Friday, September 12, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald F riday, S eptember 12, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 69

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

SPOTLIGHT

From the Yucatan to Providence: Doom

Courtesy of brown.edu and sbs.osu.edu

Left, the Web site of the Ohio State University’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Right, Brown.edu.

Schools take a liking to Brown’s Web site

By Debbie Lehmann Staff Writer

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. So while students may have been slow to embrace the new Brown.edu home page when it launched in August 2006, at least two schools have taken to it — or simply taken it.

Over the past two years, a

89 students show up to get involved with UCS

By Mitra Anoushiravani Senior Staff Writer

On Wednesday evening, 89 Brown students — a number that surprised Undergraduate Council of Students leaders — filed into Petteruti Lounge to become involved in student government. Because of the council’s new open membership policy, which passed a student body referendum in April, they’re in luck.

All 89 of those students can now become part of UCS as long as they attend the first meeting of the semester, or two other meetings, and collect 150 signatures.

The new membership policy could have fueled the large turnout on Wednesday, though increased political activity in this presidential election year, UCS President Brian Becker’s speech during Orientation and a larger freshman class are other factors to which students attributed the large turnout.

“I did student government in high school, and I heard Brian Becker’s speech,” said Brian Kelly ’12, who also visited the UCS table at the activities fair. “I want to be involved.”

Britta Greene ’12 said national politics drove her to want to join stucontinued on page 5

3

ARTS & CULTURE

number of designers have asked permission to use the University’s code, and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Ohio State University and the University of Alabama in Huntsville have created Web sites that look and function just like Brown’s.

Though the code for Brown’s site is copyrighted, the University views the similar designs as a

continued on page 4

his growing group of survivalists plan to be in four years — when he thinks the world will come to a volcano-erupting, tidal-wave-crashing, nuclear-reactor-melting end.

By Chaz FiresTone Features Editor

Apocalypse now Geryl is one of the world’s bestknown supporters of the increasingly popular belief that a series of catastrophic events will befall the Earth in 2012, a year supposedly pegged for doom millennia ago by the ancient Maya civilization.

“It will be the single most destructive event in the histor y of the human race,” Geryl said from his home in Antwerp, Belgium. “Everything will be gone.”

On the agenda for the destruc-

Entering college, students are told that with enough effort they’ll make it out in one piece. But the class of 2012 may not be so fortunate, at least according to Patrick Ger yl. If he’s right, the only chance this year’s freshmen have at sur vival is to chuck their colorcoded flash cards in favor of more practical measures: $10,000, survival gear and a one-way ticket to the South African Kingdom of Lesotho.

That’s where Ger yl, 53, and

continued on page 8

Dual degree students arrive on College Hill Chafee ‘75

By Joanna Wohlmuth Senior Staff Writer

As members of the Rhode Island School of Design’s class of 2012 attended their first classes on Wednesday, 13 of the freshmen were not preparing to spend their next four years at the college. In fact, they weren’t actually members of the class of 2012.

The inaugural class of the Brown-RISD dual degree program officially began their five-year ca-

reers on College Hill this week.

They are expected to receive degrees from both institutions in Spring 2013. The students will live and take classes at RISD this year in order to complete required foundational coursework and will spend next year at Brown. For the remaining three years they will be able to take classes at either school in order to complete their degrees.

Despite this structure, some of the students decided to jump-start

their Brown experience. Chihiro Hashimoto ’13 attended Brown’s Convocation ceremony but — to avoid tempting fate — did not walk through the Van Wickle Gates.

The students in the dual degree program will officially attend Convocation next year, but “I just had to sneak in and see Ruth’s speech,” Hashimoto said, referring to President Ruth Simmons’ convocation speech. continued on page 8

RED HOT CHILE PEPPERS

Kim Perley / Herald

calls Palin ‘cocky whacko’

Former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75 called Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin a “cocky whacko” Tuesday.

Chafee, a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, remained confident in his comments yesterday when talking to reporters. He called some of her decisions “wacky,” adding that he did not regret making the comment.

Chafee, who is supporting Democratic candidate Barack Obama, was addressing the New America Foundation, a Washington-based public policy institute, and made the comment during a question-and-answer session near the end of his talk.

Later, in an interview with a foundation representative, Chafee called Palin “dangerous for the future of the country.”

Gannet Tseggai, Northeast communications director for the Obama campaign, wrote in an e-mail to the Providence Journal that Chafee’s comments “do not reflect the views of Senator Obama, Senator Biden or our campaign.”

Chafee registered as an independent last year after failing to win reelection to the Senate.

The video of Chafee’s speech and the later interview is on YouTube.

Musicians perform in Grant Recital Hall Thursday night as part of a reproduction of a protest song movement that arose in the 1960s in Chile.

WEST AFRICAN DANCE New Works dance company will perform in a Malian dance festival

www.browndailyherald.com

compliment, said Director of Web Communications Scott Turner.

Turner learned about OSU’s similar Web site design last October, when the OSU webmaster sent him an e-mail asking if the site infringed upon Brown’s copyright.

“I think he wanted us to see

Bloggers, professor debate predicted apocalypse

5

CAMPUS NEWS

NO MORE WEEKEND VOMIT Facilities will clean bathrooms on weekends to fight Monday morning or post-party messes

11

OPINIONS

RETHINKING DRINKING The Wiz Kids, Ake Matlick ‘09 and Conrad Stern Ascher ‘09, explain blood alcohol content.

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

— Chaz Kelsh

12 SPORTS

Academic athletes The women’s tennis team was recognized for its on-court and academic performance

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Friday, September 12, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r TODAY

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim TOMORROW

thunderstorms 78 / 64

partly cloudy 71 / 60

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Grilled Veggie Calzone, Chicken Jumbalaya with Bacon, Roasted Herb Potatoes, Fresh Sliced Carrots

Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Baked Vegan Nuggets, Vegan Rice Pilaf, Greek Style Asparagus, Blondies

Dinner — Grilled Salmon with Minted Pea Puree, Fish Duglere, Mashed Butternut Squash, Italian Green Beans

Dinner — Italian Beef Noodle Casserole, Grilled Chicken, Mexican Cornbread Casserole, Basmati Rice Pilaf

Free Variation | Jeremy Kuhn

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

Dunkel | Joe Larios

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

© Puzzles

by Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 1, 2008

Los Angeles Times Daily oCrossword Puzzle C r o ssw rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 Maker of the old arcade game Periscope 5 User’s annoyance 9 The “a” sound in “about” 14 Mr. X 15 It’s out on a limb 16 Applesauce 17 Reaction to too much rum?

19 Jumper cable connection 20 Engagement 21 Optic layer 22 Map aid 23 Techies’ gossiping site?

25 Punctured 28 Valley denizens of fiction 29 Directly 30 “__ Believer”: 1966 hit 31 “Not so fast!”

34 __ B’rith 35 __ Park: FDR home site 38 Impossible, and hint to this puzzle’s theme 39 Fabergé favorites 40 Acquire justifiably 41 Team since 1962, familiarly 43 Like 44 Teammate of Pee Wee and Duke 45 Back in 49 Alfalfa and asparagus beans 52 Tallahassee and Tampa?

54 Korean resignee of 1960 55 Confine, with “up” 56 “Today” rival, briefly 57 Good 59 Transparent online journal?

61 Sensory stimuli 62 Station 63 Go here and there 64 General who commanded the 1945 air attacks against Japan 65 Some studios, in ads 66 Singles

DOWN 1 Declined 2 He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy the same year as Arturo 3 Big number 4 Director Lee 5 Like many a matinee idol 6 One with a trade 7 Eleanor Roosevelt’s real first name 8 Plus, across the Pyrenees 9 First name in puppetry 10 Parabola or ellipse 11 Don? 12 Bonded 13 Marine agreement 18 Sign of life 22 “The Quiet American” author 24 Fearsome Foursome lineman 25 Festival in the month of Adar 26 Slate, e.g.

27 Elevated platform

29 Loser to FDR in 1944 32 Menu item 33 Cousins of Twinkies 34 Attack from all sides 35 Mend 36 It’s a lock 37 Where all the guys in dresses hang out?

42 They may be round 46 Jungle hybrid

47 Dismiss 48 Ancestors of ballerina Maria Tallchief 50 “Star Trek” lieutenant 51 Tousled 52 Salute with spirits 53 Runs to 55 Oater sound effect 57 Balt. Sea country 58 Chemical ending 59 Coll. number 60 Dude

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Classic Deo | Daniel Perez

xwordeditor@aol.com

2/1/08

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University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

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once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to

Ross Frazier, Vice President Mandeep Gill, Treasurer Darren Ball, Secretary

By Pamela Amick Klawitter (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

2/1/08

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

A rts & C ulture Friday, September 12, 2008

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Metzgar ’86 now leads Chicago LGBTQ theater

By Alexandra Ulmer Contributing Writer

Courtesy of Jori Ketten

Brown’s Mande dancers show off their moves in Mali. More will perform in an arts festival there in December.

Dance group to perform at Malian festival

By Caroline Sedano Senior Staff Writer

This December, Brown’s Mande dance company New Works will perform in the biennial arts festival in Mali.

“It’s a great, great honor,” said Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, senior lecturer in theatre, speech and dance and creator of New Works. BachCoulibaly directs the group and has organized several trips to Mali for students with her husband, Seydou Coulibaly. Fifteen current students and three Brown graduates will appear in the biennial, perhaps the first American ensemble to take part in the 50-year-old festival.

