Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald T uesday, M arch 11, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 33

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

U. will develop technology course for African women

By Marisa Calleja Staf f Writer

Angus Kingon, professor of engineering, and a team of graduate students will develop a course on technology innovation for the University of Cape Town in South Africa as part of an initiative introduced this month by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which seeks to bring business education to 10,000 women in developing countries.

The 10,000 Women initiative, which the bank announced March 5, will get $100 million from Goldman Sachs over the next five years to develop new markets, raise the rate of GDP growth in developing countries and create business ventures that can compete internationally.

The initiative will rely largely upon partnerships of American and British institutions with institutions abroad. Brown is the only American university participating in the program that is not a business school.

In partnering with the University of Cape Town, Brown builds on a pre-existing relationship formed by faculty and student exchanges in the past, said Kingon, who is originally from South Africa.

Kingon’s project seeks to develop teaching methods to build “entrepreneurship capacity” within

Africa to create successful businesses that can bring African nations on a level playing field with the developed world, he said. This, he said, can be achieved by focusing on technology innovation.

“Most programs like this create microenterprises” that give jobs to a few people, Kingon said. “That’s not what we’re tr ying to do. We want to create growing jobs that can compete in the world economy.”

At the University of Cape Town, about 220 students in engineering and business graduate programs will take part in the pilot program, according to Goldman Sachs’ Web site. Along with Kingon, graduate students in Brown’s Program in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship will also help measure the results of the partnership. The pilot program will eventually spread beyond the graduate level to teach other students, Kingon said.

“Brown is par ticularly well known for social entrepreneurship,” said Vasuki Nesiah, director of international affairs at Brown.

“Right now, that is known nationally. This makes it global.”

Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn said Kingon’s research will be published in academic journals and as a report for Goldman Sachs

Min Wu / Herald

Hector Sanchez of Global Exchange, a fair trade and social justice group, spoke at the Kassar-Foxboro Auditorium Monday.

Speakers attack NAFTA at ‘Better Neighbors’ event

by George Miller Senior Staff Writer

Speakers attacked the North American Free Trade Agreement at a panel held at the Kassar-Foxboro Auditorium Monday night, saying it and other international pacts are good for corporations, destructive to workers and promote American hegemony over its neighbors.

The event, “Better Neighbors: A New Way Forward for North America,” was billed as a panel on the effects of NAFTA, a pact enacted in 1994 that eliminated many tariffs in trade among the continent’s

continued on page 4

countries. But most of the discussion focused on the Security and Prosperity Partnership — the “Prosperity” portion of which is sometimes called “NAFTA Plus” — a set of economic and security goals endorsed in March 2005 by the leaders from the United States, Mexico and Canada. The SPP, according to Manuel Perez Rocha, an associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, is in the unique position of facing opposition from both conservative groups, who fear it will erase national borders to establish a “North American Union,” and from progressive groups, who say it serves only corporate interests.

Perez Rocha called the SPP a “hijacking of public policy,” saying it was not passed through the appropriate political channels. He further warned that it would continue to deregulate big businesses, which he said were the only stakeholders in the negotiations.

SPP negotiations were undemocratic and not transparent, said Carleen Pickard, a regional organizer for the Council of Canadians, a citizen’s group against U.S.-Canadian free trade. Her organization printed a detailed breakdown of the SPP along continued on page 4

Friedman to open two hours earlier Med students requested change in weekend hours

By LILY SZAJNBERG Contributing Writer

Brown students may have lost an hour to daylight-saving time last weekend, but they gained four extra hours of potential study time. For the months of March and April, the Friedman Study Center will open two hours earlier on weekends, at 8 a.m., as part of a pilot program started in response to medical student interest.

Rahul Keerthi / Herald

In March and April, the Friedman Study Center will open at 8 a.m. on weekends.

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Min Wu / Herald

A banner advertising rush for Greek houses hangs outside a window at Chapin House. Fraternities and sororities must abide by strict rules during rush.

Greeks governed by rush rules

Spring Weekend tickets quickly going M.I.A.

By Catherine Straut Staf f Writer

Two-thirds of the tickets for the Spring Weekend concerts were sold on the first day of sales, easily outpacing last year’s rate, said David Horn ’08, Brown Concert Agency’s booking chair.

In four hours on Monday, BCA sold most of its initial allotment of 3,500 tickets for each of the two concerts, Horn said. The agency may be able to release an additional 1,000 tickets for each show 72 hours prior to the performances, but only if weather permits the shows to be held on the Main Green rather than in Meehan Auditorium, Horn said.

When Trish Capuano ’11 attended her first rush meeting in February with members of Alpha Chi Omega and Kappa Alpha Theta, she was

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BCA encourages students to buy tickets “as early as possible” today to be guaranteed admission, Horn said.

Tickets are available from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m in Lower Faunce. For Brown and Rhode Island School of Design students, tickets are $12 for the April 11 concert and $15 for the April 12 concert. A ticket package for both shows costs $20.

Horn attributed the unprecedented speed of tickets sales to “incredible demand for these artists” and BCA’s decision to accept credit and debit cards as well as

no money for books The Providence Public Library may have to cut services in the face of budget gaps

www.browndailyherald.com

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CAMPUS NEWS

cash for ticket purchases.

The Friday, April 11, performance features rapper Lupe Fiasco and indie rock band Vampire Weekend.

The Saturday, April 12, show will star rapper M.I.A. with mashup DJ Girl Talk and progressive rock band Umphrey’s McGee. M.I.A. is playing only four dates in North America on this tour, Horn said, leading to “pent-up demand.”

“We’re really excited about all the positive reception to these shows,” Horn said.

— Chaz Kelsh

Booze CLUES A grad student’s research could help alcoholics break their addiction

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OPINIONS

FEATURE unsure which, if any, of the two campus sororities she would eventually pledge. In fact, she didn’t even know which sororities the girls were members of, because they kept their allegiances secret.

But what was absolutely clear was the “one rule” of rush.

“Whenever you see a sister on

Hakuna Matata Chloe Lutts ’08 doesn’t want you to get too excited next time you hear a terror alert

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

sunny, 49 / 29

the street, of any sorority, they can’t talk to you,” Capuano said.

“If you see a sister, you just kind of wave and look the other way.”

The rush process, which ended last Tuesday, is highly structured and governed by Brown, local and national standards. But alongside stringent rules, which restrict events to weeknights between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. and require that they be alcohol-free, sorority traditions and fraternity parties — open to rushes but technically unaffiliated with the process — are also an integral part in drawing interested students. continued on page 4

tomorrow’s weather Though it will be sunny, you will still be glum because you didn’t beat the rush for Spring Weekend tickets

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Menu

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Fried Fish Sandwich with Tartar Sauce, Asparagus Spears, Philly Cheese Steak Calzone, Quinoa and Veggies

Lunch — Beef Stew, Tomato Quiche, Italian Vegetable Saute, Nacho Bar, Coconut Crescent Cookies

Dinner — Fiery Beef, Sticky Rice, Ginger Sugar Snap Peas and Carrots, Vegetable Frittata, Whole Beets, Shrimp in Sauce

Dinner — Baked Parmesan Chicken, Vegan BBQ Tempeh, Rice Pilaf with Zucchini, Baked Spaghetti Squash, Honey Batter Bread

Nightmarishly Elastic | Adam Robbins

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

Enigma | Dustin Foley

© Puzzles by Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Los Angeles Times Puzzle C r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd

Trust Ben | Ben Leubsdorf

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Economist Smith 5 Speakeasy circulator 10 Surprise test 14 iPod nano precursor 15 Bull rider’s venue 16 __ snuff: adequate 17 Opposin’ 18 Standard of perfection 19 Opening chip 20 Character known as The Saint 23 Act 24 ’80s tough-guy series, with “The” 28 Bother greatly 29 Former CNN news anchor 33 Detective 35 Half of hex36 Carnival city 37 “Love Story” costar 41 Sphagnum source 44 Dreamer’s acronym 45 Bratislava citizen 49 New England Patriot who caught a record 23 touchdown passes in 2007 53 Solitary 54 Curaçao neighbor 55 Competence 57 Top-ranked Fox talent show, and this puzzle’s theme 61 Bath powder mineral 64 Everything, with “the” 65 Fried corn bread 66 In a frenzy 67 English horn relatives 68 Grenoble green lights 69 Irish dances 70 Japanese fencing 71 Mom-and-pop gps.

DOWN 1 Collects in a pile 2 High-tech camera type

3 Bring to life 4 Labyrinth creature 5 “Desperate Housewives” divorcée Edie __ 6 Clear the fence, in baseball slang 7 As above, in footnotes 8 “... so shall ye __” 9 Hang loose 10 Onyx or amethyst 11 Network that merged with The WB 12 Addams cousin 13 Actress Caldwell 21 Cockamamie 22 Motorists’ org.

25 Organ with a drum 26 Yellowfin tuna 27 6 on a cell phone 30 Molecule parts 31 Keats wrote on a Grecian one 32 Fish stories 34 Hippocratic Oath no-no 38 Prefix with conservative 39 French actor Delon

40 Sweet sucker 41 Foundation garment 42 Crew member 43 Antelope seen on safaris 46 Nullify, redundantly 47 Willa Cather’s “My __” 48 High-tech type of car entry 50 Arizona team, familiarly

51 Thanksgiving side dish 52 Plundered 56 __ profundo: very low voice 58 “Return of the Jedi” forest dweller 59 Spa attire 60 Golfer’s choice 61 __ Majal 62 Bordeaux buddy 63 Simile for a deep sleeper

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Gus Vs. Them | Zachary McCune and Evan Penn

xwordeditor@aol.com

3/11/08

Opus Hominis | Miguel Llorente

T he B rown D aily H erald

By Laura Sternberg (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

3/11/08

If you do one thing on College Hill today …

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Me S haring the message

Min Wu / Herald

Public library is mulling budget options

By Nandini Jayakrishna Senior Staf f Writer

The Providence Public Library has served the city for over a century, but rising costs and the library’s deficit may force the institution to cut services and staff. It is considering closing some of its nine branches and laying off workers to reduce costs, the Providence Journal reported Dec. 27.

Though the library is a private corporation, over half of its funding comes from the city and state. For the fiscal year beginning in July, the library is projecting a $1 million deficit, said Tonia Mason, director of marketing for the PPL. Last year, the library received $3.3 million from the city — an increase of $300,000 from past years.

