Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Brown Daily Herald T hursday, O ctober 23, 2008

Volume CXLIII, No. 97

State jobless rate highest in nation

Want to buy a U. building?

That’ll be $10, thank you

On INDIA POINT

Buyers will have to relocate houses to make room for expansion

By Sydney Ember Contributing Writer

For Rhode Island residents, the sluggish economy is hitting especially close to home. The nation’s smallest state now claims the lessthan-coveted position atop the country’s unemployment rankings, with an 8.8 percent jobless rate for September.

According to recent data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Rhode Island surpassed Michigan, previously the state with

By Chaz Kelsh Senior Staf f Writer

The University is selling two historic houses on Angell Street for $10 each, though the buyers will have to relocate the houses.

The houses, 127 and 129 Angell St., stand on the site of the planned Mind Brain Behavior Building, for which the University could break ground as early as next summer, The Herald reported in August.

Administrators are still “investigating other possibilities” for the Urban Environmental Lab, which also occupies land where the Mind Brain Behavior building is to be situated. Initially, the lab was also advertised for sale, said Michael McCormick, assistant vice president for planning, design and construction.

The Greek Revival-style houses were built in 1849 and 1853 and are “contributing structures to the historic district of College Hill,” McCormick said. Administrators want to “preserve the historic integrity”

METRO the highest unemployment rate, and reached its highest level in 16 years. Rhode Island’s jobless rate increased from 8.6 percent in August to 8.8 percent in September, well above the national unemployment rate of 6.1 percent and significantly above the rest of the New England states.

“Rhode Island is clearly in a crisis,” said Leonard Lardaro, a professor of economics at the University of Rhode Island. “We are in a crisis about as severe as the banking crisis in 1991.”

In the past month, the number of unemployed rose by about 1,300, increasing the jobless count to about 50,200, according to the State Department of Labor and Training, a trend that Lardaro says he anticipates lasting until May 2009 at the earliest.

Lardaro says that this increase in the state’s jobless rate stems from Rhode Island’s long-term failure to make technological advances and improve growth-oriented industries.

He says these problems result from the continued “dismantling” of higher education in the state.

“We continue to place higher education farther and farther out of the reach of many of our young people,” he said.

The economic crisis is taking its greatest toll on manufacturing industries, which have shown a 9 percent decline in total work hours, a downward spiral that Lardaro characterized as “drastic.”

In order to reverse this trend, Lardaro says state leaders must clean up the current tax and cost structure by making it more competitive.

He says that there are also problems with the cost of doing business in the state because of fees, regulations and inadequate skills in the labor force.

Rhode Island’s steadily increasing unemployment rate foreshadowed the current national economic crisis, Lardaro said.

Employment in the state peaked in Januar y 2007 before the state entered into a recession in August 2007, leading what many U.S. experts fear is current national recontinued on page 4

Simon Van Zuylen-Wood / Herald

A new bridge to India Point Park offers the curious an easier way to the 18-acre space.

See Metro Page 3

Steve DeLucia / Herald File Photo

Brown is selling two houses for $10.

But there’s a catch. of the neighborhood as it expands, so they’ve opted not to demolish the houses, he added.

The University will contribute up to $1 million per house to defray the costs of moving them, he said.

The final cost of moving will be “very dependent on the route the move will have to take,” he said.

The houses will be separated from utilities and their foundations, continued on page 7

Faculty campaign contributions go 10-to-1 for Obama

By Scott Lowenstein Metro Editor

Following the national trend among academics, Brown professors are donating to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign by a factor of almost 10 to one over Sen. John McCain’s, though in smaller numbers than those at other peer institutions.

All together, 26 Brown professors have donated a combined $27,300 to the Illinois Democrat, while just

two professors have donated a total of $2,800 to his opponent. When all self-identified donations from University employees, which includes other staff, are counted, Obama’s figure increases to $35,550, while McCain’s rises to $4,100.

The Department of Philosophy, with donations totaling $5,050 to Obama, had the highest per capita donations among all academic departments.

The Federal Election Commis-

sion requires candidates to report only those donors who give more than $200, so smaller donations were not included in the calculations for this article.

University professors nationwide are donating to the Democratic nominee by much greater margins than in previous years, according to an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education. University employees this year have donated to Obama over McCain by an eight-

BY Shannon O’Brien Contributing Writer

By Franklin Kanin News Editor

Ben Biller was tired of storebought soda. As he saw it, when brand-name companies injected carbon dioxide into their prodKim Perley / Herald

FEATURE

Ben Biller, a resident of Finlandia, brews soda in the co-op’s kitchen.

ucts, the drinks stopped being natural. So about a year ago, Biller decided to take matters into his own hands.

With a few gallons of water, a lot of ginger and sugar and kitchen

5

continued on page 6

‘Family Weekend’ renamed to include more than just parents

Wheaton senior makes soda ‘from the heart’

CAMPUS NEWS

to-one margin both nationwide and at Brown, with margins reaching 20 to one at schools with large total contributions like the University of California system and Harvard.

College and university employees donated about four-to-one for John Kerry in 2004 and gave slightly more for President Bush than for Al Gore in 2000, according to the Chronicle.

A weekend by any other name

Homemade soda brews at co-op

POSTdiscovers the secret life of beekeepers, watches W. and gets pegged www.browndailyherald.com

Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

materials in the Finlandia co-op kitchen, Biller made his first batch of ginger beer.

Since then, the Wheaton College senior — who takes courses at Brown through a cross-registra-

PUT YOUR HANDS UP Room inspections land ResLife with some marijuana, brewing equipment and a sword

11

OPINIONS

tion program — has produced a steady flow of soda to share with his co-op housemates. continued on page 4

revealing corp secrets Kevin Roose ’09.5 gets his hands on secret Corporation minutes and makes everything public

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

12 SPORTS

Parents and other family members arriving at Brown for a weekend of campus events are no longer attending “Parents’ Weekend.” The Office of Public Affairs and University Relations has changed the name this year to “Family Weekend” in an effort to reflect the range of relatives that descend on College Hill every fall.

“We wanted to make it a more relevant name to what already exists,” said Marisa Quinn, vice president of public continued on page 4

m. tennis rocks the net Top men’s doubles tennis team made it to the finals at Yale, marking a season high

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

T oday Page 2

Thursday, October 23, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

We a t h e r TODAY

Vagina Dentata | Soojean Kim TOMORROW

sunny 62 / 39

sunny 52 / 33

Menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Vegan Tofu Raviolis, Vegan Tofu Pups, Asian Noodle Bar, Sweet Potato Fries, Canadian Bacon

Lunch — Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Hot Roast Beef on French Bread, Nacho Bar

Dinner — Vegetarian Gnocchi ala Sorrentina, Roast Turkey With Sauce, Stuffing

Dinner — Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce, Stuffed Peppers, Vegetable Egg Rolls

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

Fizzel Pop | Patricia Chou

© Puzzles23, by2008 Pappocom RELEASE DATE– Thursday, October

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

ACROSS 1 San __, Texas 7 President between two Williams 15 Land by the lake?

16 Suggested 17 Get really frantic 19 Lacking play 20 Good deal 21 Do a pre-birthday party task 28 Rubs off again 29 Smooth-talking 30 Long, long time 31 Hard __: sailor’s alert 32 Co. for surfers 35 Bust a gut 40 Sucker 41 Ample, slangily 42 Frigid finish 43 How many backups are done 44 Old golf club 47 Try to organize a union?