“We are representing Brown and the United States,” she said. She described the festival as the “Olympics on a much smaller scale” where entertainers and intellectuals from all over Mali come to compete.

Bach-Coulibaly has been taking Brown students to Mali to study West African dance since 1991, but a trip this summer was the first undertaken to produce work specifically for New Works. Ten Brown students, some of them New Works members, and 13 others spent three weeks there in August developing “Bloodline” ­— a dance-and-theater production aimed at educating Malians about the dangers of malaria, which is one of the country’s most

prominent health concerns. The production included a performance work designed to demonstrate the proper use of mosquito nets.

“Our time was much more purposeful and driven by producing work and results. It was not just a time to absorb their culture,” BachCoulibaly said, explaining that the group worked with at least 15 artists every day on text, dance and music that would show “how we can use the arts to educate and provoke deliberation and involvement at a grassroots level.”

Students spent many of their days out in the field researching Malian culture with a specific emphasis on malaria prevention and education.

“I spent a lot of time talking and discussing with a myriad of different communities about their experiences, knowledge and what techniques (for malaria prevention) that are or aren’t working and why,” said Daniel Sobol ’09, who is entering his second semester as a New Works member and plans to return to Mali for the festival in December.

The group worked with several social advocacy groups and local health practitioners, including Madame Togo’s Orphanage, Save the Children and CAFO Women’s Association, as well as with Mali’s Ministry of Culture and Yeredon — a performing arts school that housed

the group during their stay.

Sobol found the pervasiveness of dance in Malian culture particularly surprising, he said. “In Mali, performance, music and dance are major ways of expression used in education and everyday life,” Sobol said.

“One day we had a dance party in the street with hundreds of people from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Walking through neighborhoods, we would see people singing and dancing,” he said. And “when we arrived, they welcomed us with singing and dancing,” he added.

Bach-Coulibaly explained that New Works strives to show how the arts, which are so valued in Mali, “are agents for social activism and change,” and that their deep roots in Malian culture make them powerful communicative tools.

“They are really honored by our attention to their culture,” Bach-Coulibaly said. “Top Malian comedians and top Malian singing stars want to be a part of what we are doing.”

“Madonna wouldn’t be sitting on our couch, but the top recording artist in Mali is,” she said.

In the months leading up to the biennial festival in December, New Works will attempt to raise an estimated $50,000 through oncampus events and letter-writing campaigns.

Courtesy of Jori Ketten

Dancers surround a student, who takes his art to the ground, in Mali.

Bonnie Metzgar ’86, former professor of literary arts and artistic director of the New Plays Festival, has become the artistic director of Chicago’s About Face Theater, which focuses on gender and sexual identity. She began her work at the theater — which she described as the highest-profile lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning theater in the country — in mid-July, and hopes to remain for five years.

After two years teaching and directing at Brown, Metzgar, an award-winning director, producer and playwright, said she left Brown to join About Face hoping to further anchor the LGBTQ community in Chicago, invigorate advocacy and spread her message beyond Illinois.

“I am all about new voices, emerging artists and social justice,” Metzgar said.

Metzgar’s interest in social justice influences both the plays she produces and the activities she par ticipates in. Metzgar, who spent the past summer in AIDS-affected Southern Africa, is producing the play, “Stupid Kids,” written by John Russell MFA’91, a playwright who died of AIDS in 1994, this winter for About Face. Metzgar was in the region with the Yale study abroad program Arts and Public Health in Action.

Metzgar says she dreams of an international exchange in the years to come between members of her theater and the region’s AIDS-affected population. “Both communities are struggling with HIV. Our members could learn

alongside their peers in Southern Africa.”

Cara Mones ’11, who took part in the six-week program, said Metzgar had “incredible awareness of issues around the world. ... She was like the wise sage.”

Metzgar said her relationship with Brown will never end.

“The newest, freshest ideas come from the Brown Literar y Ar ts program.”

Metzgar continues her relationship with Brown away from College Hill. She plans to direct “What We Once Felt,” a futuristic play written by MFA candidate Ann Marie Healy GS. First shown at the New Plays Festival at Brown, Healy’s play will premiere to a wider audience this spring under Metzgar’s direction.

Metzgar “would love to come back (to Brown) any time,” she said. Her return would likely be welcomed by her former students and colleagues.

Professor of Literary Arts Forrest Gander, interim director of the program, said Metzgar was “really terrific,” citing her impressive resume at Brown, including her role as the artistic director of the New Plays Festival. The festival will continue this year, though the department is still in the process of finding an artistic director to replace Metzgar, Gander said.

Adam Lubitz ’09, who took Advanced Playwriting with Metzgar, wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that “Bonnie certainly impacted me as a playwright and theatre artist in a major way.”

“She was always challenging the class to find more and more within their characters, plot and writing styles,” he added.

Page 4

Friday, September 12, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ticky wicket

Kim Perley / Herald

The Main Green was home to a small game of cricket yesterday afternoon.

Ohio State and Alabama mimicking U.’s home page continued from page 1 it and say, ‘Yo, somebody’s stolen our code,’” Turner said.

Turner asked the OSU webmaster to “find out more about how that came about,” but he never heard back, and the University never followed up, Turner said.

“I don’t know if the code they used was stolen. They wanted to imitate us, and that’s their business,” Turner said. “We’re flattered.”

In responses to inquiries about its home page design, the University has notified Web site developers of the copyright on Brown’s code. But the University has also directed them to two open source libraries Brown drew on heavily in developing its code, encouraging site developers to employ the same public resources in efforts to “duplicate” the site, Turner said.

Liz Alcalde, coordinator of public relations for the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at OSU, said she loved the “really clean application” of Brown’s Web site and looked at the site for inspiration when developing OSU’s.

She said she particularly liked the image-rich design, which allows easy access to information even “for somebody with the attention span of a fruit fly.” The site was launched about a year ago,

she said.

Alcalde said she knew of no licensing or copyright issues with the designs of the site, and she added that there are some “pretty significant differences in design.”

Despite those differences, the similarities among the three sites have raised questions in the blogosphere. Eric Stoller, who blogs about higher education and technology, posted last month about the OSU site. Stoller wrote that the cascading style sheet for the OSU site contains the phrase “Why did Pentagram design this at such small width?”

“Why is a comment about Pentagram Inc. (the company that worked with Brown to create the homepage) in the CSS file for the OSU Web site?” Stoller blogged.

“Because the OSU site ‘borrowed’ the BU code. Verbatim!”

University officials said they do not have evidence the code was stolen and did not express any intention to pursue the issue further.

A Pentagram representative did not respond to multiple calls from The Herald.

Brown’s Web site isn’t the only one with imitators. Earlier this month, bloggers noted the similarities between Cornell’s homepage and the Web site for China’s Jinan University.

Thanks for reading.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Ne

ws

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

i n

B

Becker ’09 looks to shorten UCS meetings

r i e f

continued from page 1 dent government. “I watched the Obama speech at the Democratic National Convention, and I decided that I wanted to make change and know what is going on.”

Vice President Michael MacCombie ’11 said that though UCS did not table slip in dining halls or put up posters, Becker did send out campus-wide e-mails and make “a few UCS plugs” when he addressed first-years in his speech.

The speech largely Sarah Rutherford ’12 to Wednesday’s meeting. “I heard about (UCS) first in the welcome speech when the new membership policy was first introduced to us.” She added that she wanted to join the governing body to “see what’s under the surface.”

The new policy is the result of a UCS task force that recommended last spring that the body change how it fills its representative slots.

“It didn’t make sense to turn enthusiastic people away,” UCS Communications Chair Clay Wertheimer ’10 said. He added that he hoped that new members would make an effort to discuss their ideas and hopes for UCS with the people they are asking

Bart Dessaint / Herald

Come this weekend, this bathroom will be looking much cleaner.

Following spring pilot testing, bathroom cleaning to return this weekend By popular demand, Facilities Management’s weekend bathroom cleaning program will return for a second year, though students haven’t enjoyed the benefits just yet. The weekend cleanings will resume starting Sept. 13, said Claudette Santos, a Custodial Services supervisor.

Most residence halls will be cleaned under the program, which took effect for the first time last fall. The program was initiated in response to students’ and maintenance workers’ complaints about the often stomach-churning conditions in many residence hall bathrooms following students’ Friday and Saturday night festivities.

Cleaning will take place on Sunday mornings in Hope College, Wriston, Gregorian and Keeney quadrangles and Slater, Littlefield, Perkins, Hegeman, Caswell, Metcalf and Andrews halls.

Workers will remove trash, wash the sink and toilet area, provide toilet paper, sweep the floor and clean up any vomit, Santos said.

But because Facilities Management has reduced staffing on the weekends, they will not foam floors, as they would on weekdays.

The weekend cleaning will still “make the bathroom look presentable and disinfect it,” Santos said.

The weekend custodians are regular full-time employees who usually work in the residence halls and who requested the extra shift, which pays overtime, Santos said. About 30 Facilities employees work in the residence halls during the week, and 11 also work on the weekends.

Facilities Management decided to begin weekend cleaning last year, following test runs on Parents Weekend and Spring Weekend the previous year. The new program went “really well,” Santos said.

“When we came back on Monday, we didn’t have a total mess.”

Students said they were pleased with weekend bathroom cleaning as well. Sarah Schoenfeldt ’11 said she appreciated the program last year when she lived in Keeney Quadrangle and is happy it will continue. Bathrooms “almost need more cleaning on weekends” than during the week, she added.