The state provided an additional 25 percent of what the city provided, Mason said.

Though Rhode Island has been “very generous” in supporting the library, Mason said “the size of the system has outgrown the budget.”

“The funding has not kept up with the annual increases in cost,” she said.

The Library Reform Group, an advocacy organization of library patrons from across the city, is trying to prevent the branches from closing, said Patricia Raub, a professor of American studies at Providence College, who formed the group in 2004.

Raub said the group succeeded in getting the library corporation’s board meetings open to the public.

But it still wants more public representatives elected to the board.

Currently, the board has only two public officials — one appointed by the governor and one by the mayor, she said.

In protesting library closures, Raub’s group is joined by the United Service and Allied Workers of Rhode Island, which unionized almost 100 library employees in 2005, said Karen McAninch ’74, the business agent for the union.

McAninch said many of the PPL’s

smaller branches are located in lowincome neighborhoods that benefit from the libraries.

Currently, the reform group is pressuring the library to organize more fundraising events.

“We’re not sure that there is a million dollar deficit,” Raub said.

“Our feeling is that the library hasn’t done as much serious fundraising as it needs to do.”

Though Raub said she recognizes the library’s attempt to contact prospective donors on the phone and in person, she said the efforts have been “lackluster.”

Raub, who called her group members “the cheerleaders for the library,” said the library should also organize an annual fundraising event.

But Mason said the library has continued its traditional methods of fundraising for many years, even if they are “not visible.”

The library focuses on cultivating relationships with and solicit-

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College Hill neighbors don’t mind siren

Chet Manchester, a Christian Scientist lecturer, spoke to students yesterday in Petteruti Lounge.

Job cuts, closing of branches on the table

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ing donations from its past donors, Mason said. Doing so raises more money than organizing “expensive” and “labor-intensive” fundraising events of the kind the reform group wants, she added.

Moreover, fundraising is neither a permanent way to get money for operating costs, nor a solution to the $1 million deficit, Mason said.

The library’s goal is to cooperate with the city and the community to devise a “a sustainable library system,” Mason said, “one that we can afford with the money we have.”

A few weeks ago, the trustees resolved not to use the librar y’s $35 million endowment to cover the deficit. But the trustees could consider using the endowment during a transitional period before the sustainable plan is put in place, Mason said.

“They won’t take money out of the endowment to just plug the million-dollar hole every year,” she said.

Members of the College Hill Neighborhood Association said at their monthly meeting Monday night that they weren’t bothered by the University’s siren test two weeks ago.

The meeting, which took place at School One off Blackstone Boulevard, also covered an initiative for open space in Fox Point, the probable destruction of Brown’s Urban Environmental Lab on Angell Street and graffiti on College Hill.

Brown’s emergency alert system, which featured a loud siren on Feb. 28 at noon, did not upset Neighborhood Association members.

Ed Bishop, who owns the local real estate company E.F. Bishop Reality Inc. and insurance company E.F. Bishop Agency Inc., said the siren “didn’t bother me.” But in the event of a real emergency, he added, it would be unclear what the hazard was and where to go for safety.

Other members, including President William Touret and East Side Monthly Managing Editor Barry Fain, did not have complaints about the siren.

Members also expressed support for an Fox Point-based initiative for open space, proposed by David Riley, vice chair of the Head of the Bay Gateway Steering Committee. But few details about the proposal emerged at the meeting, so association members decided to hold off on monetary contribution until they knew more about it, they said.

The meeting’s attendees disapproved of the impending removal or relocation of the Urban Environmental Lab, at 135 Angell St. The lab, which sports a carriage-house design, will most likely be replaced by the Mind Brain Behavior building.

“I don’t think anyone wants to see it demolished,” Touret said.

Street graffiti was briefly mentioned at the end of the meeting.

Bishop told The Herald that he wants to see spray-painting graffiti, currently a misdemeanor, made into a felony. He called graffiti a “very serious thing” and said brick buildings often “lost their glaze” when they are sandblasted to remove graffiti.

Half-jokingly, Fain even proposed to “raise Brown’s tuition to stop graffiti.”

— Simon van Zuylen-Wood

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Goldman Sachs grant could further internationalization continued from page 1 and will not involve the campus community as a whole. “This is a grant that a faculty member received and will be treated in that manner,” she said.

Regardless, Brown’s involvement with the 10,000 Women initiative will help create international bonds that improve Brown’s standing globally, Nesiah said.

“Partnerships are always mutually beneficial,” she said. “Every external engagement can help strengthen Brown.”

In addition to financial support for research by Western schools and tuition for women in developing countries, some Goldman Sachs employees will assist with mentorship and post-graduate support, according a press release on the firm’s Web site.

Particularly in Africa, a continent of 900 million people where only 2,600 women are currently pursuing MBAs, giving women a chance to learn effective management strategies has been shown to improve wages and stimulate

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

economic growth within a countr y, according to the Web site.

In December, Goldman Sachs approached Brown to participate in the program and put out a call for faculty proposals at the University, Quinn said.

Although President Ruth Simmons sits on Goldman Sachs’ board of directors, that was not an important factor to Brown’s being recruited into the initiative, Quinn said. “The fact that President Simmons is a leading female educator has more to do with it.”

Brown’s involvement, Quinn said, “was part of an interest in advancing internationalization initiatives.”

“This seemed to fit nicely into that,” she said. “It’s part of an ongoing effort to provide opportunities for faculty and students here and abroad who are becoming increasingly globally aware.”

Partnering business schools include some of the nation’s best, including Harvard Business School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Friedman Center will open earlier on weekends continued from page 1 The change in hours will only affect the Friedman Center Level A, the entrance and the Mezzanine, which will be monitored by two Sterling Security guards who manage the front desk.

The later opening times had been based on the library’s data, which indicated low traffic flow on weekend mornings. In fact, just a few years ago, the libraries did not open until noon, said Tovah Reis, Medical School librarian.

But with med students’ board examinations now earlier in the year, they need more time in the library, she said.

“What we heard from medical school students is that they are really into studying on weekends,” Reis said. Having the library open at 10 a.m. was too late for them, she

added.

A class representative for secondyear medical students got in touch with University Librarian Harriette Hemmasi about a month ago asking for extended hours, Reis said. After meeting with Med School officials, Hemmasi approved the idea. The Library and the Med School will fund the costs of the added hours together, Hemmasi wrote in an email.

Though the change was catalyzed by med students, librarians hope that others will benefit, too.

“We put the message on Morning Mail because we want other students to take advantage of this as well,” Reis said.

Olga Koshevaya ’09, a member of the Faculty Library Committee, said she does not usually go to the library that early on the weekends, but said that when she had heavier

course loads, like during midterms and finals, she “would find (the earlier hours) useful.”

Sarah Lester ’08 said she had been annoyed in the past that the library was not open when she got up early on the weekend to work.

But she added that “typically, people probably don’t study super early on weekends.”

The library plans to use March and April to monitor student use and compare it with previous statistics, Reis said.

“It’s not going to be like 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. during the week, but I think it will be clear whether or not students are making use of the change,” she added.

In addition to monitoring use, Reis said the library hopes to hear from students themselves and will evaluate the effectiveness of the program at the end of the semester.

Greek houses fit fun into regulated rush continued from page 1 Richard Bova, senior associate dean for Office of Residential Life, said the rush schedule is designed to regulate the events and ensure that groups and students are given equal opportunities.

“That creates a sense of fairness throughout the whole system because you may have a prospective person who would like to look at multiple organizations,” Bova said.

Capuano said the schedule was organized so that the sororities held three rush parties each and on the same nights, with one sorority’s party lasting from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. and the other’s from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“There was a representative from each sorority ... present at each party to watch and make sure everything was fair,” Capuano said, adding that her time at the sororities was restricted only to the rush events.

“The sisters are not mad about not being able to talk to us,” Capuano said. “These are their traditions and they respect them a lot.”

But fraternity officers said they do not follow the same traditions or formalities as the sororities. Theta Delta Chi President Mike Dougherty ’09 said some fraternities, including his own, find that their regular weekend parties are more popular than their official events during the week.

Delta Tau Rush Chair Mike Mochizuki ’10 said that while the alcohol-free policy is generally followed for official rush events, these additional events increase the appeal for many prospective pledges.

“A lot of kids are making these decisions because they drink,” Mochizuki said. “We’re drawing from a very large drinking crowd.”

Some prospective pledges said they prefer the unofficial fraternity events during rush. “Most kids would rather go to the frats on the weekends to get a feel for their regular dynamic than go to an official rush event,” said Carey Dorman ’11, who is pledging Delta Phi. Because many of the fraternities host similar rush events, Dorman said it was sometimes difficult to identify what distinguished each group. “For example, almost every frat took the kids bowling,” Dorman said. “My impression was that they all seemed like pretty much the same thing in a different building.”

Bova said the University is aware of these events but considers them parties that are unrelated to the rush process.

“They may be having parties, and people who may be interested in them may be attending them,” he said. “They do not have ‘unofficial’ rush events.”

Despite the popularity of parties that take place during rush, the official weekday rush events are still a primary draw for prospective pledges to some fraternities, Sigma Chi President Matt Bubley ’09 said. Bubley cited Sigma Chi’s open house rush events as an important time for rushes to meet and connect with the brothers.

The University has the final say in determining the structure of official rush events, Bova said. “Every organization has their own governing group, whether it be national or

local, but those rules do not supercede those that the university has in place,” he said. “The University’s rules are the most stringent.”

Mochizuki said the national fraternities follow additional rules for the rush process that specify how to talk to prospective members and how to present themselves. Bova also said that, like Brown, none of the national or local fraternities or sororities allow or advocate the use of alcohol during rush.

Bova said the University and Greek Council encourage collaborative events as well.

“Even though they are competing for members, we are trying to maintain a sense of community,” he said.

Bubley said he found a good deal of overlap in the students rushing various fraternities.

Some fraternity officers said there is a fairly high level of competition over rushes among groups.

“Between the frats, it’s pretty much anything goes,” Mochizuki said.

“There’s kind of shady stuff that happens. I’ve heard of some frats trying to take rushes from other fraternities’ events.”

Other officers, like Bubley and Dougherty, said they find that the competition is less intense. “We have really good relationships between fraternities,” Bubley said. “There is competition, but I would say it’s friendly competition.”

