Friday, September 19, 2008 by The Brown Daily Herald

The Brown Daily Herald F riday, S eptember 19, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 74

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

Determining costs, timing and staff next for task force

P hl e boto m y !

the Corporation, Brown’s highest governing body, approved a $550,000 increase to the Dean of the College’s After over a year of deliberations and budget, including money for advising, a first set of recommendations last curricular development and the scispring, some of the goals of the Task ence resource center. Force on Undergraduate Education The next step is to discuss the recare already being completed, while ommendations with the appropriate others will have to wait — perhaps groups on campus and outline their indefinitely — for planning, funding associated costs, Vice President for or more staff. Public Affairs and University RelaMany of the task force’s recom- tions Marisa Quinn wrote in an e-mail mendations for improving the under- to The Herald. Some recommendagraduate experience tions would only may not cost money require shuffling NEWS ANALYSIS — for example, a piexisting resources, lot PIN program rewhile others would quiring sophomores to visit their ad- need new money, staff or technology, visers before registering for classes. she wrote. Many others will — including funds Any extra funds for the recomto foster creation of new courses, a mendations would be allocated by new science resource center in the the University Resources CommitSciences Library, additional staff for tee, which presents a budget to the various programs, research stipends president early in the spring semester for advisers and a huge increase in before the Corporation votes on it in the number of Undergraduate Teach- February. That money would come in ing and Research Awards. a lump sum, meaning that if the dean The task force did not discuss of the College’s office receives less cost during its meetings, said Dean than what it requests — a distinct of the College Katherine Bergeron, possibility — Bergeron will allocate who chaired the committee. Its job the funds based on her priorities, was first to identify goals, she said, she said. while “implementation is something Bergeron was adamant that those that can be worked on.” projects marked as priorities by the Some recommendations put forth task force will come to fruition. in the draft report of the task force, “However we can do them, we’ll released this January, are already get them done,” she said, later addbeing implemented, including the ing, “We need to get these things creation of a new Faculty Advising done.” Fellows program to foster better adMeanwhile, a centerpiece of the vising and informal relations between continued on page 4 faculty and students. In February, By George Miller Senior Staff Writer

Kim Perley / Herald

The Rhode Island Blood Center collected more than 318 pints during its three-day drive on campus this week. See Campus News, page 5

SPOTLIGHT

On Wickenden, food once meant for a princess By Chaz Firestone Features Editor

Angkor Restaurant doesn’t look much like a palace. Nestled in a colonial-style house with a wrought-iron fire escape snaking up its facade, the restaurant modestly promises “authentic Cambodian cuisine” on a practical blue-paneled sign. The inside is a bit more ornamental — wooden Buddhist sculptures adorn the yellowish

walls alongside an authentic print of the restaurant’s namesake temple — but the chairs are not thrones and the silverware is really ironware, just like everywhere else. Close your eyes when the spicy Nam Yaa soup arrives, though, and you just might feel like royalty. That’s because Angkor’s chef, 57-year-old Bopha Kem-Ban, is the niece of one of Cambodia’s royal cooks from the days before

Lyman Hall renovations continue past deadline By Jenna Stark Senior Staff Writer

The curtain remains closed at Lyman Hall as renovations on the theatre, speech and dance department’s building will continue into October. The summer renovations of Lyman Hall, which began in May and were slated to finish in August, were part of a University initiative to restore buildings in the historic core of main campus, The Herald reported last October. The physical changes come at a time when the department is considering revamping itself as well as its building, possibly changing its name, tweaking its courses and expanding its purview. The renovations include remodeling the exterior of the building, providing more administrative office space and upgrading the quality of the classrooms, said Rebecca Schneider, associate professor and chair of the department. “The building was unbearable,” Schneider said. Problems include vermin, mold and heating issues, she said. Still, Schneider called the newly

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Student groups facilitate absentee voting By Sarah Husk Contributing Writer

renovated building a “really wellloved stuffed animal that just got all its hair rubbed off.” The University is “trying to bring out the old accents of the building,” she said. Students and professors both said that, though the renovations are inconvenient, they are willing to pay the price for an updated building. “The downstairs space will be more welcoming and my students will be better served by the administrative office because it will be more accessible to them,” said Patricia Ybarra, associate professor of theatre, speech and dance. For Professor of Theatre, Speech and Dance John Emigh, who has been holding his acting class at the Brown/RISD Hillel instead of Lyman Hall, the show must go on. “It seems to me that we’re still functioning just fine,” he said. Still, Ybarra said that the renovations have interrupted her ability to teach. “There’s often loud drilling and noise,” she said, adding that in the summer she was unable to work in

No ‘living room drama’ Production Workshop’s “J.B.,” based on the Book of Job, offers ARTS & CULTURE a thought-provoking tale

the Khmer Rouge took over the countr y and killed more than seven million of its citizens. As millions of Cambodians fled the oppressive communist regime in the late 1970s, Bopha scribbled down her aunt’s recipes before traveling halfway across the world to Rhode Island. Now, the young Wickenden Street eatery serves up food fit for a king at prices more befitting

continued on page 4

For most Americans, voting means a quick trip down to the local polling center and marking a box or two on a ballot. But many college students’ states of residency may be miles away from their schools’ campuses. Two student initiatives that aim to streamline absentee ballot requests are helping students easily find the resources they need to vote. One such initiative, BeCounted, is a Facebook application that allows its users to register to vote and request absentee ballots. It also helps students compare whether their votes counts more in their home or school states. Noah Kraft ’09, a friend of Stanford senior Andrew Ehrich, who helped create BeCounted, said the site was made in response to the frustration he and others felt when trying to find information online for registering to vote. After gathering each state’s information about registering to vote and signing up for absentee ballots, the creators of BeCounted Kim Perley / Herald

Aaron Becker ’09 fills out paperwork to vote in the Rhode Island primaries.

Crime log Safewalk radios, glasses, pills, bicycles, room keys among CAMPUS NEWS things stolen Sept. 2 to 10

OPINIONS

Absentee voters Jeremy Feigenbaum ‘11 thinks students registered in R.I. should vote in local elections

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

12 SPORTS

continued on page 4

Kick off Bruno football plays its first game of the season Saturday at Brown Stadium

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Friday, September 19, 2008

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We a t h e r

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

TODAY

TOMORROW

sunny 63 / 45

sunny 70 / 51

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Swiss Corn Bake, Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces, Asian Noodle Bar, Butter Cookies

Lunch — Chicken Fingers with Dipping Sauces, Vegan Nuggets, Nacho Bar, Butter Cookies

Dinner — Noodle Kugel, Teriyaki Salmon, Seafood Pot Pie, Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Dinner — Grilled Salmon with Mint Pea Puree, Grilled Chicken, Eggplant Parmesan, Chocolate Cake

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.

Epitmetheos | Samuel Holzman

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

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

ACROSS 1 Went down 5 Spot on Mercury or Saturn? 10 Quite a bit 14 Window shopper’s buy? 15 Came up 16 Organic compound 17 Animated feature about Humpty Dumpty? 19 “Still Life with Old Shoe” artist 20 Regret 21 Omen in a highbrow Western? 23 “Phew!” 24 Yellow Sea peninsula: Abbr. 25 Longtime CORE chairman Roy 26 Syndication staple 28 Abbr. followed by a year 30 “... hot wine with not __ of allaying Tiber in’t”: Shak. 31 Contaminated 36 “Later” 37 They’re split and smashed 38 First-year law student 39 Give sound advice 41 A bit eccentric 42 “Able was __ ...” 43 Some PSAT takers 44 Cable __ 47 Bib.-based message 48 Little help 50 Memorable wardrobe malfunction, e.g.? 54 Pandemoniac place 55 Five-O detective, to McGarrett 56 Bar with a hardware motif? 58 Roughly 59 XXIV x XIX 60 Part of MIT: Abbr. 61 Rehab unit 62 Challenging curves 63 Queen’s subjects

DOWN 1 Kind of whale 2 Queens landing place 3 For the most part 4 Last-qtr. month 5 He dies in Darnay’s place in “A Tale of Two Cities” 6 Pianist Rubinstein 7 It may be raised in anger 8 Starting from 9 Renounce 10 Defective car’s sagging upholstery? 11 Ring material 12 Some stick figure lines 13 Blackthorn fruits 18 Invite to one’s penthouse 22 Shortened evening? 27 Place to meet inexperienced chicks? 28 Miss Megley’s charge, in a Salinger story 29 MD and others 30 Do something

31 __ Reader 32 Parental limits? 33 Really focused, as an athlete 34 Goes hog-wild 35 Callaway of golf equipment fame 37 __ Lingus 40 It’s often used for a long drive 41 Backs, anatomically 43 Process in a residential tank

44 Early PC software 45 Bridget Riley’s “Movement in Squares,” e.g. 46 Thick 47 Crack 49 Arial and Century 51 Suffix with suffer 52 Boys 53 Works at the Louvre 57 Place with stacks: Abbr.

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

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Dunkel | Joe Larios

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A rts & C ulture Friday, September 19, 2008

Museum features RISD alums, profs By Alexandra Ulmer Staff Writer

An exhibit at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, “RISD and Photography,” showcases the work of artists affiliated with the school. With photographs depicting everything from trees to trailer parks to Buddhist monks, the show inaugurates the RISD Museum’s first photography gallery and runs until Oct. 26. The newly created Bill and Nancy Tsiaras Photography Gallery is dedicated to Aaron Siskind, an acclaimed photographer and RISD professor, who died in 1991. Though the museum has exhibited photographs before, this is its first space specifically for work in that medium. The exhibit’s walls are mostly filled with small black and white prints, but three large color photographs immediately attract the viewer. Laura McPhee’s RISD MFA ’86 blue- and green-colored “Judy Tracking Radio-Collared Wolves from her Yard” is striking because of its vast expanse of clouded sky stretching above prairie grass. A woman in a white nightgown stands in the field, with a monitoring device pointing to the sky, seeming swallowed by the surrounding nature. “Thirst,” by Sally Gall, a 1978 RISD grad, is a quietly beautiful black and white photograph of a tree’s long roots stretching down into a hole. Light pours down on the dozens of roots, in sharp contrast with the underground darkness. The work seems to find the paradox in the roots’ search for life-giving water in subterranean gloom. The gallery in honor of Siskind also exhibits his work, such as the captivating 4-by-8 inch “Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 474.” The black and white photograph catches a naked man in the midst of a somersault, legs and arms sprawling out into a void. Siskind’s friend Harry Callahan, a former RISD professor whose prominence attracted photographers to the school’s faculty, also has work showcased in the exhibit. Among his five displayed photographs is the small “Chicago,” in which a naked mother and child lie intertwined on a bed in a sparsely decorated hotel room. The curves of the bodies are highlighted by the shaded window above them, and serenity emanates from the picture. Also noteworthy is RISD 1967 grad Linda Connor’s “Monk and Storm, Spiti, Ladakh, India,” in which a Buddhist monk in sunglasses stands, arms crossed, as a storm ravages the barren landscape behind him. 1969 RISD grad Ed Grazda’s “Taliban at Jadi Maiwand, Kabul, Afghanistan” plunges the viewer directly into the gaze of a turbaned man sitting above a busy market street. The variety of work was one of the exhibition’s greatest strengths. The gallery will feature three or four exhibitions a year, Museum Director Hope Alswang told The Herald. “Photography is one of the most popular arts,” she said, adding that feedback has been positive.