—Sara Sunshine

for signatures.

The purpose of the open membership policy is to allow increased student input and transparency, Becker said. “The whole point of revamping our membership policy was to include more people in the process and to have more student input and to have as many people who are interested in making Brown better be part of the dialogue and be part of the process.”

Though UCS did expect increased student interest from previous years, Becker said after Wednesday’s meeting that UCS would need to adjust to the unexpectedly large turnout.

Student Activities Chair Ryan Lester ’11 said he welcomed the turnout. “I think we’ll easily be able to handle it. It’s just going to take a restructuring of our order and a lot of work on our part, which we’re more than happy to do.”

MacCombie said he would just get “a lot more chairs. I don’t see it being a huge problem. I’m prepared for having 60, 70 people come back.”

“I am fully confident in our ability to manage and to run at any size,” he added. “If we have a larger council that just means we’ll be able to give

more autonomy to each of the committees.”

One of Becker’s main goals for the year, as outlined at the meeting, is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of UCS by getting the bulk of the debate and logistical work of UCS done in the smaller subcommittees. “We’ll be able to do more in terms of actually effecting change on campus,” Becker said.

Becker hopes to turn the usually lengthy general body meetings on Wednesdays into shorter 90-minute sessions.

“I envision Wednesdays as a place for the community of Brown to gather to discuss any problems that they are experiencing,” Becker said.

Along with UCS’ goal of increased transparency, Becker is also interested in increasing cooperation and communication between UCS and the Undergraduate Finance Board, which is in charge of distributing funds to student groups. In addition to Lester, who serves on both UCS and UFB, another member of UCS will be selected as an official liaison between UFB and UCS to try bringing the branches together, which UFB brought up at its Thursday meeting.

Plant fires Muslims seeking time to pray

By Nicholas Riccardi Los Angeles T imes

GREELEY, Colo. — A meatpacking company Wednesday laid off about 100 Muslim immigrant workers who walked off the job last week in protest of the firm’s refusal to give them time to pray during the monthlong holiday of Ramadan.

When the holiday began Sept. 1, workers said supervisors informally gave them time to break their mandatory daylong fast at sundown. But non-Muslim employees protested, and on Friday, JBS Swift & Co. officials refused to give workers the time needed to pray and eat.

About 400 workers left the company’s meatpacking plant, which dominates this city of 90,000. By Tuesday, 250 had not returned and Swift warned that those who didn’t come back faced immediate termination.

“This action is a direct violation of our collective bargaining agreement,” Swift said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon.

Greeley police were called as angry workers who had arrived for the 3:15 p.m. shift were given their notices of termination.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents workers at the meatpacking plant, said it would fight the firings.

“The workers weren’t given enough notice to get back to their jobs,” said union spokesman Manny Gonzales. “We don’t feel this was a terminable offense to begin with.”

The Muslim workers, mainly Somali immigrants, have recently flocked to the plant, replacing many of the 262 workers, mostly Latinos, who were detained as illegal immigrants following a federal raid in late 2006.

Many of the Muslim employees who walked off their jobs last week have only been in Greeley a few months.

One of them, 35-year-old Iman Ibrahim, left Boston for Greeley this summer because a friend told him about jobs at the meatpacking plant.

Ibrahim said Swift supervisors had shut off water fountains on Friday evening to prevent Muslim workers from having their traditional drink to break the fast, and in one case grabbed an employee by the neck, yanking him from his prayers.

“If I’d known there was a problem with prayer, I would have never come here,” Ibrahim said.

Nonetheless, Ibrahim had returned to work by Wednesday and said supervisors were informally giving time for the requisite sundown prayer. “I like working,” he said. “We like to live in this country. We didn’t come to cause trouble.”

Some other Swift workers, however, were angered by the Muslims’ requests for extra prayer time. “Somalis are running our plant,” worker Brianna Castillo told the Greeley Tribune. “They are telling us what to do.”

In its statement, Swift officials said the company “is grateful to employ a multicultural workforce and works closely with all employees and their union representation to accommodate religious practices in a reasonable, safe, and fair manner to all involved.”

Union officials argue that the contract allows for the extra break time.

“Many companies pay for timeand-a half for working Christian holidays,” Gonzales said. “It’s a different time now, and we should respect different people’s values.”

Herald info session Sunday, 8:30 p.m.

195 Angell St.

Page 6

Friday, September 12, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Drug makers seek federal shield from suits

By David G. Savage Los Angeles T imes

Herald info session Sunday, 8:30 p.m.

195 Angell St.

Be there.

WASHINGTON -- Earlier this year, the Supreme Court reinterpreted a 32-year-old federal law as barring suits against makers of governmentapproved medical devices. Now, in a case to be heard this fall, the court will consider whether to extend this shield against lawsuits to the makers of prescription medicines and over-the-counter drugs. If so, it could make for a far-reaching change in the law, one brought about with little public debate.

Having failed to persuade Congress or the states to limit such suits, the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical industry went to court, and now they stand on the verge of shutting down tens of thousands of lawsuits that have cost the industry billions of dollars in jury verdicts and settlements.

“This is a radical restructuring of the American civil justice system,” said Georgetown law professor David C. Vladeck, formerly of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. Until recently, the right to a civil jury trial has been a historic protection for consumers. People hurt by a defective product could sue and ask a jury to award them damages. But the Supreme Court has been increasingly skeptical of lawsuits and civil juries. A series of recent rulings has limited lawsuits against businesses, but the biggest test will come before the court on the day before the presidential election.

The new case before the court concerns a 62-year-old musician from Vermont whose right arm

was amputated after an anti-nausea drug was improperly injected into an arter y and caused gangrene.

She sued the drug maker and was awarded $6.7 million by a Vermont jury. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the drug maker’s appeal that the woman’s suit, and others like it, should be thrown out.

Manufacturers have long chafed at this right to sue and the resulting big jury verdicts. Before this decade, the FDA had maintained that regulatory laws passed by Congress did not bar such lawsuits. Under the Bush administration, the FDA changed course and said that its federal oversight of drugs and medical devices barred most lawsuits concerning those products.

On Nov. 3, the court will hear the case of Wyeth vs. Levine to decide whether to block suits against drug makers. “I never thought I would sue anybody,” said Diana Levine, the Vermont musician who has migraine headaches. Her case involves a rare but previously reported complication of Phenergan, a drug made by Wyeth. She had gone to a local clinic suffering from a severe headache.

She was given Demerol to relieve the pain and the second drug to prevent vomiting and nausea. The warning label for Phenergan urges extreme caution when administering the drug via injection so as to avoid striking an artery. The use of an intravenous drip would have posed no danger, medical experts say, but instead the physician’s assistant injected the drug into Levine’s arm and, apparently, struck an artery.

Within days, Levine was in a hospital with gangrene. Surgeons removed her hand and then the

lower part of her right arm. Levine, a widow, thought she had lost her livelihood along with her arm, and she faced huge medical bills. She settled a case with the clinic and the physician’s assistant and then sued Wyeth, asserting that the drug maker should have warned against injecting Phenergan under any circumstances. “A jury in Montpelier, Vt., heard the evidence during a weeklong trial and awarded Levine $6.7 million in damages. “It was so reassuring to think, `My God, our system of justice really works,’ “ Levine said.

But earlier this year, about the same time it shielded Medtronic and other makers of medical devices, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Wyeth’s appeal.

A broad collection of business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the pharmaceutical industry, joined with the U.S. solicitor general, representing the FDA, on Wyeth’s side. They argue that the FDA had approved the warning label for Phenergan and that a Vermont jury did not have the authority or expertise to decide whether a stronger warning was needed.

In response, consumer rights advocates say lawsuits can compensate patients for injuries as well as alert the public to dangers the FDA might have overlooked.

“If I drive my car and the brakes fail and I hit someone, I’m liable for the damage I caused,” said law professor Vladeck. “Why should companies have an immunity from liability that ordinary citizens don’t have? And that’s what they are asking for.”

W orld & n ation Friday, September 12, 2008

American Airlines to consider blocking porn sites in the skies

By Jim Puzzanghera Los Angeles T imes

American Airlines flight attendants are worried about something special in the air: passengers surfing porn Web sites.

As the airline adds on-board Internet service, some travelers might be tempted to visit seedy alleyways off the information superhighway.

So the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents 19,000 American Airlines flight attendants, has talked with management about installing filtering software to keep inappropriate Web content grounded, union spokesman David Roscow said Wednesday.

“Some passengers and some of the flight attendants have had some concerns about them going to inappropriate sites like porn sites,” he said, although he was unaware of any actual incidents.

American is one of several airlines experimenting with Internet service. While some, such as Jet-

Blue, are using filtering software, others, including American, are leaving it up to flight attendants to monitor. American spokesman Tim Smith explained the company’s decision this way in an e-mail: “Our policy is to provide Wi-Fi capabilities the way customers are most familiar using (them) at home, office, coffee shops and on the road -- with unfiltered connections that allow customers to get what they need, when they need it. While it does provide a new access point for information and content, customers viewing inappropriate material on board a flight is not a new scenario for our crews who have always managed this issue with great success.”

Smith noted that American’s service, which began Aug. 20, is in a trial period of up to six months.

So just like items in the overhead bins, details of the program may shift after takeoff.

At the end of the period, American plans to evaluate feedback, including the number of incidents.

FBI gives agents more power to chase leads

By Carrie Johnson Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will unveil changes to FBI ground rules Friday that would put much more power into the hands of line agents pursuing leads on national security, foreign intelligence and even ordinary criminal cases.