But Dougherty said Thete is generally not a part of this competition.

“I don’t find that anyone we talk to is interested in joining another fraternity,” Dougherty said. “But from what I understand, I know some houses compete for kids.”

NAFTA favors the wealthy, speaker says continued from page 1 with tiny pins declaring, “I didn’t vote for the SPP.” Though the governments of the three countries involved had little to do with SPP negotiations, they can play a big role in protesting it, she said, urging the dozen or so students present to contact their Congressional representatives.

Though the SPP has flown under the radars of many in the United States, Perez Rocha predicted it would become a bigger issue in the run-up to the April 20 meeting of the three North American heads of state in New Orleans.

Hector Sanchez of Global Exchange, a fair trade and social justice group, labeled NAFTA, nearing its 15th year, a failure. Though it promised to decrease poverty and migra-

tion, it has done neither, but rather, it has increased income disparities and pushed Mexicans to seek work across the border, he said. In the same period of time, “xenophobic” immigration groups have grown in number and power, while the root causes of immigration — economic policies — go undiscussed, he said.

“Why are we so far away from (NAFTA’s) original promises?” Sanchez asked the small group. He said the treaty unfairly concentrated wealth in the hands of a few people, giving as an example Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helu, who recently passed Bill Gates in wealth.

Helu, valued at $60 billion, is currently ranked just below Warren Buffett as the world’s second richest man, according to Forbes magazine.

That number, though close to Gates’

fortune, represents a much larger portion of the Mexican economy than Gates’ does of the American economy.

The trade agreements have subordinated Canadian and Mexican interests to those of the U.S., PerezRocha said. Though most of his criticism focused on the United States, he blamed government policy rather than average Americans.

The event was sponsored by Oxfam at Brown and co-sponsored by the Development Studies Department and the Student Labor Alliance. Pickard said she and Sanchez toured together in a lecture series earlier in February, and that the three will continue with a stint on the West Coast in April. The campaign was organized by Global Exchange, Sanchez’s organization, she said.

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Grad student’s research may aid alcoholics A neuroscience research team that includes a Brown graduate student may have found a way to reduce the temptation to drink alcohol.

Jodi Gilman GS is part of a 15-person team that recently discovered a specific brain circuit that “shows promise as a new therapeutic target for alcoholism,” according to a Feb. 26 press release from the National Institutes of Health.

Gilman is the second of 15 authors of a paper on alcoholism research, which was published on the Web site of the journal Science on Feb. 14.

Gilman conducted her research with a team at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a branch of the NIH. The NIAAA is a leader in reducing alcohol-related problems and studies the health risks and benefits of alcohol consumption, prevention and treatment, according to the NIAAA Web site.

The research identifies a brain molecule, neurokinin 1 receptor, or NK1R, as a fundamental player in stress-related alcohol consumption, according to the release.

“Alcoholics demonstrate exaggerated responses to negative stimuli and dampened responses to positive stimuli,” Gilman said.

Impeding the NK1 receptors with an experimental compound reversed these effects and “reduced alcohol craving and improved overall wellbeing among recently detoxified alcohol-dependent individuals who had high levels of anxiety,” according to the press release.

Markus Heilig, chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Studies and clinical director in NIAAA’s Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research, said that although the research is in its early stages, the implications are very promising.

Though Gilman said the findings of the research are “very preliminary,” she was excited about how well the different parts of her lab worked together. She said the study is a “really good example of translational research,” since each component of the lab — the pre-clinical studies, the randomized controlled experimental study and the functional magnetic resonance imaging responses — collaborated effectively.

Though Gilman’s team will no longer be studying this drug, it will “take what we have learned from this to look at other drugs,” she said.

Heilig said he was excited about the possibility for an entirely new approach to treating alcohol dependence.

“The next step is to show that the drug lowers drinking and temptations to drink in the real world,” he said. If the drug can normalize responses to stimuli, it may be able to reduce the incentive to drink alcohol, he added.

— Zunaira Choudhary

Study tells evolutionary history at smaller level

By Sara Sunshine Contributing Writer

A group of scientists led by a Brown professor has finished a groundbreaking study on evolutionary relationships in the animal kingdom.

The study, led by Assistant Professor of Biology Casey Dunn and funded by a National Science Foundation initiative, appears in this month’s edition of the journal Nature Conducted over a period of about four-and-a-half years, the study found many significant discoveries that may change the way scientists view evolutionary history. One of the biggest surprises came when the research team discovered that comb jellyfish, also called ctenophores,

may have diverged from sponges earlier than commonly thought. This could mean ctenophores might be the earliest “emerging ancestor” existing today — suggesting they are older than any other existing animal species.

It also means that sponges, which were originally thought to be older than comb jellyfish, may “have actually become simplified in the course of evolution,” Dunn said.

Dunn said this discovery requires confirmation from other studies and further examination, but that it could change the perspective on how and where evolution occurred.

Many of the hypotheses about relationships between animals in evolutionary biology are traditionally based on animal structure, Dunn

Courtesy of Brown.edu

Assistant Professor of Biology Casey Dunn

said. But for this study, he and his team collected molecular data to resolve relationships between various animal phyla, which are divisions of the animal kingdom.

The scientists used a new methcontinued on page 6

Statistical tool promises new look at large data sets

By Mitra Anoushiravani Contributing Writer

Courtesy of brown.edu

Professor of Applied Mathematics Charles Lawrence

Professor of Applied Mathematics Charles “Chip” Lawrence and Luis Carvalho GS have developed a new collection of statistical tools that produce more accurate predictions about large sets of data. The two published an article about their work in the March 4 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lawrence first realized the shortcomings of the statistical analysis traditionally used to deal with massive amounts of data when he was studying the structures of different types of RNA, which is a type of nucleic acid in cells that is a key component in creating proteins.

RNA comes in many different

forms. One form, messenger RNA, can come in many different shapes, but other forms such as ribosomal RNA and transport RNA are stable structures, so they only usually come in one shape. Lawrence had been working on trying to accurately predict the structure of messenger RNA molecules.

There are trillions of different shapes that messenger RNA molecules can take on. “Even if I had a huge computer, I would not be able to compute that,” Lawrence said.

Statistics presents a way of dealing with huge quantities of data without having to sift through it all, he said. “We can get a good estimate by selecting a random sample. ... If you continued on page 6

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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Space transport can fly New data shuffles branches on tree of life even with engine trouble continued from page 5

By Marc Kaufman Washington Post

WASHINGTON — European space experts worked Monday to learn what caused one of four engines to malfunction shortly after the maiden launch late Saturday of an automated space transport headed to the International Space Station.

Officials with the European Space Agency said all other systems on the state-of-the-art spacecraft were working well following its launch from the agency’s base in South America, and they did not expect the engine problem to keep the transport, named the Jules Verne, from docking with the space station next month.

The glitch developed as NASA prepared the space shuttle Endeavour for a launch scheduled for early Tuesday morning.The shuttle is carr ying up part of a Japanese-made laborator y that will ultimately join labs produced by the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency that are already attached to the orbiting station.

Japanese astronaut Takao Doi is one of seven astronauts on the shuttle flight, which is transporting parts of the Kibo laboratory as well as a Canadianbuilt two-armed robotic system called Dextre.

The planned 16-day shuttle mission, the longest so far to the space station, is part of a concerted effort by NASA to finish assembly of the long-delayed space station by September 2010, at which point the three space shuttles will be retired.

The agency will not have any replacement vehicles to carry astronauts and cargo to the station for at least five years, and the justlaunched European “automated transport vehicle” is part of the agency’s plan to continue operating during the five-year gap.

NASA will have to rely on the Russian space agency to do most of the ferr ying of astronauts and cargo to and from the station.

The Europeans’ Jules Verne,

which is carr ying 4.6 tons of cargo, is the first of six transport launches the Europeans promised as their contribution to the space station effort. The vehicle has taken almost a decade to develop and launch.

ESA spokesman Franco Bonacino said that the shutdown of one of the transport’s engines was done automatically shortly after the spacecraft reached orbit and was associated with a pressure imbalance in the jumble of pipes and valves leading from the fuel tanks to the thrusters.

Bonacino said that researchers and engineers were working to fix the problem from mission control in Toulouse, France, and that the problem did not appear to pose any serious threat to the mission. Even if it cannot be fixed, he said, the transport will still be able to dock with the space station.

That docking cannot take place, however, until the shuttle Endeavour has arrived and departed — more than two weeks from Tuesday. With that much time to work on the problem, European space agency officials said they expected to be able to fix it.

About half of the Jules Verne’s payload is propellant for use by rockets that periodically push the space station higher to compensate for the natural decay of its orbit. The rest is oxygen, drinking water and dr y goods.

After spending four months docked to the station, the transport will carr y away waste and will burn up in the atmosphere as the transport plunges to Earth over the southern Pacific Ocean.

The Japanese space agency is also developing a space station transpor t, as are two private American companies working with NASA. The Jules Verne is the first automated spacecraft designed to dock with the station in full compliance with the tight safety constraints imposed after the 2003 space shuttle Columbia disaster.

Headlines from the past Tuesday, March 12, 1968 Center to Study Bodily Functions Nixon On the Road 88 ‘Student Leaders’ Surveyed on Viet War

od called EST, which stands for expressed sequence tags, to gather their data. In EST, random genes from across the genome are sampled from each animal, and the genes are analyzed to see which ones will yield the best comparison between species.

Dunn developed an “extremely clever pipeline” for this task, Gonzolo Giribet, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard and a contributor to the study, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

In addition to taking this novel approach, the team also strengthened its research by surveying a broader swath of the animal kingdom. The study involves 29 animal species from 21 different phyla. Eleven of the phyla had never been studied before using

the EST method.

The gene computations were the most time-consuming and difficult part of the study, the scientists said.

Because of the falling price of sequencing DNA, it is much quicker to retrieve the data. A“bottleneck” occurs in the processing portion of experiments, said Mark Martindale, professor of organismal biology at the University of Hawaii and director of Kewalo Marine Laboratory, where much of the research took place.

“It took over three or four months of continuous crunching by the best computers we could commercially buy to analyze the data,” Martindale said. The team used about 80 computers in clusters across the world, he said, and the computers would sometimes shut down and data would be lost because the computers produced so much heat that the air conditioner

could not keep up, Martindale said.

