Thursday, September 25, 2008 by The Brown Daily Herald

The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, S eptember 25, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 78

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

U. to remove damaged tree art soon

Economist speaks against ‘just say no’ Libertarian favors decriminalization

By Brian Mastroianni Senior Staf f Writer

By Sarah Husk Contributing Writer

After growing up with “Just Say No” with television commercials imploring them to be “Above the Influence,” today’s college students have spent their youths grounded in America’s so-called “war on drugs.” But on Tuesday night, students filled List Auditorium to hear one man’s take on exactly why the whole campaign makes no sense. Jeffrey Miron, Harvard economics professor, outspoken libertarian and staunch advocate of drug legalization, told his audience that since his positions tend to be unpopular, he gets a “weird feeling” when an audience agrees with him. Miron focused his lecture on deconstructing the liberal and libertarian arguments on drug policy, and differentiating them on the basis of liberals’ interest in decriminalization versus libertarians’ agenda to legalize them completely. The main difference, he said, is that liberals, while “happy to defend the rights of someone who uses drugs,” are not as interested in legalizing the market to protect sellers. This, Miron said, is “just bizarre” and “illogical” to libertarians. “Decriminalization is not going to get rid of the problems,” Miron said, citing issues that would remain problematic even under decriminalization, such as questionable quality control, infringements on civil liberties and violent tensions between rival drug dealers. On the other hand, libertarians, continued on page 4

Alex DePaoli / Herald

What remains of “Square Roots,” the sculpture on the Front Green — which sustained damage from a fallen tree last March — will be removed in the coming months.

continued on page 4

Did Jesus walk on water? Prof. can’t find footprints By Leslie Primack Staff Writer

The world’s most famous historical figure may also be one of its most elusive. The subject of millions of books, movies and even bumper stickers, Jesus Christ has been an international celebrity for almost 2,000 years. But when archaeologists try to uncover even a single artifact regarding Jesus’ life, they can find nothing. “It’s amazing how something you can’t prove scientifically can be so

powerful,” said Adjunct Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies Katharina Galor. On Sept. 11, she gave a lecture entitled “Jesus: What is the Archaeological Evidence?” at the University of Missouri.

FEATURE Galor, who has worked for the past 20 years on excavations in Israel, said there is no physical evidence for the existence of Jesus. This, however, is not unusual for figures of his time period — religious artifacts from this era that can be traced to

specific individuals are exceedingly rare, Galor said. “Belief is defined mostly by words … and by emotions,” Galor explained, rather than by objects that people use in their daily lives that could be excavated thousands of years later. “It’s just like today. You would not necessarily be able to differentiate a Jew from a Christian or a Muslim. They use the same utensils to eat, they wear the same clothes.” University Chaplain Janet Coocontinued on page 4

Language, leadership at issue in postponed vote By Melissa Shube Senior Staff Writer

Kim Perley / Herald

In the first week of fall, RI farms offered pumpkins, apples and other locally-grown produce at the Farmers’ Market.

POSThas a fetish, a fall from innocence and a new Facebook

CAMPUS NEWS

real Foods Many Brown student groups unite to bring sustainable foods to Brown’s campus

Courtesy of the Apollonia-Arsuf Project

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Judaic Studies Katharina Galor

UCS decides to table three UFB amendments

PUMPKIN SEASON BEGINS

www.browndailyherald.com

Artist Patrick Dougherty’s tree sculpture, which has been on the Front Green since October 2006, will finally be removed in the next few months, members of the University’s public art committee said. The temporar y installation, an improbably balanced tangle of branches named “Square Roots,” was partially destroyed in March when one of the nearby elm trees toppled and crushed the sculpture’s middle section. The University removed the affected segment, but the remaining parts on each side were left intact. Dougherty’s piece was originally scheduled to be removed after about two years, said Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the David Winton Bell Gallery and a member of the art committee.

OPINIONS

The Undergraduate Council of Students met Wednesday with the intention of voting on three amendments to the constitution of the Undergraduate Finance Board, which controls funding for student activities. However, problems with the wording and content, including a disagreement over gender-neutral pronouns, were brought up in a preliminary discussion and led UFB to withdraw all three amendments. “Somewhere along the lines, UFB and UCS got mixed up about what was actually being passed and what the language was supposed to

SAYONARA TO STEWART Anish Mitra ’10 discusses the doom of The Daily Show — who will Stewart make fun of next?

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

16 SPORTS

be,” UFB Vice-Chair Stefan Smith ’09 said. The first amendment discussed would require that the UCS Elections Board be comprised of equal numbers of UCS and UFB members. “I think it’s incredibly important to have both bodies represented,” said Erinn Phelan ’09, a former UFB member who is now UCS’s liason to the Corporation. Zachary Townsend ’09, the former UCS vice president, worried that the amendment, which would force UFB to put more members on the election board, would cause UFB members to do a poor job with their primary job of managing student groups’ funding. Rakim Brooks ’09, former UCS academics and administrative affairs chair, said “dragging people on the board for any particular reason actucontinued on page 6 MEN’S SOCCER VICTORY Brown’s team scores the only goal at the end of the game to defeat Boston College

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We a t h e r

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim

TODAY

TOMORROW

showers 66 / 54

rain 64 / 58

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Corn Souffle, Mashed Red Potatoes with Garlic, Sugar Snap Peas, Vegan Tofu Pups, Krinkle Fries

Lunch — Chicken Caesar Salad Wrap, Linguini with Tomatoes & Basil, Cauliflower, Krinkle Cut Fries

Dinner — Pumpkin Raviolis with Cream Sauce, Rice Pilaf with Zucchini, Sunny Sprouts, Summer Squash

Dinner — Roast Turkey with Sauce, Vegan Roasted Vegetable Stew, Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing

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.

Brown Meets RISD | Miguel Llorente

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

Los Angeles Times Puzzle C r o sDaily s w oCrossword rd Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS 1 __ Bora: Afghan region 5 Hoax 9 Twist maker 14 King Harald’s father 15 Where sols are spent 16 Senator Hatch 17 Seat of Nevada’s Washoe County 18 Got off 19 Splotchy garment 20 “Rain” author who’s a Beckham fan? 23 Welsh actress Tessie 24 Live and breathe 25 End of a proof 28 Vex the author of “On the Beach”? 33 Rolls-Royce parent co. 36 Solitary 37 Get ready for a drive 38 Padmé Amidala’s daughter 40 Green openings 43 Totally change 44 Surprise one’s costar 46 He directed Gene in “Laura” 48 Court divider 49 “Brideshead Revisited” author at an auction? 53 Sink 54 “The Reaping” actor 55 Permission 59 Interning with “The Swimmer” author? 64 Iron output 66 Traveling, say 67 Its California theme park has a “Miniland, USA” section 68 Until, in Toledo 69 Start of an idea 70 Ages 71 “Barnaby Jones” star 72 Ideal plot 73 Unit of force

41 Traffic can affect 57 Cousin of a DOWN 1 Artist’s subject fruitarian it, briefly 2 Spreads in tubs 58 Jagged 42 R-V hookup? 3 Spread with 60 “Six Feet Under” 45 Robert Stroud’s hands brother nickname, in a 4 Leggy shore bird 61 Amazed 1962 film 5 Support at sea 62 Treatment 47 Eye unsubtly 6 Captain’s place 63 “O Sacred Head, 50 Miss-named? 7 “Vissi d’arte,” e.g. Now Wounded,” 51 Sale site 8 Held in common e.g. 52 Tilted, at sea 9 Most swanky 64 Miss identification 56 Tex of Looney 10 Writer Bombeck 65 Hunter of film Tunes 11 High school honor ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 12 It may follow an error 13 Press 21 Peer above a viscount 22 Sr.’s exam 26 Liszt’s “Vision,” e.g. 27 Station 29 “Wow!” 30 Dos cut in half 31 Where to look out? 32 Pen or hen 33 Tells 34 Coverage providers 35 Stab 39 It may be foreign xwordeditor@aol.com 2/15/08

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

Dunkel | Joe Larios

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M etro Thursday, September 25, 2008

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Sushi bar granted liquor license By George Miller Senior Staff Writer

Courtesy of GCPvd.org

The Rhode Island State House is home to the world’s fourth-largest self-supporting marble dome.

State House tour shows more than politics By Paula Kaufman Contributing writer

Bundles of black wire trailed movie cameras and snaked around the bases of white Georgian marble columns in the Senate chamber of the Rhode Island State House Wednesday afternoon, as the sound of actors practicing monologues from the TV drama “Brotherhood” echoed off the vaulted ceilings. Outside, another group of actors gesticulated wildly under the fall sun, practicing lines for the show in front of the building’s recognizable dome. The State House has hosted film crews for the third season of the series — which revolves around the lives of two brothers, one a local politician and the other a criminal involved with New England’s Irish mob — since April. Just a 15-minute walk from the University’s main campus, the State House has attracted politicians, history buffs, students and the media for years. Other times the seats of its House and Senate chambers are filled with representatives, sometimes with actors: The building served as a backdrop in the 1997 Steven Spielberg film “Amistad.” But the neoclassical artifice that houses the General Assembly and the offices of the Ocean State’s top public servants is also defining itself as an important tourist locale, offering hour-long tours daily to educate visitors about its rich architectural and historical significance. The tour guide last Wednesday, Sarah Draginice, walked this Herald reporter and a group of 15 tourists around the building, which was constructed in 1904. It is on the tour that visitors learn, for example, that the dome of

the State House is the fourth-largest self-supporting marble dome in the world, after St. Peter’s Basilica, the Minnesota State Capitol and the Taj Mahal. During the walk through the building, Draginice pointed out hints of histor y — the wear on the mural-adorned ceilings, on the marble stairs from more than a century of comings and goings. She highlighted the presence of the Royal Charter of Rhode Island, a document penned in 1663 to give Rhode Island citizens the freedoms of religious worship and self-governance, which is now housed in a fireproof and temperature-regulated steel vault. In addition to its grandeur and history, the State House is, of course, the site of the day-today business of the Ocean State’s government. The R.I. House currently has 75 representatives — 60 Democrats, 13 Republicans, 1 Independent and 1 vacancy. The Senate has a smaller chamber for its 38 representatives — 33 Democrats and 5 Republicans. “Because of the election, it’s particularly important to come see the State House,” said Andrew Stitt, a 21-year-old Providence resident who interned at the State House library and has visited the building repeatedly since he first toured it on an elementary school field trip. “Politics and government buildings go hand in hand.” The wooden desks legislators occupy illustrate both the antiquity and modernity of the building. The tops of the desks are equipped with buttons that allow representatives to vote, call for a page or call to be recognized. The desks are also wired for Internet access — though strictly for government business use.

Nadia Benavidez, a junior at Johnson and Wales University who is also an intern at the building said she, too, will soon be giving tours of the State House. Benavidez, who is studying travel and tourism, pointed to the artistry of the building’s gilded ceilings, tapestries stitched into the walls and art hanging in the interior. “Before, I did not think Rhode Island had such a rich history. Literally and metaphorically, this building shows otherwise,” Benavidez said.

Despite objections from some of its neighbors, a new Japanese restaurant on Thayer Street was granted a liquor license and a 2 a.m. closing time on weekends night by the Providence Board of Licenses at the end of August. Shark Sushi Bar and Grill, which was supposed to open last December at 275 Thayer St., isn’t up and running yet. No signs, boards or lights identify the space between Spike’s and Details as a future restaurant awaiting the arrival of a shark tank from Los Angeles. The 16-foot-long tank will house two sharks and a coral reef behind the bar once the restaurant opens in six to eight weeks, said Ray Hugh, the restaurant’s co-owner. The College Hill Neighborhood Association and the University both opposed granting Shark the liquor license. William Touret, president of the CHNA called the decision to grant the restaurant a liquor license “inappropriate,” saying the group opposed it as part of the larger issue of the “increasing saturation” of Thayer with liquor vendors. Touret also said the restaurant, which will seat more than 100 people, will not have sufficient parking and that patrons leaving early in the morning will have to drive through residential streets. “Do you want people who have been drinking alcohol until 2 a.m. driving through the streets of an academic and residential neighborhood?” he said.