The overhaul, the most substantial revision to FBI operating instructions in years, also would ease some reporting requirements between agents, their supervisors and federal prosecutors in what authorities call a critical effort to improve information gathering and detect terrorist threats.

The changes would give the FBI’s more than 12,000 agents the ability at a much earlier stage to conduct physical surveillance, solicit informants and interview friends of people they are investigating without the approval of a bureau supervisor. Such techniques are currently available only after FBI agents have opened an investigation and developed a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed or that a threat to national security is developing.

Authorities say the changes would eliminate confusion for agents who investigate drug or gang cases, as well as national security offenses.

The overhaul touches on several sensitive areas. It would allow, for example, agents to interview people in the United States about foreign intelligence cases without warrants or prior approval of their supervisors.

It also would rewrite 1976 guidelines established after Nixon-era abuses that restrict the FBI’s authority to intervene in times of civil disorder and to infiltrate opposition groups.

“We wanted simpler, clearer and more uniform standards and procedures for domestic operations,” said a senior Justice Department official.

“We view this as the next step in responding to post-9/11 requests that the FBI become better at collecting

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intelligence.”

The move comes a year after the Justice Department’s inspector general documented widespread lapses involving one of the bureau’s most potent investigative tools, secret “national security letters” that FBI agents send to banks and phone companies to demand sensitive information in terrorism probes.

The revisions are the latest in a series of efforts to tear down a wall that, prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, prevented intelligence investigators from sharing some information with their counterparts working on criminal cases. Senior Justice Department and FBI lawyers who discussed the proposal Thursday said such powers are necessary to continue the transformation of the FBI into a proactive organization that can prevent terrorist strikes, as recommended by several independent commissions that addressed intelligence failures after the attacks.

The rule revisions require the approval of Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who has signaled that they will take effect Oct. 1. FBI agents already are being trained on the changes, though officials said yesterday that they would consider making adjustments after receiving suggestions from interest groups and lawmakers.

Congressional aides examined the draft guidelines behind closed doors last month and FBI and Justice Department lawyers will present them Friday to an array of civil liberties and privacy advocates, as well as Arab American groups that have expressed concerns about their impact on religious and ethnic minorities.

The groups say they fear that agents will use ethnicity or religion as the basis for a threat assessment.

But top Justice Department leaders, including the attorney general, noted the illegality of racial profiling and said investigations will not be opened continued on page 9

Texans brace for strengthened hurricane

By David Zucchino Los Angeles T imes

WHARTON, Texas — With Hurricane Ike gathering strength over the warm Gulf of Mexico waters Wednesday, authorities ordered mandatory evacuations in four lowlying counties along the Texas coast as frail and elderly residents were bused to safety inland.

Ike barreled across the Gulf past Cuba, strengthening into a Category 2 hurricane with maximum winds near 100 mph. Forecasters predicted that the storm would become a Category 3 -- possibly a Category 4 -- before making landfall somewhere between Corpus Christi and Houston early Saturday.

A Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale packs winds of up to 131 mph and storm surges 13 feet to 18 feet above normal.

The state’s coastal areas are home to the nation’s largest collection of refineries and chemical plants. Texas has a quarter of the nation’s refining capacity, with most of the facilities in the hurricane’s predicted target “cone.”

As highways began to swell with traffic heading inland Wednesday and people jammed stores to stock up on supplies, state officials prepared 1,350 buses to ferry people

out of harm’s way. More than 1 million people live along the coast between Corpus Christi and Houston, which has a population of about 4 million.

To accommodate those fleeing, state troopers opened the shoulder of the northbound lanes of Interstate 37 between Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

Along interstates in Houston and its suburbs, overhead electronic signs read: “HURRICANE FORMING IN GULF — FILL YOUR GAS TANKS.” Oil companies removed workers from more than 400 production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, although most such facilities were made even stronger after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“It is imperative that residents pay attention to this storm, heed warnings from their local leaders and take the steps necessary to protect their families, homes and businesses,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry said.

Michael Peterson, who lives outside Houston, was at a Lowe’s store southwest of the city, loading his shopping cart with gasoline cans, bottled water, batteries and a battery-operated lantern.

“Just playing it safe,” Peterson said at the checkout counter. “I don’t know if I’m staying or leav-

ing, but at least I know I’ll be prepared.”

The store was handing out hurricane preparedness guides, complete with a paper map of the Gulf of Mexico and Texas for customers to chart Ike’s course. Stacked at the front entrance were gas cans, bottled water, batteries, duct tape and plastic sheeting.

The governor has issued a disaster declaration for 88 counties in southeastern Texas ahead of the storm. In addition to the four coastal counties under a mandatory evacuation order, residents of the low-lying west end of Galveston Island, southeast of Houston, were told they had to leave.

Authorities were concerned that, depending on where Ike strikes, storm surges could flood parts of Houston with waters from Galveston Bay. There were similar concerns in Matagorda Bay, about halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi.

Ike already has battered Haiti and Cuba, toppling buildings in Havana and forcing an estimated 2.5 million people to flee. The hurricane is targeting Texas less than two months after Hurricane Dolly, a Category 2 storm, caused $1.2 billion in damage along the far southern Texas coast after making landfall in Mexico.

Iraqi gov’t, U.S.-backed forces strained

By Saif Rasheed and Tina Susman Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD — A meeting aimed at sowing faith between Iraq’s government and leaders of U.S.-funded paramilitary forces Thursday instead highlighted distrust between the sides, three weeks before Iraq takes control of the armed groups.

Leaders of the so-called Sons of Iraq disputed Iraqi plans to absorb only 20 percent of the fighters into the Iraqi military and police, and they expressed doubts that their members will be protected when the U.S. military turns over responsibility for the units to Iraqi officials.

The hand-over of the Sons of Iraq to the Shiite-led government is to begin Oct. 1, and Thursday’s gathering was held to iron out differences in the run-up. There were few signs of compromise, however, underscoring concerns that the

program credited with bringing down violence nationwide could splinter if the transition does not go smoothly.

“The matter of transferring and ending the Sons of Iraqi program is big and not an easy one. It can’t be solved in one meeting or session,” said Mohammed Salman, the head of a reconciliation committee established by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to oversee the transition.

“But we should have mutual trust and goodwill.”

But the government has made clear it has little trust in many of the Sons of Iraqi fighters, or in the numbers of them provided by the U.S. military. In Baghdad alone, the United States says there are 54,000 Sons of Iraq, each receiving $300 a month. It puts the total nationwide at roughly 100,000.

The Iraqi government has said it suspects the U.S. military number is far too high, and an order signed

by al-Maliki this month requires Sons of Iraq to submit paperwork to Iraqi security forces in their areas of operation so their identities can be checked against U.S. records.

Only then will they be paid.

“We want to protect the program from being infiltrated,” explained Iraqi army Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar.

The government has given Sons of Iraqi fighters until the end of September to handle the paperwork and report to their area security force stations.

The plan worries many Sons of Iraq leaders, who say al-Maliki’s government has begun a campaign of arrest and intimidation against them. U.S. officials, who embraced the program last year as a way to turn around the Sunni insurgency, now say the Iraqi government has the right to arrest fighters it suspects of crimes. continued on page 9

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Prof. fights rumors of the end of the world, while others prepare continued from page 1 tion of the world is a massive increase in heat from the sun, a change in the spin of the Earth and the eruption of volcanoes everywhere, the biggest of which will burst out from beneath Yellowstone National Park’s famous geyser, Old Faithful. Geryl said the only livable place on Earth will be Africa, since it is the only continent without a nuclear reactor.

Inspired by this “ancient calculation,” Geryl left his oil company job two years ago after having saved enough money to pay for six years of food, 72 months of bills and an 11-page manifest of survival items.

The now famous “survival list,” which has made its way around online discussion boards and blogs, covers everything an intrepid survivalist will need, with a few extra amenities: food, shelter, transportation, clothing, paragliders, wooden abacuses, catapults and rechargeable batteries.

“We’re going to build bunkers, bomb shelters with two meters of ground overtop of them,” Geryl said.

“We’ll need to rebuild all of civilization after the catastrophe.”

These concerns, which now attract millions of believers and Google hits, can be traced back to ancient stone inscriptions found in a few ruined Mesoamerican cities. The Maya are known for their cyclical understanding of time, and believers in these “prophecies” say that when the current millennium-long cycle comes to an end in 2012, the result will be similar to the last time the cycle ended: destruction.

‘Ritual renovation’ While more people fret over the coming apocalypse, at least one man hopes talk of the 2012 theory will end long before the world does.

Professor of Anthropology Ste-

phen Houston is one of the world’s leading experts on Mayan civilization, with a specialty in deciphering Mayan texts. The author of numerous books on the Maya, Houston has recently appeared in the popular media opposite Geryl and other doomsayers, defending a less sensational interpretation of the prophecy — if it can be called a prophecy at all.

“Most of it is based on spurious information and a pretty shoddy understanding of the material,” Houston said. “There are a variety of readings of highly esoteric information.”

Houston said it may be the case that a Mayan cycle will end in 2012, but that the end is neither significant nor relevant. The Maya kept track of thousands of cycles, he said, so it’s important not to key in on one and ignore the others.

“It’s kind of like a clock. There’s a cog that turns on the second, another cog on the minute and another cog on the hour,” he said. “Imagine such a complicated clock that it would contain thousands of these cycles, and that’s the way to understand Maya time.”