“You’re trying to drink from a fire hose, and you only have time to swallow so much data,” he added.

The study was funded by the NSF’s Assembling the Tree of Life initiative, which aims to reconstruct the evolutionary history of all organisms.

This is the first paper published by the group, comprised of scientists from across the world. Dunn said they plan to continue their research by adding more animal groups and revisiting those that were “recalcitrant” to being placed on a tree of life.

“It’s very important to know how animals are related to each other,” Dunn said. “A lot of the information we have about how humans work comes from studying animals such as these.”

Biologists stand to benefit from new estimator continued from page 5 can get a good sample, statistics can be powerful,” he added.

The pivotal moment in Lawrence’s research came when he noticed a discrepancy between a prediction he made and the results reached through traditional statistical analysis. In this experiment, Lawrence was looking at a certain structural RNA that is not supposed to change shape, so he predicted a near 100 percent chance that the RNA would not change shape. But when he ran a traditional statistical analysis on the model, the results were quite different — the probability that the RNA would not change shape was very low.

Lawrence said this seemed “provocative” to him. “That’s not the right way to predict,” he added.

The reason for these results, as Lawrence and Carvalho explained in the PNAS article, was that the traditional algorithm does not take

the whole “ensemble” of RNA into account. The two then looked to “find a (statistical) structure such that it, and a bunch like it, would describe the whole space,” of RNA shape possibilities, Lawrence said.

Their method considers the probabilities of all possible RNA molecules occurring as an ensemble and “take(s) their probabilities and mathematically find(s) the one in middle,” which is called the centroid, Lawrence said. This produces a more accurate estimate than the traditional statistical method of analysis.

Professor of Applied Mathematics Stuart Geman said Lawrence and Carvalho’s discovery is important because it is better applied to certain biological problems than other statistical models.

“Chip invented a different kind of estimator for some problems because the other one isn’t a happy fit,” he said. “The optimal cell phones are two different things for you and me.

The optimal estimators are two dif-

ferent things for different biological problems.”

Geman added that Lawrence’s new method is important because current methods require an unfeasible level of computation. “Oftentimes, the only available and computable estimator is the maximum-likelihood estimator,” Geman said.

Lawrence and Carvalho’s finding can be implemented across a broad array of fields. The new method of statistical analysis can be used “any time the problem is discrete (dealing with integers), and there are a lot of combinations,” Lawrence said.

“Right now we’re working on an even broader characterization of the centroid estimator which will make its applicability easier and its benefits more evident,” Carvalho wrote in an e-mail.

“If it were all to work out well, in 10 years, anyone who needs to make an inference in discrete highdimensional situations would change their view,” Lawrence said.

Israel and Gaza catch, and hold, their breaths

By Griff Witte Washington Post

JERUSALEM — An uneasy calm has settled over southern Israel and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in recent days as the United States and Egypt work to broker a cooling-off period following nearly a week of frantic fighting.

While no truce has been signed and no direct negotiations are taking place, Israel and Hamas appear to have informally agreed not to fire on each other for the time being.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said as much at a news conference Monday, reiterating an earlier statement indicating that Israel won’t fire if Hamas doesn’t.

“Israel will not tolerate a continuation of Qassam and Grad missileshooting at Israeli residents,” Olmert said, referring to the two kinds of rockets favored by Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza. “If this will continue, we will shoot. If it will not, we will have no reason to shoot.”

Since Friday, Israel’s military has recorded 14 rockets or mortar shells fired from Gaza toward Israel. That is down dramatically from the rate of over a week ago, when Hamas had been averaging several rockets every hour. Since the beginning of the year, 1,059 rockets or mortar shells have been fired at Israel from Gaza, according to the military.

Hamas, which calls for a state

governed by Islamic law across territory that now includes Israel, won the January 2006 parliamentary elections over the rival Fatah movement.

It then ruptured a power-sharing arrangement with Fatah in June 2007 when its military wing seized control of Gaza.

The pace of attacks has also slackened on the other side. Since Friday, there has been one Israeli attack in Gaza, the military said. That followed a massive five-day Israeli operation at the end of February and the beginning of March that killed more than 125 Palestinians. Three Israelis also were killed.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said Monday that the slowdown in violence has come as a result of talks mediated by Egypt and supported

by Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in the region last week trying to reignite stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Hamas’ secular rival Fatah, over a settlement to the two sides’ decades-long conflict.

Those negotiations could not go forward, however, until the violence in Gaza abated. Because neither Israel nor the United States will talk to Hamas, Rice focused on using Egypt as a mediator, the officials said.

“All the sides have an interest in some calm right now,” a senior Israeli official said. The official added, however, that “the ball is in

Hamas’s court” and that the lull in violence “is fragile. It could end at any moment.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum denied that there had been any truce, but acknowledged that Egypt was mediating talks. He said any truce would have to involve Israel agreeing to end its attacks in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as lifting a crushing economic blockade in Gaza. “If they want calm, it has to be a comprehensive calm,” he said. Until then, he said, Hamas reserves the right to use violence at any time.

Israel on Sunday announced plans to build hundreds of new homes in a West Bank settlement north of Jerusalem. The move was quickly condemned by Palestinian negotiators, and on Monday U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to halt the expansion in the interest of peace. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the plans “aren’t helpful.”

Israel has said it has the right to expand existing settlements but has pledged not to build new ones.

Also Monday, the White House announced that Vice President Dick Cheney will travel to the Middle East on Sunday to discuss peace and oil prices.

— Staff writer Peter Baker in Washington contributed to this report.

W orld & n ation Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Bush promises to give Poland military aid

By James Gerstenzang and Peter Spiegel Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON ­— President Bush promised Poland’s visiting prime minister Monday that the United States would help modernize the country’s military, as Poland moved closer to joining a U.S.-sponsored missile-defense system.

Bush’s Oval Office meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk followed a similar conference in February with the Czech prime minister, who said Prague was close to an agreement with Washington on the missile-defense arrangement.

The U.S. says it is seeking to install a missile-detection radar system in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland to defend against missiles launched in the Middle East.

With Tusk at his side, Bush said that, “before my watch is over,” the United States and Poland would “come up with a modernization plan” for Polish forces, which are seeking to acquire a Patriot anti-missile system. Bush’s aides insisted that Poland’s diminished objections to the U.S. deployment of missile interceptors on Polish territory was not a quid pro quo for military aid. However, the president linked the two, pledging the modernization assistance and then saying, “along those lines,” that he and Tusk discussed the risk posed by “a missile with dangerous materials in its warhead.”

The proposed missile-defense network has become perhaps the most sensitive issue in U.S.Russian relations. President Vladimir Putin has denounced it as a threat to his nation’s defense.

Bush has insisted that it would be used to protect part of Europe and the United States from any missiles launched by Iran or terror groups.

Bush said a missile equipped with nuclear, chemical or biological warheads was “the most significant” security threat of the 21st century, and he assured Tusk that “this system is not aimed at Russia.”

He said he would continue to give Putin similar assurances.

Tusk, speaking through a translator, called the missile-defense system and the modernization of Polish forces “very good.” He expressed support for the proposal to protect Poland from “any undue security risks” but cautioned that

work remained on the diplomatic front, saying, “a strategy on paper is a little different from the details.”

White House press secretary Dana Perino said that the Pentagon would evaluate Poland’s air defense needs and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would review those needs with Polish officials.

The system the administration wants to build would use the radar to spot missile launches and send interceptors to ram the missiles above the Earth’s atmosphere.

Iran has developed medium-range missiles capable of striking Israel and parts of Europe.

The Bush administration predicts that Iran will be able to develop long-range ballistic missiles by 2015. The missile-defense system could be completed by 2012 or 2013, officials have said.

Even before formal negotiations over basing interceptor missiles on Polish soil began in 2007, Polish officials demanded the United States provide Patriot anti-missile batteries to the Polish armed forces. They argued that a new U.S. missile-defense site would make Poland a target of Russian rockets.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to make the air defense upgrades a condition of the deal. Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, emphasized that talks to modernize the Polish military were separate from the missile-defense negotiations.

“They came to us some months ago and expressed a desire to also modernize their air defenses, if they were going to take on this additional, what they believe to be, risk by hosting the interceptors,” Morrell said at a Pentagon news conference.

Morrell, suggesting sticking points remain, emphasized that no formal agreement had been reached on either point. He acknowledged that the administration had hoped to have a deal with both Poland and the Czech Republic by now.

The American missile-defense sites remain unpopular in both European countries, and the new government in Warsaw has shown more skepticism toward the system than its predecessor. The system also has suffered setbacks on Capitol Hill, where congressional appropriators stripped funding for the European sites from this year’s defense spending bill.

Courtesy of state.gov

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is facing calls for resignation after allegations of his use of a high-priced prostitute surfaced Monday.

N.Y. governor’s job imperiled by sex scandal

By James Madore, Tom Brune and Melissa Mansfield Newsday

ALBANY, N.Y. ­— New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer faced a chorus of calls for his resignation Monday as he was engulfed by a sex scandal involving his alleged use of a highpriced prostitute in Februar y.

Neither Spitzer nor his potential successor, Lt. Gov. David Paterson, were in the capital late Monday as rumors swirled about their future, although political experts doubted that Spitzer would sur vive. While he might tr y to tough it out, they said he looked like a hypocrite after prosecuting prostitution rings as attorney general and lecturing lawmakers on ethics as governor.

“Spitzer is gone ... it’s a sad thing when a guy as capable as he is screws up,” said pollster Maurice Carroll of Quinnipiac University, who has been watching state government since the late 1970s.

“Paterson will come in, and he’s a likable, knowledgeable guy who will be able to get things done for awhile — there will be a period of calm after this.”

At a news conference in Manhattan, Spitzer, with his wife, Silda Wall, by his side, issued a public

apology for what he called a “private matter,” defended his reformist agenda and hinted at leaving after only 14 months.

The last time a New York governor resigned in the wake of a scandal was in 1913 There was bipar tisan shock when the news broke about Spitzer.

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and that violates my or any sense of right and wrong,” said the Democratic governor and father of three daughters. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public whom I promised better.”

He then said that he believed politics wasn’t about individuals but ideas and doing what’s in the public interest. “But I’ve disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family. ... I will report back to you in short order,” he told reporters.