The University also opposed Shark’s license on behalf of students and the community, said Darrell Brown, director for state and community relations. Like Touret, Brown said too many establishments on Thayer Street already have liquor licenses. Shanghai, Kartabar, Paragon and Andreas all have licenses to serve alcohol after hours. But Hugh dismissed the criticism. “This is America, you know? Come on,” he said of community opposition to the license. Shanghai, the restaurant he owns across the street from Shark, also has a liquor license and has never had any problems with neighbors, he said. Some property owners near Shark also opposed the license, but they weren’t numerous enough to force the Providence Board of Licenses to deny the application. According to the board’s rules, if owners of at least 50.1 percent of the area within 200 feet of Shark had objected, the license would not have been granted. Those against the license only own 36.9 percent of the properties in that space, according to a Sept. 2 Providence Journal article. In the past, both the zoning board and the board of licenses have allowed restaurants and bars to open on and around Thayer Street and serve liquor late. In 2006, Spats Restaurant opened at 182 Angell St. after fierce opposition from the College Hill Neighborhood Association, the University and property owners to its application for a liquor license, The Herald reported last spring.

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Where’s Jesus? Brown professor is on the search continued from page 1 per Nelson echoed this inability to pinpoint a given faith’s archaeological footprint. “What are the artifacts of religion?” she asked. She said she feels religious truth does not lie solely in facts that can be proven by science. “What turns the course of history for Christianity is not the cobblestones that Jesus walked on.” Though historians and Christians generally do not dispute the absence of archaeological evidence for Jesus’ life, neither group seems to believe that this disproves his existence. “We don’t have any irrefutable historical evidence that there really was such a person,” said Professor of Religious Studies Ross Kraemer, who specializes in religion in antiquity, especially Christianity. “This isn’t going to bother many people.” Concrete evidence that could disprove the existence of Jesus or his resurrection would probably pose much greater problems for believers than the current lack of evidence, she said. Kraemer, who is not a Christian, said she does not have to reconcile the historical evidence with her own faith, but that many Christian scholars do. “My informal sense ... is that there’s a lot more at stake in these debates about Jesus than in, let’s say ... debates about Socrates,” she said. “The vast majority of historical work that’s done on early Christianity is done by Christians.” “Most people agree that Jesus existed,” said Philip Burns ’09, president of the Brown Christian Fellowship. “What’s controversial is, ‘Did he resurrect?’” Tradition is central in Catholicism, explained Catholic Campus Minister Angie McParland. “Maybe archaeological evidence is the wrong search.” Rather than scrutinizing the details of Jesus’ life, she said her religion is interested in the long history of Church practices from biblical times to the present. “That’s the goal,” she said. “It’s really important that the Church be continuous from the time of Christ to the present day.” Nathaniel Johnson ’10, a leader in the Brown Christian Fellowship, agreed that his faith in Jesus is inde-

pendent of the scientific evidence. “I’m pretty skeptical about a lot of people’s efforts to construct the historical Jesus,” he said. “At this point, I would say the basis of my faith is in experience. I know that Jesus saved me.” However, he said he welcomes any new findings because they give him a historical context and force him to construct more nuanced beliefs. But even though most seem to be able to dismiss the lack of archaeological evidence as irrelevant to their beliefs, many believers said they often grapple with the question of Jesus’ existence and identity. “Every single day I wonder if there are millions of people around the world praying to and worshipping ... nothingness,” said Alex Schultz ’11, a Roman Catholic. Despite her concerns about the plausibility of Jesus’s story, Schultz said she believes in Jesus both as a historical figure and a divine entity. “If you say it out loud it sounds so stupid,” she said, “but if I’m ever going through something that’s really difficult, I always feel like there’s somebody there ... who’s looking over me.” Associate Protestant Chaplain William Mathis said he struggles with “who Jesus is” even though he’s a minister. He added that his faith is based largely on the texts that describe Jesus’ life and on his personal relationship with God. Mathis spent years studying scripture and the historical roots of Christianity. “There’s plenty in there for me to say that this Jesus thing is a whole bunch of crock.” However, he said, his personal relationship with God repeatedly reaffirms his belief. In the end, nearly all Christians interviewed by The Herald placed great importance on the physical existence of Jesus, even as they questioned the relevance of the archeological evidence. “It’s important to me that Jesus actually physically existed,” said Johnson, a leader of the Brown Christian Fellowship. Jesus as a historical figure is “incredibly important,” said Burns, the fellowship’s president. “The whole point of Jesus is that he’s God become man. You can’t separate the divine aspect and the human aspect.”

Thanks for reading.

SSDP, Spectator sponsor drug lecture continued from page 1 Miron said, believe in the legalization of “all drugs — no exceptions.” And while he said that he was against most legal restrictions on the sale, purchase and use of drugs, he acknowledged that it’s not practical to “legalize marijuana like toothpaste.” But where liberals would call for a heavy “sin tax,” so as to provide an obstacle to use, libertarians are skeptical. Under the rationale that drugs have a negative impact on society, Miron said, “almost anything” from Sudafed to late night TV could carry similar effects. Miron also addressed several other aspects of regulation, such as age restrictions and parameters for ethical advertising. Both of these can make decriminalization more palatable, he said, but added that neither is in line with the libertarian viewpoint that “says, ‘Let people do what they want and let them bear the consequences.’” Drug use, he added, is “shrouded in this myster y.” He ascribed this attitude to his belief that the federal government has “hyperbolized” drug use, an action that he said ultimately “just makes them look like idiots.” Miron admitted that the legalization of drugs would almost certainly

lead to an increase in casual users and more experimentation. “If (cocaine) were legal, I would try it,” he said, to “see what the fuss has been about for the last 85 or 90 years.” But Miron also acknowledged that his viewpoint is considered extreme and is not likely to be taken up any time soon by politicians. “There are no votes to be gotten for a politician who’s soft on drugs,” he said as a means of explaining why he believes the issue hasn’t been on the forefront of the American political scene. Still, he said, in comparison to the United States, other countries have taken much greater strides toward the decriminalization, and in some cases legalization, of drugs. He pointed to European countries like the Netherlands and Spain as well as smaller-scale efforts in Canada and Latin America. When it comes to drug prohibition, he said, “the U.S. has always been the most extreme.” Ben Mossbarger ’10, president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, one of the groups sponsoring the lecture, said that the group thought “a new perspective was really necessary.” It’s important to realize that “it’s not just one group of people trying to legalize drugs,” Mossbarger said. He added that he thought the lecture

Kim Perley / Herald

Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron spoke last night, advocating decriminalizing drugs. “helped people construct two-sided arguments” about the issue. Gregor y Anderson ’10 added that it “brought up new questions in people’s minds.” In addition to SSDP, the lecture was sponsored by the Brown Spectator and the Brown College Republicans.

Public art group: Sculpture gone soon continued from page 1 “Part of me would have loved to keep the fallen tree there entwined with the sculpture, but that had obvious safety concerns,” she said. “There was just something ver y philosophically nice about Mother Nature taking over the sculpture.” In upcoming meetings, the committee will decide exactly when the sculpture will be taken down, Conklin said. For Dougherty — an artist who always works with natural materials from the areas around his sculptures — the damage done to his sculpture was not unexpected. “I thought it was an act of God,” he said. “My work is temporary. It had a good life, for sure, but my projects generally live a life for one great year.” Dougherty, who completes eight to 10 works each year, has worked as a sculptor for the past 25 years. With the help of an office assistant and volunteers who live near his installation sites, Dougherty typically

takes about three weeks to build one of his sculptures. He then usually takes a one week hiatus between projects, he said. “Square Roots” was built mainly out of maple tree branches that were found by a landscape crew working about a 30-minute drive away from Providence, the artist said. The Brown installation “was an expansive piece, and it was one of the first times I tried to use geometric forms in my work,” Dougherty said. “It worked well in the way that it took over the yard.” Robert Emlen, a senior lecturer in American Civilization and a member of the public art committee, recalled that Dougherty’s sculpture was met by a positive reception from the community when it was first installed. “It was wonderful — it really complemented the landscaping of the Front Green,” he said. “The sculpture was a nice play between the great structures on the green and the trees around it.” The committee, chaired by Chan-

cellor Emeritus Artemis Joukowsky ’55 P’87, includes Conklin, Emlen, Professor of Visual Arts Richard Fishman and Professor of History of Art and Architecture Dietrich Neumann. The committee usually chooses to display works of art acquired directly from the creators’ estates or from other private collections, and the pieces are meant to be displayed for two- to threeyear periods, Conklin said. Funding comes from both the University and private donations. The committee, which had acquired six installations before Dougherty’s sculpture, has not begun to discuss new installations, Conklin said. Once it does decide on a project, it will most likely take six months to a year to acquire the artwork and settle on a place for it on campus, she added. Public art, Emlen said, “engages people and brings the campus alive. It is more than just a pleasure to look at, but it is challenging and helps us to consider our surroundings.”

C ampus n ews Thursday, September 25, 2008

News

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

i n

Brief

Obama’s R.I. lead is slipping, U. poll shows Barack Obama is losing support from registered voters in Rhode Island, though he still holds a significant lead over his opponent, according to a new poll from the Taubman Center for Public Policy conducted Sept. 15 to 16. According to the poll, conducted by Professor of Political Science Marion Orr, Obama currently has a 13 percent lead over John McCain — with 47 percent of registered voters in Rhode Island saying they would vote for Obama if the election were on Sept. 15, an additional 34 percent saying they would vote for John McCain and approximately 19 percent undecided. This represents a 7 percent decrease in the spread between the two candidates since August, when a Taubman Center poll reported Obama to have a 20 percent lead over McCain. The report found that Obama has slightly higher support from women, with 50 percent of female respondents indicating that they planned to vote for him. Thirty-seven percent of women said they would cast their votes for McCain in November. The report also found that 60.5 percent of respondents who voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary plan to vote for Obama and approximately 22 percent plan to vote for McCain. When asked about vice presidential candidates, 53 percent of respondents said the Republican nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, does not “have the experience it takes to serve effectively as president if necessary,” while 33 percent said they believe she does. However, 74 percent of participants believe Democratic nominee Joe Biden “has the experience necessary to become president,” and 14 percent believe he does not. The study was based on a statewide random sample of 652 voters registered in Rhode Island with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.8 percentage points. — Caroline Sedano

Teens choosing not to use condoms, Alpert study finds By Heeyoung Min Contributing Writer

Many teens who don’t use condoms despite knowing the risks of unprotected sex do so because they fear reduced pleasure or their partner’s disapproval, a recent study led by Brown researchers has found. The research, published in the September/October issue of Public Health Reports, showed that teens who engage in unprotected sexual activity tend to believe that condoms reduce sexual pleasure. They also show a disinclination to talk about protection with their partners, researchers found. “The facts about being susceptible to AIDS, HIV and pregnancy are well known, but it’s not strictly a factual issue,” said Larry Brown, the study’s lead author and a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Alpert Medical School. Condom use is widely recognized as a good habit, like wearing a seat belt or following a healthy diet, Brown said, but that recognition doesn’t always translate into action. Adults are more likely than teens to be comfortable and assertive while discussing protection because they see condoms as a “normal healthy part of a relationship” and “have gotten more into a pattern,” he said. Developing this habit is more difficult for teens because our society sends them a “schizophrenic” message about sex, he added. Teens are frequently exposed to sex by the media in a society that often stigmatizes the act, particularly through abstinence-only education, Brown said. “Change really requires that our society in every way becomes more consistent with their message about sex to teenagers,” Brown said. Clinicians also have roles to play, he said, such as encouraging teens to improve communication with their partners or advising them on condom brands that offer both comfort and sensation. Among Brown’s co-authors

Min Wu / Herald

A new study informs on condom use.

were two other Med School faculty members: Assistant Professor of Pediatrics David Pugatch and Celia Lescano, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior. The study surveyed 1,410 people ages 15 to 21 who did not use protection during sex in the preceding 90 days. The participant pool, drawn in part from Providence, included 797 females and 613 males. The survey also included residents of Atlanta and Miami. About half identified themselves as black, a quarter Hispanic and a fifth Caucasian. Respondents reported an average of two partners and 15 unprotected sexual engagements in the previous 90 days. About two-thirds reported they hadn’t used a condom the last time they had sex. The study’s findings were consistent across ethnic groups, gender and geographic locations.