Houston said the end of a Mayan cycle is no more an “end” than the end of a modern month or decade — it just starts up again afterwards.

But what has Geryl and others worried is what the Mayan writings describe the last time this cycle ended — collapsing buildings and devastating infernos — and what that could mean this time around.

Houston, again, was skeptical. He said the writings describe a “ritual renovation,” which can sound frightening if misinterpreted but is actually quite harmless.

“To be honest, it’s not terribly apocalyptic,” he said. “It’s about the changing of hearths and the kindling of fires — a household

metaphor writ large.”

In addition to being quoted in stories for ABC News and other media outlets, Houston said he has been approached by PBS and the History Channel to appear in documentaries and special episodes about the phenomenon, a prospect he welcomes, if cynically.

“I’m always happy to inform people who are genuinely interested,” he said, “but this isn’t really about the Maya evidence. It’s about obsession.”

Doom for sale Despite the efforts of people like Houston, 2012 fever continues to spread all over the Internet and into popular books. And whether or not Houston is right, 2012 is increasingly becoming about money.

Dennis McClung, 28, recently left his job and home to devote all of his time and resources to 2012supplies. com, an online business he runs with his wife. The Web site sells “everything you need to survive 2012,” including portable generators, gas masks and even a full-body “nuclear biological chemical public safety suit” for $495.

McClung, who had previously worked at Home Depot for over a decade, said the first thing that came to mind when he heard about 2012 was how much his employer had profited just over a decade earlier.

“Back in ’99, when everyone was scared of Y2K, I remember Home Depot selling out of power generators,” he said. “There wasn’t really one place to go for everything you needed if you wanted to survive.”

McClung said his best-selling products are water-purifying tablets, emergency medical supplies and ready-to-eat meals, “which is a bit surprising since it’s four years away,” he said.

The young entrepreneur recent-

ly moved from Scotsdale, Ariz., to Zanesville, Ohio, with his wife and two children. He said they plan to purchase a small house and build a bomb shelter, relying on his Web site for income.

McClung said he doesn’t know what will happen in 2012 but that he’d like to be prepared for anything.

“There are so many theories. I’m not a firm believer in any one,” he said. “But I want to be completely independent, self-reliant, off the grid.

Just building a structure is already a giant leap over what everyone else will be doing.”

Understanding Armageddon Houston said he does not expect to convince many 2012’ers that they have nothing to fear — not that he’d necessarily want to. Asked if he might defend Mayan anthropology the same way Professor of Biology Ken Miller has defended the theory of evolution, Houston said the comparison was unfair — “what Ken Miller does is important.”

Instead, Houston said that what interests him more than weeding out bad scholarship is understanding why people are so captivated by grand and disastrous predictions of world destruction.

“It’s one of those classic millenarian movements that recur throughout human history,” he said, citing the Y2K obsession and even the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee as modern examples.

“Why do humans think this way?”

According to Professor of Psychology Joachim Krueger, the answer lies in an obsession with salvation.

“It’s not that they like the idea of their own death,” he said. “It’s more like a crude form of self-enhancement. ‘We have been chosen, we’re going to have eternal bliss.’”

Krueger called evangelical Christianity’s “rhetoric” on Armageddon or rapture key examples of this way of thinking, which is also linked to a desire to be exceptional.

“They think they have this special insight and special predictions that no one knows about,” he said. “The world’s going to end, but there’s always this ‘out’ for yourself, that you know how to be saved and you know where to go.”

Krueger agreed with Houston that many of those already hooked by the 2012 predictions are unlikely to be swayed, even if presented with extraordinary evidence to the contrary. He cited a famous example in the psychological literature of a 1950s alien-worshipping cult that predicted the destruction of the world at the hands of extraterrestrials.

“When the date came and nothing happened, some people got the message and went home,” Krueger said. “But others only had their beliefs reinforced. They believed the aliens witnessed their incredible faith and spared the world.”

Houston also pointed out that bold predictions of apocalypse might be symptoms of desperation in a world that is “quite scary,” which he said should make the 2012 theory even more popular.

“There is so much uncertainty in this world with wars, jobs, a tanking economy,” he said. “I can only see these people getting more interested in this.”

Geryl is no stranger to opinions like Houston’s and Krueger’s. He said he’s used to being called crazy, but over time he has learned to brush it off. As much as he’d like to spread his message to as many people as possible, the Kingdom of Lesotho is only so big. “Anyway,” he said, “it is impossible to save everyone.”

Students must balance Brown-RISD life continued from page 1

www.browndailyherald.com

This year, the students took part in RISD’s freshman orientation, which started last Saturday, and were invited to a dual degree program specific-orientation on Tuesday.

“It was mostly an introduction to Brown’s resources,” Beth Soucy ’13 said. She and some of her classmates also attended the activities fair last week, though she acknowledged that it would be difficult to be involved in student groups at Brown given RISD’s demanding class schedule.

At the meeting, students were also asked to speak about why they had decided to join the program. “It was clear that the people they had selected were going to be a great class together and that everyone was there for different reasons but they were all the right reasons,” said Myken Bomberger ’13, a dual degree student.

Students were also informally invited to some of Brown’s Orientation activities. “It’s a goal to have the students feel a part of the Brown community during their first year,” said Brown Professor of Visual Arts Richard Fishman, who will be advising two of the dual degree students and is a member of the program’s oversight committee.

Since they were allowed to move in early — on Sept. 1 — many of the students in the program were able to bond before the rest of the RISD

student body arrived on campus, but that didn’t keep them from meeting their non-program classmates.

“Some of us will stick together, some of us will not; there’s no dependency,” Soucy said. “We all have friends across the board at RISD but we all get along and have fun together.”

Quite a few of the inaugural class of the Brown-RISD dual degree program will also be taking advantage of Brown’s First Year Seminars this year. In addition to foundational studio courses, RISD requires freshman to take English and art history classes. But some students are able to waive these requirements through Advanced Placement test scores.

“I really wanted to take a Brown course,” said Hashimoto, who will be taking ENGL 0250F: “Shakespeare’s Present Tense” in the spring. “Brown was my absolute first-choice school and I’m psyched to be a part of the community.”

Soucy will be juggling foundational classes at RISD as well as SOC 0300B: “Environment and Society” this semester. Though she is concerned about the challenges of balancing classes and social lives at both schools, she feels optimistic.

Soucy will not have to face those challenges alone. She and the other students in the program will have a support base to help guide them throughout their time at Brown, including faculty advisers at both schools and Meiklejohn advisers that are also in the process of completing degrees at both schools.

“I think (the Meiklejohns) will

be very useful at giving guidance about managing our time,” Soucy said. “Everyone in the program is capable but it’s very intimidating.”

Alice Costas ’10, one of the three Meiklejohns that will work with the first-years in the dual degree program, matriculated at RISD in 2005.

After spending a lot of time “negotiating bureaucracy,” she was able to enroll at Brown as a transfer student in 2007 and has continued working toward degrees at both schools.

“I think that my advising position with them is in a lot of ways like a typical Meiklejohn,” Costas said. “But we will have the added requirement of making sure that they complete their degree requirements.”

Class schedules will not be the only thing the students will have to manage. “It’s a balancing act both academically and socially,” Soucy said. “It’s just a matter of being able to trek up College Hill and stay in touch with friends no matter where you’re living.”

Still, to Gamaal Wilson ’06.5, who pioneered the unofficial dual degree program when he received an A.B. from Brown and a B.F.A. from RISD in the fall of 2006, the biggest asset of the formal program may be the opportunity to experience it with peers.

“I went through it alone and people didn’t know if it would be done,” Wilson said. “They have each other and that’s a benefit and I think as time goes on they will realize how great that is.”

Friday, September 12, 2008

Davis ’10: When it comes to playoffs, try these tips continued from page 12 suggestions. One solution would be to make each of the four playoff tournaments worth considerably more points than the last, such that each subsequent week builds in pressure, weight and drama. Another idea would be to eliminate players after each playoff event (as they do now) until only eight or so players make the field at the final event. Then, the winner of that event would be the overall winner, making it a true sudden death playoff system.

Key to both of these suggestions is that, especially in the latter, the overall title will never be decided before the final round of the final tournament, which is exactly the

type of drama the PGA is looking for.

Ultimately the PGA has to decide which path to take– it can adopt a true playoff system and really add some drama, or it can just award the FedEx Cup to the player who has the best year overall, thus accepting that golf is not a sport conducive to a playoff system.

As Jim Mora famously said, “Don’t talk about the playoffs! Are you kidding me? Playoffs!?” Well, actually Jim, when it comes to golf, we aren’t really talking about playoffs at all. Not yet at least.

Patrick Davis ‘10 wants to see Terrell Owens fight Bob Barker at a FedEx Cup Event.

New FBI rules give more authority to line agents continued from page 7 based “solely” or “simply” on a person’s race or religion.

Previous changes to FBI operating instructions, made by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002 and 2003, did not receive a public airing before they took effect. Still, civil liberties advocates are asking whether protections built into the new ground rules will be strong enough.

“It is an extraordinarily broad grant of power to an agency that has not proven it uses its power in an appropriate manner,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent and policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The revised rules largely eliminate the requirement that FBI agents file reports to their supervisors on early-stage investigations, in favor of audits at bureau field offices by lawyers in the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Threat assessments and earlystage investigations that cover political, religious or media figures and full-scale investigations of people in the United States, however, are special cases that must be flagged for bureau supervisors and lawyers, ac-

cording to the proposed changes.