Republicans and independents weren’t prepared to wait, pressuring Spitzer to resign immediately.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco said, “We’re all

public figures here, and when you break the law, that becomes a public matter. ... He must resign his position. He must do it immediately.”

Most devastating to Spitzer, however, was a transcript of a wiretap conversations arranging for the Emperors Club V.I.P. to send a prostitute from New York to the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, where he planned to stay Feb. 13 before testifying to a congressional committee the next day. The transcript is part of a federal complaint.

Federal sources said Spitzer is referred to as “Client 9” in the conversations, many of which concerned his late payment of bills and insistence on using the U.S. Postal Ser vice instead of wire transfer for advance payments — called a “package” — to the prostitution ser vice.

The tapes reveal that a woman named Kristen and described as being “petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet five inches, and 105 pounds” took Amtrak from Manhattan’s Pennsylvania Station to Washington to meet Client 9. Their meeting was supposed to last four hours but continued on page 9

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Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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M. tennis double trouble, W. lax dominates Stony Brook in rain but singles still struggle continued from page 12

continued from page 12 room only crowd then watched the duo grab their match, 8-5.

Despite having already won the doubles point, all eyes were on the No. 2 doubles pairing of co-captain Noah Gardner ’09 and Sam Garland ’09. Tied 6-6, the team climbed its way into the lead, ultimately defeating the No. 51-ranked Andrew Mazlin and Chris Madden, 8-6.

Two huge victories over nationally ranked teams proved that Brown is a major force on the doubles courts.

“Saurabh played extremely well. When he is taking over the doubles court, there isn’t much the other team can do,” Ratnam said. “I just try to stay out of the way and not make too many mistakes.”

But Ratnam did his share of great play to beat the top-ten team’s doubles.

“We knew we had to be extremely aggressive and take control,” Kohli said of his teammates’ strategy. “Basu has a huge serve and that allows me to move around the net, which I love to do.”

And he had the audience to show it off to. Whether alums were screaming for an individual player, shouting, “Fire it up,” or cheering on the whole team, Alumni Day was a definite advantage for Bruno.

“I think we are creating a lot of energy,” said Tedaldi, a former team member.

After a doubles victor y, the team carried momentum into singles play, in which they haven’t been as successful in the past.

At No. 2 singles, Lee tried to fend off No. 52 Matko Maravic, but was overcome 7-5, 6-2 in the end.

Ratnam followed at No. 3 singles, dropping his match, 6-4, 6-4. As the final singles matches began, the energy on the courts seemed to die out, with the fans and both No. 5 Gardner and No. 6 Garland falling, losing 6-4, 6-4 and 6-3, 6-3 respectively.

Having lost the match to Michigan, Kohli dropped a three-setter at No. 1 singles, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2. To

round out a clean sweep of the Bears in singles came the lone freshman competitor, Kendrick Au ’11 at No. 4 singles, who fell 6-3, 6-4 in a match tighter than the score indicated.

“I didn’t think of it in terms of class order, more so us against them, and to be specific, really me against him,” Au said. “I think it’s important not to think about the fact that I’m a freshman because you get intimidated easier, and we all know that on any given day, anybody, regardless of class, can beat anybody.”

But in the recent matches, the Bears haven’t been able to practice this philosophy. While Bruno has had a tough line-up as of late, their focus and energy in doubles play doesn’t seem to be transferring to their singles mentality.

“I think we are a lot more aggressive and confident on our doubles skills,” Kohli said. “We need to take our doubles attitude to the singles matches and convert the many chances we get. We need to strengthen those plays and play with more confidence, which will help us capitalize in our singles matches.”

As league play nears, time is dwindling down for the Bears to capture the intensity they produce in their doubles matches into their singles play.

“I think the team is coming together well, but we definitely need to improve for sure in singles,” Ratnam said. “I think serving and returning, getting those parts of our games a bit bigger will pay off large dividends in the upcoming Ivy season.”

As the Bears prepare for a long road trip for the annual Blue Gray Invitational in Montgomery, Ala., this weekend, Harris is confident that his team is slowly but surely making progress.

“We are playing at a good level right now. Obviously we have a challenging schedule and lost some close matches, but we are gaining a lot from each of them,” Harris said. “We just need to keep moving forward and improving each day, in each and ever y match.”

for sure did that.”

Over a span of nearly 10 minutes, the Bears extended their lead to 4-0 on a pair of goals by Markowski sandwiched around one by Caldwell.

But the well then ran dr y for Bruno for more than eight minutes even as the rain continued to fall.

The Seawolves finally got on the board at 18:43 when Diana Caroleo scored the first of her three goals, but the Bears quickly reasserted control when Markowski answered with a goal just 23 seconds later.

“I think it definitely got us back into the game and wanting more goals after that, because we weren’t going to let up then,” Markowski said.

Brown closed out the first half with four more goals. Krissi Penikis ’11 scored the first goal of her career at 21:51, and then Justine Lupo ’08, Lauren Vitkus ’09 and Nunn scored in a 1:32 span that gave the team a 9-1 lead 3:15 before halftime.

Bruno dominated the first half with a 23-3 advantage in shots and a 10-1 edge in the draw controls that determine possession, but things fell off in the second half.

Brown’s shot margin declined to 18-12 and the teams were even with seven draw controls apiece.

The Bears seemed destined for a smooth victory as Caldwell notched her second goal just 1:03 into the second half, but then the offense went silent for more than 15 minutes, and the Seawolves took advantage.

Samantha Djaha scored two of Stony Brook’s five straight goals.

Three goals in a 1:47 span cut Brown’s lead to 10-6 14:22 into the second half, prompting McDonald to call a timeout. But Markowski said the Bears didn’t take it too hard.

“It wasn’t tough; it was just about winning the draw,” she said. “We took a timeout, settled in, realized we had to play our game and then came back to win it in the end.”

Kelly scored a pair of goals for Brown at 16:18 and 19:55, and Nunn

tacked on a goal 31 seconds later to stretch the lead to 13-6. Caroleo answered with a pair of goals for Stony Brook, but Ali Holland ’08 and Nunn each added on a goal in the final minute to cap the victory.

McDonald was pleased that the Bears were able to weather the Seawolves’ runs.

“There are momentum shifts all the time in games,” she said. “The girls did a really good job of keeping their composure and playing our game.”

Stony Brook goaltender Mickey Cahill held up well under a flood of shots by making 17 saves, while Melissa King ’08 stopped three shots for Brown, all in the second half.

The dominant victory washed away the sting of a 16-4 loss to Boston University last Wednesday and put the Bears in a good mood as they prepare to face the Pride of Hofstra on Long Island on Saturday.

“It’s definitely going to keep our spirits up and we’re excited for our next game,” Markowski said.

W. tennis easily handles UMass, West Va. continued from page 12 she started to make more errors,” Aboubakare said. “I just tried to be more consistent with placing the ball in the corner.”

Aboubakare became noticeably more vocal in the second set. But unlike some players, she reacts loudly (“Come on!”) when she wins a point, not when she loses one.

“It’s really important to keep a positive atmosphere,” Aboubakare said. “When you pump yourself up, it really affects you physically.”

Mansur bounced back from her loss Friday to win a tough three-set match against West Virginia, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2. She said she did a better job Sunday capitalizing on big points.

“I stayed pretty consistent,” Mansur said. “In the third set, I just played a lot more relaxed.”

Dubusker and Head Coach Paul Wardlaw both said that Mansur has been playing very competitively with some tough opponents.

Just like her match on Friday, Finkelstein started both sets slowly, only to win 6-3, 6-2 both times. She was able to win many crucial points during some of Sunday’s long rallies.

“I just stayed disciplined,” Finkelstein said. “I let her make all the mistakes.”

She didn’t deny that her recent victories have had a pattern.

“I like playing when I’m down,” she acknowledged.

Vucetic and Schonfeld also racked up sound defeats. Vucetic won 6-3, 6-0, and Schonfeld posted a 6-0, 6-1 victory.

There was drama once again for Butler, but she pulled out a tough win. Down 6-5 in the first set, Butler and her opponent engaged in eight deuces before Butler captured the game, escaping four set points. But she dropped the tiebreaker 7-5 to lose the set.

She came back with a 6-2 secondset win, forcing a 10-point tiebreaker to decide the match since the team

competition had already been decided.

Butler, the Lazarus of the team Sunday, won 11-9, but not without excitement. She was down 9-5 and fended off four match points before capturing the victory.

She joked about some of her long sets during the weekend.

“Maybe I just like playing tennis so much, I just like staying out there as long as I can,” she said.

Wardlaw and Dubusker were happy with the resounding victories over teams they beat only 5-2 last year.

“I think with singles, we’re playing with a lot of confidence,” Wardlaw said. “We’re actually being very patient and working the point.”

The Bears have just two more competitions before league play begins on March 30. Both coaches said that the team needs to improve its doubles game by then.

“There’s no such thing as resting on our laurels right now,” Dubusker said.

M. lax splits Mile High trip, going 1-1 continued from page 12 ber of face-off wins, gave Denver far more possessions in the third quarter, which they capitalized on, scoring the only three goals of the quarter.

“It was just them having that pressure,” Hall said. “Once a team gets momentum (it) feeds on it.”

Though Bruno had just two more turnovers than Denver for the game (32-30), a string of giveaways in the third quarter fueled the Pioneer run.

Brown continued to clear the ball well, but could not settle down in the offensive zone and gave up a number of fast breaks because the offense turned the ball over while the team was caught mid-substitution.

By the end of the third quarter, Denver was out-shooting Bruno 37-15.

Though the Bears like to force teams into lots of shots as long as they aren’t good shots, the imbalance was just too much to overcome.

Denver continued the onslaught with three more goals to open the fourth quarter. Though the Bears picked up three goals of their own in response, it was not enough and Denver improved to 2-3 with an 11-8 win.

After an up-and-down game in the high altitude, it appeared Brown would be hard-pressed to make a

good 24-hour turnaround, a rarity in college lacrosse, against Air Force.

The result was quite the opposite, however. Brown scored five times in the first 5:01 of the game and never looked back.

“We played fearless,” Hall said.

“It was one of the things coach was trying to preach, that I was trying to preach.”

The Bears’ energy was in part inspired by a desire to put the loss the day before behind them.

“The loss gave us even more motivation,” Sharnick said. “We wanted to get out and show how good we could be.”