Kim Perley / Herald

A student shows her support for the Real Food Challenge, a local and sustainable food initiative, at the Farmers’ Market Wednesday.

Students campaigning for U. food changes By Sanna Vohra Contributing Writer

Over 1,000 students and community members have signed their names in support of the Real Food Challenge, an effort to bring “just and sustainable” food to Brown, according to students organizing it. The campaign — composed of a variety of student groups, including the Sustainable Food Initiative, Student Labor Alliance, Students for a Democratic Society and emPOWER, in addition to other students — has been gathering signatures and spreading information on the Main Green over the last week.

David Schwartz ’09, a member of SuFI involved in the Brown campaign and the national RFC, said the phrase “real food” comes from the initiative’s goal to “not just promote local and sustainable food, but to also promote justice.” Specifically, it aims to promote “the fair aspects of food such as making sure that workers are paid well,” he added. Michael Glassman ’09, who works with SuFI, said that the initiative is “not just about helping (Brown Dining Ser vices) ser ve sustainable food,” but about letting people know “why they choose to serve it. Brown Dining does a very good job, but they could do a lot

more.” Brown’s Real Food initiative emerged last spring after students began a conversation with BDS about the Community Har vest Program, which buys food from local farmers. Real Food supporters are currently lobbying the University for financial support. The decision to help, they say, rests in the hands of Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services. Klawunn affirmed that students “have made a proposal for some continued on page 6

Professor’s car stolen from parking lot Student caught drinking with fake ID

The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Sept. 11 and Sept. 17. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also

CRIME LOG responds to incidents occurring both on and off campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are currently under investigation by the department, the 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.

Monday, Sept. 11 1:18 p.m. A professor stated that he parked his vehicle in the lot behind 80 Brown Street at approximately 8:15 a.m. He noticed the vehicle missing at about 1 p.m. He spoke with colleagues in the building and at least one person saw the vehicle at about 10 a.m. Providence Police arrived and took the report. Wednesday, Sept. 13 9:44 p.m. Of ficers were dispatched to 89 Benevolent St. for a door that was suspected of being kicked in. An officer and a detective on scene entered the building. The building was cleared and was found to be empty. A panel of the aluminum storm door was knocked out of the frame and the front door sustained damage. No other damage

to the building was observed and there are no suspects at this time. Facilities Management was notified to repair the front door. Thursday, Sept. 14 12:14 a.m. A Brown University police officer was dispatched to the corner of Brown and George Streets to meet with a Providence police officer that had a Brown University student stopped for an open container of alcohol on a public street. When the Providence officer asked the student for identification he stated he did not have one on him. The officer then asked for his wallet and discovered a fake license from one state and an active license issued to the student from another state. The matter has been turned over to Student Life.

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Gender-normative pronouns stall UCS vote continued from page 1 ally isn’t effective.” The amendment was withdrawn in order to take UCS’s concerns into consideration at Thursday’s UFB meeting. The second amendment brought to the floor would require contracts signed by the UCS president to be ratified by a one-third vote from UFB. The discussion was stopped as soon as members of UCS noticed the use of gender-specific pronouns. “Is there a way to get gender-neutral language in here?” asked Jonah Fay ’12. The amendment was promptly withdrawn for revision. “Seeing as this is Brown, UFB will withdraw this amendment and make sure that it’s gender neutral,” said Lily Tran ’10, UFB chair and a Herald business staffer. The final amendment defined procedures for an election in the event of a vacancy on UFB. Townsend said he didn’t think UFB should be able to elect its own members, calling the board “a glorified subcommittee — a creation of UCS.” The version of the amendment that appeared on the UCS agenda for the night was missing “a very key portion that had been passed in UFB and was left out because it was lost in translation between UCS and UFB,” Smith said. Since it was not the correct version of the amendment that UFB wanted passed and because UCS also raised criticisms about it, this amendment was also taken off the floor. Because the amendment was withdrawn, the UFB representative-

at-large position is still vacant, even though UFB elected Jose Vasconez ’10 to the board last week. Vasconez is not an official member of UFB until UCS approves his position by a one-third vote from the general body. “Fourteen student groups are without a firm representative and are relying on Lily and I as representatives,” Smith said. Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services, also spoke at the meeting, providing an overview of the office’s goals and achievements. Notably, Klawunn said that campus life was interested in building a new residence hall but found that “renovation and repair of the residence halls that we have” was a more pressing concern on campus. The University began a three-year, $24 million renovation of residences this summer, Klawunn said. A new dorm, with apartments or suites, is still on the agenda. Campus life officials are also trying to prevent a repeat of this year’s housing shortage. Klawunn suggested that the creation of a new freshman unit in another dorm might be a solution if there is a problem next year. She said that taking away lounges and kitchens was “very much against anything I wanted to accomplish in residential life.” She also spoke about the expanded faculty fellow program, which will provide faculty fellows to students living off campus as well as on campus and try to move the program’s meetings beyond weekly study breaks. — With additional reporting by Mitra Anoushiravani

Students lobbying campus life for sustainable food continued from page 5 positions and some consideration of the increase of the food budget to purchase more ‘real food.’” Klawunn said she had met with students from the RFC on Sept. 23, and at that meeting, she “indicated that we would be looking at our food budget” to “look for ways to support that proposal.” Klawunn added that they might also “add positions in purchasing to work with local farmers in purchasing increased amounts of sustainable food.” When departments or groups launch new initiatives, Klawunn said, presenting to the University Resources Committee is the “major way to go about securing new funding.” She added that she plans to present the issue of funding for the Real Food Challenge at an upcom-

The Brown Daily Herald. Too big to fail.

ing URC meeting on Oct. 17. “Brown has an opportunity to be a big leader here,” Schwartz said. If Brown commits to these goals, it will be “taking a really bold step on this issue.” “The first step is to determine how much real food we are already purchasing,” Klawunn said. Brown has had “a lot of success with the Community Harvest Program,” and sustainable food “is a good direction to move in,” she added. If it’s not in next year’s budget, Schwartz said that the students working for the Real Food Challenge will “continue to work with dining, lobby the URC and go to President Ruth Simmons.” The Undergraduate Council of Students has also expressed interest in the project, Schwartz said, and members of the council “want it to be a priority of theirs this year.”

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In address, Bush calls bailout vital to economy By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane Washington Post

WASHINGTON — President Bush said Wednesday that the credit crisis that had seized world markets could devastate the U.S. economy unless Congress acted quickly to approve a $700 billion bailout plan for the nation’s financial system, a message aimed at reluctant lawmakers as much as a deeply skeptical public. “Our entire economy is in danger,” Bush said in an address from the White House, emphasizing that the massive bailout was not targeted at “any individual company or industry.” “It is aimed at preserving America’s overall economy.” Warning that “America could slip into a financial panic,” Bush blamed the crisis on “easy credit” in the housing markets and urged Congress to act soon because the “widespread loss of confidence” in the financial sector could affect all levels of the domestic economy and cause the nation to “experience a long and painful recession.” “Given the situation we are facing, not passing a bill now would cost these Americans much more later,” he said, warning of job losses ranging in the millions. Bush delivered the prime-time speech, his first in over a year, after a clamor on Capitol Hill for him to acknowledge the most serious financial crisis in decades and to personally make the case for the government intervention his administration has proposed. Five days after unveiling the bailout plan, which seeks to purchase troubled assets from faltering financial institutions, administration officials were still struggling to line up support among lawmakers appalled by its cost, doubtful of its methods and outraged by the speed with which they were being pushed to

act. While the usually fractious Senate seemed to be coming together behind a version of the proposal, the administration had big trouble in the House, particularly among mistrustful Republicans who said the White House had failed to make a case for the bailout in terms ordinary people could understand. “I’m seeking answers to two fundamental questions: Why this? And why now?” Rep. Deborah Pryce, ROhio, said before Bush delivered his remarks. “You can’t make a move this large without the approval of the American people. And we don’t have it yet.” Despite such skepticism, top members of the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees are slated to sit down Thursday morning in an effort to draft the final details of a bipartisan bill, according to a senior Democratic aide on Capitol Hill. Bush said he would invite congressional leaders as well as presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama to meet with him at the White House Thursday. The president’s advisers have already pressed hard for passage of the bill, scurrying from public hearings to closed-door meetings. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday said the White House had dropped its resistance to lawmakers’ demands for limits on executive compensation at companies that accept taxpayer money. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the committee’s chairman, called that a “big step forward” and said he would push next year to apply those limits more broadly. Frank said Democrats and Republicans were close to agreement on a bill that would include an oversight board to monitor the bailout program and requirements that taxpayers share in future profits of companies that seek assistance, in addition to limits on executive pay.

Lawmakers also were discussing doling out the money in smaller segments. And Democrats for the first time began pushing for new taxes to help pay for the program, Frank said, possibly including a levy on stock transfers or “a surtax on people of great wealth.” Hours before Bush’s speech, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a joint statement saying they were “working in a bipartisan manner” and had “made progress” on a bill. But even as the substance of a deal began to take shape, the politics were in turmoil. McCain declared that the “the plan on the table will (not) pass” and announced he was leaving the campaign trail to return to Capitol Hill to lead negotiations, a move panned by Democrats as a political stunt. Meanwhile, with less than six weeks until the November election, Democratic leaders said they would approve the plan only if a majority of Republicans in both chambers endorse it as well. House Republicans have emerged as the most difficult bloc of votes, with moderates fearful of the price tag and conservatives opposed to the rejection of free-market principles implicit in the plan. A meeting Tuesday morning with Vice President Cheney only increased their defiance. “The Paulson proposal has not gotten the traction required to complete this process by the end of the week,” said Rep. Adam Putnam, RFla., the third-ranking Republican in the House. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke tried to change that Wednesday during appearances before two congressional committees, where they struggled to paint a dark picture of the harm that would befall the economy if the bailout not approved. But the former Wall Street dealmaker and the former economics professor failed to

McCain bets voters will approve of delay By Dan Balz Washington Post

NEW YORK — John McCain is a gambler by nature, and the bet he placed Wednesday may be among the biggest of his political life. The Republican presidential nominee is hoping that his abrupt decision to suspend campaigning, seek a delay of Friday’s debate with Democrat Barack Obama and return to Washington to help prod negotiations over a financial rescue package will be seen as the kind of country-first, bipartisan leadership he believes Americans want. What he risks, if things don’t go as he hopes, is a judgment by voters that his move was a reckless act by an impetuous and struggling politician that hardened partisan lines in Washington at just the wrong moment and complicated efforts to deal with the biggest financial crisis in more than half a century. McCain laid out his rationale in stark terms, saying that the economy is in crisis and that he does not believe the package now on the table in Washington can win enough votes to pass. “Americans across our country lament the fact that partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges,” he said here in New York.

“Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.” In the heated atmosphere of Wednesday afternoon, as the two campaigns plotted and maneuvered around each other, it was impossible to know what the ultimate verdict would be on McCain’s surprise decision. He managed once again, at least in the short term, to shake up the presidential race at a time when national and state polls show Obama opening up a clear lead. And by day’s end, he had forced his rival to blink. Obama initially resisted McCain’s call to join him and return to Washington. But hours later he was forced to capitulate when President Bush called him and asked him to participate in a White House meeting with congressional leaders and his GOP rival. Shortly after that, the two candidates issued a joint statement calling for action. But while agreeing to go back to Washington, Obama insisted Wednesday night, as he had earlier in the day, that Friday’s debate go ahead as scheduled. “I believe that we should continue to have the debate,” he told reporters in Florida, where he is preparing for it. “I think that it makes sense for us

to present ourselves before the American people, to talk about the nature of the problems that we’re having in our financial system, to talk about how it relates to our global standing in the world, what implications it has for our national security, how it relates to critical questions like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Much now will depend on whether McCain can deliver results, whether there is a constructive role for him and Obama, or if they become a sideshow to the real negotiations. But Obama’s course carries risks as well, if he looked as if he were standing on the sidelines while McCain pushed for intervention that could help avert further damage to the nation’s economy. The standoff over the debate left both candidates in potentially awkward positions, although there is plenty of time for it to be resolved. McCain may be reluctant to climb down from his insistence that the debate be delayed until there is an agreement on a package, but he could be seen as scuttling an important event for voters eager to see the two candidates side by side. Obama, on the other hand, may look high-handed if he insists on going ahead as negotiations in Washington reach a critical moment by this weekend.

deliver the stark message lawmakers were seeking. At one point, Rep. Steven C. LaTourette, R-Ohio, pleaded with them to explain the crisis in terms a factory worker relaxing on his couch could understand. “In order to accept this plan, he needs to be more scared,” LaTourette said. If Congress doesn’t act, “I need you tell this guy on the couch what happens to him. Is he going to be out of a job? Is his credit card going to work? Can he buy a car? Is his daughter going to go to college?” Paulson replied that the guy on the couch should be scared. “But I think right now he’s angrier than he is scared. “It puts us in a difficult position,” Paulson continued, “because no one likes to be painting an overly dire picture and scaring people. But the fact is, the financial markets are not stable, and the situation can be very severe as it relates not just to his current situation, but to keeping his job” and preserving his retirement accounts. By midday, it became clear that Paulson and Bernanke were not getting the job done; the president would have to deliver the message in person. “We are going to take the time tonight to try to get this over the goal line,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters. “I think everyone will tune in tonight because we are facing a once-in-a-century crisis in our financial markets.” She said the White House did not “mind at all that members of Congress have asked really tough questions; they should.” Moreover, she said, “It doesn’t bother us a bit that ... members of Congress have different ideas for how we might get there. What we want to do is make sure that we get this bill done quickly and as cleanly as possible, and we are on the right track to do that.”

Foreign leaders balk at bailouts By Steven Mufson and Anthony Faiola Washington Post

WASHINGTON — As the world watched Congress struggle Wednesday with a plan to bail out the U.S. financial system, foreign leaders balked at similar fixes for their own economies, a few even dismissing the credit meltdown as an American problem. Some foreign investors who had previously provided crucial injections of capital remained on the sidelines. Senior U.S. officials, notably Treasur y Secretar y Henr y Paulson, have in recent days urged the leaders of other industrialized countries to help prop the global financial system. But the appeals have fallen short. While policymakers and economic analysts in Europe and Latin America said Wednesday they recognized the severity of the challenge facing the global financial system, they saw little need at the moment for major rescue packages in their own countries. “The situation we face here in Europe is less acute and member states do not at this point consider that a U.S.-style plan is needed,” said Joaquin Almunia, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Policy in Brussels. Meanwhile, the sovereign wealth funds of Asian and oil-rich Middle Eastern nations, which have come to the rescue of U.S. firms before only to see these investments erode, showed little interest in taking a similar gamble. “We are not responsible for saving foreign banks,” said Badr al Saad, managing director of the Kuwait Investment Authority, in remarks broadcast by al-Arabiya satellite television Tuesday. “This continued on page 8

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Foreign bankers balking at bank bailout, while U.S. pushes forward continued from page 7 is the duty of the central banks in these countries.” Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund pumped at least $3 billion into Citigroup in January but the stock has lost a third of its value since then. Major overseas holders of cash, including foreign banks, are hoarding their money, declining to lend to each other, much less to distressed financial institutions in the United States. With the global flow of money seizing up, the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday pumped billions more dollars into central banks overseas. The Fed channeled $30 billion to central banks in Australia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway to relieve the stress of the global credit crunch. That came on the heels of the $247 billion the Fed made available to central banks in Europe, Canada and Japan last week, an action that roughly doubled the amount of dollars previously available to them. The Fed money is designed to alleviate a massive shortage of dollars that has made it nearly impossible for banks to get the short-term loans needed for daily operations and international transactions, which are still largely conducted in U.S. currency. As part of the deal, the foreign central banks set aside their own currency as collateral in exchange for the new lines of credit from the Federal Reserve. The Fed hopes to dampen the need for other central banks to buy dollars, which could spread the crisis to international currency markets. Some foreign companies, with

strong stomachs and balance sheets, are seeking opportunities to exploit the crisis and scoop up U.S. assets or buy into U.S. firms for fire-sale prices. Japanese firms, in particular, have turned into bargain hunters, looking to buy the best of troubled U.S. firms while leaving the chaff for U.S. bankruptcy judges, regulators and taxpayers. In recent days, Nomura Holdings, Japan’s biggest brokerage firm, bought the lucrative Asian operations and part of the European unit of bankrupt Wall Street investment firm Lehman Brothers. Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan’s largest bank, reached a deal to buy 20 percent of Morgan Stanley for $8.5 billion. The Japanese banks have remerged after going through upheavals of their own following the burst of the Japanese stock market bubble in 1989 and its real estate bubble in 1990. Though saddled with bad debt for almost a decade, consolidations and restructuring turned those banks around in the early part of the 2000s, emboldening them to reach out now. Barclays, one of Britain’s largest banks, has said it will acquire Lehman’s profitable investment banking and capital markets businesses as well as its landmark headquarters building in Manhattan. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Barclays,” Robert Diamond, Barclay’s president, said in a statement last week. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meanwhile, said Britain would do “whatever it takes” to stabilize the markets. His government has already nationalized the ailing British mortgage lender Northern

Rock in February. Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed holding a special Group of Eight meeting before the end of the year to address the crisis. His aides said Sarkozy would deal with the crisis in a major policy speech Thursday. But European leaders gave little sign they would create their own bailout funds to boost bank liquidity, despite entreaties from Washington. The French government, for one, has said that it does not believe banks in France are at great risk of contamination from the toxic loan problem. Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told reporters that the government has no intention to make funds available and has received no request for aid “of any kind” from French banks. The Russian government, flush with reserves from oil revenues, is looking inward, moving to prop up its troubled banks and stock market. On Tuesday, a state-owned bank agreed to buy and bail out Svyaz Bank, a mid-sized lender struggling to pay creditors. State banks are also in talks to rescue a boutique investment bank, Kit Finance, that defaulted on debt obligations. “If a situation which could break the stability of the banking system emerges, the state will intervene,” Arkady Dvorkovich, the chief economic advisor to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters last week. “The state will act swiftly, so that no one doubts that our goal is stability.” In Latin America, where several major countries were staggered by financial crises over recent decades, there was relief that this time it isn’t

them. Bankers and economists in Brazil, the continent’s largest economy, said their nation has felt the impact of the U.S. financial crisis but its $200 billion of reserves and strong economic growth make any serious problems unlikely. “For once, Brazil is a comfortable place from which to watch the crisis,” said Candido Bracher of Itau, an investment bank. Asked whether any Brazilian companies would need a government bailout, he said: “We are far, far away from that.” The world’s big sovereign wealth funds — whether run by the oil-rich sheikhs with well over $1 trillion in Kuwait, Dubai and Abu Dhabi alone or the technocrats of communist China — have been missing from the scramble to rescue the American banks and investment houses. “It was thought that (foreign) money would come in, but people have gotten more jittery and have become concerned about the long term fiscal implications of this crisis on the U.S. as well as the debate in Congress,” said Simon Johnson, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for Economics. “They are weighing the implications carefully, and not rushing in.” China Investment Corp., a $200 billion state fund set up last year, spent more than $8 billion on stakes in the Blackstone Group, the world’s largest buyout fund, and Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest U.S. securities firm. The value of those investments have plunged about 43 percent.

“Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have enough capital to solve their own problems independently,” the state New China News Agency said regarding rumors of talks between the firms and Chinese funds. “It is clear that the investment banks were all unduly optimistic a few months ago about the full impact of the subprime crisis, taking the position that they had no further exposure, and hence there was little downside for the SWFs,” said Nader Sultan, former chief executive of the Kuwait Petroleum Corp. and senior partner of F&N Consultancy. “I would say they lost some credibility.” Sovereign funds, reeling from setbacks in other parts of their own international investments, also don’t make decisions fast enough for the quick deal-making that has stunned Wall Street over the past two weeks, Sultan said. Moreover, said Kuwait Investment Authority’s al Saad, “We have social and economic responsibilities towards our own country.” Kuwait’s investment authority has put more than $375 million into its own sagging stock market, Saad told al Arabiya. The central bank of the United Arab Emirates said Monday it had set up a more than $13 billion fund to try to ensure the kingdom’s banks had enough cash. — Staff writers Ariana Eunjung Cha in Shanghai, Ellen Knickmeyer in Cairo, Edward Cody in Paris, Philip P. Pan in Moscow, Juan Forero in Caracas and Josh Partlow in Rio de Janeiro and special correspondent Karla Adam in London contributed to this article.

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Iraq passes long-delayed election law Eight generals face punishment in nuclear mishandling By Tina Susman and Caesar Ahmad Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers Wednesday overcame months of infighting to pass a law setting the stage for provincial elections by early next year, an achievement sought by the United States to correct lopsided power structures blamed for sectarian violence. As legislators overwhelmingly approved the bill, attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns ambushed an Iraqi National Police patrol north of Baghdad, killing 14 policemen and eight U.S.allied paramilitary fighters, according to the U.S. military. The ambush was a sign of the challenges ahead as Sunni Arab insurgents loyal to al-Qaida in Iraq try to derail political and security gains. Passage of the election bill has gained urgency as the U.S. seeks to reduce its troop presence in Iraq and as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki adopts a new assertiveness aimed at cementing his government’s sovereignty. Redrawing the political landscape is considered key to demonstrating that Iraq is ready to function as a democracy in which Shiite Muslims, Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Christians and others share power. Inequities resulted from many groups’ boycott of the last vote in 2005. In Washington, President Bush

lauded the approval. “Nothing is more central to a functioning democracy than free and fair elections,” Bush said. “Today’s action demonstrates the ability of Iraq’s leaders to work together for the good of the Iraqi people and represents further progress on political reconciliation. “ The law’s passage came with some major hurdles attached. One such issue involves the northern city of Kirkuk, which Kurdish leaders want as part of the semiautonomous Kurdistan region. The city’s Sunni Arab and Turkmen populations oppose the idea. All the groups had feared that holding provincial elections in Kirkuk would deny them the power they seek in the oil-rich city, so the decision was made to postpone voting there. “In every great day there is a cloud,” Steffan de Mistura, the United Nations’ special representative, said of the postponement. “It is very dark. It is the issue of minorities. This is a sensitive issue.” But the Parliament speaker, Mahmoud Mashadani, said lawmakers’ ability to keep the Kirkuk dispute from derailing the bill should be lauded. The law mandated that a parliamentary committee review the Kirkuk issue and by March make recommendations to resolve it. Elections also will be delayed in the three provinces that make up Kurdistan