Monitoring conversations between informants who wear recording devices and subjects of investigations, which now requires the permission of an assistant U.S. attorney, could occur without a prosecutor’s approval, except in sensitive cases involving state and federal officials and judges.

One of the areas still under discussion, according to a senior Justice Department official, is the standard for FBI involvement in responding to civil disorder.

Under the current standards, FBI involvement requires the approval of the attorney general and can last for only 30 days.

The new approach would relax some of those requirements and would expand the investigative techniques that agents could use to include surveillance and deploying informants. FBI agents monitoring large-scale demonstrations that they believe could turn dangerous also would have new power to use those techniques.

Policy guidance for FBI agents who work as “undisclosed participants” in organizations is still being written, the officials said Thursday.

Strife among Iraqi fighters is difficult to ameliorate continued from page 7 “They have absolutely gone after some (of them),” said a senior U.S. official, referring to the groups by their common Iraqi name, Sawhas.

The official said despite Sawha leaders’ assertions that they should be forgiven for their pasts in exchange for ushering in stability, some might have committed acts that warrant arrest.

“I’ve seen at least some stories of some Sawha leaders who have stopped shooting at us and who have stopped shooting at Iraqi police but have thrown a few people off buildings. So should the police arrest them?” the official said. “Maybe they should.”

A Sons of Iraq commander in Diyala province, who gave his name as Sabah, said he feared false arrest warrants awaited fighters who reported to Iraqi security forces to register and get paid. Sabah said 38

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had been arrested recently in his area, opening the door to a return of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The Sons of Iraq, which began in Anbar province more than a year ago by Sunni sheiks who had turned against the insurgency, are credited with undercutting al-Qaida in Iraq in its former strongholds, which include Diyala.

In response, the terrorist group has targeted Sons of Iraq, and at least 462 of them have been killed.

Several Sons of Iraq representatives also objected to the Iraqi plan, on the table for months, to take just 20 percent of the fighters into the pay of the military or police in a nation with high unemployment. “We wanted at least 30 percent,” said Qais Shather Jabouri, representing Sons of Iraq from an area south of Baghdad.

Salman said this was non-negotiable. “The decision is already made,” he told the meeting.

Sept. 11 memorial opens at Pentagon

By Cynthia Dizikes Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, Tom Heidenberger led a team of amateur cyclists 3,800 miles, from Los Angeles to Washington, to raise money for memorials honoring the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Biking 180-mile days, through the blistering desert heat and the thin mountain air, he often considered giving up. At those times, the former airline pilot hunched his body lower over his handlebars and thought about his wife, Michele, a flight attendant with American Airlines.

He thought of the last evening they had spent together, their daughter’s 20th birthday, and the way the setting sun had made Michele’s hair glow. He thought about the last words they had said to each other, early the next morning, right before her flight took off from Dulles International Airport, near Washington. She had called to remind him to pack their son’s lunch; he said he’d talk to her when she got to Los Angeles.

Within hours, terrorists had commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the west side of the Pentagon.

Thursday, President Bush will lead the ceremony dedicating the first national memorial to the victims of that tragic day, when four planes were hijacked and nearly 3,000 people were killed. The memorials at the site of the World Trade Center towers in New York and in Shanksville, Pa., where one plane crashed in a field, have been delayed by arguments over construction costs and design.

The two-acre memorial at the Pentagon -- with 184 steel and granite benches, each engraved with a

victim’s name -- is about 200 feet from the crash site, oriented along the plane’s flight path.

For Heidenberger, 62, the project’s completion is a complicated moment.

“Do I consider this a conclusion?

No, not at all,” he said. “I was there yesterday, and what gave me the greatest satisfaction was watching three or four kids sitting on a bench, and it could have been their grandparent or a relative, but they had an opportunity to remember. In a very happy sense, you remember.”

In the week preceding Thursday’s dedication, that is exactly what the victims’ friends and family members did.

Seven years ago, Michael Petrovich was an Army specialist, based at the Pentagon. Now a chef in Toronto, he brought his wife to visit the memorial on Tuesday.

“That was our boss,” he told his wife, pointing to a small smiling face on a board of photographs just outside the memorial area. Pointing to another picture, he said: “He was a really nice guy.”

The benches, which appear to float above illuminated reflecting pools, are positioned along age lines from the youngest victim, who was 3 years old, to the oldest, who was 71, with the names engraved on one end. Visitors facing the building will read the names of the 125 civilian and military employees who died at the Pentagon. To see the names of the 59 passengers and crew on the plane, visitors face the other way, toward the open sky.

The first bench Petrovich approached bore the name of Craig Amundson. The two had carpooled to work together and sat across the room from each other. On Sept. 11,

2001, they had driven to work as usual, then watched on TV as two of the hijacked jets were flown into the World Trade Center towers.

“I turned to Craig and said, `Well, we better go call home, we’re going to be working late tonight,’ “ said Petrovich. “So we went back to our desks to make a couple of phone calls, and I had just gotten off the phone when the room shook, the air rippled, and a fireball shot over my head.”

Petrovich, who suffered seconddegree burns on his face and hands, was able to locate survivors and help lead them to safety through a secondfloor window.

On Tuesday, he hesitated in front of the bench honoring his friend.

“At first I didn’t want to walk on the gravel or sit on the benches,” he said. Then he overcame his emotions and “I sat there and told my wife the stories of when we used to go to work together and about his family and children.”

Two months after the attack, family members of the victims formed a committee to work with the Army Corps of Engineers on the memorial project. Despite security concerns, the family members insisted that the site be as close as possible to where their loved ones had died.

The memorial will be open to the public 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

William R. Stout, deputy chief of operations for the Pentagon Police Department, acknowledged that from a security standpoint, the location was not ideal. “It would have been nice to have it somewhere else, but it is only logical that is there,” he said. “We are going to have our eyes on it. We are going to make sure it is secure.”

E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Friday, September 12, 2008

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S t a ff E d i t o r i a l

Diamonds and coal Diamond to Brown’s dark knights of noise protection. Director of State and Community Relations Darrell Brown compared his and ResLife Dean Rich Bova’s efforts to curb off-campus disruptions to Batman and Robin’s protection of Gotham City — and they won’t tolerate any jokers.

Coal to former Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75, distinguished visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, for becoming an angry old grandfather. What happened to being a cute senatorial teddy bear?

Diamond to the new “power tool” on campus: Dean Ann Gaylin.

Brown Home Depot enthusiasts are happy to know we have her in the shed. Especially during the many “home improvements” popping up across campus with all this Building Brown.

Coal to the student who, in our coverage of new cereal dispensers at the V-Dub, told The Herald his precise rationalization for stealing quarterfull boxes of Fruit Loops. Save that nonsense for job interviews.

Diamond to the field hockey team for whopping University of Maine in a “stroke-off” following overtime. By beating a team from a big state, these Rhode Island girls are reassuring us that size doesn’t really matter. Maybe.

Coal to the committee that put latex gloves in the condom vending machine — but didn’t have the foresight to put in safety goggles.

Diamond to the men’s basketball team, just back from its European tour, who noticed that their overseas brethren used many more “ballscreens” than they did. Ball-screens are all well and good, but can those Belgians get dental dams and latex gloves from their campus vending machines?

Speaking of socialism, coal to those French hot dogs that our men’s basketball team found less-than-tasty on their Eurotrip. Everyone knows you can’t find good francs in France.

Cubic zirconium to Facilities Management for its weekend program to clean up bathrooms. But piloting the program on Parents’ Weekend?

What you trying to say about our mamas?

A lex Y uly

Letters Funding priorities To the Editor: After reading yesterday’s staff editorial (“Commendable Condoms,” Sept. 11) lauding the University’s decision to sell condoms at a reduced price while continuing to make them available for free in the dorms, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s nice to know that the University has its priorities straight. Food plan prices

have increased astronomically this year, the cost of a dorm room has gone up and our tuition continues to grow at a steady rate, but it’s nice to know that we can all at least have safe sex at a reasonable cost.

Joshua Unseth ’09 Sept. 11

T he B rown D aily H erald Editors-in-Chief Simmi Aujla Ross Frazier

Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang

Senior Editors Irene Chen Lindsey Meyers

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O pinions Friday, September 12, 2008

Page 11

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

There will be blood alcohol content JAKE MATLICK AND CONRAD STERN-ASCHER The W iz Kids Senator Barack Obama! Okay, now that we’ve got your attention, we would like to introduce ourselves. We’re two curious seniors who are inspired by the many unanswered questions that arise each year at Brown and decided to do something about it.

This week, prompted by a series of alcohol-related events, we are tackling blood alcohol limits and their relationship to drunk driving.

Concerns about the effects of drinking go back thousands of years. Ancient Greek mythology has it that Dionysus, god of wine, when affronted by a mortal, took vengeance on a young girl, Amethyst. The goddess Diana protected Amethyst by turning her into a white quartz statue which Dionysus spilled his wine on, turning the quartz into the purple stone known today as amethyst.

Amethysts, from the Greek meaning “not” (a-) and “make drunk” (methyskein), were commonly thought to ward off the effects of drunkenness.

This summer, the Amethyst Initiative, a group of more than 100 current and former college presidents, released a statement declaring their intention to rethink the drinking age in order to combat bingeing and other detrimental effects of alcohol use.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, one of the main opponents to the Amethyst Initiative, has focused the debate on drunk driving, an issue that hit close to home in June when a former chef for Ruth Simmons was pulled over with a staggering blood alcohol content of .49 percent. So what exactly is blood alcohol content and how is it measured?