Brown was aided by excellent face-off work by Joel Tracy ’09, who won 12 of 17 face-offs, helping Brown to a 14-8 face-off advantage for the game. “(Tracy) was winning face-offs and creating fast breaks,” Tiffany said. “The five-goal run was really just make-it, take-it.”

Tiffany was also impressed by his team’s conditioning. He felt the team was immune to the effects of the altitude because the players took care of their bodies all week and drank a lot of water. It also helped that the team substituted often — on Sunday, all 32 played.

Brown’s early lead ballooned to

10-3 at halftime and the contest finished 13-7. Bruno was led by Hollingsworth who had four goals and two assists. The game was a breakout for Hollingsworth who was third on the team in scoring with 24 points last season, but had just one assist in the team’s first two games.

Hollingsworth was aided by three goals from attack Andrew Feinberg ’11, and two each from attacks Thomas Muldoon ’10 and Carey. Air Force played a much more conventional defense that allowed Bruno to settle into its offensive sets.

“We ran our offense pictureperfectly. Everyone had a chance to contribute,” Hall said.

Hall was also very excited about the team’s prospects coming off the weekend, where he felt the team played well overall.

“As a team, you are still trying to find yourself. It’s still early,” he said.

“That game against Air Force was a huge step forward towards finding our identity.”

That identity will be tested for the team Saturday on Meister-Kavan Field, when the team faces Massachusetts, who Tiffany called Brown’s biggest rival.

“When I was a player (Massachusetts) was always the game,” he said.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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Sen. committee subpoenas White House chief of staff

By William Branigin Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit Monday to enforce subpoenas against President Bush’s chief of staff and his former counsel in a probe of suspected White House involvement in the 2006 firings of nine federal prosecutors.

The panel filed the federal court suit against Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff since April 2006, and Harriet Miers, a close associate of Bush’s from Texas who resigned as White House counsel in January 2007 after a little more than two years on the job.

The committee’s action marked the first time in U.S. history that either chamber of Congress has sued the Executive Branch to enforce a subpoena, according to a spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee.

The lawsuit charges that Bolten and Miers, who were cited by the House for contempt of Congress last month, defied committee subpoenas by refusing to testify or provide documents demanded by

I’ll stay home, gay bishop tells Anglicans

By Rebecca Trounson Los Angeles T imes

The Episcopal Church’s only openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, said Monday that he would not attend a global gathering of Anglicans in London this summer, telling fellow Episcopal leaders he had declined an offer that he said would not have allowed him to play a meaningful role at that meeting.

Robinson, who is attending a retreat this week in Texas with other Episcopal bishops, told the group he had decided not to attend the Lambeth Conference, after negotiations for him to participate or be granted official obser ver status had failed. His remarks were released by the Episcopal Church late Monday.

The Lambeth Conference is a once-a-decade gathering of leaders of the Anglican Communion, the world’s third-largest Christian denomination. It is hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently the Most Rev. Rowan Williams.

The Episcopal Church, the U.S. branch of Anglicanism, sparked an uproar in 2003 when it consecrated Robinson as bishop. The idea of an official role for Robinson at the conference has fueled tensions between the U.S. church and Anglicans overseas.

“I am dismayed and sick-hearted that we can’t sit around a table, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and study scripture together,” Robinson said. He told the bishops he had declined an offer that would have allowed him only to be present in the conference’s exhibit hall and participate in media interviews.

But Robinson urged other Episcopal bishops to attend the conference. “I want to say loud and clear — you must go. You must find your voice. And somehow you have to find my voice and the voices of all the gay and lesbian people in your diocese who, for now, don’t have a voice in this setting,” he said.

the panel.

The House passed the contempt citation by a vote of 223-32 after most Republicans boycotted the proceeding.

But Attorney General Michael Mukasey said White House aides involved in the case cannot be prosecuted because they were following legal advice from the Justice Department. He refused to refer the contempt citation to a grand jury.

The refusal of Bolten and Miers to comply with the subpoenas “did not constitute a crime,” Mukasey said in a Feb. 29 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the Judiciary Committee chairman, described Mukasey’s refusal as “contrary to federal law” and said the panel filed the civil lawsuit to enforce the subpoenas.

“We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress,” Conyers said in a statement. “The administration’s extreme claims to be immune from the oversight process are at odds with our constitutional principles on which this country was founded, and I am confident the federal courts will agree.”

Conyers added: “I do not take this step lightly. ... Unfortunately, this administration simply will not negotiate towards a compromise resolution, so we must proceed.”

He said he looks for ward to “a quick and favorable ruling by the court, so that we can complete our investigation.”

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accused the committee of engaging in “partisan theater.”

She told reporters, “The confidentiality that the president receives from his senior advisers and the constitutional principle of separation of powers must be protected from overreaching, and we are confident that the courts will agree with us.”

Nearly a dozen Justice Department officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have resigned since evidence in the investigation became public, the committee said.

“Documents turned over by the department indicate that the White House played a substantial role in the development and execution of the plan to force U.S. attorneys to

resign,” Conyers’ office said in a statement.

The committee is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to find, among other things, that Miers is not immune from the subpoena and that executive privilege does not cover documents that do not involve the president.

According to the lawsuit, the committee launched its investigation in part to “examine allegations of malfeasance, abuse of authority and violations of existing laws by Executive Branch personnel.”

It says the year-long investigation “has uncovered substantial evidence” that the Bush administration and Justice Department “injected partisan considerations into the forced resignations or retention of U.S. attorneys.”

It cites “credible evidence” that U.S. attorneys who “failed to return desired indictments or failed to bring voter fraud prosecutions that were considered politically useful to the administration were forced to resign,” as were those who “prosecuted officeholders allied with the administration.”

Not-guilty man released after 25 years

By Jack Leonard Los Angeles T imes

LOS ANGELES — A judge Monday overturned the conviction of a Los Angeles man who has spent the past quarter-century in prison for a murder he insists he did not commit, concluding that the prosecution’s star witness had lied.

The ruling follows the recent recantation by the witness and could lead to the freeing of Willie Earl Green, a former chauffeur who was convicted in 1984 of an execution-style slaying at a South Los Angeles crack house and sentenced to 33 years to life.

Los Angeles County prosecutors must now decide whether to appeal the decision, retry Green or set him free. Considering the judge’s conclusion that the star witness was unreliable, prosecutors probably would have an uphill climb if they chose to retry the case.

Legal experts say the case underscores the perils of relying heavily upon eyewitness identification in criminal trials. Researchers have found that faulty identifications are the biggest factor in wrongful convictions. Yet judges rarely overturn convictions based on allegations of improper identifications.

During his two-decade quest for a new trial, Green had won the support of the jury forewoman who convicted him and the legal backing of a nationally known group that advocates for the release of the wrongfully convicted, Centurion Ministries.

The ruling “has quenched Willie Green’s almost-25-year thirst for justice and we are thrilled by the judge’s courageous decision,” said Centurion’s executive director, Jim McCloskey, who investigated Green’s case and pressed for a retrial. “I can’t wait to tell Willie.”

In his written decision, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus stopped short of declaring Green factually innocent. But Marcus, a former prosecutor, concluded that

Green’s attorneys had found important new evidence that probably would have swayed jurors when evaluating the credibility of the trial’s sole eyewitness, Willie Finley.

Among the judge’s findings: Finley lied when he said he wasn’t high on cocaine when the murder occurred; his vision was impaired from a beating by one of the attackers and police improperly tainted the identification by telling Finley about a theft Green previously had committed against the victim.

“It is important to note that this case did not involve overwhelming evidence of (Green’s) guilt and, therefore, the testimony of Willie Finley, the star witness, is critical to the result of the case,” Marcus wrote.

McCloskey said he hoped the District Attorney’s office ultimately would decide against a retrial and that the judge would consider releasing Green on bail while prosecutors weighs their options. Green is scheduled to appear in court March 20.

“We would love to be able to walk him out ... so that he can return to his wife and family in Chowchilla,” McCloskey said.

Prosecutors had argued that Finley’s recantation was not credible and that Green’s conviction ought to stand.

“I’m somewhat surprised, but it’s the court’s call to make,” said Deputy District Attorney Hyman Sisman, who handled the case. He said the office had not yet decided how to proceed.

At the heart of the case was the Aug. 9, 1983, killing of Denise “Dee Dee” Walker, a 25-year-old single mother. That evening, Walker was cooking crack cocaine when Finley was pistol-whipped by a man on the sidewalk outside his home.

The attacker forced Finley into the home. Within moments, a second man entered the house carrying a shotgun. Walker screamed out, “Oh no, Willie!”

Finley testified during trial that he recognized Green as the second intruder. The pros-

ecutor argued that Walker’s cry corroborated the identification because most of Finley’s friends knew him as “Doug” rather than “Willie.” Moreover, Green had lived at Walker’s apartment a year earlier and had been convicted of stealing her television set.

In his ruling, Marcus wrote that the victim’s cry “still echoes through the smoke rings of time,” but he acknowledged it was possible that Walker was calling out for Finley.

The judge rejected the most dramatic claim Finley — himself a convicted murderer — made in his recent recantation: That the lead detective on the case pointed to Green when he presented Finley with photographs of possible suspects.

Marcus described Finley as equivocal when asked during a hearing in November whether Detective John Bunch had helped him pick Green’s photograph. And he faulted Centurion Ministries for appearing to “pressure Mr. Finley by repeatedly asking him to add new information” about his recantation.

However, Marcus also said he did not find Bunch credible when he denied telling Finley that Green had stolen the victim’s television set a year before the killing.

The judge noted that Finley had said he was 80 percent sure Green was one of the assailants when he first picked him out but told jurors he was absolutely certain at the trial.

“This is clearly suggestive and taints the photo identification process,” Marcus wrote. “This ... is a problem because it reinforces Willie Finley’s belief that he has picked the right person.”

In addition, Marcus ruled that jurors should have been able to learn about Finley’s hemophilia, a medical condition that Finley said caused his face to swell severely during the pistol-whipping and impaired his vision when the second intruder entered the home.

“Mr. Finley, in his curmudgeon style, has attempted to testify as truthfully as he can,” Marcus wrote.

FBI catches Spitzer with prostitute continued from page 9 took only about two.

After leaving the governor, the prostitute called her boss, Temeka Lewis of Brooklyn, to report collecting a fee of $4,300 from Client 9. The prostitute said she like Client 9 and didn’t find him difficult as others had.