-- Dahuk, Irbil, and Sulaymaniya -- and in Kirkuk’s Tamim province. Other significant aspects include guaranteeing women 25 percent of provincial council seats; banning the replacement of candidates’ pictures with those of ayatollahs or other religious leaders not associated with a party in the election; and replacing the closed-slate system with an open slate by having people vote for individuals rather than parties. The use of religious symbolism on ballots, and the use of the closed-slate system, which let party bosses name provincial council representatives, were considered flaws in the 2005 vote. Critics said they made it easy for religious parties to lure voters with pictures of revered ayatollahs, and they created provincial councils loaded with people loyal to party leaders who had given them their posts rather than to constituents. “We made use of the former law’s faults to reach this new law,” Mashadani said. Despite the celebratory tone after the vote, there were grumblings. Alla Talabani, a Kurdish lawmaker, said she had hoped for a 50 percent quota for female candidates. Yonadim Kana, a Christian lawmaker from northern Iraq, called it a “big disappointment” that lawmakers had excluded Kurdish regions that are home to several religious minoricontinued on page 10

White House knew early of interrogations By Joby Warrick Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Top White House officials were told in early 2002 about harsh measures used by the CIA to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in the agency’s secret prisons, according to an account given to congressional investigators by the office of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The details of the controversial program were discussed in multiple meetings inside the White House over a two-year period, triggering concerns among several officials who worried that the agency’s methods might be illegal or violate anti-torture treaties, according to separate statements signed by Rice and her top legal adviser. “I expressed concern that the proposed CIA interrogation techniques comply with applicable U.S. law, including our international obligations,” John Bellinger, legal adviser to Rice at the State Department and formerly her top legal aide at the National Security Council, said in written answers to questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee. While media reports have described internal White House debates over the CIA’s program, the accounts by Rice and Bellinger are believed to be the first such acknowledgment of such discussions by a member of the Bush Cabinet. The written accounts specifically name former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as participants in the discussions, according to copies of the statements released by committee officials in advance of a hearing scheduled for Thursday. The committee’s questionnaire did not specifically ask whether President Bush or Vice President Cheney at-

tended the meetings. In her responses, compiled in a seven-page memo, Rice indicated that she asked Ashcroft to “personally review the legal guidance” of Bush administration lawyers who had declared the CIA’s program to be legal. Rice and Bellinger both said they recalled related discussions inside the White House of an obscure Army survival training program that subjected military trainees to waterboarding — a technique that simulates drowning — and other harsh tactics to prepare them for conditions they might face if captured. The survival program, known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE, was the inspiration for several of the interrogation methods later used at both CIA and Defense Department detention camps. Rice said she remembered meetings at which the SERE methods were discussed but said she was assured that the techniques “had been deemed not to cause significant physical or psychological harm.” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin, D-Mich., has been investigating the origins of the decision to use harsh interrogation tactics on high-level detainees held by the Pentagon and CIA. Many congressional Democrats and some Republicans have equated some of the techniques to torture. Levin has linked the decision to use SERE methods to the abuse that occurred at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. “These discussions took place at the highest levels of the White House,” Levin said in an interview. The documents belie administration claims that abuse of detainees was “the work of a few bad apples.” Levin noted that the SERE methods themselves — which included not only waterboarding but also

exposure to temperature extremes, forced nudity and sensory deprivation — were designed by Chinese communists to extract confessions from captured U.S. servicemen. “The validity of the confessions they didn’t care about; they just wanted the confessions so they could put them on TV,” Levin said. In their accounts, both Rice and Bellinger indicate that several senior officials were uneasy with the program, even though top legal experts of both the CIA and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had officially sanctioned the techniques as legal. Bellinger remembered repeated calls from Bruce Swartz, deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, about alleged abuses of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison. Bellinger said he forwarded the complaints to the Defense Department and was told that an investigation was already underway. The main concern was not the legality of the interrogation methods but whether they were “effective and professional and being resourced in the most effective way,” Bellinger said. Levin said Thursday’s hearing will focus on the early decisions to use SERE techniques. He is expected to call as witnesses two military officers who worked in Defense survival schools and later observed the application of similar techniques on suspected terrorists. In June, Levin’s committee released Defense Department documents suggesting that Pentagon officials became interested in SERE tactics after learning of their successful application in secret CIA prisons. continued on page 9

By Julian E. Barnes Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — At least six Air Force and two Army generals face face potentially career-ending punishment for mishandling components of U.S. nuclear warheads, U.S. Defense Department officials said. As part of a broad response, militar y of ficials plan an announcement Thursday that they are imposing the disciplinar y action against six generals from the Air Force and two from the Army, including at least two who are three-star generals. “It is extensive, and it is severe,” a senior Defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the action had not yet been announced. Acting Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff Norton A. Schwartz are expected to detail the disciplinary action and a job reshuffling at a news briefing Thursday. In March, Air Force officials discovered that four electric fuses used to trigger nuclear missiles had been mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in 2006. That disclosure followed a 2007 incident in which six nuclear warheads were accidentally flown across the countr y strapped to the bottom of a B-52. The mishaps prompted a wide-ranging investigation into Air Force oversight of the nuclear arsenal and triggered a shakeup among Air Force commanders. Donley and Schwartz were selected by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates after previous Air Force

leaders were dismissed. Although the punishment being announced Thursday is considered severe, another Defense official said demotions were unlikely. Instead, officers will receive letters of reprimand that could effectively end their careers and force them to retire. Army officers were implicated because the nuclear fuses were shipped from an Air Force Base to a Defense Logistics Agency warehouse. The logistics agency is primarily overseen by Army officers. Air Force officials met this week to discuss reforms and other proposals for improving nuclear oversight. Donley and Schwartz are expected to outline some of those steps Thursday. Some of ficers are unhappy with the punishment and believe the Air Force being unfairly singled out. One Defense official with experience with nuclear oversight pointed to nuclear mishaps involving the Navy, including the disclosure last month of a radioactive leak from a nuclear submarine near Japan. “This looks like a gross double standard,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity when describing reaction to the disciplinary action. Earlier this month, a task force lead by James R. Schlesinger, a former Defense secretary, recommended that the Air Force reorganize its Space Command to take charge of nuclear oversight. A second Schlesinger report, taking a broader look at the Defense Department’s nuclear oversight, is due within two months.

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Anthrax suspect’s e-mail: case solved By David Willman Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 7, 2007, as investigators were building the case against him for the deadly anthrax mailings, Army scientist Bruce E. Ivins sent himself an excited e-mail titled, “Finally! I know Who mailed the anthrax!” The e-mail -- along with other correspondence showing that Ivins more recently mused about how to blind or kill a reality TV participant -- was among previously confidential investigative documents unsealed on Wednesday by a federal judge. Ivins, a microbiologist who specialized in handling anthrax at the Army’s biological warfare research facility at Fort Detrick, Md., committed suicide in July. Justice Department prosecutors were preparing to charge him in connection with the anthrax mailings, which in 2001 killed five people and sickened or injured 17 others. The unsealed documents had originally been submitted by investigators last month in order to win the judge’s permission to search seven e-mail accounts that Ivins had maintained. Federal officials declined to comment on the newly unsealed e-mails, which had remained under wraps while investigators combed through Ivins’ correspondence. At face value, the new e-mails reinforce the view that Ivins was consumed with the criminal case closing in on him and, in the final months of

his life, behaved in a way that suggested madness. By early September 2007, the FBI had determined with the help of outside experts that the anthrax used in the mailings originated in a flask of material maintained by Ivins at Fort Detrick. But the bureau had not yet done all of the investigative work necessary to exclude as suspects colleagues of Ivins at Fort Detrick and scientists elsewhere who also had worked with or had access to the material, labeled RMR 1029. It was against that backdrop that Ivins, at 5:49 p.m. (EDT) on Sept. 7 sent the e-mail to himself, proclaiming that he had solved the case. Sent from one of the addresses he had registered, Ivins wrote: “Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!!!! I finally know who mailed the anthrax letters in the fall of 2001. I’ve pieced it together! Now we can finally get all of this over and done with. I have to check a couple of things to make sure ... absolutely sure ... and then I can turn over the info. I’ll probably turn it over to my lawyer, and then he’ll turn info over to the authorities.” Ivins added — in an apparent reference to his colleagues at Fort Detrick: “I’m not looking forward to everybody getting dragged through the mud, but at least it will all be over. Finally! I should have it TOTALLY nailed down within the month. I should have been a private eye!!!!” Paul F. Kemp, a lawyer whom Ivins

had hired to represent him, said the e-mail “was a note with himself to discuss with me certain information that he wanted to pass on to the FBI. He did, and I passed it on. It was an attempt to say who might have had access to the beaker” containing the RMR 1029 anthrax. Officials from the FBI and the Justice Department have said that their investigation determined that Ivins, alone, perpetrated the anthrax mailings. Kemp has said that he would have won Ivins’ acquittal had the case gone to trial. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., introduced legislation on Wednesday calling for a “9/11 style” commission to investigate the anthrax mailings. Holt does not have any co-sponsors for his bill, an aide said. As for the e-mails in which Ivins discussed the TV participant, federal officials said they brought these to the attention of the judge because they wanted to search for any evidence that Ivins had targeted witnesses in the anthrax case, according to the court documents. In the e-mails, Ivins focused on Kathryn Price, who appeared in 2001 in episodes of “The Mole,” an ABC-TV reality series. The FBI, after searching Ivins’ trash outside his home, found mentions of addresses that enabled investigators to trace to him this e-mail, discussing how another participant in the “The Mole” could have detected Price’s arranged role as the show’s spoiler from within.

Iraq passes election legislation continued from page 9 ties from the election. “There is a trend to eradicate us from government jobs,” Kana said. The new law must go before the country’s three-member presidency council for approval. The elections could set the stage for bitter rivalries to erupt after months of relative calm. The most dangerous could be in the Shiite south, where al-Maliki’s ruling Dawa Party will vie for power against candidates backed by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Sadr boycotted the 2005 vote but has said his political bloc will endorse candidates in this election, presenting al-Maliki with a formidable foe. In the attack Wednesday in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said 14 Iraqi National Police and eight Sons of Iraq fighters, who are allied with U.S. and Iraqi security forces, were killed. Iraqi officials put the death toll at 12 police, with either seven or eight Sons of Iraq also killed. Baqouba police said the attack occurred after an Iraqi police patrol set up a checkpoint in a neighborhood of southern Baqouba. Armed men ambushed the checkpoint. When the unit under attack called for help, the reinforcements were ambushed. “What happened today ... is the best example that Qaida can regenerate and they are not finished yet,” said Sheik Amer Khaz’al Karim, a Sons of Iraq leader in Diyala. — Staff writer James Gerstenzang and special correspondents in Baghdad and Baqubah contributed to this report.