50 Public hanging 51 Exploits 52 Deliver a harsh dose of reality 60 “You got that right!”

61 Camden Yards player 62 Vintner’s expertise 63 They’re skewered DOWN 1 Uru. neighbor 2 Opposite of paleo3 Storm producer, once 4 Little worker 5 Hoist 6 Ready for later watching 7 Eighth Greek letter 8 Went underground

9 Storm hdg.

10 Suffix with Capri 11 Position for an attack 12 Classic theater 13 Philippics 14 T-storms might push it back 18 Activity centers 21 Saints’ quarterback Drew 22 Arrowsmith’s first wife 23 Sing, perhaps 24 Thin puff 25 She sings “Two Lost Souls” with Joe in a 1955 musical 26 Place 27 1980s KGB defector Gordievsky 31 Franklin’s 1936 foe 32 “Who’s there?” response 33 Comical lead-in 34 Get gussied up

36 It may be pitched 37 Take tiny steps 38 Hosiery shade 39 Antiquated verb 43 Decides one will 44 Smooch 45 Nike competitor 46 Make certain 47 TiVo function 48 Hatch of Utah 49 Proposal of a kind 52 Life lines?

53 Rolodex no.

54 Ab __: from the beginning 55 Blowup source, briefly 56 Chest protector 57 Fluffy accessory 58 Maine retail pioneer, initially 59 Some MIT grads

Alien Weather Forecast | Stephen Lichenstein and Adam Wagner

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Dunkel | Joe Larios

xwordeditor@aol.com

10/23/08

T he B rown D aily H erald Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 Business Phone: 401.351.3260

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

Simmi Aujla, President

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

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

By Dan Naddor (c)2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

10/23/08

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

M etro Thursday, October 23, 2008

Page 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Me

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Br

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Local ACORN chapter receives threats

Simon van Zuylen-Wood / Herald

Among the decaying pilings just off of India Point Park are the remnants of a wooden ship.

New bridge paves way to slice of city

By Simon van Zuylen-Wood Senior Staf f Writer

Brown students take a standard route to neighboring Fox Point.

Walk down Brook Street, maybe stop at Bagel Gourmet, wonder if anyone ever shops at the “Lion’s Eye.” And then the buck usually stops at Wickenden Street. Rarely do students walk beyond the hardwood warmth of the Coffee Exchange or the stick-to-your-shoes dance floor at Fish Co., a little down the road.

But past these familiar Fox Point haunts, on the other side of Interstate-195, lies an 18-acre park as steeped in history as the University itself. And now thanks to a brandnew bridge off the southern end of East Street that opened last week, nearby India Point Park feels even closer to home for Fox Point and College Hill residents.

In September 2005, the wobbly, 34-year old, eight-foot wide version of the bridge was demolished. It was dangerous, forcing travelers to “walk under two highway underpasses with broken glass and pigeons,” said Marjorie Powning, co-chair of Friends of India Point Park, a community group that works to improve and maintain the park.

For the Friends of India Point Park, preserving the park’s beauty is crucial to the city’s aesthetics and economics.

In “The Creation of India Point Park,” a 2002 essay, author Francis Betancourt wrote India Point was a major Atlantic trading post in 1680 and earned its name in the late 18th centur y as a result of John and

Francis Brown’s successful trade with the East Indies producing “a booming waterfront.”

In 1974, the scrapyard and shipping docks at India Point were transformed into the park — Providence’s only expansive shorefront public property.

Until it was converted into an official city park, India Point was peppered with small, industrial operations. Clam gatherers, steel workers and sailors docked in and out of Narragansett Bay, with India Point Park as a nexus. Today, the park is a recreational ground that hosts the city’s Mexican Soccer League games. Powning said the games often draw as many as a thousand spectators over the course of the weekend.

On the west end of the park, the docks house the Providence Community Boating branch that Powning praised for “bringing in inner-city kids and teaching them sailing and orienteering.”

The 14.5-mile East Bay Bike path finishes at India Point Park, where a newly paved concrete underpass was just opened for bicyclists. Still under construction is a 50-foot-wide bike lane on the aging Washington Bridge, which takes I-195 travelers to East Providence over the Seekonk River. Currently, bikers who commute to work by the bridge must navigate narrow lanes, right beside whizzing cars.

David Riley, the other co-chair of Friends Of India Point Park, said when the bridge is renovated, most likely within three years, the entire south side will be transformed into a continuation of the East Bay Bike Path. The path will exist as a “linear

park,” similar to the current India Point Park Bridge, adorned with grass and flowers, and away from motor vehicles. When completed the state’s three major bike paths — the other two being the Washington Secondary Bike Path and the Blackstone Bike — will all intersect at the park, Riley said.

One of the longest standing political debates in the area, on both the state and local levels, has concerned the future of the nowdefunct Shooters night club, which stands at the head of Narragansett Bay on the west-end of India Point Park. Bought out by the state in 2000, contractors are angling to build condominium high-rises while community activists like Riley and Powning lobby for low-rise waterfront-themed development, which they argue would be more sensible.

“This view is seen by 10 million travelers a year going to Cape Cod ­­— not including commuters,” Riley told The Herald. “Tourism is the second-highest industry in the state.”

In June, Mayor David Ciccilline ’83 and the city of Providence hosted a neighborhood charrette at which residents voiced their ideas about the Shooters land parcel. The overwhelming public response was to keep the land public and develop a marina or waterfront restaurant, which would add to the prosperity of the area without blocking the view of the Bay. In Providence, the capital city of the Ocean State, Powning lamented, “you can’t find an affordable place to sit by the waterfront and eat fried clams.”

The Providence office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which helps register low-income and minority voters, has received two threatening phone calls in the run-up to the presidential election.

ACORN Providence Lead Organizer Hannah Kahl said the office received messages on Sept. 24 and 29 from seemingly the same person, judging by the caller’s voice.

“It was a very racially charged message,” Kahl said. She said the caller talked about the fact that Obama was not born in the U.S., and “went on to imply really awful things about Obama’s children.”

In the second message, the caller identified himself as a white man and called ACORN a racist organization. Kahl said the caller asked if ACORN employees weren’t answering the phone out of fear. “But he was calling at like seven in the morning,” she said.

ACORN is a nonpartisan organization that has registered 1.3 million mostly low-income and minority voters for the 2008 election. Kahl said ACORN’s mission is to go into low-income communities, find out what the residents want to change and then bring people together to effect change in those communities. She said voter registration is only part of this goal, and other projects include foreclosure assistance, free tax preparation and improvements to schools and sanitation. Kahl said recent media attention has given people a narrow view of the organization because, “the drama right now is in the voter world.”

ACORN offices in several states are also currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for reports of voter registration fraud.

Kahl said ACORN has reported the incidents to the police and that workers are paying extra attention to their surroundings as they continue to register voters. Such threats are not unique to the Providence branch. Break-ins were reported at Boston and Seattle branches, said Charles Jackson, the association’s communications director. Jackson said that threats have also been reported in Ohio, Louisiana, Florida and Michigan, where there have also been break-ins and death threats, but no physical altercations. Jackson said people are showing courage by continuing to work toward voter registration.