Lewis said “from what she had been told he (believed to be a reference to Client 9) would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe ... ,” according to a federal affidavit.

The prostitute replied, “I have a way of dealing with that. ... I’d be like listen dude, you really want the sex?”

Federal agents arrested Lewis and three others linked to the Emperors Club on Thursday, charging them with running the online prostitution service that catered to millionaires. The business took in more than $1 million in profits over four years, according to federal authorities.

Spitzer has not yet been charged, and prosecutors declined to comment Monday.

As attorney general in 2003, Spitzer spoke with revulsion about prostitution after he brought suit against a Queens company suspected of planning sex tourism trips to Asia. The agency, Big Apple Oriental Tours, had been accused in a lawsuit brought in July by Spitzer of arranging tours for men seeking sex with prostitutes, some underage, in the Philippines, Thailand and Cambodia.

“The company purports to be a traditional travel agency but through its actions promotes prostitution and the abuse of young women,” Spitzer said at the time.

“This suit seeks a halt to this egregious conduct.”

It was such crusading prosecutions, particularly of Wall Street financiers, that propelled Spitzer to the governor’s office in January 2007 after receiving 69 percent of the vote. He quickly burnished his reformist credentials by getting lawmakers to enact tough rules on lobbying and governmental ethics.

But Spitzer sparked controversy by proposing that driver’s licenses be given to illegal immigrants and when his aides attempted to generate negative publicity about Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.

His entanglement in a sex scandal comes at a dicey time for the state with only 21 days before a new budget must be in place and revenues being depressed by a national recession. It also imperils Democrats’ dream of taking over the Republican-controlled Senate, the only part of state government not in their hands.

“David Paterson is going to have to step up to the plate, but he’s prepared for it,” said political scientist Stanley B. Klein of C.W. Post College and a Republican committeeman. “Paterson has the experience to get the state through this.”

Thanks for reading.

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Staf f Editorial

A global step forward A small project for a professor and a few graduate students could be a big start to redefining the University’s latest buzzword — “internationalization.”

Assistant to the President Marisa Quinn cited the University’s effort to expand its international presence as a reason for Brown’s involvement in the “10,000 Women” project, which aims to bring business education to women in the developing world, saying that the venture “advance(s) internationalization initiatives.”

Brown’s role in the project, in which Professor of Engineering Angus Kingon and a team of students will develop a course on technology for a university in South Africa, shows how it should carry out internationalization — by encouraging professors, students and community members to take on concrete projects and create personal ties across international borders.

The sharing of academic resources is a form of international philanthropy very accessible to the University. Brown students have long involved themselves in projects in developing countries — by working on health issues in the Dominican Republic, leading anti-human trafficking efforts in India or helping HIV-positive women in Rwanda grow their own food. The University should take the lead from its students and further build international ties, especially with regions underrepresented at Brown, by sharing what it has to offer with them.

Grands for grads Last month, the University’s highest governing body approved larger stipends for Ph.D. candidates. Those stipends will support doctoral students, who in turn aid junior faculty. The increase isn’t much — $500 a year — but any money for the cash-strapped graduate students will go a long way.

Administrators and faculty interviewed by The Herald emphasized the importance of graduate students for research, but grad students also teach our sections and grade our assignments. Competing with other graduate schools for the brightest students is necessary, but so is financially supporting the grad students we already have, so that they can focus on their work as researchers and as teachers.

We understand that University officials have a lot to spend money on, but if they’re serious about raising Brown’s research profile, they should consider being more generous toward the Grad School next year. As pressures on faculty to do more research increases, they don’t just need better grad students to support them — they need more grad students in general. As administrators had hoped, the number of faculty has increased in the past few years. The number of grad students must continue to match that increase.

And as administrators try to improve advising at Brown, they’ll need to fit graduate students into their plan. Grad students can support faculty who should spend more time advising, or they make advising part of their own role on campus. Increased support for graduate students will help Brown as it in both the research and teaching arenas.

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

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jon guyer

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Correction A review in Friday’s Herald (“PW stages Aeschylus, orgies and tomatoes,” March 7) said Jenna Horton is in the class of 2008. She will graduate in 2009. The article also identified the character Olympia as Chrissie Bodznick ’10 and the character Bella as Horton. In fact, Bodznick played Bella and Horton played Olympia.

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 Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Andy’s no angel

BY Dan Davidson Guest Columnist With spring training well under way and opening day just around the corner, it seems like ages since the 2007 baseball season ended.

This winter was particularly arduous for baseball fans, with the traditional offseason practice of tracking free agent signings usurped by the damning Mitchell Report and the dismantling of former Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens by the press and a Congressional committee.

These are trying times for baseball lovers, and as we watch our favorite game come under the scrutiny of the nation the struggle to find some heroes amidst the cheaters, proven and unproven, is a natural reaction. The increasing desperation of the baseball world to find players worthy of being put on a pedestal is, however, yet another detriment to the game.

Take the case of Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte. There is a trend amongst some fans and the baseball media to portray him as the anti-Clemens. This is not wholly illogical. His background places him in the realm of hardworking sports figures parents long for their Little Leaguers to idolize. Pettitte’s deep religious faith, his domination while in Yankee pinstripes and his commitment to the sport give fans plenty to like.

Despite his public revelation that he did indeed use human growth hormone, his claim that he initially lied to protect his ailing father who supplied him with syringes, and his willingness to sit in front of the press and restate his guilt at the start of spring training paint him as a somewhat admirable figure.

Pettitte’s apology itself also warrants some

accolades. Pro athletes have a generally welldeserved reputation for being masters of the half-hearted apology, and in the wake of the Mitchell Report fans have been forced to listen to plenty of weak efforts.

Nationals catcher Paul Lo Duca, responding to the same accusations Pettitte faced, admitted that he had made a mistake, but refused to specify what the mistake was. Milwaukee pitcher Eric Gagne, at a press conference where it was thought he might perhaps go the same route, didn’t even have the stomach

“I’m sorry for the mistakes I’ve made” and that “whatever circumstances or repercussions come with it, I’ll take.”

But while it is easy and comforting for fans to turn Pettitte into a Clemens foil, it is dangerous for the future of baseball.

In the world of sports, his efforts to apologize are head and shoulders above the crowd, but they are lacking in some important aspects. Pettitte has had opportunities to admit wrongdoing before, like last year when the Los Angeles Times reported that former Yankee

While it is easy and comforting for fans to turn Pettitte into a Clemens foil, it is dangerous for the future of baseball. for that. Sure, he apologized to his family and friends for having to go through the trauma of a loved one being accused of cheating, but it was not even the cheating he was apologizing for. Rather he, like many accused players, decided to take it upon himself to apologize for the very accusations he should be confronting and the distraction they have caused.

Pettitte, on the other hand, made no attempts to blur the truth with euphemisms and clearly accepted responsibility for his actions.

He made no illusions about the fact that he used HGH, and stated simply and sincerely,

Jason Grimsley said Pettitte was a user, but he was firm in his denials. While honesty and guilt may have had something to do with his admission, it is almost certain impending legal issues were also a contributing factor.

More disturbing is the wording of his initial apology, when he said that, “if what I did was an error in judgment … then I apologize.”

If what you did wasn’t an error in judgment, then you wouldn’t be in trouble. Furthermore, although he has more recently seemed to grasp the fact that using HGH is a definite wrong, Pettitte still says that he only used

HGH to heal faster, and not to gain an unfair advantage. The logic of this statement is truly baffling: Healing faster than other injured players doesn’t give you an advantage? Also, given the drug culture in baseball and the motivating factors for use that Pettitte himself outlined, I personally find it hard to believe that, as forthright as Pettitte has slowly become about his usage, he only used HGH for two days in his entire career.

As painful as it might be for some fans, letting Pettitte off the hook even after his apology would be a huge mistake. There must be an understanding among baseball players that if you break the rules, you will pay, no matter how sincere you are after the fact. As hard as it may be to not let up on Pettitte after all the emotional trauma he has been through, having to not only admit his own wrongdoing, but also to give revealing testimony about his good friend Clemens, fans should continue to regard him as what he is — a cheater.

While the relevant authorities are pursuing the steroid issue by focusing on supply through the prosecution of dealers and giving little attention to the demand amongst players, baseball fans and media are in a position to have some influence over the factors they currently ignore. Refusing to allow players who cheated second chances in baseball or in the world of public opinion is an essential step to take in order to make it clear to baseball as a whole that fans will not stand idly by while the steroid issue remains the focus of half-hearted efforts that have yet to solve the problem. No apology should change this.

Dan Davidson ’11 regrets the distractions from sports journalism this column has caused

The end of the world as we know it

BY Chloe Lutts Opinion Columnist My 16-year-old brother’s high school class is studying modern European history.

Last week they had to write papers on the Industrial Revolution; my brother argued that Thomas Malthus was stupid and Adam Smith a genius.

Adam Smith is known as the father of modern economics. He wrote “The Wealth of Nations,” an influential defense of free trade and capitalism.

Malthus also advanced some seminal economic arguments, namely that population would soon outstrip food production. That was in 1798. It hasn’t happened yet.

The Industrial Revolution happened instead.

Agricultural efficiency increased exponentially, and we now grow enough food to feed everyone in the world (even if, tragically, it doesn’t always get to the people who need it.)

But Malthusian economics still exist. And not just in high school history classes. One of my roommates brought it up last week — after revisiting the theories in an introductory economics class. A Malthusian fear of overpopulation justifies China’s one-child policy. A 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” predicted a Malthusian crisis in the 1970s that would decrease American life expectancy to 42 years by 1980.

Yet the catastrophe has never come to pass. The Industrial Revolution intervened in the late 18th century; the one-child policy and economic liberalization combined to create a similar effect in China. Technology and progress have always managed to outpace

disaster.

Nevertheless, the predictions continue.

Despite our proven ability to consistently avert our own extinction, we seem to have an inborn need to worry about the next thing that might destroy us. When the 20th-century Malthusian crisis was averted by the Green Revolution, it was replaced in the American psyche by communism and nuclear winter. Neither managed to kill us. More recently, SARS and West Nile were proven toothless. But we’re still worried: If global warming doesn’t cause the end of

could ever have imagined.