Blood alcohol content is a measure of the concentration of alcohol by mass in the blood stream. As of August 2005, the nationwide BAC limit for an adult operated vehicle was .08 percent, or .08 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood, while for underage drivers, the limit varies across states from 0 percent to .02 percent (Rhode Island uses a .02 percent limit).

By most standards, this limit is somewhat lenient on drivers. By about .02 percent, most people have a reduced capacity to focus, but are generally relaxed and competent drivers. As the BAC increases from .05 percent to.1 percent, so does one’s inability to react to novel situations and execute the coordinated maneuvers driving requires. Studies have shown that, at a .08 percent BAC level, a single vehicle accident is 11.1 times more likely than for a sober driver.

While the concentration of alcohol in the blood is a fair, though somewhat indirect measure of intoxication across various groups,

there exist a wide variety of factors relating the amount of alcohol consumed to one’s level of intoxication.

With more blood, food, water or acquired metabolic enzymes, the body can handle more alcohol before getting drunk; in a typical college population then, anywhere from two drinks (for a petite, female, infrequent drinker for instance) to five drinks (for an overweight, male, heavy drinker) over the course of an hour can push you over the legal BAC limit.

Behavioral tolerance is one outcome of habitual drinking not accounted for in a BAC evaluation. Drinkers who repeatedly perform a behavior while intoxicated, such as driving from Fish Co. to Keeney, can learn to adapt this behavior to their altered mental state —- making them better drunk-drivers. That is to say, the coordinated tasks of braking, steering, and changing lanes can be improved by a behavioral tolerance, but certain other aspects of driving, such as reacting to a person stepping out from behind a parked car, cannot be accommodated.

When police happen upon a swerving, or irregularly slowing or accelerating car, they turn to breathalyzers to enforce the BAC limit. These devices rely on an even more indirect method of gauging intoxication than BAC: measuring breath alcohol content and inferring BAC. This inference can be justified through the empirical observation made by chemist William Henry: that at a given temperature, the concentration of a gas (alcohol in this case) dissolved in a volume of liquid (blood) is proportional to the partial pressure of that same gas in equilibrium with the liquid. So breathalyzers can show a relationship between alcohol pressure in one’s breath and one’s BAC. Converting breath alcohol readings to blood alcohol percentages can be tricky. Modern breathalyzers use as their constant of proportionality the ratio 2100 parts BrAC to 1 part BAC; studies have shown, however, that these ratios vary across individuals from 600:1 to 3000:1. The deviation can be attributed to the several independent elements of William Henry’s Law. For example, blood isn’t a pure liquid. Red blood cell volume varies greatly from person to person and the body’s temperature fluctuates with ambient temperature and metabolic rate.

The equilibrium that exists between the blood alcohol and the vapor alcohol in the airway — the determining factor in the test — can be affected by breathing pattern. That a DUI can be narrowly avoided by hyperventilating after being pulled over seems to undermine this decades-old method of enforcement.

As a final note, while we really enjoy explaining how stuff works, we certainly do not endorse any kind of alcohol abuse, especially drunk driving. Don’t sue.

Opinions Columnist The Commission on Presidential Debates has turned what would be an exercise of free speech and voter education into a corporate commercial filled with memorized soundbites that pertain to few real political issues. Patrick Henry, who once said, “Give me liberty, or give me death!” must be turning in his grave.

First, some background. While the CPD is supposed to serve as a nonpartisan facilitator of the presidential debates, it is actually a bipartisan corporate-funded front that gives Republicans and Democrats a monopoly on the speeches and excludes all third-party candidates.

According to OpenDebates.org, Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. and Paul G. Kirk Jr. — former heads of the Republican and Democratic national committees, respectively — have served as co-chairmen of the CPD since its inception. Beyond their obvious partisan connections, both men have strong connections to corporations: Fahrenkopf has worked as a lobbyist for the gambling industry and Kirk has done the same for pharmaceutical companies, according to OpenDebates.org.

Their clients include Hoechst Marion Roussel, ITT Corp., Hilton Hotels, Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, according to OpenDebates.org. As lobbyists, their incomes are directly affected by who gets elected president.

Most of the funding for the debates comes from tax-deductible contributions made by major corporations who use the various debate locations as venues to advertise their products.

According to OpenDebates.org, Phillip Morris displayed a large advertisement at one of the 1992 debate sites after contributing roughly $250,000 to the CPD. In 2000, Anheuser-Busch contributed $550,000 to the CPD and proceeded to give out promotional materials that advertised the health benefits of beer and warned against beer taxes, according to OpenDebates.org.

These corporate-funded events hardly qualify as debates.

For instance, in 1988, the campaign committees of Republican candidate George H.W. Bush and Democratic candidate Michael

BY Tyler Rosenbaum Opinions Columnist

Dukakis created a contract called a “memorandum of understanding.” The contract dictated many specific rules for the debates. According to Constance Rice, a prominent civil rights attorney, recent memorandums of understanding between majorparty presidential candidates have included agreements like “no candidate-to-candidate questions, no rebuttal to your opponent’s points, no cross questions or cross answers, no rebuttals, no follow-up questions,” according to OpenDebates.org.

This format limits the debate to a superficial examination of the political issues (stipulated in advance by the two parties) and protects the candidates from answering questions concerning difficult issues, like homelessness, child poverty, corporate crime, prisons and gun rights. In fact, few of these issues were brought up during the three presidential debates that took place in 2000, according to OpenDebates.org.

The CPD has also systematically excluded third-party candidates from the debates. Since 1992, the CPD has required third-party candidates to garner 15 percent of the popular vote, as estimated by various polls prior to the actual debate, according to OpenDebates.org.

By contrast, the Federal Election Campaign Act enables a candidate to receive federal funds after receiving only 5 percent of the popular vote in an actual election, according to OpenDebates.org. Taxpayers could theoretically be compelled to help fund a candidate, yet not be able to hear him or her debate the other contenders.

Fifteen percent is an arbitrarily high threshold that exists solely to exclude third-party candidates from debating majorparty candidates.

According to OpenDebates.org, even if the criterion to debate were five percent, only two candidates (John Anderson and Ross Perot) would have been invited to participate.

Come Election Day, I will not vote for any candidate who has condoned the actions of the CPD by participating in presidential debates while other viable candidates were denied that right. I will not vote for selling out the democratic process to AnheuserBusch and Phillip Morris. I will not vote against liberty.

Two or three years ago it would not have been difficult to judge how closely Senator John McCain’s politics resemble Bush’s. But as Senator John Kerry masterfully illustrated at the Democratic convention, Candidate McCain is a very different person from Senator McCain.

Americans should view his reputation as a straight-talking maverick with the utmost suspicion. Perhaps we should believe that he actually is against all those things he used to vote for, and vice versa, as he loudly proclaims.

Either way, one similarity between Bush and McCain is undeniable — what kind of Supreme Court justices they would nominate. McCain has made it abundantly clear, both before and after his alleged conversion to hardcore conservatism, that he would appoint hard-line literalists in the mould of Justice Antonin Scalia. And nothing less should be expected from the Republican pallbearer — excuse me, nominee.

Ever since Reagan, social conservatives have waged a holy war against what they perceived as an excessively liberal court, attempting to reverse nearly all of the key decisions handed down from the 1950s to the 1970s.

This single-minded offensive (interrupted only by President Bill Clinton’s two terms in office) put the liberal justices on the defensive. Bush II reinvigorated this effort after his inauguration.

His two appointees have driven the court to the ideological tipping point. With four justices squarely in the liberal camp, and four justices reliably voting against them, the court quite literally goes where moderate justice Anthony Kennedy goes — of the 24 decisions in the court’s 2007 term decided by a 5-4 margin, Kennedy voted with the majority every single time.

Many of the landmark rulings of the last 60 years stand at the whim of Justice Kennedy, from Brown v. Board of Education to Roe v. Wade. The separation of church and state, contraception, freedom of speech, gay rights, environmental regulation, the rights of the accused — the fundamental bases of modern constitutional jurisprudence that guaranteed the free, open and tolerant America we know and love — all stand one vote away from obliteration.

McCain would likely replace an aging liberal, providing conservatives with a crucial fifth vote. With a solid majority, the conservative justices would methodically annihilate the pillars of our free society, until the entire edifice crashed in upon itself.

Despite the fact that Barack Obama’s campaign has been frequently caricatured as promising Americans “change,” it seems that the most important thing an Obama administration would provide is continuity — a barrier against radical change — on the Supreme Court.

Obama, naturally, has positioned himself opposite McCain on this issue, promising to appoint justices who would uphold Roe and a host of other crucial decisions. Given the history of the court, such appointments would maintain the status quo rather than fuel or renew any sort of fabled liberal crusade.

The age of the justices on each side of the court puts the issue into starker relief. Barring some unpredictable eventuality, the first justice to retire will be John Paul Stevens, the court’s most senior liberal, who is currently 88 years old.

Following Stevens will probably be Ginsburg, who at 75 is visibly frail, and perhaps Souter or Breyer. On the conservative side, the oldest justice is Scalia, who even at 72 is quite spry. The other three are much younger.

At least for the foreseeable future, then, all the vacancies will come from the liberal wing. Even if a President Obama were to appoint fire-breathing liberals, the current balance would remain unchanged, and the court would remain in the hands of Justice Kennedy, a Republican appointee.