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P.W. showcases the grotesque and the tender in ‘J.B.’ By Juliana Friend Staff Writer

Production Workshop’s newest play, “J.B.,” which runs tonight through Monday, begins with a grotesque distortion of a familiar scene. A family sits around a table in zombie-like paralysis as two ensemble members appear to smear their foreheads with blood.

REVIEW An actor then swiftly pulls out the tablecloth from under the family’s outstretched hands, as a droning refrain spills from the speakers: “If God is God, He is not good. If God is good, He is not God.” This sequence sets in motion the plot of this disconcerting but thoughtprovoking production. Director Aubie Merrylees ’10 made clear that he wanted his interpretation of “J.B.” to transcend realism and match the grand scale of the Book of Job, on which Archibald MacLeish’s 1958 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play is based. For Merrylees, the decision to stage “J.B.” as a first-time director was “scary.” “This isn’t a living room drama,” he said. Two characters — Zuss, played by Dan Sterba ’08.5, and Nickles, played by Lizzie Feidelson ’11 — take on the roles of God and Satan in the biblical story of Job and toy with the fate of J.B. (Morgan Ritchie ’10), stripping him of prosperity, family and health. MacLeish’s original script was set at a carnival, but Merrylees decided to remove any reference to time period or setting. The barren stage is meant to give the audience the same feeling of emptiness that J.B. himself suffers, Merrylees said. The absence of any identifiable place, combined with the production’s prominent use of lighting and

Min Wu / Herald

‘J.B’ tells the Biblical story of Job and juxtaposes destruction and humanity. sound effects, disorients the audience, mirroring the experience of J.B. and his wife, Sarah, played by Sophie Shackleton ’09. When Zuss and Nickles kill off J.B.’s children, cacophonous music drowns the dialogue. The audience feels the destruction viscerally through reverberations in their own seats. “(The characters) are being crushed, so (the audience) should be crushed,” said David Harrington ’08.5, the play’s music and sound designer. Unsettling music recurs throughout the 75-minute play, an effect that can become tiring. But the juxtaposition between silence and noise seems to reflect, on a sensory level, the collisions of opposites — like good and evil, morality and corruption — that destroy J.B.’s feeling of order in the world.

At the same time, Merr ylees wanted to emphasize the fact that “J.B.” is also a universally human story about the quest for understanding, he said. In the play’s intimate ending, J.B. and Sarah are reunited for a quiet moment of tenderness. Their shyness upon seeing each other again evokes the timidness of a first date. In the absence of a well-defined setting, committed acting and dynamic physicalities help to propel the plot. Feidelson’s and Sterba’s

attention to the subtle shifts in their characters’ relationship makes their performances especially compelling. The six-person ensemble contributes to the surrealism of the production. Merr ylees believes that the basic human conflicts of “J.B.” will resonate with viewers. “Job is everywhere,” he said, quoting the script. “This stor y is always played out,” he added. “That’s why it’s relevant.”

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Friday, September 19, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Some recs already in the Profs: Lyman changes much needed works, others not planned continued from page 1

continued from page 1 task force’s recommendations is getting off to a slow start. A comprehensive review of Brown’s 95 concentrations by 2011 will start this year with a review of just nine programs, leaving 86 more for the next two years. Administrators said they are still working out the timetable and guidelines for the review. Department heads from some of the first concentrations to be reviewed said they welcomed the process but were still waiting for guidance from the College Curriculum Council, which will conduct the review. The last such complete review ended in 2004 and was started in 1999, said Karen Krahulik, associate dean of the College for upperclass studies and the chair of the CCC concentrations subcommittee. “It’s not a new process. It’s a continuation of something the College is familiar with,” Krahulik said. First up for the current review are Africana Studies; Cognitive Neuroscience; Comparative Literature; Education; Hispanic Studies; History; International Relations; Psychology; and Theatre, Speech and Dance. Heads of some of the departments associated with those concentrations said they had not received either a timeline or guidelines from the CCC about the review. Krahulik said that a timeline through the next academic year will be established within the next four weeks. The process will take place on a yearly basis, she said, and will “start small.” Krahulik wrote in an e-mail that the CCC will provide guidelines for the review process and encourage the heads of concentrations to submit any additional information if they choose. The task force report calls for each concentration to complete a self-study including a rationale for the required courses and how they fulfill the goals of a liberal education, the identification of a culminating “capstone” project available to concentrators and a plan to assess students. Although they were waiting for

guidance on how to continue — for a “shopping list,” as Professor of Hispanic Studies and department chair Enric Bou put it — the department heads contacted by The Herald said they welcomed the review. “The best concentration is never static ... because fields change,” said Associate Professor of Theatre, Speech and Dance Rebecca Schneider, who chairs the department. The department recently did its own review as it prepares for “a very large moment of transition,” she said. Other concentrations up for review have also done their own analyses recently. Sometimes the timeline for other reviews might be based on following these reviews for convenience, Krahulik said. Professor of Comparative Literature Susan Bernstein said her department, which she chairs, completed a self-study just last year, so it already has documentation ready. Before the creation of Krahulik’s post in 2007, no single person was in charge of tracking the concentrations, she said, adding that there was even confusion over how many concentrations existed. Now, Krahulik gathers statistics on the concentrations yearly, including such information as how many concentrations were completed the previous year, how many credits the concentration requires and the requirements for an honors program. According to the task force report, “in cases where the CCC sees that a (concentration) program lacks sufficient interest or resources, it may decide to close down the concentration.” Conversely, a program low on resources but high in interest may get extra help, the report says. “Some concentrations have come up as under-resourced” in her research, Krahulik said, adding that she had no programs in mind as lacking resources. In those cases, the CCC wants the concentration to come up with “creative solutions” to the problem, for example, folding a small concentration into a larger one, Krahulik said.

her office in Lyman because of poor air quality. Julie Siwicki ’10, a member of Attitude Dance Company and a frequent student in the department’s classes, said the renovations have not affected her but will be helpful in the future. In addition to the renovation of Lyman Hall, the Theatre, Speech and Dance Department has proposed several changes to the curriculum, including renaming itself to better encompass people with multiple interests. “The department is talking about changing a lot of things, from it own name down to reorganizing

courses in the concentration,” Schneider said. The proposals to modify the curriculum have yet to be approved by the College Curriculum Council, she said. In addition, though the change is yet to be finalized, the University playwriting program plans to move from under the auspices of the Literary Arts Program to the theatre, speech and dance department, said program director Forrest Gander. The decision cannot be finalized until Professor of English Paula Vogel decides whether to become a full-time professor at Yale in December, he said, adding that the “linchpin” will be hiring a new playwriting director in the spring.

Vogel is currently on a one-year leave of absence, directing the playwriting program at the Yale School of Drama. Moving the playwriting program out of literary arts would provide students with more access to professional playwrights, Gander said. “They have more resources than we do, including professors who have international experience and classes in theory and performance,” Gander said. The playwriting program “has been moving toward performance over the last few years,” he added. “It’s an exciting time for us,” Schneider said. “The department gets to re-imagine itself.”

Out of state voting made easier by groups continued from page 1 condensed their materials into the Facebook application Kraft said. Kraft has been publicizing the application on behalf of Ehrich, speaking to friends and classmates and encouraging them to add the Facebook application. And while the application is non-partisan and provides features for users of various party affiliations, Kraft said, it logs statistics showing where users are voting and which campuses are particularly active — information that is valuable for voting agencies who would want to identify states and schools for voter outreach. “It’s an opportunity to help my peers, help the voting process ... and help the countr y,” Kraft said. Sam Oliker-Friedland ’09 has also helped found a Web site with a similar purpose: Govoteabsentee. org, Oliker-Friedland said, came about as a reaction to the “unbelievably complicated” procedure of requesting an absentee ballot. The Web site assists users in requesting absentee ballots, which, depending on the state of residency, can be as simple as filling out an online request form or as complicated as completing a several part process of mailing forms back and forth to a town clerk’s office. The site also offers its users the option to sign up for e-mail updates that will help them throughout the process of voting. The aim of Govoteabsentee.org is to make voting “as easy for voters as possible,” Oliker-Friedland said. The Web site that takes you

step-by-step through the process of registering and requesting absentee ballots is meant to be helpful, not condescending, to young voters, Oliker-Friedland said. The “driving impulse” behind the initiative, he said, is getting as many people to vote as possible, not just students or young people. “The countr y as a whole is healthier when democracy is accessible to everyone,” he said. Oliker-Friedland said that the often complicated process of registering to vote and requesting an absentee ballot while not physically in the state of residency can prove to be a “barrier.” As young people, “once we’re registered to vote, we do, and we want to vote,” he said. “When you remove these barriers, young people will vote.” The Web site is “more of a tool than a program,” he said, adding that the Web site is, by contractual obligation of the funding it receives and by the wish of the founders, non-partisan. Ariel Werner ’09, the Get Out the Vote coordinator for Brown Students for Barack Obama, said that she wholly supported these initiatives. “Absentee voting is hugely important,” she said, adding that college students, many of whom live without land-lines or permanent mailing addresses, can be forgotten in national voter registration pushes. “18- to 22-year olds,” she said, have become a “disenfranchised community.” Werner pointed to volatile states like Missouri, Ohio and New Hampshire as key areas in

The intention of these applications ‘is to get people to vote for the Democrat.’ Sean Quigley ’10 Brown Republicans President

which college students’ votes may play deciding roles in the general election. “Absentee voting is a way to connect voters to a voting community,” Kraft added. Sean Quigley ’10, president of the College Republicans and Herald opinions columnist, however, said that he felt that despite the “thin veil of non-partisanship,” the intention of these applications “is to get people to vote for the Democrat.” “Just inherently, it’s liberal,” Quigley said. He said that the pressure put on college students to vote has the effect of a “guilt-trip.” “It’s always a crisis, a crisis of the young not voting,” he said. “When was it never a crisis?” Werner, Kraft, and Oliker-Friedland all urged students to research the absentee voting regulations for whichever state they plan to vote in, no matter which ticket they choose to endorse. Many states, Oliker-Friedland said, will require voters to register for a ballot in the next two to three weeks.