I can’t imagine how we’ll solve global warming. But I’m confident we will. Progress is the modus operandi of the human race. As we move forward, we’re bound to encounter new threats to our way of life. Global warming itself is a descendant of Industrial Revolution-era pollution. Antibiotics have saved millions of lives, but we’re facing fatal antibiotic-resistant infections as a result. Fertilizers and pesticides that prevent starvation also imbalance ocean ecosystems and poison drinking water. But

The tradition of Malthusian warnings is ingrained in our society without a corresponding memory of their tendency to overstate risk. the world as we know it, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Colony Collapse Disorder or Peak Oil certainly will.

Unfortunately, the tradition of Malthusian warnings is ingrained in our society without a corresponding memory of their tendency to overstate risk. All the catastrophes predicted were prevented, and we’re still here. Yet we continue to issue warnings of our own demise.

Again and again, we get into situations we can’t possibly imagine a way out of. But then we discover solutions beyond anything we

human progress is indefatigable. Every time the world as we know it threatens to end, we move on to a new, better world.

Nevertheless, we’re always afraid. It’s partly because of a lack of imagination and partly because of a lack of historical perspective, but it’s also due to a glut of doomsayers. These alarmists are a bit more sophisticated than the crazy man on the corner who proclaims “The End is Near!” Nothing can become a full-blown threat to civilization without its prophet of doom.

Widespread fear depends on PR. Thomas

Malthus had his graphs and mathematical equations, Al Gore has his blockbuster movie.

Without PR, no one is afraid.

Fear is a powerful motivator. It sells newspapers. It gets politicians elected. It justifies oppression in the eyes of the governed. It has a powerful effect on the economy.

Last Friday, a New York Times news alert popped into my inbox. “The economy unexpectedly shed 63,000 jobs in February,” the article began, “fueling fears of a recession.”

Those fears, the article continued, may convince the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates by as much as a percentage point.

Can fear be a force for good? If fear of a recession can make the Fed prevent one, can it save us from other things we’re afraid of?

Did the Industrial Revolution occur because Malthus made his doomsday prediction? Did fear of mutual assured destruction save us from nuclear winter? Did invading Iraq prevent Saddam Hussein from obtaining weapons of mass destruction?

We can never prove such counterfactuals.

It’s too bad, because if we could replay the late 18th century without Malthus, and still not starve to death, we would have some ammunition against the doomsayers. We could go back to using plastic grocery bags without fear of melting the polar ice caps.

But too much faith in progress might very well undermine its ability to prevent disasters.

Without conclusive proof one way or the other, we better keep funding alternative energy research and slashing interest rates. But while we’re at it, I wouldn’t worry too much about the world ending.

Chloe Lutts ’08 is building a global warming fallout shelter from plastic bags

S ports T uesday Page 12

M. tennis wins in doubles, falls in singles

W. tennis has sweep success

By Seth Motel Staff Writer

By Meagan Garza Spor ts Staf f Writer

Jumping on the bandwagon early, the Bears came out roaring with intensity Saturday afternoon as they took on No. 8 Michigan. But the Bears still haven’t learned to capitalize No. 8 Michigan 6 on their 1 momenBrown tum and energy, as they swept the doubles matches but dropped all six singles matches for a final tally of 6-1.

It was Alumni Day for the Brown Tennis Team, and slowly, as family, friends and former Bruno players trickled in, the Bruno support peaked midway through the doubles matches.

“There was such a great crowd up there, it was amazing to have so many people support the team,” Head Coach Jay Harris wrote in an e-mail. “They definitely aided in boosting the Bruno spirit, and I think even showed our young team a bit about what it means to be a Brown Bear.”

That energy was a much welcomed surprise to the team, as all three courts were tied at 4-4 when Luke Tedaldi ’06 walked into the Pizzitola Center screaming for Bruno pride. The tides immediately turned on all three courts as cocaptain Saurabh Kohli ’08 and Basu Ratnam ’09 at No. 1 singles won the

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Ashley Hess / Herald

Basu Ratnam ’09, who makes up the No. 1 doubles team with teammate Saurabh Koli ’08, defeated the No. 24 team in the country on Saturday. next four games, beating the No. 24 team in the country, 8-3.

The fans then all moved down the tennis courts to the No. 3 dou-

bles teaming of Chris Lee ’09 and Charlie Posner ’11. The standingcontinued on page 8

After dominating two non-conference opponents this weekend, the women’s tennis team is looking ahead to starting Ivy play later this month. Brown (7-4) cruised to West Virginia 0 victories over 7 Massachusetts Brown (4-7) and West Virginia (6-4).

1 UMass On Friday, 6 Brown Bruno wasted little time taking five of six singles points against the Minutewomen, after gaining the doubles point with two out of three doubles victories.

They won 6-1 overall.

Bianca Aboubakare ’11 showcased her game for her family on Friday by beating Massachusetts’ Masha Pozar 6-4, 6-1 at No. 1 singles. In attendance were her mother and two younger sisters, including Carissa Aboubakare ’12, who will be joining her sister on the team next year. Though Bianca Aboubakare started off slowly in the first set, she said she buckled down in the second.

“I was more aggressive mentally and physically,” she said. “I was looking to set up the point and get on top.”

Assistant Coach Cecily Dubusker noted Aboubakare’s strength in the later part of her matches.

“Bianca’s definitely a second-set player.” Dubusker said. The coach then paused and elaborated: “Bianca’s just tough to beat, just flat out.”

No. 2 Sara Mansur ’09 recorded the team’s lone loss against the Minutewomen’s Candynce Boney, 6-3, 7-5. She said the match came

down to a few close points.

“She played well at really tight points,” Mansur said of her opponent.

“I just missed some shots I shouldn’t have missed.”

Despite starting off slow in both sets, Brett Finkelstein ’09 put up a solid victory at No. 3 singles, 6-3, 6-2.

The most lopsided Bear victory of the day came from No. 4 Tanja Vucetic ’10, who won 6-1, 6-1. Once the games hit deuce, Vucetic was able to make adjustments that she might not have made earlier in the year, she said.

“I’ve gotten mentally stronger,” Vucetic explained.

Dubusker said she was impressed with Vucetic’s fifth straight win.

“Tanja’s hill to climb has been consistency, and she’s really been getting that lately,” Dubusker said.

At No. 5 singles, Marisa Schonfeld ’11 captured a 6-2, 6-2 victory, followed by Ashley Butler ’11 at No. 6, who won 7-6 (2), 6-0.

According to Massachusetts’ Web site, Brown is now 15-0 against the Minutewomen since they started playing each other in 1980.

The Bears captured their sixth victory in a row two days later against the Mountaineers, 7-0. They again won the doubles point with two out of three wins, but this time they went on to sweep the singles matches.

After winning the first set 6-1, Aboubakare started off the second set down 3-0. But she took advantage of her opponent’s aggressiveness after that to win the set 6-4.

“As I put more pressure on her, continued on page 8

M. lax goes Mile High to Rain and w. lacrosse pounds Stony Brook take down Air Force

By Andrew Braca Assistant Sports Editor

By Jason Harris Sports Editor

After an exhausting 11-8 loss at No. 19 Denver on Saturday, the men’s lacrosse team looked like 8 Brown No. 19 Denver 11 it could be in for a rough 7 weekend Air Force 13 at the PioBrown neer FaceOff Classic in the Mile High City.

But the Bears bounced back in a big way on Sunday knocking Air Force back on its heels en route to a 13-7 downing of the Falcons.

The weekend keeps Bruno’s record even at 2-2, though the two losses were by a combined four goals on the road, to two teams notorious for defending their home turf.

Bruno hung with the Pioneers throughout the first half on Sunday, despite Denver’s unique style of play.

“They play a very unconventional style. Nobody plays like that,” said Head Coach Lars Tiffany ’90.

“It’s fun and it’s exciting. It’s like in basketball when a team full-court presses all game. Three good passes and you get lay-ups or dunks.”

The Pioneers never gave Brown a chance to relax or settle down.

“They press up when you’re clearing the ball and then once you clear it, they press your attack and your middies,” said tri-captain Jeff

Hall ’08.

The style is a product of Head Coach Jamie Munro ’89 who was cocaptain of the Brown team with Tiffany in 1989. The two speak often, and Brown made the trip to Denver because of the two’s relationship.

Munro’s fast-paced style requires a certain type of player.

Tiffany said that Denver recruits a lot of Canadian players on offense, who are used to Canadian lacrosse rules where the net is smaller so shooting has to be more precise.

On defense Munro goes after “raw athletes” who he teaches “to chase and hunt you down.”

Bruno handled Denver’s aggression early on, leaving the score tied at two after one quarter.

“We dealt with the pressure, not perfectly, but did well offensively, moving the ball around in the first half,” Tiffany said.

The scoring went back and forth throughout the first half, but attack Kyle Hollingsworth ’09 put Bruno ahead going into the break with a goal with 2:48 to play off a pass from Collins Carey ’10.

“We played really well in the first half as a team,” said tri-captain Brian Sharnick ’08. “We did a good job playing our game and not playing into their hands.”

The second half was a different story, however. The relentless Pioneer pressure, as well as a numcontinued on page 8

As the rain pounded the Berylson Family Fields on Saturday afternoon, the women’s lacrosse team did the same to Stony Brook in a 15-8 drubbing that improved Bruno’s record to 2-3.

Meghan Markowski ’10 scored four of the first Stony Brook 8 five Brown 15 goals to help Brown the team to a 9-1 halftime lead. Jesse Nunn ’09 added three goals, while Alexa Caldwell ’11 and Kara Kelly ’10 scored two goals apiece. The Bears outshot the Seawolves 41-15.

Head Coach Keely McDonald ’00 acknowledged that the rain may have affected passing on both sides, but said that it didn’t affected the outcome of the game, a view Markowski echoed.

“We’re kind of used to the weather, and I’m sure Stony Brook is used to it as well, so it didn’t really affect us that much,” Markowski said.

It didn’t prevent the Bears from striking first. Markowski gave the Bears a lead they would not relinquish when her shot found the back of the net just 29 seconds into the game.

McDonald said it was vital for Brown to storm out to an early lead.

“It was awesome,” she said.

“We’ve been working on playing well from the start of the game, and they continued on page 8

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

Lauren Vitkus ’09 had team highs against Stony Brook on Saturday, with eight draw controls and seven ground balls in the Bears’ 15-8 win.