“I want to stress that we are certainly standing up for what is right and these racist threats will not deter us from our all-important mission,” he said.

Kahl said that the threats are not surprising, adding that for any organization “working to make a change, there is going to be opposition.”

— Hannah Moser

Page 4

Thursday, October 23, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Finlandia’s environment makes it happen continued from page 1

Chris Bennett / Herald File Photo

Parents’ Weekend this year is called Family Weekend.

Now for the whole family, weekend’s name changed continued from page 1 affairs and university relations. “We find students invite stepparents, uncles, siblings –– not just parents.”

Many students were unaware of the change. “I didn’t know,” Ian Gray ’12 said. “It just sounds like Brown trying to be more P.C. in their naming of events.”

Some students were surprised the switch hadn’t happened sooner.

“I’m mad that it wasn’t always Family Weekend,” Robert McCartney ’08.5 said. He said he once made up his own Siblings’ Weekend so

that his sister would visit. So far, the change has not affected enrollment statistics, either in total numbers or in types of registrants, but Quinn said that was not the goal of the switch.

“We didn’t anticipate that the name change would increase registration,” she said.

Jenna Williams ’11 said that, though this year only her parents are attending, she didn’t think the change would affect who came to visit her on future Family Weekends.

“I think they kind of just assumed it was family weekend already,” she said.

Unemployment up in R.I. continued from page 1 cession.

Despite the upward unemployment trend, Lardaro criticized the actions of state leaders.

“Everything seems to be going in the wrong direction,” he said.

“And if that’s not bad enough, our leaders are doing nothing whatsoever to deal with it.”

But in a recent press release, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support a stimulus package that includes unemployment benefits and infrastructure projects that would help to create jobs.

He also advocated assistance to homeowners in light of the recent national mortgage crisis and funding for emergency food assistance.

Langevin said in the release that the current economic condition “has taken a toll on our

state’s social service centers, food pantries, and homeless shelters,” adding that these problems are only going to get worse in the future.

Earlier this year, Langevin voted on a measure that would help jobless Americans by providing 13 additional weeks of unemployment benefits to workers who had already used up their 26 weeks of benefits.

But the measure did not pass in the Senate, leaving Rhode Island without the additional unemployment aid.

Lardaro said he is hopeful that the state’s economic situation will improve eventually.

The reversal in the unemployment trend will “have to rely on buoyancy on national and global levels,” he said.

“But still we have the noose around our neck of deficits that are going to slow us down.”

The first batch Biller’s foray into soda-brewing was mostly an experiment done for fun. “This sort of ginger beer, it comes from the heart, ‘cause I was originally making it for myself,” he said. “I was just doing it for sh*ts and giggles.”

But the stuff tasted pretty good and his co-op members encouraged him to keep it up.

Ashley Aguilar ’10, a fellow coop member, was one of the first to sample the ginger beer. When the first bottle opened, she recounted, it exploded with carbonation, teaching the amateur soda-brewer and his friends that the bottles should be opened outside.

“We sampled ginger beer while watching ‘Planet Earth,’” Aguilar said. “It was just really awesome and a great experience.”

Biller started buying more bottles to fill.

He put different ingredients into the mix, coming up with varieties of the original formula. The co-op kitchen, he said, was well suited for his beverage experimentation.

“I did it because of the facilities” at Finlandia, he said, since it has large pots and other industrial-sized materials.

“And I have a readily steady amount of test victims,” he added.

Each batch comes out differently, and each bottle has its own qualities.

One, from a recent batch, went down with mild carbonation and had a strong accent of ginger with a sweet aftertaste of sugar. A second bottle was more heavily carbonated and exploded white fizz when opened.

The ginger came on stronger, giving it a tangy feel.

How it’s done Making soda, Biller said, is fairly easy.

“With very little effort and very little time and money you can brew your own soda,” he said. “It comes out well.”

For most of the supplies he needs to purchase, he patronizes the Basement Brew-Hah, a local brewery supply store.

He first went there after he had made the original batch, and on that visit he found the book “Homemade Root Beer, Soda and Pop,” by Stephen Creswell, which gave him suggestions and explained some of the history of homemade soda to him.

But most of his supplies are just found in the kitchen at Finlandia.

For the most basic ginger beer, he boils water, then adds grated ginger and a lot of sugar. The sugar not only sweetens the drink, but is important for the yeast to carbonate the soda.

The next step is to let the water cool down until it is tepid — a process that takes a lot longer than he first expected. “That takes forever,”

Kim Perley / Herald

Ben Biller makes his own soda in a kitchen in Finlandia, where he lives. he said. “That was a pain in the butt the first time.”

Then the yeast is added, fermenting for a few days — just until it is carbonated — but it adds a negligible amount of alcohol.

Then, using a Gatorade cooler with a spigot, Biller pours the soda into glass bottles.

“Its not fully scientific,” he said, adding that the process is mostly experimental and that he often tries new things as he makes each batch.

“I know it would be so much less fun if I went and rented an industrial kitchen and patented a recipe and tried to sell it instead of just making it with the intent of having people enjoy it, and being creative,” he said.

To make other flavors of soda, it’s just a matter of adding the necessary fruits or tastes into the mixture.

“I can make banana-apple-coconut beer,” he said. “I can put nine flavors in if I want to.”

Care to share?

Biller said making and drinking the soda was more fun because his friends chipped in. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the coop,” he said.

“I never would have had the initiative, because I get help from people.”

It has also been a positive nonalcoholic social activity for him and his friends. “I don’t drink anymore,” he said.

“It’s a really fun way to share a unique beverage with people who don’t necessary want to drink alcohol.”

Aguilar, who said the ginger coconut beer was her favorite, said she

has enjoyed watching the process and sampling the varieties.

“It’s really amazing to come into the kitchen and see Ben with his huge apparatuses, going crazy. He’ll take over the kitchen, and just make huge batches of ginger beer,” she said. “He serves it at dinner, and he knows what he’s doing.”

“That’s a lie,” Biller playfully cut in. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“It seems like he knows what he’s doing,” Aguilar corrected. “There’s some cool varieties, and the carbonation is always different, so it’s like having your own personalized ginger beer whenever you want.”

Another of Biller’s housemates, Herald comic artist Joe Larios ’10, said the brews are unlike mass produced varieties.

“Each batch has a different character that rises out of it,” he said.

“So it definitely has a homemade feel and great taste.”

Future plans Biller said he recently went to a farmers’ market and spoke to a woman who sells her own bottled jam, which he said was similar to his product.

From her, he learned that selling the homemade product is not as simple as it might seem. 0She has to rent a health board approved kitchen, get a license to sell to the public and pass continual inspections by the Board of Health or the Health Inspector, according to Biller.

And ultimately, he said, it is not very profitable.

“The sad reality of food production is that unless you do it in a large scale, it’s not really economically viable,” Biller said.

So, instead of mass producing and selling the soda, Biller wants to start a “ginger beer co-op.”

“Each semester, you would put in some money for ingredients, you could come and help make it and then get as much soda as you could drink all semester long,” he said.

Biller tried to start the soda coop last year, but was unsuccessful.

But he said he wants to try again this semester.

“It’s a no-brainer that if you like drinking soda, (the co-op) is the way to go,” he said.

And Biller definitely likes drinking soda. “I would argue that my soda is better than any soda I’ve ever had.”