C ampus n ews Friday, September 19, 2008

N e ws

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i n

Brief

Blood drive ends, drawing over 318 pints A three-day blood drive held on campus this week collected more than 318 pints of blood, including 148 on Wednesday alone. The blood drive, administered by the Rhode Island Blood Center, took place in Sayles Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday and Faunce House on Thursday. The amount collected is similar to drives in past years. The publicity for the blood drive, sponsored by Alpha Epsilon Pi, Kappa Alpha Theta, the Health Promotions Committee and Health Services, included table slips, flyers, a Facebook group and Greek life students in the Sharpe Refectory. New Brown students flocked to the blood drive as well. For Tom Xu ’12, giving blood was a new experience. Throughout his high school years, Xu could not give blood because of athletics. However, as the new school year began, Xu was intent on giving blood. “I feel like it’s our duty to give others in need,” he said. According to blood drive supervisor Barbara Fletcher, while more than 148 people donated on Wednesday, blood center phlebotomists turned away 56 people, mostly because they had visited countries with heightened risk of malaria or with insufficient vitals. On Wednesday night, after two days at Sayles Hall, the blood drive was relocated to Faunce. Supervisor Liz Salisbury said the move was inconvenient because all of the equipment had to be moved. Red arrows on the Main Green let people know it had moved from the usual location. The Rhode Island Blood Center, which collects all blood donations in the state, comes to Brown four times a year and visits area businesses as well as all local colleges and high schools, including some in North Attleboro, Mass., according to Fletcher. Ultimately, the blood center must collect 270 to 300 pints of blood needed every day to supply Rhode Island, she said. Deborah Zona, a donor specialist who has been working for the blood center for eight years, said it is a “good reward, being a donor.” The Rhode Island Blood Center will next visit the University in eight to nine weeks, Salisbury said. Anyone who donated in this week’s blood drive can donate then as well, she added. — Tasnuva Islam

Polls show Obama’s R.I. lead still large With the presidential election less than eight weeks away, new polls show Sen. Barack Obama ahead of Sen. John McCain in Rhode Island 58 percent to 39 percent. In a Rasmussen Reports poll released Wednesday, Obama’s margin narrowed from June, when he had a 55 percent to 31 percent over McCain. A Taubman Center for Public Policy poll released in August also reflected the Democratic candidate’s lead, with 51 percent of respondents for Obama and 30 percent for McCain. The political Web site Real Clear Politics averaged Rasmussen, Brown, Rhode Island College and SurveyUSA polls from June 18 to September 13, placing Obama’s lead at 22.7 percentage points. Rhode Island voters have responded to Obama’s vice presidential pick Sen. Joseph Biden, with a Rasmussen poll showing 47 percent think that Biden was the right choice. The poll also shows Biden is viewed favorably by 62 percent of Rhody voters, while 44 percent of voters view McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, favorably. The poll also shows that Obama leads McCain by double digits in both the male and female demographics, and among those not affiliated with a party, Obama is ahead 51 percent to McCain’s 44 percent. National polls still illustrate a tight race, however, with a Gallup Daily Poll for Sept. 18 showing Obama with 48 percent of the popular vote, while McCain trailed by 4 points, at 44 percent. Rhode Island has tended to vote for Democratic candidates in presidential elections, with former vice president Al Gore enjoying 61 percent of the vote in 2000, and Sen. John Kerry claiming a majority of 59.4 of the vote. Since 1960, Rhode Island has given its electoral votes to Democrats in all but two presidential elections. — Jyotsna Mullur

Join The Herald now. You won’t regret it ever. Birch trees are lovely.

Hospital recertified as Level 1 trauma center By Jyotsna Mullur Contributing Writer

Rhode Island Hospital, the Alpert Medical School’s largest teaching affiliate, was recently recertified as a Level I Trauma Center by the American College of Surgeons, recognizing the hospital as the only certified trauma center in Rhode Island. Rhode Island Hospital, which has been a Level I trauma center for 17 years and serves a region of nearly 2 million people in southeast New England, is “a hospital of last resort,” said its trauma chief, Assistant Professor of Surger y Charles Adams. As a high-level trauma center, Rhode Island Hospital must have a general surgeon, a radiologist, anesthesia, lab services and an operating room available 24 hours a day. The ACS ranks trauma centers on three levels, with Level I being the highest — those centers each treat more than 1,200 patients per year while still remaining research and education leaders, according to the American Trauma Society. With a small window of time

Herald File Photo

Rhode Island Hospital was recently recertified as a Level 1 trauma center.

available to treat seriously injured trauma patients, Adams said, the ACS wants to ensure Level I trauma centers have these resources available so they can rapidly and efficiently respond to improve victims’ conditions. Patients also have access to a wide variety of medical subspecialists on call, including neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, physical therapists and radiologists. “It gives you comprehensive care in ever y aspect if you are a patient,” Adams said.

In addition, the cer tification allows Rhode Island Hospital to enter into agreements to transfer patients to better-equipped hospitals and to input patient information into the National Trauma Data Bank, which compiles statistics and figures for health agencies and lawmakers. The process of recertification occurs ever y three years for Level I trauma centers. ACS, a Chicagocontinued on page 6

Noisy off-campus parties cited by PPD The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 1 and Sept. 10. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds

CRIME LOG to incidents occurring off campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are currently under investigation by the department, PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general service calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St. Tuesday, Sept. 2 12:15 a.m. Officers were dispatched to Benevolent Street to assist Providence Police with a noise complaint. Upon arrival, Providence units stated they had just dispersed approximately 200 people from the residence and surrounding area. Providence Police issued noise complaint summons to three Brown students. 1:12 a.m. An officer was dispatched to meet with Providence Police, who had responded to the location for a complaint of a loud party on Thayer Street. Providence Police issued noise complaint summons to three Brown students. 8:17 a.m. An officer spoke with a student from Everett House who reported that he went to take a shower at 8:02 a.m. and at 8:16 a.m. discovered his room key missing from outside of his shower bag. The student said that he does not know of any suspects that would take his room key. 1:17 p.m. The Department of Public Safety’s community relations manager said that on Thursday, Aug. 26, at approximately 11:00 a.m., she was working in the Safewalk office and noticed three Motorola radios missing. She said that she spoke with the Safewalk coordinator; he did not know where the radios were and he confirmed with her that three radios

are missing. There was no sign of forced entry.

Waterman Street. Providence Police responded to take the report.

Wednesday, Sept. 3 7:34 a.m. A Brown employee reported that her motorcycle was found knocked over on its side and damaged in Lot 57. Two pairs of glasses were also taken from the saddle bags. This incident occurred between 11:40 p.m. on Tuesday and 6:35 a.m. on Wednesday.

11:27 p.m. Student reported he was walking down Thayer Street and was passed by four large individuals who began to speak with him. The conversation then turned, and as he walked away from them, he flipped them off. A beer can was then thrown and it struck him in the right shoulder. A second beer can was thrown but did not strike him. The victim was not injured and declined medical assistance. He did not wish to file criminal charges.

7:00 p.m. Student reported that he left his blue Cannondale mountain bike locked with a cable lock to the bike rack located on the Olive Street side of Life Sciences Building at approximately 3:00 p.m. When he returned at approximately 6:00 p.m., his bike was missing. Thursday, Sept. 4 8:14 p.m. Officers were dispatched to Brown Stadium for a report of a group of youths that had gained entry by going under a fence. Upon arrival, they conducted a search of the area and observed six subjects sitting on the roof of the press box. As officers approached, the subjects tried to hide by ducking down out of sight. Officers ordered the subjects to come down off the roof. The subjects were issued trespass citations and escorted out of the stadium. Friday, Sept. 5 9:58 a.m. An employee reported that a laptop computer and a digital projector were stolen from a locked cabinet in Room 220 in List Art Center. The department computer coordinator reported the equipment missing approximately three weeks ago. He reported that the cabinet was locked, but it appeared that it was tampered with. Upon inspection, it appeared that the door to the cabinet was forced at the top. The cabinet was still locked, but not secure. Room 220 is usually left open. There are no suspects at this time. 5:37 p.m. A student reported that sometime between Wednesday at 9 p.m. and Friday at 5p.m., his vehicle was stolen from a private lot on

Saturday, Sept. 6 9:34 p.m. Student stated that at approximately 6:30 p.m., she went to take her prescribed Vicodin pills and found that they were missing. She stated that she last saw her pills on Thursday. There are no suspects at this time. Monday, Sept. 8 5:54 p.m. An officer was dispatched to the area of 167 George St. for the report of a larceny of a handbag from a vehicle. A Brown student stated that she was unloading groceries from a friend’s vehicle that was parked on the sidewalk. She had left her purse on the passenger’s front seat. She stated she was in the residence for less than two minutes when the purse was stolen from the vehicle. Providence Police took the report. The Brown officer then checked the area on foot to no avail. The purse was turned in a short time later by a Brown graduate student who found it while walking with colleagues near 187 George St. Wednesday, Sept. 10 8:12 p.m. An officer was approached by a student regarding graffiti etched into the bathroom mirror on the first floor of Emery Hall. Upon receiving this information, the officer entered the bathroom in question and observed that there were several words etched into the mirror. Most of the words were unrecognizable. Facilities Management was notified and there are no suspects at this time.