W orld & n ation Thursday, September 25, 2008

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Funding cuts hurting space exploration By David A. Fahrenthold Washington Post

WASHINGTON — In a few decades, spacecraft might travel by solar sail — pushed along by nothing more than photons, the tiny packets of light itself. Astronauts might dine on remote-controlled vegetables and breathe oxygen mined from moon dirt, and astronomers could be using X-ray telescopes to see changes in the fabric of space-time. Or not. These are the ideas at the edge of NASA’s imagination, and off of it. Well within it, NASA scientists are already working on technology for a “Jamestown” on the moon in the 2020s and another settlement after that on Mars. Beyond that, scientists in the private sector have imagined a world where antimatter might be harvested for fuel, and where a huge slingshot in space would fling passing satellites up and into orbit. These were never sure things: Most will likely go the way of flying cars and personal jet packs. But scientists say it has become harder to dream big and weird about space, since NASA last year shut down a program designed to fund projects for the distant future. “What we’ve lost is a piece of imagination,” said Diana Jennings, a scientist in Cambridge, Mass., whose company imagined a “Star Trek”-style food replicator, making potato chips or strip steak at the touch of a button. “We’ve lost a little bit of the magic. ‘Cause I don’t know who’s going to fund this stuff.” Within NASA, ideas for the distant future center on two goals: returning to the moon and landing on Mars. The agency wants to build permanent outposts on the

moon. The switch, said Chris Shank, NASA’s chief of strategic communications, would be from the model of Christopher Columbus to that of the Jamestown colonists. But that, scientists say, would require significant breakthroughs. “How do we live off the land, on the moon?” asked Gerald Sanders, a NASA official in Houston who works on “in-situ resource utilization.” His laboratory has proposed making water and breathable air from moon dust, using chemical processes to unlock the oxygen inside it. A NASA contractor, Hamilton Sundstrand, has tried to tackle the other end of the water problem. It is designing a system that would recycle wastewater and render it drinkable again. “If you’re going to have an open loop on water” on a spaceship — meaning that waste is simply dumped and clean water is brought in from outside — “that’s all you’re going to be able to carry,” said Ed Francis, a vice president. Other scientists within NASA, and many outside the agency, are working on ideas much closer to the border with science fiction. One of them is programmable plants. Chris Brown, a professor at North Carolina State University, said he wants to grow plants in a spacecraft or on a distant planet — on astronauts’ schedules. Plants in a greenhouse on Mars, for instance, could be sent a signal to produce fruit or vegetables in time for the arrival of a new shift of colonists. Brown said the plants could provide valuable nutrients and filter carbon dioxide from the air. But he said they would also be an uplifting sign of life in a stale, stinky outpost millions of miles from home. Other scientists are working on

new ways to move objects through space. One idea is based on the odd-sounding concept that, in the vacuum of space, light acts a little bit like wind. “Sunlight actually pushes on things,” said Edward Montgomery, at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It doesn’t push very hard, of course, but scientists think that the right kind of solar “sail” — a hundred meters on a side, say, and .003 millimeters thick — could harness the minuscule impacts of photons. A solar sail, designed to unfurl in space, would take up much less room than a fueled-up rocket, he said. “The cost goes down.” Montgomery said that a sail prototype is ready now for an early test: “It’s a matter of getting a ride.” The space slingshot — its designers call it a “tether” — is a little further off. The idea, pushed by a company in Washington state, is to get a long length of cable circling Earth, tumbling end over end. Rob Hoyt, chief executive of Tethers Unlimited, said that as the cable rotates, an arm on one end could grab a passing satellite that was going too slowly to reach orbit on its own. The tether would whip it through a rotation and then let go, flinging the satellite away at high speed and propelling it into orbit, saving on rocket fuel. “Basically, the way Tarzan used to move around the jungle,” swinging on a vine and letting go at just the right moment, Hoyt said. But we’re talking about a very long vine. “When I say long, it’s going to need to be something like 100 kilometers long,” or about 62 miles, he said.

Courtesy of NASA

Artist Pat Rawling’s concept of a space elevator as viewed from the geostationary transfer station. That, though, is nothing compared with the cable required for another idea, the “space elevator.” One version envisions a super-strong, super-light ribbon attached to the moon and extending back toward Earth. It could, in theory, be used to move fuel mined on the moon to a place where it could be transferred into vehicles headed deep into outer space. In theory. All it would take, one supporter said, was a cable about 100,000 miles long. This idea, and many others aimed at the distant future of space, used to receive funding from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.

But the institute was shut down in August 2007. NASA’s Shank said that Congress had cut the agency’s budget by $600 million, and the $4 million program was one of the casualties. “I’m sorry to say, we just can’t afford it,” Shank said. If you were dreaming of a huge system of space nets that would pluck particles of antimatter from space and bottle it for fuel, this was a major disappointment. “There’s no funding, there’s no real interest from NASA right now,” said Gerald Jackson, of Hbar Technologies in Illinois, who was. “So most of this stuff is really just on hold.”

And now, the biggest question in the whole universe By Nelson Hernandez Washington Post

Ten years ago, cosmologists discovered they were living a lie. The expansion of the universe was not slowing down as a result of gravity, as they had long believed: It was speeding up. The working explanation, though by no means the definitive one, is that everything we know _ the whole cosmic fabric ranging from your coffee cup to the sun to entire clusters of galaxies _ is only about 1 percent of what’s out there. Another 3 percent or so is hot interstellar gas we can see because it radiates X-rays and radio waves. Then things start getting weird. An invisible substance called dark matter, possibly phenomena such as giant black holes and unseen particles, is thought to compose 22 percent of the cosmos. Everything else, almost three-quarters of the total, is dark energy, a force that is apparently driving the universe apartt. The reaction among cosmologists was something like Keanu Reeves’ in “The Matrix”: Whoa! “Your whole life as an astronomer, you learn that the universe is expanding, but it should be slowing down,” said Tod Lauer, an associate astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory who is investigating dark energy. “But we find out it’s speeding up. That’s the most incredible shock we’ve had in cosmology in the last 40 years.”

Gary Hinshaw, an astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, went even further. “It’s probably the biggest surprise in cosmology in 100 years,” he said. Figuring out the nature of dark matter and dark energy is now the biggest question in the universe. Both could reveal the origin and fate of the cosmos, as well as the physical laws that govern it. NASA and the Department of Energy, as well as research institutions in the United States and across the world, plan to spend billions of dollars to find the answers on Earth and in space. They’ll use giant particle colliders and new telescopes that will look at exploding stars, ancient sound waves and gravity-induced distortions of light. Some scientists think finding an answer could lead to a revolution in human affairs no less significant than the discoveries of electricity and of the atom. But for most, it’s simply the greatest challenge out there. “I think it’s one of the classic questions of human civilization: Where do we come from, and why are we here?” Hinshaw said. “It seems to me that if 96 percent of the stuff in the universe is foreign to us, it’s pretty interesting for us to ask what that is.” Dark matter’s existence was predicted in the 1930s, when the astronomer Fritz Zwicky focused on a clump of galaxies called the Coma cluster. Based on the amount of light coming from the cluster, which is one way of estimating how much mass and

gravitational force it had, one would have expected the galaxies on the edge of the cluster to move more slowly than those on the inside. But the galaxies on the edge were moving much faster. Either our understanding of how gravity works was wrong or astronomers were somehow failing to account for a large chunk of mass. Other astronomers later found the same phenomenon on a smaller scale. Stars on the edge of galaxies were orbiting much faster than would be expected based on the mass astronomers could see. More evidence came about a decade ago, when astrophysicists started looking at the effect of the missing mass on light itself by using a technique called gravitational lensing. If there is an object with large mass between us and a distant object we’re looking at _ for instance, a clump of dark matter _ it can cause light from distant galaxies to seem to bend in a celestial fishbowl effect. With dark matter’s existence now generally accepted, scientists have turned to the problem of finding out what it is. Black holes and stars and large planets too dim to be seen could account for some of it. But physicists say the answer probably lies with a subatomic particle or with particles we haven’t yet discovered. “Dark matter is material that seems to interact by gravity but, as best as we can tell, does not emit any kind of light,” said Richard Mush-

otzky, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard. “We can tell you where it is, but we cannot tell you what it is. This makes our physics friends very upset.” Physicists have put their hopes on the Large Hadron Collider, an $8 billion, 17-mile-long racetrack beneath the border between Switzerland and France designed to slam protons into one another at nearly the speed of light. More than 7,000 scientists from 80 countries will work at the complex, which began ramping up to full power this month. Physicists hope it will solve fundamental questions: What did the universe look like as it was being born? What is the interplay between the four fundamental forces _ electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity? Is there an undiscovered particle that gives everything mass? If they can answer these questions, they could crack the puzzle of dark matter. But dark energy is still terra incognita. The astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered decades ago that other galaxies seemed to be moving away from us in the Milky Way. The farther away they were, the faster they were going. But astrophysicists figured that gravity would cause the universe’s expansion to gradually slow down. Then in 1998, two teams upended that theory by looking at Type Ia supernovae, rare stellar explosions that briefly release tremendous, con-

sistent amounts of light. By carefully measuring how the light from these events shifted toward the red end of the visible light spectrum _ similar to the Doppler effect that causes the sound of a train whistle traveling away from you to drop in pitch _ they found that the expansion had accelerated in the last few billion years. Empty space itself seemed to be acting as a force driving things apart, and to be growing stronger as the universe got bigger. continued on page 12

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Telescope may be sent up to examine dark matter continued from page 11 Albert Einstein hinted at the existence of a mysterious force like this when he proposed the concept of a cosmological constant, a fudge factor representing an unknown that he thought would keep the universe in a steady state. After Hubble made his observations, Einstein repudiated the constant as the greatest blunder of his career. Now it looks as if he spoke too soon. But cosmologists are the first to admit they have no clue what dark energy really is. It could be Einstein’s cosmological constant. Others theorize that it’s quintessence, a form of anti-gravity that changes over time. Some think it could be evidence for string theory, the idea that the universe is composed of tiny strings and dimensions we can’t see. Or it could be a sign that our model of physics has flaws that aren’t apparent until one looks at things on a cosmic scale. Finding the answer has become one of NASA’s top priorities. The Joint Dark Energy Mission, an effort involving NASA and the Energy Department, seeks to send a new telescope into space tailored to find out more about dark energy. So far, three candidates have emerged: the Dark Energy Space Telescope, or Destiny; the Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope, known as ADEPT; and the SuperNova Acceleration Probe, or SNAP. All would detect thousands of Type Ia supernovae, allowing cosmologists to be more precise in their

understanding of what dark energy is and how it may have evolved. The proposals would also use other methods. ADEPT would measure ancient sound waves that rumbled through the early universe, leaving in their wake tiny variations in how galaxies are distributed across huge volumes of space. SNAP and Destiny would use gravitational lensing to measure how the distribution of matter across the universe could be affected by dark energy. Charles Bennett, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University who is leading the ADEPT team, said the mission would probably be selected by the middle of next year, and the telescope would be in space a decade from now. “We should have a whole lot more data 10 years from now,” Bennett said. “I can’t help but feel we’ll know a lot more about it, and possibly the definitive answers by then. We’ve got a full frontal assault on it going on in the community.” For Saul Perlmutter, a University of California at Berkeley cosmologist who led one of the teams that discovered dark energy and is now leading the SNAP effort, a final answer is tantalizingly near, but it was finding the question that was the real joy. “We’ve gotten amazingly close to what we feel is a full picture,” he said. Dark energy, he said, was “the little crack in the blind that gives us some insight into what we’ve never thought before. For a physicist, for a scientist, that is one of the ultimate pleasures, to see the beginnings of a mystery that you can explore.”