C ampus n ews Thursday, October 23, 2008

DPS catches Hay intruders, New Dorm microbrewers The following summary includes all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Oct. 9 and Oct. 15. It does not include general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring off campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are

CRIME LOG 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. Thursday, Oct. 9 12:51 a.m. While on patrol an officer observed five males removing street signs at the corner of Brown and Bowen streets. The males were located and they produced signs from under their shirts. The signs were four-way signs that attach to the bottom of stop signs. The students also produced the tools that they had used to remove the signs.

They were instructed to return the signs to their proper locations. A short time later, officers observed that the signs had been attached in the proper manner. The matter has been turned over to Student Life.

(A on map) Friday, Oct. 10 10:04 p.m. Complainant found the passenger side window of his vehicle smashed and a GPS and owner’s manual were taken. Providence Police responded and took a report.

(Not shown)

Page 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD A

B

Saturday, Oct. 11 9:18 p.m. Student stated that his wallet and cell phone were taken while he was playing basketball at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center. The items were left unattended on top of his backpack on the floor.

There are no suspects at this time.

(B) Sunday, Oct. 12 1:07 a.m. Of ficers were dispatched to assist Providence Police with a loud off-campus party on Ives Street. The residents were all Brown students and one of them was issued a noise violation. (C) 1:39 p.m. A Brown student stated that he left his dorm room in Sears House at about 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 10. When he returned to his room the next day, he noticed his laptop gone. His roommate told him that the laptop was gone when he got in at about 11 p.m. on Friday. The student stated that he did not report the laptop missing on Saturday when he got in because he wanted to email his friends to make sure no one borrowed it. As of this time no one has any knowledge of anyone using the laptop. (D) Monday, Oct. 13 4:46 a.m. Of ficers were dispatched for an alarm activation at the John Hay Library. Upon arrival they saw that the alarm indicated stairway three, roof access. They responded to the roof and found that the door was unlocked. They entered the roof area and found two subjects sitting on the roof. The officer asked the subjects what they

E

D C

F G H

were doing on the roof. They stated they entered near the Carrie Tower and ended up in the John Hay Library and they then were trapped in the stairwell and could not exit the building. Upon investigation, they learned one was a Brown student and one was not Brown-affiliated; however, he had a Brown identification card in his possession. The subject stated that he is visiting his friend and he gave him the ID to gain entry to his room. (E) Tuesday, Oct. 14 12:05 p.m. An officer was dispatched to meet with Residential Life staff and a dean regarding a health and safety inspection in Vartan Gre-

gorian Quadrangle. Two students were found in their room smoking marijuana. They turned a plastic baggie containing marijuana over to DPS. Also, a knife was displayed on the wall and was confiscated by DPS. The matter has been turned over to Student Life. (F) 12:05 p.m. An officer was dispatched to meet with Residential Life staff regarding a health and safety inspection in Vartan Gregorian Quad. A common room contained boxes of empty glass beer bottles, a bucket and a large glass bottle containing some form of brew, and a box containing a home brewing kit. One of the staff doing the

inspections asked the residents of the suite area if they owned the items in the common room. One of the students took responsibility and the matter is being handled by Student Life. (G) 1:55 p.m. An officer was dispatched to meet with Residential Life staff regarding a health and safety inspection in Vartan Gregorian Quad. They stated that they observed a glass pipe and a metal pipe inside a room. They knocked on the door and entered. The occupant was not in. The items were confiscated and a card was left for the occupant. The matter has been turned over to Student Life. (H)

Page 6

Thursday, October 23, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Obama pulls in donations from 26 profs. continued from page 1 Overall, Obama has enjoyed a significant fundraising advantage over McCain, largely because of his decision to opt out of public financing, which has limited McCain’s spending to $84 million since the Republican National Convention in late August. Obama raised $150 million in September alone.

Professors’ preference for Obama this election cycle is not a surprise to Gary Jacobson, a professor of political science at the University of California at San Diego who specializes in campaign finance and electoral politics.

“Most academics already prefer Democrats in general,” Jacobson said, adding that he would have expected donations to Hillary Clinton to have roughly matched donations to Obama.

But the driving force behind professors’ support for Obama, Jacobson said, is “pent-up anger at the current administration ... and seeing McCain as a replication of the Bush mold.

Nathaniel Baum-Snow, an assistant professor of economics who donated a total of $1,250 to Obama this year, said that Obama’s style was more appealing to academics.

“Obama is the more intellectual candidate,” he said, calling McCain’s decision-making process “on-the-

spot” and “shoot from the hip.”

Professors “appreciate a candidate who can reason through all of the decisions” he would have to make, in contrast to McCain’s more intuitive style, he added.

Associate Professor of History James Green said that Obama’s support from professors may also be a reaction to what he sees as an antiintellectual tenor to the last eight years under Bush.

“It would be nice to have an intelligent president after eight years of a president with an intelligence deficit,” he said.

Green, who donated $700 dollars to Obama this year, said the Democrat could also be popular among academics because he broadens the “kind of diversity and inclusiveness” encouraged in university settings to society at large.

Of the two professors who donated to McCain, one did not return calls for comment and the other could not be reached before press time.

In an election when university employees are making record donations — a total of $13.7 million through last month ­­— the question of diversity of political discourse has increasingly emerged as an issue on college campuses.

Marion Orr, director of the Taubman Center for Public Policy, was

criticized in the media earlier this year for donating $500 to Obama while working as a pollster for Brown. Orr could not be reached for comment, though he defended the poll to the Associated Press last month. “I’m a really balanced and fair political scientist,” Orr told the AP. “My students have no sense of my political leanings in class, I can assure you that.”

The debate over professors’ rights to publicly express their political beliefs reached new heights when, a month ago, the University of Illinois ethics office banned all employees from wearing political buttons or having political bumper stickers on their cars in parking lots unless strictly non-partisan. The decision caused an uproar, though the policy has since been reversed.

Calling the University of Illinois decision “outrageous,” Green said politics should still play a role in the classroom, though it is inappropriate for professors to lecture about their preferred political candidate in class.

“Each professor has to make a decision about how their First Amendment rights to say what they want might silence debate in their classroom,” he said.

— With additional reporting by Emmy Liss and Sophia Li

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Candidates reluctant to face deficit realities

By Stephen Braun Los Angeles T imes

WASHINGTON — Despite harsh scrutiny from economic analysts, Barack Obama and John McCain remain reluctant to admit what is becoming obvious — that the nation’s economic crisis will take a heavy toll on their ambitious tax and spending plans.

On his Web site, Obama says the nation’s debt is a “hidden domestic enemy” that he pledges to combat. But in recent days, Obama and his economic advisers have begun gingerly inching toward an acknowledgment that spiraling Wall Street rescue costs and his promises for middle-class tax relief and other initiatives would likely lead to a spike in deficit spending over the next several years.

During the most recent presidential debate, Obama echoed his campaign trail promises of using a “scalpel” to offset his spending initiatives with budget cuts. But he cautioned about the limited choices facing the next occupant of the White House.

Jason Furman, Obama’s chief economic adviser, was more explicit earlier this week during a conference call: “The top priority would be to avoid a deep recession” — suggesting a strategy that could require costly efforts to jump-start the economy.

McCain has not budged from his insistence that he can balance the budget within four years. He says his plans for new corporate tax cuts could be offset by an across-the-board spending freeze.