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Friday, September 19, 2008

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Refugee chef brings royal recipes to Wickenden St. continued from page 1 a peasant. Leaving royalty for Rhody Chutama Am, the restaurant’s owner, escaped Cambodia in 1976 after losing his mother and seven siblings to the infamous “killing fields” of the countryside. He was sponsored by the United States and placed in Rhode Island as part of a commitment later codified as the Refugee Act of 1980. Raised by his English teacher, Am eventually married Bopha’s daughter in 1994 and eagerly welcomed his mother-in-law — who made it to America in 1980 — into his blossoming family, which now includes four children. Liam Kelley, associate professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Hawaii, says very few people escaped the Khmer Rouge, a radical Communist faction trained by the Vietnamese, during the years it was in power, from 1975 to 1979. Led by the dictator Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge sought to rebuild Cambodian society from the ground up and loosen its ties to foreign countries by producing everything domestically. City-dwellers were forced to work on farms, which Kelley says the Khmer Rouge saw as “the backbone of their economy.” “They wanted to wipe the slate clean and start from the beginning,” Kelley says. Though the term “killing fields” usually refers to open areas where the Khmer Rouge executed Cambodians en masse, Kelley says it can also refer to these farms, where inexperienced city people couldn’t sustain themselves. “The majority of people were killed simply by neglect,” he says. “They died from star vation and sickness.” Kelley says it would have been especially difficult for Bopha and her family to survive, because the Khmer Rouge wished to sever all ties with the old regime. “They would have been the number one target for the Khmer Rouge,” he says. “They tried to wipe out everyone connected with the elite.” Bopha’s aunt left the royal palace — where she cooked for the King Norodom Sihanouk’s sisterin-law — in the 1960s to live with

Bopha and her mother in the city of Battambang. As the danger in Cambodia escalated, Bopha hurried to leave her country in 1980 — but not before copying down her aunt’s royal recipes. Sharing tradition Am says he has felt a special connection with Bopha ever since his marriage to her daughter. Growing up in an American home, he had never tried food from his native country until he sampled his mother-in-law’s cooking. Among Bopha’s specialties are Natang — ground pork with a tomato base and some coconut milk served on rice crackers — and Mitapheap, a rice dish with pickled vegetables and a “secret sauce.” “Once I was introduced to my countr y’s foods, I was like ‘Wow, this is amazing,’” Am says. “I knew I had to show her to the world and let her relive her aunt’s legend.” Am opened and later closed Angkor restaurants in Cranston in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Demand for the food was there, he says, but he had some trouble with the execution. “We had a good review back in May 2002 in the Providence Journal,” he says. “After that, we had a three-hour waiting list with only one chef.” But Am noticed something peculiar about his clientele. “90 percent of our customers were from the academic community,” he says. The realization prompted Am to move his business to Providence, closer to College Hill. The Wickenden location, which opened last November, has quickly become known for its food and hospitality. Am says his clientele is still budding, but most of his customers are regulars. One of his favorites, he says, is Senior Lecturer in Theatre, Speech and Dance Barbara Tannenbaum, who often comes with her husband, Cliff. “Barbara comes here ever y week,” Am says. Seconds after the words leave his mouth, he hears the restaurant door open and looks over his shoulder. Standing at the door are the Tannenbaums. “Watch this — she’s going to order the Cambodian salad,” he whispers with a wink. Less than 10 minutes later, Barbara is enjoying her salad with a

Courtesy of Emile Gsell

An 1866 photograph of Angkor Wat, the temple after which Chutama Am named his Wickenden Street restaurant. Am fled Cambodia in 1976 after his eight members of his family were slain in the countryside’s infamous “killing fields.”

glass of wine. “We came here the first week they opened,” she says. “We brought a bottle of wine and they didn’t have corkscrews, so we went out and bought a corkscrew and left it with them so they’d have one. That’s how our friendship started.” The Tannenbaums say Am shared his stor y with them from the very beginning. “Anytime someone is so connected with their roots and they want to relive the past like that, that’s cool,” Cliff says. “That’s one of the reasons we keep coming back. That and the Nam Yaa soup — it’s addictive.” The Nam Yaa — or medicine — soup is a spicy yellow broth with chicken, shrimp, scallions and lime leaves in it — “what they ate in the royal palace,” Am says. One spoonful is enough to tell that the dish is unlike regular Asian fusion fare. Its earthy spice is warm, powerful and hard to pin down — “that’s because we use a secret blend of five herbs,” Am says. ‘Food from a golden age’ For Am, the restaurant is as much about good service and food

as it is about connecting with his heritage through Bopha, whose culinary talents were squandered during her 15 years working at a textile factory in Warwick. “She deserves more than working in a factory,” he says. “Having her here, it’s like reliving the legend of our past culture.” Though Bopha doesn’t know English very well, she reads and writes Cambodian — “most Cambodians can’t say that because the Khmer Rouge basically wiped out the upper and middle classes,” Am says. He also says it would be a shame to waste the recipes, which represent the height of Cambodian cuisine. “When you escape the killing fields, you’re not thinking about anything else but sur viving,” he says. “But my mother-in-law, she was so into the cooking that she said, ‘I have to keep these recipes.’” Kelley says the period during which Bopha’s aunt cooked for the palace was a “vibrant time” for Cambodians, which is why expatriates like Am are so intent on recovering whatever they can from it.

“There is a strong nostalgia for what the Khmer Rouge destroyed,” Kelley says. “They’re proud of the food, but they’re also proud that this is food from a golden age which was ruined.” The 1960s saw a boom in architecture and music, Kelley says, and Cambodia even held an Olympicsstyle sporting event for neutral countries during the Cold War. “If you were a well-off person in the capital, life was really great,” Kelley says. “If you had compared it to Taiwan and South Korea, you wouldn’t have guessed that one would go down the tubes and the others would thrive.” This connection to a lost cultural past means Am and Bopha are especially faithful to the original recipes. Am recounts his favorite story of Bopha’s: a trip by King Sihanouk to America to visit Cambodian communities here. When he stopped in Rhode Island, Sihanouk tried some of Bopha’s cooking and said that it tasted familiar to him. “Bopha was so happy,” Am says. “She said, ‘That’s because my family cooked for you over 20 years ago!’”

Trauma center provides students with experience continued from page 5 based organization, evaluates hospitals in a voluntar y process based on the guidebook “Resources for Optimal Care of the Injured Patient.” Generally, the process takes about one year and includes a multidisciplinary self- assessment by the hospital itself and a site visit from an ACS group to evaluate its records, documentation and mortality data. “It’s a dynamic process, it happens continually,” said Adams. “The trauma center never really stops working to keep its accreditation.” As part of the Med School’s largest teaching hospital, Rhode Island Hospital’s trauma unit pro-

vides a unique perspective for students, said Alka Basil MD’06. “Trauma is a dif ferent type of medical experience,” Basil said. She added that she appreciated the opportunity to deal with various cases in emergency medicine, from shootings to motor vehicle accidents, and the chance to collaborate with various specialists to quickly develop a plan of action to treat victims. Being around life and death situations “really helps you think quick on your feet,” she said. Treating patients with life threatening injuries can be a rewarding experience for students, Adams said. “It makes a lot of what you do worthwhile and reinforces a lot of the good things that (med students) do.”

W orld & n ation Friday, September 19, 2008

After wreck, conductors banned from cell phones By Rich Connell and Cara Mia DiMassa Los Angeles T imes

LOS ANGELES — The California agency responsible for train safety voted unanimously Thursday to direct railroad operators immediately to ban the use of cell phones by on-duty engineers, conductors and other rail workers. Officials with the Public Utilities Commission said the deadly Metrolink crash last week was at least the third train accident in which the use of cell phones might have been a factor. Twenty-five people died and 135 were injured when a commuter train ran through a warning signal in Chatsworth, northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and collided head-on with a Union Pacific freight train. Federal investigators said this week that records from Metrolink engineer Robert M. Sanchez’s cell phone show he sent and received text messages while on duty Friday. But they have not determined whether Sanchez was using his phone at the time of the accident.

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“It’s extremely unfortunate that it took this terrible MetrolinkUP tragedy to focus our attention on this very serious issue,” said commission member Rachelle B. Chong. Cell phone use would be allowed in emergencies but only after a train was stopped. “The emphasis will be on making sure the owners of the trains are enforcing this rule,” said Richard Clark, a PUC safety director. “We will hold the owners of the trains responsible.” Fines would start at $500 per violation, but could go as high as $20,000. Officials had been concerned about cell phone use before last Friday’s crash because it appeared to be a factor in a June accident in San Francisco and another in July in Sacramento. Officials said they are depending on rail workers and members of the public to report violations and might set up a hotline to receive complaints. — Los Angeles Times staff writers Robert J. Lopez, Steve Hymon and Phil Willon contributed to this report.

Rice ups rhetoric over Russian invasion By William Branigin Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Secretar y of State Condoleezza Rice stepped up U.S. criticism of Russia Thursday, saying its militar y action against neighboring Georgia last month failed to achieve Moscow’s objectives and has put Russia on a path to “self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance.” In a speech, Rice said the United States and Europe must stand up to what she described as Russia’s bullying behavior, and she railed against “anachronistic Russian displays of militar y power” in Latin America. She referred to the arrival of two Russian strategic bombers in Venezuela last week for training flights at the invitation of Venezuela’s anti-American president, Hugo Chavez. But Rice said the United States will not let differences with Russia’s government “obstruct a deepening relationship between the American and Russian people” and will continue to “support all Russians who want a future of liberty.” The State Depar tment billed Rice’s speech as an impor tant statement on relations with Russia, though with the Bush administra-

tion in its waning months, there was little new policy outlined in it. An expert on Soviet and Eastern European militaries, Rice nonetheless has been criticized for her handling of U.S. policy toward Russia over the past eight years. The speech seemed intended to leave behind the administration’s assessment of U.S.-Russian relations — and to ser ve as a warning to Moscow that the ball was now in its court. Rice emphatically rejected the idea that the United States and Russia are engaged in a new Cold War. And she sought to explain how Russia has evolved since the 1990s by noting that after the fall of the Soviet Union, many Russians “experienced a sense of dishonor and dislocation that we in the West did not fully appreciate.” But “an acute sense of shame” over Russia’s diminished status in the 1990s “does not excuse Russian behavior” today, Rice said. “What has become clear is that the legitimate goal of rebuilding the Russian state has taken a dark turn,” she said, citing a rollback of personal freedoms, per vasive corruption and a “paranoid, aggressive impulse” to view neighboring new democracies as threats. Speaking before a gathering

of the German Marshall Fund in Washington, Rice vowed that the United States and Europe “will resist any Russian attempt to consign sovereign nations and free peoples to some archaic `sphere of influence’” and “will not allow Russia to wield a veto over the future of our Euro-Atlantic community.” The secretar y’s remarks represented an intensification of the criticism Washington has leveled at Russia since early August, when Russian troops went into Georgia in what Moscow said was a response to Georgian attacks on Russianbacked rebels in the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Georgia charged that the Russian action amounted to an invasion aimed at toppling the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. The United States and European allies denounced Russia’s move, saying its assault went far beyond anything needed to protect Russian peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia. Russia later officially recognized the two provinces as independent states, a move so far joined only by the government of Nicaragua and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. continued on page 9