Court rules against Ivory Coast farmers By Carol J. Williams Los Angeles Times

Nearly 700 Ivory Coast farm workers alleging they became sterile from exposure to a U.S.-made pesticide can’t claim to be victims of genocide because the producers didn’t intend harm, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The pesticide, known as DBCP for dibromochloropropane, has been banned in the U.S. since 1979. The Africans’ suit against Amvac Chemical Corp., Dole Food Company, Dow Chemical Company and Shell Oil Company alleged that the manufacturers of DBCP and the fruit company that used it on overseas crops are guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. The suit was filed under the federal Alien Torts Statute. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the charges, saying a nation or party must show “specific intent” to destroy a population to constitute genocide. “No treaty of the United States, no controlling act of the president or Congress, and no judicial decision indicates that genocide is a knowledge-based norm,” the three-judge panel wrote. “Nor is there a sufficient consensus that it is a violation of international law to be aware that genocide will occur in the ordinary course of events.” An attorney for Dow, Edwin Woodsome, said the 9th Circuit panel ruled correctly in noting that the federal courts had to exercise “vigilant doorkeeping” in deciding which cases rise to the level of international law violations. The Africans’ attorney, Raphael Metzger, disparaged the ruling, blaming it on a conservative group of judges he said weren’t representative of the broader court’s judicial thinking. He said he would pursue a rehearing by the full 9th Circuit. “The manufacturers continued making money on it by shipping it to Third World countries where farm workers were given it to use” unaware of its hazards, Metzger said of the banned pesticide. Numerous suits have been making their way through state and federal courts seeking damages from the companies for DBCP’s use on plantations in Africa, Central America and the South Pacific. Amvac last year settled out of court with 13 Nicaraguan plaintiffs for $300,000.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

M. golf steps ‘up to the big leagues’ after tough tourney continued from page 16 13-stroke lead over second-place Minnesota. “Our scores are going to come around after playing against teams of that magnitude,” Hughes said. A highlight for the Bears, Hughes said, was shooting a team score of 309 on the final day, beating four of the teams in the field. Also, the debut of Joe Rued ’09, who was asked to join the team after Donald Kim ’12 had to pull out indefinitely because of an injured hand, gave the team a good preview of another potential low-scorer. A former baseball player for Brown, Rued shot a 249, with a 79

on his final day. Rued has been “a recreational golfer for the last three-and-a-half years, so the step up to (Division I) golf is huge,” Hughes said. “I think he’ll be a solid contributor.” “If we can lower our scores to the low 70’s and not have to take a score in the 80’s, that will be a huge improvement from last year,” Amato said. He also cited Hughes as being instrumental in “leading us in the right direction” as the new head coach this year. Brown will be traveling to New York in three weeks to play in the ECAC Championship, Oct. 11 to 12, at the Long Island National course.

Davis ’10: NFC East may dominate once again continued from page 16 division from running wild through the rest of the league like T.O. at a media conference? Well, for starters, injuries. Obviously, one of the major keys to success in the NFL is staying injury-free, which is by and large dependent on luck. An injury to McNabb or Westbrook would halt the Eagles’ season, just as an injury to Eli would put an end to the Giants’ attempt to repeat. Basically, what it comes down to is, how will these teams perform once they (and by God they will) reach the postseason? (I’m looking

at you, Romo.) Maybe McNabb will return the Eagles to their early millennium glory; maybe Eli will lead a repeat charge; or maybe Romo will help the ‘Boys win their first playoff game in a while (12 years, to be exact). But one thing is for sure: No one, even including the NFC East, wants to have to play an NFC East team in the playoffs. So good luck to the rest of you. You are all going to need it. Seriously.

Patrick Davis ’10 wishes he could dominate as much as the NFC East.

News tips? herald@browndailyherald.com

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E ditorial & L etters Page 14

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Staf f Editorial

Options trading Campus has been abuzz the past week over the near-collapse of financial markets, the fall of Wall Street leviathans Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and the effect of it all on our own lives. As The Herald has spoken with career center staff, alums at investment firms and undergrads frantic about their futures, we’re struck by the duality of people’s sentiments — the crisis will affect us, but mostly we’re in the clear. We have reason for optimism; we have reason for fear. We should be frustrated; we should settle down. For upperclassmen, the financial meltdown is scariest in the short term. Of course, many students who had set a particular trajectory for themselves are now thrown inexplicably off-track. We take a “c’est la vie” attitude to that plight — it’s hard to sympathize with smart, often well-off Ivy League students. But as we hear of students at Brown and elsewhere who dreamed of high-flying, high-paying jobs in finance now flooding toward the high-flying, high-paying fields of consulting and law, we’re struck by how limited people must feel their options are. We can hear that sense of confusion every time someone talks about going to law school “for the degree” and not to actually practice law. We can feel it in the rapid ease with which so many of us have shifted our plans. Ultimately, we’re left with larger questions about whether the shaky economy has caused us to lose direction or simply revealed we may never have had that much of it in the first place. Both answers are correct. In one sense, external conditions can influence our decisions. A society with more income equality and a University with more financial aid would ease the burden felt by many Brown students to rack up earnings and clear out debt. For starters, the government should increase the tax deduction on tuition and allow for more tax-free college savings accounts (much like with retirement accounts). The University should focus more of its financial aid budget on middle-class families. In the longer term, our country must work to pay off its massive debt, lest we see permanent cuts in research funding, health programs, money from institutions like the National Endowment for the Arts and opportunities with the Peace Corps and Teach for America. But these changes to public policy aren’t the complete answer. If you love them for the problem-solving and critical thinking it requires, financial trading and analysis can be fascinating fields. But too often they seem to have been chosen by default, the obvious choice or something to do when the options seem unclear. In a world with a particle collider that smashes atoms together near absolute zero at nearly the speed of light, with an anxious people waiting on the next great American novel, with a dozen social problems each in need of a thousand once-in-a-generation minds, surely there are options that will arouse our passions. The economy has tanked. C’est la vie. There’s still plenty to do.

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

Executive Editors Taylor Barnes Chris Gang

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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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A lex Y uly

L e tt e r s Herald should continue covering RIPTA To the Editor: Thank you for your article, “Angry SDS Riders take over RIPTA Meeting” (Sept. 23). At this time these proposed cuts are not only effecting students but many employees of Brown University. The more press we can get will help get our voice out. Though I do not necessary agree with Students for a Democratic Society’s methods, I am happy to see The Herald has picked up on this issue. As an employee at Brown, who rides the RIPTA bus on one of the routes they are proposing to eliminate, it

is nice to see The Herald addressing this topic. Since there are several staff and faculty members at Brown that are being effected by these RIPTA cut proposals The Herald should consider an article from this prospective. Many of us have signed petitions, written letters to government officials and will be attending meetings being held in several locations around the state. Erica Cummins Assistant Director of Financial Aid Sept. 23

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O pinions Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tragedy of the Common App ADRIENNE LANGLOIS | Opinions Columnist It seems like eons ago that I wrote my application to Brown, but in reality it was only two years ago and I still remember the experience well. Recalling that application process and my time so far here at Brown, the news that we are moving to the Common Application disappointed me immensely. I believe that Brown’s uncommon application was one component of our unique identity, and something that most people I’ve met here value. Moving to the Common Application is in essence accepting the lowest common denominator of applications as a part of our institutional identity. The Common Application seems to get the job done everywhere else, but why not challenge ourselves to create something better? As Dean of Admission James Miller ’73 told The Herald, a major reason for the change is that the Office of Admissions recognized overlap between the Common Application and Brown’s application. I believe this realization should have motivated Brown to differentiate its application from the herd. An even more unique application, crafted by people familiar with Brown and the college admissions process, would be a much better goal. People who succeed on a more personalized application created by those who know Brown might be more likely to succeed once here. I will grant that switching to the Common Application in order to make life easier for high school seniors makes some sense. But in the grand scheme of things, how much time will we actually save prospective Brunonians? As I remember it, by the time I was done with my applications I could write down all my pertinent personal information in my sleep. Having to write this down once on the Common Application and once more on the Brown application is far from a major hassle. The real time is spent on supplements, which virtually all top schools (Brown included) require. These miniscule benefits do not make up for the loss of a unique application. The Herald presented a stronger argument for adopt-

ing the Common App in an editorial last spring (“Common sense,” April 15). They pointed out that the wealthier you are, the better your chances of getting into a top school because of the vast array of tools at your disposal during the application process. The Admission Office apparently had this problem in mind as well — Miller told the Herald that the switch would have benefits for those from “less sophisticated backgrounds.” The belief is that standardizing admissions will help level the playing field for applicants from low-income backgrounds. I share the editors’ concern regarding this problem, but I do not believe switching to the Common Application will do much to fix it. Money makes it easier to apply (and get in) in a variety of ways, many of which have a larger impact on an applicant’s success than the application itself. Private schools and SAT tutors tilt the balance toward privileged applicants long before candidates start on their applications. Since Brown will continue to require non-standardized essays — another area in which the ability to hire private counselors or attend a school with a strong guidance department helps wealthier students — I doubt that switching to the Common Application will have any significant effect in dealing with the problem. Since (in theory) the quality of an applicant is all that matters, the discussion should be about making the process less expensive. Brown could enhance equity in a number of ways that don’t involve dumbing down admissions requirements or aping our peers. Along with dropping the application price, Brown should dedicate more of its resources to helping lowincome high schoolers with the admissions process. The Common Application offers few, if any, gains in ease or socioeconomic fairness. Instead of chasing after the marginal benefits of uniformity, Brown should create a better, more unique application and focus its resources on the more pressing problems that income disparity in college admissions creates.

There’s not much I love more than fall at Brown. The leaves are getting crunchy underfoot, the air is finally brisk enough to justify wearing a scarf as more than just an exercise in hipster fashion, and already, the Blue Room has started carrying those yummy pumpkin muffins. Now that shopping period is over, we can all stop stressing about our own personal scheduling crises and instead focus on the mountains of homework we somehow managed to accumulate. Midterms may loom near, but at least we’ll be able to enjoy some quality weather as we trudge off to the SciLi. I only have one problem with fall, and that is the return of the Career Development Center e-mails. I know that the CDC means well — they did give me some insightful advice on my resume last spring — but now that I’m a junior, the content of the weekly newsletters is getting more and more dire. Last week’s spotlight on “Concerns about the Job Market” seemed designed to put the fear of God in the hearts of third-year Brown students. I can only imagine the bad news arriving in the seniors’ inboxes. After I realized that hyperventilating wasn’t going to drag the economy out of the toilet and spent a few minutes depositing the CDC e-mails in my computer’s recycle bin, I felt better, but one question still loomed large in my mind: What am I going to do with my life? Not the most unusual or even insightful of questions, but I think it’s worth noting that I am a history major. I usually get two responses when I inform people of this fact: either “Oh, and what are you going to do with that?” or “So, you want to be a teacher?” If I look closely at the questioner, I can almost see what they’re thinking: usually something along the lines of “I wonder how your parents feel about paying $40,000 a year so that you can live in a cardboard box after you graduate.” I’m never really sure how to respond to these types of questions in conversations: I just admit to the possibility that, yes, I may end up teaching, or I mention law school as a future source of bread and butter. It’s hard to explain one’s chosen major in a few words during small talk, so today, in this column, I plan to sing the merits of history, and of the humanities in general.

Jon Stewart sucks BY ANISH MITRA Opinions Columnist

In terms of usefulness in securing a future career, the humanities are generally considered to be on the low end of the spectrum. But just because investment banks couldn’t care less about the inner workings of Medieval German society or the sociological construction of race doesn’t mean that these disciplines are any less significant than the study of chemistry or economics. There’s much to be said for broadening one’s world view without regard to the size of a paycheck. It’s also a gross understatement to claim that humanities majors graduate without any useful skills. History and English majors don’t only come away from college with the basic foundation for a career as a high school teacher and a looming sense of doom — they also learn how to read and analyze documents and write concisely and critically — important skills for a multitude of professions from journalism to law. A Brown graduate who chooses to focus his or her college studies on a foreign language and has attained fluency is instantly more hirable to any number of employers. The benefits of a humanities-focused education may not be as concrete as a sound understanding of molecular compounds or complex economic laws, but are nonetheless enriching — instead of a concrete knowledge base focused on a specific discipline, humanities students learn critical skills that can be applied to a variety of disciplines. I’m not decrying science-oriented areas of study as less valid than the humanities — I have an enormous amount of respect for those who tackle abstract mathematical theorems and explore the inner workings of the human brain — I’m only asking that the humanities get a little more love and respect. Sociology, history, English, classics and anthropology majors make for a more literate, tolerant, well-rounded society — even if they only do so as teachers. I have no problem with the idea that a teaching career may be in my future, but I do hope that when I begin the arduous application process for jobs sometime in 2010, employers will recognize that my knowledge base involves more than just random facts and dates. But if not, I’d be happy to eat ramen and pass on what I consider to be relevant knowledge.