But a growing number of economists, including some free-marketoriented experts, say the nation faces massive deficits over the next several years no matter who is elected president.

“Both candidates have a deficit problem that neither of them wants to admit,” said J.D. Foster, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. “They’re relying on an awful lot of hand-waving to get budget-neutral, but I think it’s pretty clear that either of them will be constrained at least over the next two years by pressure to fix the economy.”

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated recently that the $700 billion economic rescue plan aimed at salvaging the troubled U.S. banking system would push the nation’s deficit to more than $1 trillion in the coming fiscal year.

That would be an increase from the $482 billion that the White House projected this summer, which itself would be a record.

Facing such a steep wall of debt at the same time that the economy is teetering would hamstring any immediate efforts to balance the budget, leading economists predict.

“It’s highly likely we’re already in a recession,” said Alan J. Auerbach, director of the Robert D. Burch Center for Tax and Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “That suggests policies aimed at short-term help for the economy will have much greater importance than concern about the deficit.”

Free market advocate Alan D. Viard, a former senior Federal Reserve Bank economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed that “in either case you will have demands on government resources that will crowd out the amount of money available —whether it’s for reducing tax rates as McCain wants, or adding programs, as Obama wants.”

And even long-term prospects appear bleak that either McCain or Obama can easily regain control over the deficit — assuming that they hold fast to the tax and spending proposals they continue to defend on the campaign trail.

In a recent study, the Committee for a Responsible Budget laid out how much the Obama and McCain spending and tax-cut proposals would add to the federal deficit in 2013.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts a deficit of $147 billion in the year 2013. That estimate does not account for the massive bank recovery package and earlier bailouts of the Bear Sterns investment house and the American International Group insurance group — deals which could provide a healthy return to U.S. tax-

U. wants old houses moved continued from page 1 lifted onto wheels and moved using hydraulic jacks, he said. The University used a similar process to move the Peter Green House half a block in 2007, at an expense of about $500,000, he said.

McCormick has already heard from “over 50 interested parties” since the proposal was first advertised Saturday, including some on the East Side, some elsewhere in Rhode Island and even some out of state, he said.

Though 129 Angell St. is nar-

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

row enough to fit on most East Side streets, moving 127 Angell St. might require some sidewalks to be cleared of trees and utility poles, he said, adding that the difficulty of clearing the route would play a large role in deciding on a route and location. The houses are tall enough that they could hit wires or trees, he added, further complicating the move.

The buildings have been used in recent years for graduate and medical student housing, though they are currently vacant in anticipation of their move.

payers, or could worsen the nation’s long-term debt.

In 2013, McCain’s proposals for major new corporate tax cuts and other expenditures would add $211 billion to the $147 billion projected deficit, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Budget.

Obama would raise the deficit by even more — by $286 billion — if the government adopted his program of middle-class tax cuts, a $60 billion economic stimulus package, a health care insurance program and boosted energy and infrastructure funding, MacGuineas said.

And those estimates do not include the newly-tweaked efforts by both candidates to provide an economic stimulus package. Recently, Obama pressed a $60 billion plan of middleclass tax cuts and public works jobs, while McCain countered with a $52.5 billion proposal that included deeper capital gains tax cuts and loosened rules for withdrawing money from retirement accounts.

In the face of those projections, determination to rein in deficit spending will not be enough, said Rudolph G. Penner, former director of the Congressional Budget Office in the mid-1980s.

“The promises of both candidates are in serious trouble,” said Penner, who is now with the centrist Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research center on social and economic policy.

“Both of them are already underwater about the deficits they would face — even without the bailout,” he said.

“And with the bailout, it’s clear they will have to adjust their promises.

But we’re not hearing anything close to that from either of them.”

British court demands U.S. release of Gitmo evidence

By Peter Finn Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The British High Cour t Wednesday condemned the U.S. government’s failure to turn over intelligence documents that could support the claims of a British resident held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who has argued that statements he made confessing to terrorism resulted from torture and are, therefore, worthless.

In a judgment, the British judges hinted that unless the 42 documents are handed over quickly to the defense counsel as part of a habeas corpus proceeding in U.S. District Court, the London court might take that step itself, despite the threat of damage to ties between the two countries.

The British court noted that the United States has said that “it will reconsider the intelligence relationship with its oldest and closest ally if we, as a court in England and Wales, order the documents be provided ... to enable justice to be done.”

“This matter must be brought to a just conclusion as soon as possible, given the delays and unexplained changes of course which have taken place on the part of the United States Government,” wrote Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones, adding that they hope the matter will be resolved at a federal court hearing in Washington on Oct. 30.

The Justice Department said it had no comment on the British

court’s judgment.

Binyam Mohammed, a 30-yearold native of Ethiopia, was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002. He says he was tortured while in Pakistani custody before being secretly transferred by the United States to Morocco, where, he says, he was again tortured, including having his penis cut with a razor blade.

In January 2004, Mohammed was transferred to Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo that May. Shortly before he was taken to Morocco, Mohammed was interviewed by a British security service officer. In May of this year, after learning of that meeting, Mohammed’s attorneys sought any information that the British government might have that could assist in their client’s defense. The British government said it found 42 potentially relevant documents.

In a series of rulings, one of them classified, the British High Court said Mohammed’s attorneys were entitled to the material, although it could not be released to the public.

The documents, which include communications between U.S. and British intelligence agencies, are “essential to his defense as they provide the only independent evidence that is potentially capable of helping him undermine the case against him,” the court wrote. The judges said the United States and Britain share the principle that “involuntary confessions obtained by torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are inadmissible at trial.”

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Thursday, October 23, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Gardner ’09 and Garland ’09 lead men’s tennis at regionals continued from page 12 for the title when they demolished the University of Pennsylvania’s Hicham Laalej and Phil Law in the quarterfinals on Sunday, Oct. 19, by a score of 8-1.

“The quarterfinal match was the halfway point,” Gardner said.

“We’d won three matches, and we needed three more. We made it to this point last year, but it’s our senior year, so we felt like we needed to be there one more day.”

In the semifinals, Gardner and Garland triumphed over No. 5 seeds Sasha Ermokov and Spencer Vergosen of Harvard. According to Garland, the match was close until they broke the Crimson to take a 5-3 lead, which they maintained for an 8-5 victor y.

The final match again pitted Brown against Har vard when the Bears confronted No. 1-seeded Chris Clayton and Alexei ChijoffEvans. Unfortunately, the Bears’ winning streak ended with an 8-2 loss.

“They have been playing really well,” Gardner said. “They were a little bit too tough. (Clayton) was already in the singles final, so they had nothing to lose. We came up a little short.”

But the Bears were understandably proud of their performance at the tournament. “Obviously, doubles-wise, we beat a lot of people’s expectations,” Garland said. “I’m pretty happy with where we are.”

Garland added that his friendship with Gardner — the two are roommates and have been playing doubles together since they were 10 — is a major reason for their success. “Doubles is a game of chemistr y with your partner,” he said. “When he’s down, I pick him up, and when I’m down, he picks me up.”

Bernabe agreed, saying, “Sam and Noah are like the Bryan brothers,” a reference to the professional doubles team of twins Bob and Mike Br yan, who are currently ranked No. 1 in the world.

