder to the right side off the bat of first baseman J.J. Eno ’08. In the bottom of the third, Feit walked three batters to load the bases, but got a ground ball with two outs to protect the lead.

In the fifth, Brown missed an opportunity to extend its lead, when center fielder Steve Daniels ’09 grounded out with runners on second and third to end the inning.

In the bottom of the sixth, Conor Burke ’11 came out of the bullpen for his collegiate debut and struggled from the outset, walking the first three batters he faced. Anthony Vita ’08 replaced Burke, and held the Blazers to only one run, on a sacrifice fly.

Ashley Hess / Herald

Alex Silverman ’08 led a young pitching staff to a 2-2 split with UAB in a season-opening series. Silverman gave up three runs in seven innings.

In the eighth inning, with Vita still on the mound, UAB scored three runs, with the help of two throwing errors by tri-captain third baseman Robert Papenhause ’09, and took the first game, 4-1.

In their next game, the Bears got another strong push from Alex Silverman ’08, who allowed three runs, two of them earned, over continued on page 9