New York teen killed in embassy attack Two suspects held in grenade attack case By Josh Meyer Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — A teenage American woman from upstate New York and her new husband were killed in the terrorist attack at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Wednesday, the State Department and a family member confirmed. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed the death of Susan Elbaneh, and said the 18-year-old from Lackawanna, N.Y., was among at least 16 victims of an attack that authorities said bore the hallmarks of a coordinated al-Qaida strike. At a State Department briefing, McCormack provided few new details of the assault on the embassy compound, saying a team of U.S. law-enforcement and security officials were on their way to Yemen to investigate the attack and gather evidence to prosecute those responsible. Six suspected militants were killed in the attack on the embassy in the capital of San’a, at least some of them dressed in Yemeni military uniforms. Six men who were part of the Yemeni security team guarding the embassy also were killed, as were several bystanders standing outside the heavily fortified embassy. In the attack, militants suspected of links to al-Qaida’s Yemen operation fired automatic weapons, set off grenades and a car bomb and tried to breach the embassy with a second car. They were repelled by security forces in an extended firefight. It was believed to be the deadliest direct assault on a U.S. embassy in a decade, and the latest in a string of suspected terrorismrelated incidents in Yemen. The rugged and often lawless country bordering Saudi Arabia has been a haven for al-Qaida and related

militants for many years, according to U.S. officials, who said in interviews that they believed militant anti-Western activity was increasing sharply there. Yemen’s ambassador to the United States, Abdul-Wahhab Abdullah Hajri, said his government was concerned about the significant and possibly growing threat of al-Qaida in his country. In recent months, he said in an inter view, government security forces were able to roll up numerous al-Qaida cells before they could launch attacks that were already in the planning or operational stages. “On this occasion, we were not able to unfold the plot, but we were able to limit the loss,” Hajri said. The ambassador said Wednesday’s attack could have been far worse if U.S-trained security forces from the Yemen Interior Ministry had not prevented the attackers from penetrating the embassy perimeter and the compound itself. “As bad as it was, it could have been ver y disastrous,” he said Thursday, noting that the explosions and gunfights appeared timed so that the second car could break through the barriers and speed into the embassy compound itself. “If that were to be successful, the damage would have been huge,” Hajri said. Hajri said it was too early to tell who was responsible for Wednesday’s assault, whether it was connected to al-Qaida or if others were involved who were not killed at the site. “We’re dealing with the situation as if there is more to come,” he said. At the briefing in Washington, McCormack said he had few details about Elbaneh. He described her death as “a terrible occurrence.” McCormack quoted family members as saying she was killed outside the embassy while standing

with her sister and brother-in-law, who were waiting in line to apply for visas so the couple could travel to the United States. But an Elbaneh family member in nearby Buffalo, N.Y., who would give her name only as Sophia, said it was Susan Elbaneh who was there with her new husband, and that she had traveled to Yemen recently to get married. She confirmed that the two and possibly a third relative were waiting outside the compound when the attack began shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday. In an inter view with the Los Angeles Times, she declined to identify Elbaneh’s new husband by name and said the family did not want to discuss the matter further. The relative also declined to comment on an Associated Press report that Elbaneh was related to Jaber Elbaneh, 42, a Yemeni national who spent significant time in upstate New York and is wanted on terrorism-related charges. Jaber Elbaneh was implicated in the so-called Lackawanna Six case, in which a group of YemeniAmerican men were imprisoned for traveling to a Qaida training camp in 2001. He faces U.S. charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, alQaida, and has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head. Jaber Elbaneh’s continued presence in Yemen has been a source of frustration for the Bush administration, which has tried for years to have him and other terrorism suspects extradited from Yemen to the United States to face criminal charges. The San’a government has maintained that its Constitution prohibits such extradition. Grieving relatives and friends said Susan Elbaneh had no contact with Jaber Elbaneh, according to continued on page 9

By Ken Ellingwood Los Angeles T imes

MEXICO CITY — Two men were being held as possible suspects in the fatal grenade attack this week on an Independence Day celebration in western Michoacan state, authorities said. The two were detained in nor thern Zacatecas state late Wednesday after being hospitalized with injuries after a car crash. The men were held by the Mexican army, which is leading the government’s campaign against drug traffickers. Authorities said they were investigating whether a Michoacanbased drug gang known as La Familia was involved in Monday’s twin grenade attack in Morelia, the state capital. Seven people died, and more than 100 were hurt. Officials previously blamed organized crime, but they did not specify a group. A third suspect was arrested in Michoacan, Mexican media report. But state of ficials confirmed only the Zacatecas arrests and gave few details. The federal attorney general’s office, which is in charge of the investigation, did not comment. Mexican news repor ts said the pair detained in the Zacatecas capital, also named Zacatecas, appeared to bear injuries similar to shrapnel wounds suffered by victims of the grenade attack. A spokeswoman in the fed-

eral attorney general’s office confirmed that investigators were exploring whether La Familia was behind the attack. A text message purpor tedly sent out by the group a day earlier denied involvement. The text message steered blame toward the Zetas, a brutal gang that got its start as the armed wing of the so-called Gulf Cartel. La Familia and the Zetas were considered allies; the message, if authentic, might suggest a split. The attackers’ motives remained unclear Thursday. Some analysts believe the violence against civilians may have been an attempt to pressure Mexican President Felipe Calderon into abandoning his nearly 2-year-old crackdown on organized crime. The president is from Michoacan. The attack fur ther rattled Mexicans, who have watched drug-related killings soar to more than 3,000 this year, according to Mexican media counts. Most of the slayings have been attributed to turf wars between drug gangs thrown off balance by the government campaign. Bystanders have been killed in the crossfire during the crackdown, but civilians were not directly targeted before Monday’s attack. — Cecilia Sanchez of the Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

Enjoy your weekend.

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DNA decides one’s political leanings By Denise Gellene Los Angeles Times

Die-hard liberals and conservatives aren’t made, they’re born. It’s literally in their DNA. That’s the suggestion of a study by a group of researchers who wanted to see if there was a biological basis for peoples’ political attitudes. They found to their surprise that opinions on contentious issues such as gun control, pacifism and capital punishment are strongly associated with physiological traits that are probably present at birth. The key is the differing levels of fear that people naturally feel. “What is revolutionary about this paper is that it shows the path from genes to physiology to behavior,” said James H. Fowler, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the research. The researchers, whose findings were published Friday in the journal Science, looked at 46 people who fell into two camps -- liberals who supported foreign aid, immigration, pacifism and gun control; and conservatives who advocated defense spending, capital punishment, patriotism and the Iraq war. In an initial experiment, subjects were shown a series of images that included a bloody face, maggots in a wound and a spider on a frightened face. A device measured the electrical conductance of their skin, a physiological reaction that indicates fear.

Friday, September 19, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Bipartisan coalition aims to help distressed institutions By Binyamin Appelbaum and Lori Montgomery Washington Post

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition of congressional leaders Thursday night vowed to work with the Bush administration to enact a plan to prop up troubled financial institutions whose massive debt threatens their survival and the health of the U.S. financial system. Congressional leaders, after meeting with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Capitol, said they expected to receive details of the plan within hours. A participant in the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Paulson and Bernanke presented a “chilling” picture of the state of the financial system. The details of the plan remain closely guarded. But the goal is to sweep away the massive accumulation of unpaid loans that is choking the flow of money through world markets. The approach is likely to involve government funding — potentially in combination with private money — to buy bad loans from banks, basically paying off those unpaid debts. That would leave banks with more money and fewer problems, with the hope of restoring investor confidence and increasing the availability of loans for businesses and consumers. Paulson described the proposal as “an expeditious solution that is aimed right at the heart of this problem.” Also Thursday night, the Fed was considering offering backing for money-market mutual funds, said a source familiar with the discussions. Earlier this week, lawmakers raised the possibility of the creation

of a new government entity to hold bad loans and eventually dispose of them, similar to the 1989 creation of the Resolution Trust Corporation. That body disposed of the assets of failed savings and loans. Any new entity, in contrast, would aim to keep banks in business. According to legislative aides, the meeting was arranged after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Paulson’s office mid-afternoon to discuss the state of the markets. During that call, Paulson asked to meet with Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other key lawmakers from both parties. That meeting took place at 7 p.m. in her office on the second floor of the Capitol. Paulson and Bernanke generally have kept Congress at arm’s length as they have sought to deal with the financial crisis. Thursday, however, after meeting with congressional leaders, they exchanged awkward compliments at a news conference. The shift was a response to mounting criticism of the Fed and Treasury leaders for failing to consult with Capitol Hill and a reflection of the fact that they will need congressional approval to commit taxpayer money. “Time is of the essence,” Pelosi said. Paulson and Bernanke told lawmakers that the consequences would be grave if they fail to pass legislation by the end of next week, according to a participant in the meeting. Reid and Pelosi both committed to meeting that deadline. “We’ll do this as quickly as we can. We’re not talking about a month,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which probably would review the plan before

it went to the House floor. “We’re talking about doing this before we adjourn” next week. A hearing on the topic that Frank had scheduled for next Wednesday could turn into a legislative drafting session, he said. The new plan would mark the government’s fourth attempt this month to keep money flowing through the financial system. The government took over the two largest providers of funding for mortgage loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It created a new source of funding for investment banks. And it took over the insurance giant American International Group. Now it is contemplating its broadest — and perhaps most expensive — intervention to date. The urgency has only grown with each successive intervention because the first three tries have not worked. People are withdrawing their money from money-market mutual funds. Banks are refusing to lend to one another. Several large financial companies need money to stay in business, including the bank Washington Mutual, which is seeking a buyer. Regulators and the banking industry are increasingly concerned in particular about customer withdrawals from money-market funds. Financial executives have told government officials in recent conversations that the rising pace of withdrawals is the equivalent of a bank run and that if it continues it will drain a massive and critical source of funding. Money-market funds are particularly important because they buy short-term debt, which is used by financial companies and other corporations to finance day-to-day

activities. Putnam Investments, a large mutual fund company, closed a $12 billion money-market fund Thursday to halt an investor stampede. The company said it would liquidate the fund so that any losses would be shared equally among investors. It was the second recent failure of a moneymarket fund, considered among the safest available investment vehicles. And Crane Data, which tracks the industry, said total deposits in money market funds fell by $78 billion, or 2.6 percent, on Wednesday. Also Thursday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, suggested that the government create an entity that operates much like the Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which would buy “equity and possibly secured debt,” providing desperately needed cash to the companies while permitting the government to share in any profit. “The government would get repaid before the others in the financial chain,” Schumer said. If a plan does move forward, Democrats may try to demand concessions from the suddenly humbled industry, Schumer said, including support for a proposal to permit bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages for distressed borrowers. Currently, judges may set new terms for mortgages on second homes, but not on primary residences. Still, Democrats are not likely to delay the plan. “The costs of doing nothing are enormous,” Frank said. He added that with the recent deterioration in the financial markets, “I think the timetable for something has been greatly sped up.”