Brown’s other two doubles teams advanced to the second round. Kendrick Au ’11 and Nathaniel Gorham ’10 defeated Cornell’s Jonathan Fife and Jonathan Jaklitsch 8-4, before narrowly losing 9-7 to Princeton’s sixth seeds Alex Vuckovic and Peter Capkovic, last season’s Ivy League Player of the Year. “(Nathaniel) and Kendrick were ser ving for the match at 7-5 (30all),” Bernabe wrote. “They were ver y close to putting one of the better teams in recent years out of the tournament.”

Unfortunately, the Bears were broken that game, and according to Bernabe, the Tigers played “three flawless games” afterwards to take the match.

Jonathan Pearlman ’11 and Charlie Posner ’11 earned a 9-7 win of their own over Har vard’s Michael Hayes and Davis Mangham in the first round but were stopped by Penn State’s Eddie Bourchier and Jason Lee in the second round.

The Bears began the match against Penn State down 0-6, which Bernabe called “a huge hole” when a team only needs eight games to win. But the Bears rallied to bring themselves within one game of the Lions at 6-7, although the Lions were able to maintain their lead for an 8-6 win.

Brown had a more difficult time

in the singles draw — Au, Gardner, Garland and Gorham were ousted in the first round — but Brown was well represented further into the draw as Pearlman advanced to the quarterfinals.

“We lost all four singles matches on day one and found ourselves driving back to the hotel with confusion,” Bernabe wrote. “(Head) Coach (Jay) Harris gave the guys a speech, and something must have triggered because the next day we came out almost the reverse from day one.”

Pearlman, who was seeded ninth, had a bye in the first round, and he came out strong in his second-round match to defeat Matt Gordon of Farleigh Dickinson 6-3, 7-5.

“Jon Pearlman played big-time tennis this past weekend,” Bernabe wrote. “He showed the rest of the region what he is capable of doing on the court.”

Pearlman overpowered Guillaume St. Maurice of Penn State 6-4, 6-4 to reach the fourth round and advanced to the quarterfinals after soundly defeating Penn’s Phil Law by a score of 6-4, 6-2.

“I was extremely pleased with my performance this weekend,” Pearlman wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “I played smart, high-percentage tennis which allowed me to frustrate my opponents and come away with the big points. My serve and return were working particularly well, and I was able to work my way forward on short balls and finish off points at the net.”

In the quarterfinals, Pearlman fell to the No. 1 seed, Clayton, 6-1, 2-6, 6-1.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capitalize on the momentum after winning the second set in my quarterfinal match,” Pearlman wrote.

“I started to play tentatively in the first few games of the third set and wasn’t able to recover after going down two breaks of ser ve.”

However, Bernabe had lots of praise for Pearlman. “Jon had his moments of greatness this weekend, holding ser ve at crucial times,” Bernabe wrote. “I feel that he was one of the five or six guys in the draw that could have won the entire tournament.”

Meanwhile, Au bounced back from his first-round defeat to reach the finals of the backdraw. Au demolished Hartford’s Ricky Dove 6-2, 6-2, then defeated Temple’s Ricardo Velasquez and Stony Brook’s Youssef Fassi-Fehri by respective scores of 6-3, 6-2 and 7-5, 6-2. In the semifinals, Au triumphed 6-3, 7-6 over Yale’s Erik Blumenkranz. “(Au) did a great job,” Gardner said. “I’m proud of Kendrick and Jon. We appreciated the younger guys because it’s a grind, playing from Thursday to Tuesday, but they made it easier for us to want to stay there and keep fighting.”

Despite missing injured teammates Chris Lee ’09 and Basu Ratnam ’09, who advanced to the semifinals of the doubles draw last year, the Bears were pleased with their performances.

“We had a really great run. I’m feeling good about the team, and hoping we keep up the doubles success for the spring,” Garland said.

Some of the Bears will compete next at the Big Green Invitational from Nov. 1 to 3. Brown traditionally sends its less experienced players to this tournament hosted by Dartmouth.

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E ditorial & L etters Page 10

Thursday, October 23, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S t a f f E d i to r i a l

Jobless jeopardy Rhode Islanders learned this week of the numbers behind what many have already realized: We have a jobs crisis. The state’s jobless rate jumped to 8.8 percent this month, giving Rhode Island the highest in the nation — even higher, as many news organizations pointed out, than Michigan.

Like with the nationwide financial crisis, there is plenty of blame to go around. There are not enough high-paying, high-tech jobs, for instance, which limits the state’s tax base and contributes to its large deficits.

Those deficits limit job training programs, education, health care, public transportation and any number of other services that raise the quality of life and allow people to find gainful employment.

For the state’s inability to break the negative feedback loop that comes with a smaller tax base, local politicians are partly to blame. Everything from cuts in programs for the homeless to the formula used to allocate funds to public schools reeks of elected officials’ recklessness.

But we don’t soon anticipate the arrival of smarter, more adept people in the State House any more than we expect an alien spacecraft to park itself on the Main Green this morning. Students should instead use their basically unemployed time here to be a voice for those who need an extra hand. This means protesting to local officials who try to cut programs that promote job growth. It means using our academic skills to provide impartial information to legislators who we suspect are often confused by the issues before them.

As a large, high-paying employer in Rhode Island, the University can also help in this crisis. In its efforts to cut back, it should absolutely avoid cutting jobs. And, because the University is so close to Massachusetts, it should consider providing incentives for faculty and staff who choose to live in Rhode Island.

We have also reported there is an admissions preference for Rhode Islanders. While always important, it’s never more crucial than at a time when the state is in a job crunch. Brown alums who are natives of the state are more likely to stay here and expand that ever-important tax base.

The University should also make an urgent effort to expand giving to its fund for the Providence schools. The goal for a $10 million endowment, set in response to an inquiry into the University’s connection to slavery, should be increased. Brown should also make sure that it is helping researchers here use their findings to start local companies that will create jobs.

With a tight job market, we don’t expect politicians to come to anyone’s rescue. But the University and its students can help make things easier for Rhode Islanders.

ALEX YULY

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

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C o r r e c t i on s Due to an editing error, a review in Friday’s Herald (“PW pulls off order and chaos in ‘Arcadia,’” Oct. 21) attributed a quotation to James Hart ’12. It should have been attributed to Doug Eacho ’11.

An article and its headline in last week’s Herald (“Horowitz lambastes Islam in near-empty MacMillan,” Oct. 17) stated that attendance at a lecture by David Horowitz was “largely empty” and “near-empty.” In fact, the lecture was slightly less than half full.

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O pinions Thursday, October 23, 2008

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Inside the Corporation Members absent:

BY KEVIN ROOSE Opinions Columnist Late last week, Brown’s highest governing body, the 53-member Corporation, gathered on the third floor of University Hall for its thrice-yearly meeting. These meetings, as we know, are shrouded in the kind of secrecy usually reser ved for papal conclaves and Dr. Evil’s entourage. Non-members are not permitted to observe Corporation meetings, and all meeting minutes are sealed from the public for 50 years.

But this year, through months of planning and a bit of sleight-of-hand, your trusty columnist has procured a copy of this year’s Corporation minutes. In the spirit of institutional transparency, I’ve decided to print those minutes here, in unabridged form. Brown students have always wondered what goes on behind the Corporation’s closed doors, and now, for the first time, they can see for themselves. In deo speramus, suckers.

