The Brown Daily Herald F riday, M arch 7, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 30
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
30 years later, this iconic knife still carving its name
U. submits endowment data to Senate
Faux-Japanese knife a Rhody creation
U. touts aid boost in response to senators’ request
SPOTLIGHT
By Isabel Gottlieb News Editor
The modern TV infomercial started with a karate chop. “In Japan,” begins the dramatic voice-over in the 1978 commercial, “the hand can be used as a knife.” A man in a white karate suit splits a stack of wooden boards with his hand. The image changes: The same hand is now poised above a ripe red tomato on a cutting board. “But this method doesn’t work with a tomato,” the voice continues. The hand smashes the vegetable into a pulpy mess. “That’s why WE use the Ginsu,” the voice intones, as the scene cuts to a knife cleanly slicing a tomato. The hand belongs to Ed Valenti P’98, as does credit for these marketing catchphrases,
which Valenti jokingly called his “literary classics”: “But WAIT — there’s more!” “NOW how much would you pay?” “Operators are standing by,” “Limit one to a customer,” and, “So you don’t forget, order before midnight!” In marketing the Ginsu knife, a supposedly ever-sharp cutlery set with a faux-Asian name, Valenti changed the way products are sold on TV. He essentially created the dialect of today’s latenight television ads, the language of vegetable peelers and singing wall fish and Chia pets. If you’ve ever bought an Ab Roller or a George Foreman grill from an 800 number because you couldn’t fall asleep, you can blame Valenti. “That Ginsu commercial, when all is said and done ... has to be up there in the top 10 of the greatest single pitches,” said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University. “To this day, if you watch
Nelson’s ’77 equity firm goes to court By George Miller Senior Staff Writer
The financial firm of a prominent alum and donor has found itself in the midst of a legal tussle over its purchase of several television stations. Providence Equity Partners, cofounded by Chief Executive Jonathan Nelson ’77 P’07 P’09 — the Corporation trustee for whom the future Nelson Fitness Center will be named — entered a deal in April 2007 to buy the stations for $1.225 billion from media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications, according to a complaint Providence Equity filed in a civil court in Delaware. When Providence Equity balked at completing the deal at the set price, Clear Channel sued to force the company to close. When the two agreed on a lower price of $1.1 billion, the financial services company Wachovia, which had agreed to finance about half of the sale, sought a court ruling to the effect that it was free of its lending obligation, according to the complaint. The deal fell through when Wachovia failed to send a representative to a Feb. 25 closing. On Feb. 28, a holding company that Providence Equity controls, called Newport Television LLC, filed the complaint, asking the Delaware court to require Wachovia to complete the deal. continued on page 7
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ARTS & CULTURE
rape exposed in film “Hush” increases awareness of rape culture and sexual violence
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By Michael Skocpol News Editor
Not loving leave policies Despite the comparative generosity, some faculty members have criticized the policy because it does not provide full salaries to those on leave, which some say is unfair
Touting its recent financial aid expansion, the University responded Monday to a letter from leaders of the Senate Finance Committee requesting detailed information on its financial aid policies and endowment. In a letter accompanying the response to committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, President Ruth Simmons emphasized the “extraordinary investments” in financial aid being made by Brown and other schools. “Much of this progress would not be possible without income from our endowment,” Simmons wrote to the senators. The senators’ Jan. 24 request to 136 of the nation’s wealthiest colleges and universities came after Baucus and Grassley had expressed concern about the increasing cost of college in a period when universities with large endowments are seeing substantial returns on their investments. Grassley has suggested that he would consider proposing legislation to require colleges and universities to spend a minimum proportion of their endowments every year, as charitable foundations must, in order to help drive down the cost of higher education for low- and middle-income families. Brown, like many of its peer universities, opposes that idea. Simmons did not directly acknowledge or argue against it in her letter, but she implied that current efforts were sufficient. “I respectfully suggest that, as you review the issues surrounding university endowments, you and your fellow members of Congress consider the great strength of our system of higher education,” she wrote. “We must maintain the partnership between the federal government and our institutions to ensure affordable
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Courtesy of Ed Valenti
A scene from one of the early Ginsu commercials (above) and a promotional shot of the Ginsu knife collection (below).
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Faculty leave policy now on par with peers By Jenna Stark Senior Staff Writer
Department chairs and University officials are gearing up for the upcoming implementation of a new faculty leave policy, allocating funding to hire extra replacement teachers. At the same time, some faculty remain concerned that the policy is not generous or not equitable enough. The new policy, approved last year, gives professors the option of taking sabbatical with 75 percent of normal salary after only six semesters of teaching. The University also provides academic departments with $10,000 for each professor on leave to help hire replacement teachers. With tenured faculty now allowed to take more frequent sabbaticals, the University is more on
par with peers’ sabbatical policies, Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P’07 said. “We have made very significant changes, but they’re not going as far as some universities have gone,” Vohra said. “This provides people with the breathing room that’s very necessary for cutting-edge research.” Harvard, Yale and Princeton all have similar three-year sabbatical cycles, said Associate Dean of the Faculty Elizabeth Doherty. “It makes us competitive with the most competitive of our peers,” she added. Harvard offers tenured professors one semester of sabbatical at full pay after every six semesters of teaching, according to its faculty handbook. Harvard’s leave policy allows faculty to take a semesterlong leave at full-pay or a yearlong
leave at half pay. Yale offers leaves of absence every six semesters for those who have reached the rank of associate professor, and lower-ranked faculty members are eligible for a semester’s sabbatical leave at full pay or a year’s sabbatical at half pay after 12 semesters of teaching, according to Yale’s faculty handbook. Brown’s policy is now more generous than those at New York University, Columbia and Dartmouth, according to the schools’ faculty handbooks.
A lover of rap scrutinizes ‘the masculinity of hip-hop’ Filmmaker screens Sundance selection By Lauren Pischel Contributing Writer
Byron Hurt is perturbed by how people have become desensitized to what he considers the lewdness of hip-hop. And with his documentary film, he’s hoping to reveal this face of rap to people. Hurt, a gender violence educator and self-proclaimed hip-hop
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CAMPUS NEWS
junkie, brought the issues of violence, sexism and homophobia of rap to Salomon 101 on Thursday night. He showed his documentary, “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” to a small but enthusiastic crowd and held a question-andanswer session afterward. The documentar y’s central theme is deconstructing “the masculinity of hip-hop,” Hurt said after the screening. The documentary attempts to answer the questions of why rappers are so protective of their masculinity, why all
Hide the candles! Reslife conducts a second round of room inspections
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OPINIONS
women are so objectified and why American culture is so accepting of this. The documentar y explicitly states that these problems were not created by hip-hop. Instead, they go far back in American culture — all the way back to outlaw Jesse James and the Wild West. Violence, sexism and homophobia are present in mainstream Hollywood movies from “The Terminator” to “Scarface.” Hip-hop is merely a manifestation of this Amerian culture, the documentary
Emboldening Iran Jacob Schuman ’08 worries that the war in Iraq has indirectly emboldened Iran
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
points out. Hurt goes straight to the source of the music, interviewing some of hip-hop’s biggest names, including Chuck D, Fat Joe, Jadakiss and Busta Rhymes, as well as music mogul Russell Simmons. He asks them questions about their roles in perpetuating stereotypes of hip-hop that, at times, the rappers and producers are reluctant to answer. In his film, Hurt asserts that
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tomorrow’s weather Daylight savings time doesn’t get rained out by thunderstorms. Don’t forget to change your clocks.
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