Friday, September 19, 2008

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Track and field tours Britain over summer Rugby drops four teams in weekend tournament continued from page 12

On the field, the women’s team earned wins from Akilah King ’08 in the triple jump and Danielle Grunloh ’10 in the shot put. King jumped 11.81 meters (38-9) while Grunloh threw for 13.02 meters (42-8 1/2). The teams then headed to Dublin before spending a few days in England. The London competition was not as serious, so the players fit in as much sightseeing as possible. Men’s javelin thrower Sam Urlacher ’09 had been to Dublin and London before, but he and his teammates still found plenty of new activities. “We were given a lot of freedom, especially in London, to explore on our own,” he said. “I finally made it to Stonehenge. That was probably the highlight of the whole thing.” The athletes broke up into several small groups to explore different parts of the city. “The girls were gung-ho about going to see the shows in the theater district or the National Gallery or art

museums, while the guys had different agendas,” said women’s hammer thrower Molly Hawksley ’09. Besides visiting the Tower of London, Parliament and Westminster Abbey, some of the athletes “went to a few pubs here and there,” she said. They also spent time at the facilities of Brunel University, one of the host sites for the 2012 Summer Olympics. One special experience for many of the athletes was the day trip to the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. At Oxford, the teams went to the track where Roger Bannister first broke the four-minute-mile barrier in 1954. In addition to the many tourist attractions, the athletes said they appreciated spending time immersing themselves in the Irish and English cultures. “It was just pretty cool talking to the athletes and finding out how their experiences differed and how they were similar to ours,” Hawksley said. Distance runner Ariel Wright

’10, who blogged about the trip on brownbears.com, recalled the final meet, a rain-soaked event in London. “Although the competition was far from fierce, we enjoyed one last day together as ‘Brownmouth,’ all reminiscing about the unbelievable sights we saw and experiences we had shared,” she wrote. It’s an opportunity that, thanks to alumni donors, comes about every four years, Coach Lake said. “I wouldn’t have known what an amazing experience it was until I went on the trip,” she said. “I think it will be the most memorable experience in their four years at Brown University.” Urlacher, who said he had anticipated the journey for four years said he also appreciated the time he spent getting to interact with his Ivy rivals from Hanover, N.H. “(Typically), we don’t actually get to know them,” he said. “They’re really cool people and we made friendships there. Maybe we’ll cheer for them a little bit.”

Football ready to rumble this weekend continued from page 12 ground game. Dougherty will take the snaps for his second season. Last season he averaged over 300 passing yards per game in his first season as a starter, including three 400-yard performances. He will be throwing primarily to wide receivers Buddy Farnham ’10 and Bobby Sewall ’10, who both earned All-Ivy honors last year. Farnham earned a spot on the All-Ivy first team, leading the Ivy League with 78 receptions and 10 touchdowns. Sewall also had a breakout season in 2007, with 68 catches for 553 yards and four touchdowns, as well as eight rushing touchdowns. The highlight of his season came in the Bears’ win over Dartmouth, when he racked up 141 receiving yards, rushed for another 144 yards, and threw a touchdown pass. After the graduation of All-Ivy receiver Paul Raymond ’08, several players will rotate into the third wide receiver spot, including William Averill ’10 and Chris Lamar ’10. Rounding out the receiving corps will be another returning All-Ivy selection, tight end Colin Cloherty ’09, who was named to the second team after making 41 catches for 549 yards last season. With an AllIvy quarterback throwing to three returning All-Ivy receivers, Brown promises to have a strong passing attack. “Everyone’s real positive right now,” Dougherty said. “Whenever you have that kind of experience, it’s pretty exciting.” After missing the last eight

games of the 2007 season due to injur y, running back Dereck Knight ’09 will return to the field and will likely be splitting carries with Jonathan Edwards ’09. Knight showed himself to be a talented open-field runner with a 208-yard performance, including a 61-yard touchdown run, in Brown’s seasonopening 28-17 win over Duquesne last season. In Knight’s absence, Edwards displayed flashes of excellence in short yardage situations, scoring four touchdowns in his first start, against URI. The running tandem will work with an experienced offensive line, which is led by second team All-Ivy tackle Paul Jasinowski ’10. The defense will also return several key players from last year, including All-Ivy honorable mention Harrison and outside linebacker Jon May ’09, as well as second team All-Ivy defensive end James Develin ’10. Develin, who led the league with six sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss in 2007, will anchor a defensive line that returns tackle David Howard ’09, who was second on the team with 4.5 sacks in 2007, and tackle Joseph McPhee ’09, who made two sacks last season. May led the Bears’ defense with 89 tackles last season, and will be joined at outside linebacker by Miles Craigwell ’09, whose season included 63 tackles, a fumble recovery and an interception. Steve Ziogas ’09 emerged as a powerful playmaker at inside linebacker last season, forcing three fumbles and intercepting two passes. Several players will compete for the other

starting inside linebacker job, including Jesse Spartichino ’09 and Kelley Cox ’10. After the departure of cornerback Matt Mullenax ’08 and All-Ivy safety Jose Yearwood ’08, Harrison will be joined in the secondary by Chris Perkins ’10 at safety and David Clement ’10 at cornerback. “We lost a couple guys, but we’re returning a lot of experience, and a lot of guys have been making plays in practice,” Harrison said. “We’re solid all around; it’s just about performing to our potential. That’s why I feel we’re ready for an Ivy League championship this year.” A preseason poll ranked Brown third in the Ivy League, behind Yale and defending champion Harvard, who tied for first in the poll, but the Bears are relishing the opportunity to play a sleeper role. “Last year I don’t know if we knew what we were capable of … but now we know what to expect and how to prepare for big games,” Dougherty said. “We feel like we should be number one, but everyone likes the fact that we’re under the radar, so we can sneak up on people.” The Bears will begin their 2008 season with a non-league game against Stony Brook (1-2) this Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Brown Stadium. Though Stony Brook has already played three games this season, Brown does not see the lack of gameplay a disadvantage. “We’ve been practicing so long, we’re hungry to go out and bang up somebody else,” Harrison said. “We have a level of hunger and anticipation.”

Field hockey ‘aiming high’ this season continued from page 12 ending the game.” One positive that came out of the deep deficit was that Head Coach Tara Harrington ’94 was able to empty Brown’s bench and let some young players gain valuable game experience. Both Eaton and Hyland said those substitutions should help the team down the road. “I think that Caroline Washburn especially gained a lot of experience from her play (Wednesday),”

Hyland said. “She was very talkative, which is helpful when you’re a goalie. Madison Miketa (’10), Cami Misas (’11), Tess Standa (’09), they all got in, and it was just wonderful to see some new faces on the field and showing what they could do.” Now the Bears will have to quickly turn it around before hosting Columbia in their Ivy League home opener on Warner Roof at noon tomorrow, but the team is not intimidated by their League foe. “Columbia is good; they’re unde-

feated right now, but I know that we can pull through this and win this game,” Hyland said. “They’re not any better than us. We just have to prove ourselves. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” After all, the Bears are aiming high this season. “The Ivy League this year is wide open,” Eaton said. We have it in our power to win the Ivy League this year, regardless of our record to date. Our coaching staff and the entire team is ready for this game, and it’s going to be a showdown.”

continued from page 12 each scored their third tries of the tournament as the team held off a fierce Army comeback in the final minutes of play, securing the 10-5 win. Last season, Penn State ended the Bears’ championship hopes by handing the team a 41-7 defeat at the Final Four in Stanford, Calif. This time around, Brown was able to match the Nittany Lions’ depth in the championship game, emerging victorious by a score of 14-10. Hartley and Michelle Un ’11 each scored a try for the Bears. Five star ting players were injured for the championship matchup, so some key subs and fresh legs provided an extra boost to push the Bears past the national powerhouse. “There was no difference in our strength, no weaknesses on the field,” Brown said. “We have that depth now and the inexperienced players are adapting so quickly.” Heffernan decided to insert Chelsea Garber ’12 into the rota-

tion in the final match. Garber played casual rugby this past summer, but she had never played the quick style of college play. “Coach told me to throw on a jersey and trusted me out there,” Garber said. “I learned so much playing in that game right off the bat.” The Bears attributed their early season success to preseason conditioning and working out over the summer. Captains Brown and Safane motivated the girls to commit themselves to the team and its goal of repeating the team’s trip to the Final Four. “We played as a middle-season team,” Brown said. “We worked on cohesion in preseason, more contact in practice and an emphasis on fundamentals.” With big wins over Penn State and Army already under their belts, the Bears are confident they can compete with any team in the country. “We’re at a different level,” said Heffernan. “UMass isn’t scar y anymore when you play teams like Penn State and Stanford.”

NY teen killed in Yemen embassy terrorist attack continued from page 7 local news and wire reports. They said she was born and raised in Lackawanna, a former steel town, and was an outgoing and popular senior at Lackawanna High School. Relatives said that Elbaneh had traveled to Yemen last month for an arranged marriage and that she was “very excited” to return home with her new husband. “Like the people killed in 9/11, people killed in terrorist attacks all over the place, we’re the same victims,” her cousin, Shokey Elbaneh, told the Associated Press.

Yemen authorities said they had arrested several dozen suspects in the investigation of the attack. McCormack would not comment on what role the FBI or other authorities might play in that investigation. “This now falls into the realm of a law-enforcement matter,” McCormack said. He denied reports that at least one of the two explosions blew a hole in the perimeter of the heavily fortified embassy compound. “As I understand it, there was not a breach of the walls,” he said. No U.S. diplomats or embassy employees were killed or wounded in the attack.

Rice: Russian invasion of Georgia hurts its global image continued from page 7 According to Rice, Russia’s actions “fit into a worsening pattern of behavior over several years.” She mentioned, among other grievances, Russia’s “intimidation” of neighboring states, its use of its oil and gas resources as “a political weapon” and its arms sales to “states and groups that threaten international security.” The emerging picture, Rice said, “is that of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad.”