Brown Corporation Meeting, October 18, 2008

Members present: President Ruth J. Simmons Chancellor Thomas J. Tisch ‘76 Vice Chancellor Jerome Vascellaro ‘74 P’07 Shadowy White Men (35) Token Minorities (9) Disgraced CEOs Fulfilling Community Service Requirements (3)

Joseph D. Gimmelfarb ’71 (yachting injury) Julie Coleridge P’02 (attending son’s IPO) Calvin Broadus aka “Snoop Dogg” (declined Chancellor Tisch’s offer to “put the ‘high’ in ‘higher education.’”)

Proceedings: Meeting called to order at 9:00 A.M. President Simmons welcomed all members present, including Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal ’91.5, who, Simmons noted, narrowly missed out on this year’s Republican vicepresidential nomination. Vice Chancellor Vascellaro recommended that next time, maybe Governor Jindal should take some tips from Harvard graduate Sarah Palin. At this, Chancellor Tisch snorted, sending a mouthful of Chablis across the table.

At 9:15 A.M., President Simmons introduced the first agenda item: undergraduate concerns. Simmons listed several recurring complaints from current Brown students, including irregularities in the financial aid system, the presence of controversial organizations like Raytheon and the Central Intelligence Agency at campus career fairs and “all that mercury in the dining hall cups or whatever.” A brief discussion commenced, during which it was decided that the Corporation should take no action at all. Corporation member Jennifer H. Eggerton P’86 objected strenuously, suggesting that indifference to the concerns of undergraduates violates the spirit of the Corporation. Eggerton proposed a three-tiered plan of action: 1) impose a permanent salary freeze on professors who

refuse to teach undergraduates, 2) open Corporation meetings to all interested students, and 3) convene a special “Brown Cares” task force to receive and attend to undergraduate complaints. Afterwards, she added, “Ha! Just kidding, guys. Seriously, though, how adorable would that be?”

At 9:35 A.M., the Corporation heard a report from the Budget and Finance Committee, who explained that following the recent global financial crisis, the University’s endowment has shrunk from more than $2.3 billion to 67 Flex Points and a box of “Boldly Brown” T-shirts. Simmons noted, a bit defensively, that Brown’s endowment also wavered during the tenure of her predecessor, E. Gordon Gee. At the report’s conclusion, Ronald Miller ’53 asked, “How the hell is Gee, anyway?” This led to a ten-minute speculation on the former president’s current whereabouts, which concluded with Corporation members huddling around Chancellor Tisch’s iPhone, looking through the photos on Gee’s Facebook profile. One Corporation member was heard to remark, “I can’t believe that geezer is still wearing bowties.” Another said, “Poor guy looks like the love child of Tucker Carlson and ötzi the Iceman.”

At 10:00 A.M., the Admissions and Development Committee reported that the 2008-2009 school year is expected to be the most competitive admissions cycle in school history. Their report noted that among next year’s notable applicants is Emma Watson, who became famous for playing Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” movie franchise. In response, Theodore Warren ’83 suggested allocating additional funds to the

Potions department. He was met with blank stares.

At 10:45 A.M., the Corporation accepted the following major gifts: $2.3 million from an anonymous parent for building projects, $1 million from the Carnegie Foundation for low-income scholarships, and $200,000 from former Providence mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci, who sent a note along with his check stating that he knows “a lot of big guys who would like to see my nephew Joey get an A in ECON 0110, if you get my meaning.”

At 11:15 A.M., the Corporation heard a personnel report from the Faculty Resources Committee, who stated that for the upcoming school year, the number of full-time faculty members would be increased by 4.8 percent.

Vice Chancellor Vascellaro asked President Simmons if she had re-assigned Stanley Kobierowski, her former part-time house chef who was arrested by Providence police officers after blowing a .49 on a breathalyzer test — the highest blood-alcohol level ever reported in Rhode Island. President Simmons explained that she had, in fact, re-assigned Kobierowski, giving him the task of installing new student mailboxes in the J. Walter Wilson building.

At 11:45 A.M., after a motion made by Chancellor Tisch and seconded by President Simmons, the Corporation adjourned for lunch. Or, as Tisch put it, “Steaks on this guy!”

Kevin Roose ’09.5 thinks the Corporation should institute a no-pants rule.

The dark side of the liberal media

By Adam Siegel Opinions Columnist Anyone who has watched MSNBC’s coverage of the presidential primaries and election knows that the network’s commentators are not-so-silently rooting for Barack Obama.

This should come as no surprise: over the past two years, MSNBC has repositioned itself as the network for Democrats and progressives. That’s great, right? Say it with me Brown liberals: we now have our very own Fox News!

Our very own Fox News. That means one day, we may even get our very own punch line in a presidential debate. Responding to one of John McCain’s accusations in the final debate, Obama deadpanned “even FOX News disputes it. And that doesn’t happen very often when it comes to accusations about me.” The implication that Fox was a biased, Democrathating outfit was lost on nobody.

And that is the distinguished direction in which MSNBC is heading. For many Democrats, having a rejoinder to Fox seems like a dream come true. This feeling is understandable. I’ve often imagined the impact a liberal Bill O’Reilly could have in driving the allimportant news narratives. But watching Keith Olbermann, I often find myself cringing as he self-righteously yells his commentary, reveals his “Worst Person in the World,” and mockingly addresses George W. Bush as sir.

The problem, of course, is that I tend to agree with most of what he says. Yet as we

inch closer to Election Day and the media coverage from all sides intensifies, it’s becoming harder for me to separate the news from the commentary on shows like “Countdown” or “Hardball.” More than the sanctimonious hosts or aggressive graphics, that blending is what is so destructive about Fox News’ style,

news coverage, the network removed both Olbermann and “Hardball” host Chris Matthews from covering the hard news aspect of the election. The Times quoted MSNBC’s former editorial director, Davidson Goldin, as saying, “The most disappointing shift is to see the partisan attitude move from prime

MSNBC has certainly latched onto the ideology that’s all the rage this season. My hope is simply that the network does not let partisanship overwhelm reality. and I cannot allow my ideology to obscure that the same is transpiring at MSNBC. In early September, this troubling development became a news story itself. According to the New York Times, “after months of accusations of political bias” in MSNBC’s election

time into what’s supposed to be straight news programming.”

Disappointing indeed, and not just because the incident was an embarrassment for two men that have many positive and valuable insights about politics. The shift towards the

Fox News model of provocative and reactionary coverage is most disappointing because the dangers of that model have become clear on so many levels.

Unchecked partisanship leads to damaging and blatantly false stories (i.e. Fox’s debunked scoop about Obama’s radical madrassa education), and more unfortunately, the continued polarization of the United States over often insignificant political wedge issues and ploys.

That MSNBC would want to replicate this type of reporting does not endear me to the network, no matter how closely our views align.

In the end, however, it is not a shock that someone finally decided to tap the marketplace for a liberal echo chamber. After all, Fox News has been by all accounts a tremendous rating success and revenue booster.

A late August headline, again from the Times, says it all: “Seeking More Viewers, MSNBC Turns Left.” For many devotees of MSNBC, this may be the saddest indictment of them all. Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and crew have been assembled, it seems, for profit margins.

Then again, to many viewers, this too may not come as a surprise. Television is a business, and MSNBC has certainly latched onto the ideology that’s all the rage this season. My hope is simply that the network does not let partisanship overwhelm reality to the point that it is as unwatchable as Fox.