On the other hand, if McCain were to win, Justice Stevens would have to hold on for another four years or the court would veer sharply to the right. Since the conservatives currently on the court are remarkably young (their average age is 61 years, compared with 78 for the liberals), this rightward shift would likely endure for decades.

Two branches of government hang in the balance. The campaign is often trivialized — think flag pins and houses — but the stakes could not be higher. The Supreme Court is the most enigmatic and the least exciting branch of government, but in a way its members have the greatest power to change our country, for better or for worse.

On Nov. 4th, Americans will decide not merely who serves in the White House. They will also decide the fate of the liberties that rest on the Supreme Court’s past rulings, and the change and reform that depend on its future approval.

Michael Ramos-Lynch ’09 is running for president on the I-lovebeing-self-righteous ticket.

At a spry 19, Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 thinks he would make an excellent, fire-breathing addition to the court.

Want something explained?

Ask the Wiz Kids at AskTheWizKids@browndailyherald.com.

The Commission on Presidential Debates™ MICHAEL RAMOS-LYNCH

The stakes in November

S ports W eekend Page 12

Friday, September 12, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

‘Playoffs!?’

Well, sort of Playoffs: a time of excitement and ultimate pressure, when the best competitors are forced to focus in, bear down and collide to decide an eventual champion.

Patrick Davis ‘10 Sports Columnist We l l , a t least for most sports. The playoff system in golf is more like, let’s say, whatever comes out of Terrell Owens’ mouth. It matters in the sense that people make a big fuss about it every year, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter at all.

This is exactly what the PGA Tour is tr ying to avoid: the fact that the average golf fan tunes in to the four majors (The Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship) and not much else.

In an effort to fill in the massive gap in their season between the PGA Championship in August and the Masters in April (an eight-month gap for those keeping track), the PGA Tour created the FedEx Cup two years ago, a year-long points system culminating in a series of four playoff events and an eventual $10 million prize awarded to the champion.

In short, throughout the year, each player’s performance in the FedEx Cup events determines his point total for the end of the season, which then (basically) carries over into the playoff events, all of which are worth more points than any regular season event. The player with the most points at the end of the final playoff event is the champion.

The PGA’s intentions are admittedly sensible. The Tour wants to add a bit of drama to its season, and make it a bit more similar to other, more mainstream, sports in order to attract a wider fan base. Now, whether it accomplishes these goals is another story.

Last year, Tiger Woods won the FedEx Cup without even playing in the first event, and could have won it without playing in the Tour Championship, the final playoff event.

Obviously this was a flawed system; that a player could play in only half of the playoff events and win the entire FedEx Cup. After all, if the NFL playoff system were this way, the Patriots would have been awarded the Lombardi Trophy without ever having to play in February... And we all know how that worked out.

Now, to give the PGA credit, under this year’s points system, Woods would be 1,292 points behind Steve Stricker heading into the final event, whereas last year he entered with a commanding 3,133 point lead.

Unfortunately, the problem is not just in the points system. This past weekend, Vijay Singh, despite finishing 44th out of 69 players at even par, 15 strokes back of winner Camilo Villegas, actually clinched his FedEx Cup title. Even better, he did so with a three-putt on his 72nd and final hole of the tournament, just a microcosm of the general anticlimactic personality the FedEx Cup has exhibited in its first two years of existence.

The good news is, however, that because the system is so young, it can still easily be changed without too much overhaul. If the PGA really wants to make the FedEx Cup a true playoff system, I have a few continued on page 9

Games to watch on Bruno’s light weekend

By Katie Wood Assistant Sports Editor

The athletic facilities on campus will be quiet this weekend, as all of Brown’s teams will be playing away from home.

However, with no games to attend on campus, there are several games to watch on TV: #1 Southern California vs. #5 Ohio State College football teams generally play the toughest competition in the nation at the end of the season in bowl games, but OSU and USC are going to buck the trend and match up at the beginning of the season with 2008’s first must-watch college football game. Buckeye tailback and Heisman hopeful Chris “Beanie” Wells is doubtful for Saturday’s game and USC’s defense is ready to pounce on OSU’s shaky passing game. In last weekend’s near upset, OSU’s backup tailbacks accumulated 123 yards on 26 carries in a 26-14 win over 33 ½-point underdog Ohio.

Wells carried the load for the Buckeyes last season by averaging 124 yards on 21 carries per game, nearly the same production as his backups were able to tally in a single game. OSU will struggle on offense and USC’s defense will flourish if he is unable to play. The game also features two of the top linebackers in the college game, Trojan Rey Maualuga and Buckeye James Laurinaitis.

Michigan vs. Notre Dame This classic rivalry will not have the same hype as it has in years past.

Two years ago, UM nearly ran the table before a close loss to Ohio State in the season’s final regular season game derailed their national championship hopes. That same year, the Wolverines jump-started their season with an early season win, as

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

While Bruno doesn’t have games in town this weekend, there’s still plenty to watch.

they dominated the Irish 47-21. With both teams coming into their meeting last season with 0-2 records, one of the storied programs would end the day with a victory that each team needed to turn their season around.

UM owned the game from the start, wining 38-0 and ND’s freshman quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, played like he had just left the high school game.

He fumbled the ball and threw an interception, with both turnovers resulting in Wolverine touchdowns.

The UM defense sacked Clausen eight times, with one of those sacks being so vicious that four different defenders were given credit for the sack. He was so beat up by the fourth quarter, he had to sit the rest of the game out. This year, Clausen looks to redeem himself as both teams look to restore the tradition of this rivalry.

New York Jets vs. New England Patriots Tom Brady is out for the season and the new Jets quarterback, veteran Brett Favre, is playing the way he ended last season when the Green Bay Packers reached the NFC Championship game.

Brady left the game in the first quarter of last Sunday’s game due to a knee injury, and with untested Matt Cassel at the helm, the Pats barely pulled off the 17-10 win against the young and struggling Kansas City Chiefs.

The Jets started off this season on a high note, beating the Dolphins on the road 20-14 with the help of two Favre touchdowns. With Brady out and the Jets playing their first game at home, this looks to be a tough game in the AFC East.

Sp

o r t s

By the Numbers It’s been a pretty light schedule for Brown sports this week. Only the soccer and field hockey teams have their seasons underway, (all three teams all ready have a ‘W’ under their belts) and Bears fans all over campus are still waiting for the rest of their favorite fall sports to start playing. That being said, here are some early “by the numbers” observations we’ve already made about this young fall sports season.

1 — wins the field hockey team already has this season, equaling their total from last year. It’s also the number of freshmen on the men’s golf team this season.

9 — volleyball players from California.

10 — letters in sisters Bianca ’11 and Carissa ’12 Aboubakare’s last name.

11— Brown tennis players, both men and women, who were selected as ITA Scholar Athletes.

14 — men’s basketball players that went to Europe this summer, including Damon Huffman ’08, who plays for Okapi Aalstar in Belgium.

18 — NSCAA ranking of the men’s soccer team — just edging out our boys in the pool.

19 — NCAA ranking of the men’s water polo team.

20 — date in September when the football team will begin its season by taking on visiting Stony Brook.

23 — days between the opening day of the college football season and when Brown’s football team will play its first game.

28 — freshmen cross-country runners on the men’s and women’s squads this season.

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Women’s tennis earns high academic marks The women’s tennis team was one of six Ivy League teams, and one of 102 teams across the country, to earn the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s All-Academic Team award. Six different members of the team are among the 499 student athletes nationwide who individually received the title of ITA scholar athlete, and Brown’s six scholar athletes were the most among any of their rivals in the Ivy League. Dartmouth was closest to matching the Bears, as the Big Green had five scholar-athlete selections, followed by Princeton (4), Yale (3), Columbia (2), and Cornell (2).

The ITA All-Academic Team Award is open to any ITA program whose cumulative grade point average is 3.20 or higher. All student athletes who have competed in one or more varsity matches must have their GPA included into the team average for the current academic year. On an individual level, ITA scholar athletes must be a varsity letter winner, have a GPA of 3.50 or above and have been enrolled at their current school for at least two semesters.

Brown’s individual ITA scholar athletes include Alexa Baggio ’09, Brett Finkelstein ’09, Sara Mansur ’09, Emily Ellis ’10, Marisa Schonfeld ’11 and recent graduate Kelley Kirkpatrick ’08.

Men’s tennis hires Bernabe as asst. coach

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

Sara Mansur ’09 was one of six female tennis athletes with a GPA above 3.50. By the ITA’s metric, Brown’s tennis team is the most intelligent in the Ivy League.

The men’s tennis team has hired a new assistant coach, Nestor Bernabe.

Bernabe was a Division II All-American in 2003 at Sonoma State. While at Sonoma State, Bernabe was a four-time team MVP and had a stellar senior season. In addition to earning first team All-American honors that season, Bernabe was ranked No. 16 in singles at the end of that year and was ranked No. 130 in the U.S. National Open rankings. Over the course of his career, Bernabe compiled a career-record of 142-49.

Following his graduation, Bernabe played professionally from 2003-07, during which time he earned ranking in both singles and doubles play.

He also served as a WTA Tour practice partner for Justine Henin during the 2004 U.S. Open.

In addition to his extensive playing experience, Bernabe will also be bringing years of coaching experience to the Bears. In 2006 Bernabe served as director at the Sonoma Tennis Academy; the year before he was an instructor at La Cantera Racquet and Swim Club. From 2003-04 he worked as an independent youth coach.

The Bears surely will put Bernabe to work right away, as they only have one week left of practice before starting their fall season on Sept. 19.

— Sports Staff Reports