Russia’s invasion of Georgia has not achieved any “enduring strategic objective,” she said. The U.S. goal now “is to make it clear to Russia’s leaders that their choices are putting Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance.” Following its actions in Georgia, “Russia’s international standing is worse than at any time since 1991,” Rice said. — Staf f writer Glenn Kessler contributed to this report.

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E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Friday, September 19, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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

Diamonds and coal Cubic zirconium to former Interim Vice President for Campus Life and Student Ser vices Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, now better known as Senior Vice President for Corporation Affairs and Governance Russell Carey ’91 MA’06. We’re glad your title got shorter (by one word), but we’re still going to be billing you for extra ink. A purple diamond to Professor Emeritus of Anthropology Dwight Heath, who, according to our reporting, “has been writing about crosscultural drinking for 50 years.” And just when we thought we couldn’t stay in college forever. Coal to Facilities Management, which refused to disclose the location of the computer that controls the bell atop University Hall for fear students might create mischief. You think you can stop us, FacMan? We’ll find it. We’ve already got a heist team with two Thete strongmen, a Tech House hacker genius, a Phi Psi frontman, a Sigma brother bankrolling the operation and a kickass van. Speaking of vans, a ring-pop diamond to the Data Truck, which lures passersby off the street and promises them candy if they’ll participate in “experiments.” While we remember we’re supposed to “just say no to strangers,” we do like candy (and scientific inquir y). Coal to super-informative government health warnings. After some West Nile-infected mosquitoes were found in Rhode Island, the Centers for Disease Control warned, “If you find a dead bird: Don’t handle the body with your bare hands.” Meanwhile, this health warning from The Herald: If you need to be warned not to handle dead animals, quarantine yourself. Right now. Diamond to Professor-at-Large Ricardo Lagos, who spoke on how global warming could put an end to chilly weather, reminding us that warmer winters would leave us without a reason to cook up our famous chili. Diamond to the return of the crime log. This week’s thriller: Man talks to strangers on Thayer Street — but wait! “The conversation then turned, and as he walked away from them he flipped them off.” Naturally, strangers throw beers at man, and naturally, he calls the cops. DPS: They know drama.

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

Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang

Arts & Culture Editor Arts & Culture Editor Higher Ed Editor Higher Ed Editor Features Editor Metro Editor Metro Editor News Editor News Editor News Editor News Editor Opinions Editor Opinions Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor Asst. Sports Editor

production Production & Design Editor Steve DeLucia Assoc. Design Editor Chaz Kelsh Copy Desk Chief Kathryn Delaney Copy Desk Chief Seth Motel Graphics Editor Adam Robbins

Letters Hiring of sexual assault counselor unnecessary To the Editor: In yesterday’s newspaper, you include an article indicating the University hired a sexual assault staffer (“Health Services hires sexual assault staffer,” Sept. 18). Was this hire in response to the recent rampage of violent rapes on campus? Was it in response to the 65 percent rate of acquaintance sexual assault reported last year? No. It was in response to a zero sexual assault rate

in 2005. In typical liberal fashion, students did not like what the statistics showed, so they formed a committee to address why the statistics must be wrong. Then they demanded new positions and other fixes to address the faulty statistics. Perhaps the University should lower tuition rather than hiring people to address phantom needs. Jonathan F. Bastian ‘89 Sept. 18

Senior Editors Irene Chen Lindsey Meyers

editorial Ben Hyman Hannah Levintova Matthew Varley Alex Roehrkasse Chaz Firestone Nandini Jayakrishna Scott Lowenstein Michael Bechek Isabel Gottlieb Franklin Kanin Michael Skocpol Ben Bernstein James Shapiro Benjy Asher Amy Ehrhart Megan McCahill Andrew Braca Han Cui Katie Wood

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Business Darren Ball General Manager Mandeep Gill General Manager Shawn Reilly Office Manager Alex Hughes Sales Manager Lily Tran Sales Manager Emilie Aries Public Relations Director Jon Spector Accounting Director Claire Kiely National Account Manager Ellen DaSilva University Account Manager Philip Maynard Recruiter Account Manager Katelyn Koh Credit Manager Ingrid Pangandoyon Technology Director photo Meara Sharma Min Wu

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C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication. C ommentary P O L I C Y The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only. L etters to the E ditor P olicy Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed. advertising P olicy The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

O pinions Friday, September 19, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

The problem with advising BY TYLER ROSENBAUM | Opinions Columnist The freshman transition to college can be an exhilarating and (at times) overwhelming experience. All of a sudden, first-years find themselves freed from the constraints of parental supervision, preset courses and overzealous assistant principals. The New Curriculum contributes to new students’ difficulties by emancipating them from paternalistic distribution requirements and forcing them to forge a coherent academic path of their own. Given this daunting responsibility, students find comfort in the fact that they have a faculty advisor from day one. My advisor helped me immensely, correctly predicting that taking five classes in political science in one semester was imprudent. In talking with friends and fellow students, though, I’ve found that my experience was an exception to the rule; dissatisfaction with advising is all too common at Brown. The newly released Final Report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education was right to focus on the need to improve advising at Brown with added emphasis on sophomore advising. For better or for worse, advising is very subjective. As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Despite the administration’s best efforts, advising proficiency cannot be quantified, nor can any amount of training or vetting ensure that an advisor will provide a high quality experience for each of her advisees. The onus is on us, the students, to find advisors who suit our particular personalities and interests. Apathetic or lazy students who are unhappy with their current advisors but unwilling to look for new ones are unlikely to have a radically different experience, no matter how well the University trains or pays their next advisors. Brown can provide sympathetic and qualified advisors, but it cannot force students to make full use of advising services. Coercive measures, such as requiring freshmen (let alone sophomores) to seek a PIN from their advisors before registering for classes, are particularly unhelpful. Everyone loves the New Curriculum. But some students don’t wish to take advantage of the many opportunities for self-actualization available at Brown. It would be contrary to Brown’s ideals to make them do so.

Dedicated advisors are important, but students seem to learn and grow more through conversations with their professors. This fact accounts for the success of the Curricular Advising Program, in which students’ advisors are also their teachers. Students naturally form productive advising relationships with professors in areas relevant to their academic interests. The University ought to facilitate these interactions if it wants to improve the advising experience for undergraduates. Small class sizes and expanded office hours provide ideal conditions for such relationships to develop. This solution is all the more important for students in the most popular departments. In history, economics, international relations and biology, students are herded into classes numbering in the hundreds. And I’m not just talking about introductory courses. If the University hopes to promote advising and encourage students to form relationships with professors, small class sizes are key. Freshman and senior seminars are excellent, but what about those of us in the middle? Graduate students are not an acceptable replacement. Brown should dedicate a significant amount of its resources to decreasing class size, especially in overcrowded areas. Finally, and most importantly, professors must make themselves accessible. Some professors already do a great job at this. Some do not. The bottom line is that professors should hold office hours for more than two hours, one day a week. Office hours should never be by appointment only. Truth be told, professors should not have “better things to do” than meet with students, especially when those things involve research. I am glad that the Task Force has recognized that advising and student mentoring need reform. The problem will not be solved easily. Students do not need a benevolent administration to force them through hoops. They need smaller classes and more accessible professors. I hope that instead of attempting to keep up with the Joneses by morphing into a research university, Brown will devote its resources to strengthening its undergraduate collegiate experience.

Tyler Rosenbaum ’11 is trying to keep up with the Simmonses.

Silencing ourselves BY JEREMY FEIGENBAUM | Opinions Columnist Six months ago, 555 people cast their votes at the Salomon Center during the Democratic presidential primary. A little over a week ago, on September 9, 2008, only 17 people made it to Salomon for the Rhode Island Democratic senatorial primary. Brunonians, I am shocked and appalled. We can do much better. Assuming that one fourth of those who voted have since graduated, about 400 presidential primary voters did not return to the polls. I would have been content with a meager 200 voters. But 17? Ignorance is no excuse. On the day of the primary, the Herald’s editorial page discussed the event and encouraged all Brown students to vote. Maybe you didn’t read it. Or, maybe, you just didn’t care. I know that all but one of the races were uncontested. And someone could easily make the case that the senate race was highly uncompetitive. But even an uncompetitive race deserves five minutes of your time. Can you even name any of the candidates on the ballot? Did you know that our state representative is Edith Ajello, or that the councilman for our ward is Seth Yurdin? Do you know what they stand for? You should — their votes have substantial impact on issues from marriage equality in Rhode Island to the amount of pollution in Providence. More importantly, can you name the two men who ran for the Democratic nomination for Senate? In case you cannot, they were Jack Reed, Rhode Island’s incumbent senator running for his third term, and Christopher Young, a local activist. I am thrilled that Reed won by a huge margin (and that 100 percent of the votes cast in Salomon went to him), but ashamed that so few of us can claim to be a part of his success. If you support Reed you might say, “There was no reason for me to vote. Young had no chance of victory. He wasn’t even raising money and he barely tried to get his message out.” If you said those things, you would be right; that’s why Young only received 13 percent of the vote. But what if, like you, many other citizens felt the same

way? However unlikely it may seem, it would not have been logically impossible for many of Reed’s supporters to have remained at home, allowing Young’s small but mobilized base to seize the day. How would you have felt then? And if you support Young, then you undoubtedly should have voted. Sure, he was not going to win, but this was your chance to register your dissatisfaction with Senator Reed’s policies. You might have even affected his future voting record by doing so. I suspect, however, that you probably don’t know which of them you would have supported. You probably don’t know anything about what they stand for. That’s why you didn’t vote. Well, if you think that drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the answer to our nation’s energy crisis, then you missed your chance to support Young. On the other hand, if you believe that drilling will not solve the problem, and that we still need to invest in alternative energy, you should have cast a vote for Jack Reed. So why didn’t the many members of our various green groups vote for Reed to show their support for his environmentally conscious views? In the same vein, where were the members of our feminist and pro-choice groups? Christopher Young would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned! Again, I know he only garnered 13 percent of the vote. But shouldn’t you at least add your voice to those who want to protect a woman’s right to choose? I would certainly be disappointed to have a pro-life senator representing liberal Rhode Island. When Professor Jennifer Lawless asked the students in POLS 1120: “Campaigns and Elections” to raise their hands if they had voted that day, only one hand went up. Keep in mind that these students had walked by their polling station just minutes before. I hope that the next time we have an uncompetitive primary, all Brunonians registered in Rhode Island will vote, whatever their policy preferences. We should all be heard.

Jeremy Feigenbaum ’11 is not registered to vote in Rhode Island, in case you’re wondering.