A significant amount of politically interested Brown students, if not the majority, are fans of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. For those who are unfamiliar, comedian and author Jon Stewart runs a joke-ridden “fake news” show on Comedy Central from Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m. According to the show’s Web site, Jon Stewart’s official mission is to take a “reality-based look at news, trends, pop culture, current events, politics, sports and entertainment with an alternative point of view.” While the show may provide some laughs for its viewers, it is ultimately dangerous and misleading. Fortunately for civil society, The Daily Show has a limited future. While The Daily Show itself has been around since 1996, it was not until 1999 that Jon Stewart took over as its anchorman. The show’s politically driven focus began with Stewart. He launched his “Indecision 2000” campaign to highlight the Florida recount controversy involving candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore, and has since used the show as a jeering vehicle to attack President Bush. Throughout the course of Stewart’s nine-year tenure as the show’s host, he has taunted various members of the Bush administration, including but not limited to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice. The show’s structure makes it painfully evident that once Bush leaves office, the show’s future will leave with him. According to Neilsen Media, the Daily Show has an average viewership of 1.5 million viewers per night, typically ranging from 18 to 49 years old. I presume that these viewers probably lean left and will stop tuning into the show when Bush fades from power and Stewar t runs out of fodder. What exactly will Jon Stewart talk about after the 2008 election? While Stewart can still poke fun at McCain, he will have to be more restrained if he wants to get away with mocking a former prisoner of war and current senior citizen. On the flipside, if Obama claims victor y in November, Stewart will have a tough time humiliating his viewership’s idol. Even if either candidate commits an eye-dropping scandal (Lewinsky times 10), Stewart would only be able to ride that wave for so long before his young viewers grab the remote and change the channel. But Stewart has more serious problems than an inevitable lack of material. His show has also failed to live up to its own contradictor y principles. While Stewart claims he runs a “fake news” show, albeit a “reality-based” one, he rarely ever avoids talking about real, current events. “Fake news” is more within the realm of The Brown Noser and The Onion. Instead of taking a “reality-based approach,” Stewart adopts a rather cynical, pointed and overtly liberal approach that is anything but objective. Jon Stewart has packaged his snarky style and markets it as cool and hip on his television show. This is especially dangerous because young trend-followers take after Stewart, and their laughs will translate into misinformation at the voting booth. My fears have already been partly validated. According to data collected by Nielsen Media during the 2004 presidential election, the Daily Show received more male viewers in the 18 to 34 year old age demographic than Nightline, Meet the Press, Hannity & Colmes and each of the evening news broadcasts. I worr y that the most avid Daily Show fans at Brown do not realize that adopting political views because of a hip, popular television show is cheap, mindless and perilous. As the most important election of our time runs near, I am afraid that young people nationwide will do the “cool” thing at the voting booth instead of the “right” one. Now more than ever before, the words of James Madison ring true: “Democracy is the most vile form of government.”

Adrienne Langlois ’10 hopes the real-estate market improves so she can get a decent-sized cardboard box.

Anish Mitra ‘10 does like Stephen Colbert, and urges young viewers to adopt his views without question.

Dan Davidson ’11 thinks Brown should reinstate the handwritten essay requirement.

In defense of the humanities ADRIENNE LANGLOIS | Opinions Columnist

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Stewart has more serious problems than his inevitable lack of material.

S ports T hursday Page 16

Sports in Brief Develin ’10 earns top defense honors Defensive end James Develin ’10 was honored with the Sports Network’s FCS National Defensive Player of the Week honor as well as being named the Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts in the Bears’ win against Stony Brook last Saturday. His nine tackles — 3.5 for loss — two sacks and forced fumble wreaked havoc on the Seawolves’ offense, holding them scoreless for the entire game. Develin adds these awards to a second team All-Ivy selection from last year after leading the league in tackles for a loss. Wide receiver Buddy Farnham ’10 won the Boston Globe Gold Helmet Award for his 14 catches for 111 yards in Saturday’s game. The first team All-Ivy honoree last year also returned a kick-off of 41 yards to contribute to the Bears’ 259 total yards on offense.

UMass comes back to defeat field hockey The field hockey team (1-5) fell to UMass 2-1 in overtime at home on Tuesday after surrendering a 1-0 lead late in the second half. Leslie Springmeyer ’12 scored Brown’s lone goal off a pass from Sara Eaton ’09 on a man-up opportunity with 7:06 remaining in the second half. The Minutewomen answered back with 4:18 remaining in the game with a goal off their 14th corner of the game. Brown never got control of the ball in the 15-minute overtime period, however, and UMass emerged triumphant after putting one in the back of the net at 4:09 into overtime. Lauren Kessler ’11 finished with six saves in goals for the Bears, and Springmeyer and Tacy Zysk ’11 each tallied two shots apiece. The Minutewomen ended the game with a 21-6 shots advantage. The Bears will travel to Hanover, N.H. this weekend for a chance to pick up their first Ivy win against Dartmouth at noon on Saturday. — Amy Ehrhart

Thursday, September 25, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Men’s soccer shuts out Boston College Beasts from

the East: NFC teams look unbeatable

By Katie Wood Assistant Spor ts Editor

The men’s soccer team has played well against Boston College in recent years, winning the previous three games. But Brown 1 none of those suc0 cesses were on the BC minds of the Bears (4-2-1) entering Tuesday night’s match-up against the No. 13 Eagles (3-3-1). The focus was on this year’s game, and they knew it would be a solid match. As it turned out, one goal decided the final outcome of this head-to-head game between the two teams. Rhett Bernstein ’09 knocked in the only goal of the game in the 47th minute off a corner kick from Darren Howerton ’09. This is the second game in a row the pair has hooked up for a one-two offensive punch. “Last night was our best performance so far this year,” said defender David Walls ’11. “We lifted our game to a new level and played well defensively.” BC outshot Brown 20-9, but the Bears’ defense held strong again as they kept the Eagles off the scoreboard for their sixth shutout of the season. Paul Grandstrand ’11 recorded his first win of the season with three saves. Howerton has recently returned to the line-up after missing all of pre-season and the first few games due to a knee injury. He has been rehabbing and getting back into shape, according to Walls, and has made huge impact on the team with his offensive production and leadership since his return. “Howerton has had a big effect on the last two games, creating some good scoring opportunities,” Bernstein said. The team’s fourth consecutive win over the Eagles gave Brown a boost of confidence going into the next part of its season. “We still have a long way to go. Last night’s results definitely showed that we can be one of the top teams in the country,” Bernstein said. “We’re still coming together as a team — it’s important

Leading Bruno was Michael Amato ’11, who shot 78-78-77 to finish 53rd overall at 233. “Our team has shown steady improvement and I’m just glad I contributed,” Amato said. “The conditions were tough, it was windy, cold ... and it’s definitely the toughest course we’ve played so far.” Hughes praised Amato’s play on a tricky course. “He’s the most fundamentally sound, and we have great hopes for the spring with him,” Hughes said. “We’re stepping up to the big leagues.” John Giannuzzi ’10 placed 57th individually, close behind Amato with a 234. He also shared the team’s single-day low score of 76 with co-captain Chris Hoffman ’09, who finished at 241. Conor Malloy ’09, the team’s other co-captain, also finished with a 241. First place went to No. 9 Texas A&M, at eight under par, holding a

A funny thing happened to me last week. As I sat down and reviewed the NFL power rankings on ESPN.com, a weekly ritual of mine, I noticed that three of the Patrick Davis top five teams Sports Columnist were from the same division. Better yet, that division was the NFC East — my division. So, as you can imagine, I was even more pleased when I realized that the No. 2 team, the Steelers, had lost to the NFC East Eagles, and the No. 4 team, the Packers, had been handled by the NFC East Cowboys. Huh ... that’s funny. Because that would mean that ... And yes, sure enough, on Tuesday morning, I woke up to the beautiful news that the top three teams in the new ranking read like this: Cowboys, Giants, Eagles — all hailing from the NFC East. Now, of course, these rankings are completely arbitrary, but they tell an important truth — the NFC East is by far the best division in the NFL and probably the best in recent memory. Let’s take a look at some of its history. Since 1990, the NFC East has been represented in the Super Bowl eight times out of a possible 18. Put it another way, one team from the NFC East is in the Super Bowl nearly every other year. To put that into perspective, teams from either the NFC South or NFC North have only been represented a combined five times in this same time period. But it gets even better. For each the past two seasons, three teams from the NFC East have reached the playoffs. Two seasons ago was the first time it had ever happened under the current divisional system. Now, this season, it’s about to happen for the third straight year. But this year’s NFC East makes all those other great divisions look mediocre and all its own past records ordinary. The division has compiled a 10-2 record, and the only two losses were intradivisional games, all the while outscoring their opponents by a combined 329-213. Yeah, that’s right. During the eight total nondivisional games thus far this season, no one in the NFC East has lost. Not a single game. Even the Redskins, considered by far the worst of the NFC East, are coming off a victory against Arizona, who at the time was leading the NFC West. Take the Eagles, for example. In two nondivisional games, they have demolished their opponents by a combined score of 53-9. Yet, in their week two showdown against the Cowboys, they lost 41-37. It seems that no one can beat the NFC East except, well, the NFC East. So how did this happen? The answer is simple. Big markets and terrific owners. Say what you want about Jerry Jones (and I will in just about every other article I write) — the man wants a winning team, and he knows how to build one. All across this division there are knowledgeable and involved owners, and they are supported by the millions of faithful, die-hard and sometimes rabid NFC East fans. Which brings me to my next point. What, if anything, can stop this

continued on page 13

Herald File Photo

Following a recent trend, the men’s soccer team took down Boston College for the fourth time in a row Tuesday with a shutout, 1-0.

that we keep on improving.” The Bears will head to UNCGreensboro Saturday to take on the Spartans at 7 p.m. The team’s outlook is taking one game at a time, not thinking too much about their Ivy League schedule that starts after their game this weekend. “We’re right where we want to be at going into the UNC-Greensboro game,” Head Coach Mike

Noonan said. “The BC game gives us a good platform for this weekend’s game.” After the UNC-Greensboro match-up, the Bears will have a two-game homestand on Stevenson Field. The team will first takes on Columbia in its Ivy League opener on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 4 p.m., and follows up with Bryant University on Tuesday, Oct 7 at 7 p.m. “We’re going for ward and

Men’s golf places last in tough Newport tournament By Amy Ehrhart Sports Editor

Courtesy of Brown Sports Information

The men’s golf team came in last place at the Newport Invitational.

The Newport National Golf Club was not very forgiving to the men’s golf team over the past two days at the highly-touted Adams Cup of Newport, hosted by University of Rhode Island. But Head Coach Michael Hughes said he was still pleased with the team’s effort. “It’s one of the strongest fields in college golf,” Hughes said. The tournament included four of the top 20 nationally-ranked teams. “We’ll be really competitive (at) Ivies because of tournaments like this. The team responded well and I’m impressed with their resiliency.” After pulling off a thrilling thirdplace finish at the Rehoboth Invitational in Delaware last Monday with only four players, the Bears fell to 16th place after their final hole in Newport, six strokes behind their closest competitors, United States Naval Academy and University of Connecticut.