Adam Siegel ’09 pops ‘em like Orville Redenbacher.

S ports T hursday Page 12

Thursday, October 23, 2008

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Men’s golf ends season on high note

By Amy Ehrhart Sports Editor

Mike Amato ’11 tore up the Captains Course at Cape Cod the past two days at the New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championship to help lead the Bears to a seventh place finish in their last tournament of the fall.

His opening round par score of 72 led the field of 44 teams after Monday’s play.

“It felt good to be at the top of the leaderboard,” Amato said.

John Giannuzzi ’10 scored an 81 along with senior co-captain Chris Hoffman ’09 on the first day. Conor Malloy ’09, the team’s other co-captain, shot an 84 and Joe Rued ’09 finished with a 91 to put the Bears in ninth place at 318.

Malloy’s 75 paced Brown on Tuesday to a 309, along with a 76 from Giannuzzi and a 78 from Amato, who finished eighth overall. It was his highest finish in a college tournament that he could remember, and he did it at one of the largest tournaments in the country. Rued shot an 80 for the final scored round. Bryant took the team title, shooting a 604. “(Amato) was a little nervous on the second day, as he should be,” Head Coach Michael Hughes said. “Conor continued to play well as our No. 1 player, we rely on him to post the best scores.”

Conditions were not as up to par for the last fall competition as the team would have liked.

According to Amato, the 30-degree temperatures at tee time combined with 30 mile-per-hour winds out on the Cape restricted swing movement and limited the distance on their shots. “(The conditions) hurt a lot of other people more than me –– recovery was key for me,” Amato said. “I have good damage control . . . and the others (the teams we were competing against) had a hard time coping.”

Hughes concurred on the weather.

“It was extremely windy— the winning score was three above par,” Hughes said. “Our guys performed great.”

This strong finish along with the team’s 10th place finish at the ECAC Championships last weekend bodes well for the spring. Last year the Bears finished eighth at the Ivy League Championships.

“We need to gather our consistency, get the best rounds of the fall and shoot that at the Ivy Championship,” Hughes said.

“We’ll set some goals for the winter and just continue to move forward.”

sch e d u l e FRIDAY, OCT. 24 W. VOLLEYBALL at Columbia, 7 p.m.

W. HOCKEY at St. Cloud State, 8 p.m.

Ashley Hess / Herald File Photo

The men’s tennis team showcased its skills at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships.

Men’s tennis shines in doubles at ITA Regionals

By Erin Frauenhofer Spor ts Staf f Writer

Year after year, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships have ser ved as a showcase for Brown to flaunt its doubles prowess — and this year was no different. Captains Noah Gardner ’09 and Sam Garland ’09 advanced to the finals to mark the third time in four years that the Bears have sent a doubles team that far. The duo was seeded ninth in the tournament, which Yale hosted. “(Garland and Gardner) are one of the finest doubles teams in the Ivy League,” Assistant Coach Nestor Bernabe wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “I was really happy to see Sam and Noah relax and play the way they are able to play.”

Gardner and Garland began their r un against Georgetown University’s Ned Samuelson and Adam Gross on Thursday, taking a definitive 8-3 win that helped fuel them through the rest of the competition. The match featured a controversial moment when Samuelson disagreed with one of the line calls and attempted to change the score.

According to Gardner, “Disagreements about calls happen all the time, but he tried to switch the score on us. That was a big turning point for us because we were pretty furious, so it took away a lot of our ner ves.”

However, both players know Samuelson well. Garland has competed against him since he was 12, and Gardner said he is a great

S po r

t s

guy.

“It was a tactic to tr y to stay competitive,” Garland said. He added that the situation was resolved by starting over at deuce.

The Bears won the game to take a 3-2 lead and never looked back.

“Winning 8-3 sent a message to the other teams,” Garland said.

In the second round, the Bears defeated Yale’s Michael Caldwell and Joel Samaha by a score of 8-5, which was not an easy feat, considering the Bulldogs’ height advantage.

“Both players were over 6 feet 5 inches — they were huge, so they could cover a lot of court,” Garland said. “They had 130-mph ser ves and could place it pretty well.”

The Bears then recorded another 8-5 victor y in the following

i n

Br

round against Cornell’s thirdseeded pairing of Kyle Doppelt and Joshua Goldstein.

“We played out of our minds,” Garland said. “We won the first five games in 20 minutes.”

According to Gardner, the victory was especially gratifying after defeating the pair at the USTA Invitational in September.

“We’ve beaten them before, but they’re a tough team, and they were seeded higher than us,” Gardner said. “Beating them two times in a row made us feel like we were playing better. They were gunning for us, so beating them was a relief. It made us feel more validated.”

Garland and Gardner certainly looked like legitimate contenders continued on page 9

i e f

Fanfest and Bench Press for Cancer coming up on Family Weekend

Equestrian finishes fourth in Windswept Farms tournament

Brown athletics are hosting two important community events during the upcoming family weekend. The men’s and women’s basketball teams are hosting the Basketball Fan Fest on Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Pizzitola Center. Both teams will have 10-minute intra-squad scrimmages and skill demonstrations, which will include a three-point contest. Other interactive games will allow fans to show off their basketball skills and win prizes, including a $500 Brown Bookstore gift certificate for the person who makes a half-court shot. It will be a great opportunity for the public to see the new gym that has a brand-new floor, sound system, scoreboards, bleachers and environmentally friendly lighting.

On Monday, almost 300 Brown student-athletes will be competing in the 2nd Annual “Bench Press for Cancer” on the Main Green at noon, hosted by the football team. After raising more than $11,000 in pledges and donations last year by the football, baseball and lacrosse teams, they opened up the event to all athletic teams, hoping to double the proceeds that go to The American Cancer Society. The men’s bar will be set at 165 pounds and the women’s at 55 pounds.

“Bench Press for Cancer” T-shirts will also be for sale to raise more money. Defensive end James Develin ’10 won the contest last year, benching 42 reps.

The Brown equestrian team finished fourth at Windswept Farms, in a tournament it co-hosted with Roger Williams. The Bears were tied for first with Connecticut College before the final walk trot canter division rides. The few stumbles in walk trot cost Brown the title as the team finished seven points behind the eventual tournament winner, Connecticut College.

Elise Fishelson ’11 got the team started on a good note when she grabbed a blue ribbon in the open flat division. Her teammates, Elizabeth Giliberti ’10, Allegra Aron ’11 and Dakota Gruener ’11, all finished top two in their respective classes to put Brown in second place tied with JWU after the flat rides. The team continued the momentum in the fences. Fishelson and Aron went one-two in the second class of the open fences. Behind them, Giliberti and Emily Bourdeau ’10 finished third and fourth in the final class, in addition to the blue ribbon won by Gruener in the first class of the division, which all together tied Brown for first place with Conn College. Unfortunately, the team made some mistakes during the final walk trot canter division, including missing a diagonal, which resulted in a slip in the Bears’ final standing in the tournament from tying for first to fourth place.

The Bears are still in second place in season standings with 101 points, trailing by four points behind URI, with JWU rounding out the top three. Brown will try to move ahead of URI on Nov. 1 as the team travels to Connecticut College to ride in Mystic Valley Hunt Club in Gales Ferry, Conn.

— Sports Staff Reports

— Sports Staff Reports