Page 11

Where have all the journalists gone? BY MAX CHAIKEN | Opinions Columnist As I turned on my television a few days ago, the screen slowly started to glow as I heard the sweet, dulcet tones of Wolf Blitzer discussing recent national polling for the presidential election on CNN. I hoped to catch a few minutes of a town hall meeting or a stump speech by one of the candidates. Unfortunately, I had temporarily forgotten that if you want any real news coverage of the presidential election you’ll probably have to turn off the television and turn on your computer. The lack of dignified journalism on the cable news networks is certainly not a new problem. But just a few days ago, when asked by a voter in New Hampshire why the press don’t seem to ask any serious questions of the Republican ticket, Sen. Barack Obama quoted Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes in reminding voters that the networks “basically cover four things … polls, scandals, gaffes and attacks.” This was a good response, because as it was none of the four things, it did not get much, if any, major network coverage. (I, for one, found it on a blog.) So instead of hearing about Obama’s speech on education last Tuesday, we heard about why the members of the Republican ticket believed they were owed an apology. The GOP was upset by Obama’s comment that calling old policies “change” is like putting “lipstick on a pig” — an old policy with a new name. Sen. John McCain’s campaign idiotically decided that he must have been talking about Gov. Sarah Palin since she had used the word “lipstick” in her stump speech. Instead of hearing about how Obama wants to double funding for charter schools and increase teacher salaries, we learned about the intricacies of the phrase, which pundits wanted him to apologize for and about the attack ad that McCain released in response. As Michael Ramos-Lynch ’09 eloquently noted the other day (”The Commission on Presidential Debates (TM), Sept. 12, 2008), no one wants to cover any third-party candidates. This week, Ralph Nader has been at Tulane University in Louisiana, but we probably won’t hear anything about it. Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate, recently posted his thoughts on the Huffington Post as to why the War on Drugs is failing and is going to be speaking at a conservative conference in Las Vegas on Saturday. Yet again, we probably won’t hear about it. Even when given the opportunity to cover the campaigns in real time, the cable news networks ignored the vast majority of the speeches at the conventions two weeks ago. Instead of hearing from governors Deval Patrick, D-Mass., or Brian Schweitzer, D-Mont., on Aug. 26, CNN viewers had the honor of listening to Campbell Brown and John King discuss the imaginary “tension” between Clinton and Obama supporters at the Democratic National Convention. Similarly, unless you were watching C-SPAN, you probably don’t even know that on the same night that McCain gave his acceptance speech, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., also addressed the Republican National Convention. Perhaps the most glaring examples, still, of journalistic negligence are the reactions we have seen to both McCain’s choice of Palin and his increasingly dishonest and shameless campaign lies. Palin was announced as McCain’s vice presidential nominee on Aug. 29. Yet it was not until Sept. 12 that Palin gave an interview to anybody in the press. What angers me about this delay is not the Bush-like lack of transparency, but the fact that the press have not assailed McCain’s campaign for setting a recent precedent on how long it took to allow an interview with a vice presidential candidate — a candidate who is completely new to the national stage and auditioning to be a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency. And until recently, the networks had largely ignored the numerous blatant lies and distortions that the McCain campaign used on the air and on the stump. Most regrettably, these lies included repeated falsehoods about Palin’s initial opposition to Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” After buying into Palin’s rhetoric regarding her supposedly sterling record of integrity and anti-corruption — highlighted by her supposed opposition to this and other empty earmarks — the press waited until last week to do their homework and confront reality. It wasn’t until the hosts of “The View” flatly asked McCain about these lies that his dishonesty was exposed to the public. None of this is meant to suggest that the press has been effective in consistently covering Obama, either. Recently, however, the most significant failures have come with regard to the McCain campaign. So if you’re looking for news on the issues in this presidential election this cycle, please turn off MSNBC, turn off CNN and turn off Fox News. Apparently, if you want legitimate journalism, you’ll have to turn on “The View.”

Max Chaiken ’09 heads Brown Students for Barack Obama.

S ports W eekend Page 12

Friday, September 19, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Football season to kick off Saturday

W. rugby exacts revenge in opener

By Benjy Asher Spor ts Editor

By Katie Wood Assistant Spor ts Editor

On Saturday, the Brown football team will take the field for the first game of what promises to be an exciting season. With eight returning All-Ivy starters, Stonybrook the Bears are @ Brown ready to reclaim the Ivy Sat. 12:30pm League championship that Brown last won in 2005. The team will be under the leadership of Head Coach Phil Estes, in his 11th season as Brown’s head coach, and two co-captains, quarterback Michael Dougherty ’09 and cornerback Darrell Harrison ’09. “Our confidence level this year is the highest of any team I’ve been on,” Harrison said. “I was on that Ivy League championship team my freshman year, and this team has just as much, if not more, talent than that team.” The Bears’ offense, which led the league with 31.2 points per game in 2007, will feature a strong passing attack in addition to a solid

it very seriously and garnered five individual first-place finishes. For the men’s team, Reggie Cole ’10 won the triple jump with 14.96 meters (49 feet, 1 inch). On the women’s running side, Smita Gupta ’08 captured the 1500-meter race with a time of 4 minutes, 41.87 seconds, and Jenna Ridgway ’10 ran a 10:17.29 to win the 3000-meter race.

Brown women’s rugby began its season on a high note this past weekend, picking up right where it left off last season when the team made the Final Four at Nationals. Beantown, the Boston-area club team that includes All-American Emilie Bydwell ’08, hosted a tournament at Amherst, Mass. The tournament featured some of the Northeast Region’s toughest teams. Brown won the tournament championship by getting its season off to a 4-0 start. The Bears recorded wins over Providence College (47-0), UMass (18-0) and Army (10-5) before securing the championship with a 14-10 win over last year’s Final Four opponent Penn State. “The team played fantastic,” said Head Coach Kerri Heffernan. “We’ve never opened up so strong as a team at such a high level.” Brown steadily made its way through the preliminar y rounds, dominating PC and UMass with sound defensive efforts and highpowered offense. Six different players scored tries — which are similar to touchdowns in football — in the PC match, including captains Whitney Brown ’08.5 and Nina Safane ’09, Blaine Martin ’11, Frankie Male ’09. Yadi Ibarra ’09 and Alex Hartley ’10 also shined, each scoring twice in the match. Brown next roughed up UMass, holding the Minutemen scoreless for its second shutout on the day. Martin, Brown and Adria Orr ’09 scored tries for the team. With their 2-0 record after Saturday, the Bears were ready to take on a tough Army squad on Sunday morning. Martin and Hartley

continued on page 9

Herald File Photo

continued on page 9

Michael Doughetry ’09, a second team All-Ivy selection last season, will lead Brown’s offense this season. The Bears are looking to take the league by surprise after being picked to finish third behind Harvard and Yale in a pre-season poll.

Track and field leaps across the pond for summer trip By Seth Motel Sports Staff Writer

Three thousand miles would be a long distance to travel just to get in some sprints. So, for the men’s and women’s track and field teams, their trip to Europe became an opportunity both to compete and to enjoy new cultural experiences. Teaming up with Dartmouth, the Brown squads spent a total of 12 days in Ireland and England last

June. They had to forget about the Ivy League rivalry—at least for the time being—as the schools joined together to take on some of Western Europe’s best track and field athletes. The schools’ players got to know each other a little earlier than they had hoped. With their flight on June 10 canceled, Brown and the Big Green spent the night together in Providence. But once they finally reached Europe, the players had to

dash so that they could fit in all of their planned activities. The Bears started the trip in Limerick, Ireland, the host city of the main competition. They were treated to “an overwhelming welcome” at the University of Limerick, said Head Coach Craig Lake. On June 14, the Brown-Dartmouth team took on the University of Limerick in the trip’s main event. Although the competition was just an exhibition, Brown’s athletes took

Field hockey falls to Northeastern, 7-1 By Andrew BRACA Assistant Spor ts Editor

If most losses are a learning experience, the field hockey team got a masters course after being handed a 7-1 defeat by Northeastern in Boston on 1 Brown We d n e s day. NorthNortheastern 7 eastern (5-2) scored on each of its first three shots on goal en route to dropping Brown’s record to 1-3. But the Bears will have to study quick before Columbia (3-0) comes to town tomorrow for the Ivy League opener. “This game helps identify some weaknesses in our team and certainly our play,” said Sara Eaton ’09. “These are things that our coaching staff will work to fix in the upcoming practices before Columbia.” The coaches need to look no further than the beginning of the Northeastern game. The Huskies raced out to the lead just 2:18 into the match when Annie Clayman beat Bears’ goalkeeper Lauren Kessler ’11, and they never looked

back. Northeastern quickly overwhelmed Brown’s defense, tacking on another goal at 10:51 and opening up a three-goal lead just 91 seconds later. Before the game was 13 minutes old, the Bears were in a deep hole. “Their forwards were extremely fast, and we came out on our heels, very tentatively,” said Katie Hyland ’11. “We just let them get the best of us within the first 15 minutes.” But the Bears recovered and edged closer with a goal at 18:37 when Eaton found the back of the cage. “I think it was on a turnover,” she said. “I got the ball from their left back and passed it to Katie Hyland, who had the poise to control it for a second, draw the defender, and then she passed it to me. I just did a quick (move) on the goalie and shot it.” Brown yanked Kessler, who did not stop any of the three shots she faced, a minute later and inserted Caroline Washburn ’12 in goal. Washburn’s collegiate debut got off to an encouraging start, as she made two saves to shut down

Northeastern for the remainder of the half. Although the Bears had been out-shot, 12-4, and trailed in penalty corners, 7-1, the players remained optimistic. “Going into halftime (down only) 3-1 against a team like Northeastern, we really had (high) hopes for the second half,” Hyland said. But it was not to be for the Bears. Nor theastern came out stronger in the second half, posting a 12-1 advantage in shots. Although Washburn made four saves, the Huskies still scored four times. Meg Sweeney scored her second goal of the game 13:56 into the second half to give Northeastern a 4-1 lead. The Huskies added two more goals 50 seconds apart, and then Ashley Bascetta tacked on the final tally with just 1:13 left in the game. “It was pretty brutal,” Hyland said. “I felt like we gave up after the fourth goal, when it was 4-1. Ever ything just snowballed, and the icing on the terrible cake was that goal within two minutes of just continued on page 9

Herald File Photo

The field hockey team lost 7-1 to Northeastern in a game Wednesday in Boston. They will play undefeated Columbia tomorrow.