The Brown Daily Herald F riday, A pril 18, 2008
Volume CXLIII, No. 54
Since 1866, Daily Since 1891
Becker ’09 wins UCS presidency in landslide
f i r e fl i es
Tran ’10 next UFB chair, runoffs for vice chair By Chaz Kelsh Senior Staff Writer
Brian Becker ’09 won the presidency of the Undergraduate Council of Students in a landslide over Martin Bell ’10, receiving more than twice as many votes, UCS officials announced last night. “I’m very excited about my win,” Becker said. “This is just the first step to keeping the Brown that we love.” Lily Tran ’10, a Herald sales manager, was declared chair of the Undergraduate Finance Board over Jose Vasconez ’10. Becker received 703 votes, or 69 percent, to Bell’s 316 votes, or 31 percent. Tran received 509 votes, or 56 percent, while Vasconez had 392 votes, or 44 percent. No winners were declared in the race for UCS vice president because neither Ellen DaSilva ’10, a Herald account manager, nor Michael MacCombie ’11 received the required 50 percent of the vote. Runoff elections will be held on MyCourses from noon next Wednesday to 6 p.m. Thursday. The referendum to abolish class representatives passed with 85 per-
Courtesy of Brian Becker
Brian Becker ‘09 won UCS’ top spot with 69 percent of the vote. cent of the vote, or 759 “yes” votes, to 138 “no” votes, or 15 percent. The elections were held on MyCourses from 5 p.m. Tuesday to 5 p.m. yesterday. Results were announced to the candidates and a crowd of friends and supporters on the steps of Faunce House shortly before midnight last night. 1,346 total ballots were cast, though many ballots contained abstentions in some or all races, Elections Board Chair Rakim Brooks ’09 said. continued on page 4
Lauren Pischel / Herald
Artists perform as part of “A Night of Tranceformation,” held in the Starr Plaza at the Watson Institute for International Studies. The event was organized by Ivan Goodman ’08, as part of his senior honors project in the visual arts.
From the dinner table to the speedway Engineer-artists make cruising cuisine at tasty race By Alex Seitz-Wald Contributing Writer
A crowd of about 50 spectators cheered as a raw turkey impaled with corn-cob axles and rice-cracker wheels careened down the ramp, only to crash in a spectacular cloud
SPOTLIGHT
Laura Buckman / Herald
Arthur Kim ‘09 on the Violin and Pete Drinan ‘11 on the saxophone performing during Spring Weekend, when The Trolleys opened for Saturday’s acts.
A campus mainstay, Trolleys soon to leave this station By Franklin Kanin News Editor
Last Saturday, during Spring Weekend, students saw Umphrey’s McGee, M.I.A. and Girl Talk make their Brown debuts. But just before those artists played their first concerts at Brown, a homegrown band played one of its last. After winning the Spring Weekend Battle of the Bands competition last Thursday, the Trolleys got to be the opening act for the Saturday Spring Weekend concert. The band, which has been play-
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ARTS & CULTURE
ing as a group for two years, consists of four seniors — Arthur Kim ’08, Tim Drinan ’08, Stephen Cellucci ’08 and John Cockrell ’08 — and Drinan’s brother, Pete Drinan ’11. “We started playing on campus and that turned into off-campus,” Kim said. “Off-campus turned from downtown Providence to downtown Boston.” Kim had been planning to start a band when he came to Brown, he said, and when he was a sophomore, he joined with Tim Drinan, Cellucci and Cockrell to play at a
BIRDS AND BEES Couldn’t get into that sex education class? A new Brown exhibit could fill the void.
www.browndailyherald.com
continued on page 4
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CAMPUS NEWS
of improvised poultry and vegetable car parts. The turkey car competed against zucchini mobiles and bagelwheeled buggies at the Xtreme Edible Car Competition last Thursday afternoon on “Manning Speedway,” in front of Barus and Holley. The rules were simple. Teams had one hour to construct a gravitypowered car made entirely out of food that could be found in a typical grocery store. Cars also had to have at least three wheels, “so you can’t just roll a cantaloupe,” said Julie Sygiel ’09, the event’s organizer. Once assembled, vehicles were rolled down a ramp and judged on their distance traveled and their appearance. Professors of engineering judged the distance portion of the event, while Brown Dining Services Executive Chef John O’Shea lent his culinary expertise to evaluate the aesthetics of the cars. The Xtreme Special Events Committee, a group of engineers that organized last December’s Xtreme Gingerbread House Building Com-
Stand up comedy Tom Flaherty ’08 is the second-funniest guy we know — and he could go national in stand-up
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OPINIONS
Courtesy of John Abromowski
Engineering concentrator Julie Sygiel ’09 with an edible racing car. petition, sponsored the edible car race along with the Division of Engineering and the Society of Women Engineers. However, many of the competitors were not engineering concentrators. Because every car part had to edible, teams had to employ considerable ingenuity to design their cars. Heavy vegetables such as squash and eggplants were popular choices for their weight, in order to aid acceleration. For axles, peppermint sticks, carrots and pretzel rods were all prevalent, but peppermint sticks offered the best strength-to-weightratio, according to one designer. As for wheels, rice cakes were the most common choice, but other teams went for lollipops, sliced squash, bagels and Oreos. To assemble their edible parts, teams employed various sophisticated engineering techniques: sharpening carrots, applying marshmallow fluff
Air Vent Adam Cambier ‘09 vents about poor airline maintenance and getting stuck in Cleveland
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
sunny 69 / 47
and, for one team, licking a candy cane into the perfect shape. John Szymanski ’09, designer of the turkey car, brought a number of tools to aid construction including a power drill, various knives, a potato peeler and a 114-piece drill set. He said he hoped the weight of the turkey would allow their car to travel farthest. “We’re probably going to win,” Szymanski said before the competition, unaware of the morbid fate awaiting his Thanksgiving-on-wheels. For a while, his team did seem to be the favorite — other teams nudged each other and praised the impressive car under their breath. Michael Huang ’08 and his team of two engineers and one physicist went for a three-wheeled eggplantmobile and aimed for nothing short of victory. “We’re here to compete,” he said, “not to make friends.” continued on page 4
tomorrow’s weather The weather appears to be celebrating Martin Scorsese’s arrival on campus just as much as we are
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