Friday, February 13, 2009

Daily Herald the Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 18 | Friday, February 13, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

Scrabblers unite for love of words By Emmy Liss Features Editor

Kim Perley / Herald

Supporters of same-sex marriage rights gathered at the State House.

Hundreds rally for same-sex marriage By Hannah Moser Senior Staff Writer

Around 200 people gathered last night in the State House rotunda to rally for the passage of a gay marriage bill in the state legislature. The Open Your Heart to Equality rally, planned by Marriage Equality Rhode Island, was part of the organization’s effort to increase awareness around Valentine’s Day every year, said Susan MacNeil, director of development and communications for MERI. “We urge the General Assembly to finally pass this legislation,” said Richard Corso, who stood with his partner, Don Laliberte, and addressed the press before the rally began. “We pay our taxes. Occasionally we go out to dinner and a movie. Our lives are a lot like everyone else’s,”

Corso said. “However, we are denied the recognition that heterosexual couples can take for granted.” The bill would remove genderspecific language from the provisions governing marriages in Rhode Island. Among the attendees at the rally were about 35 Brown students who walked down together from Faunce Arch. “I’ve been doing this a while,” said Daniel Valmas ’11, who is from Pawtucket. Valmas, a member of the Queer Political Action Committee, publicized the rally on Facebook and through tabling around campus. He said he wanted students to become more involved with politics. The legislature “can choose to hear the bill or dismiss the bill,” he said. continued on page 3

S-E-Q-U-I-N-S The tiles click against the board as the players groan. “So it’s 102 to 0 right now.” The proclamation draws spectators closer. “That’s ridiculous,” one comments. “I know,” Martha laughs. Looking over at her opponent, Jesse, shaking his head and shuffling his tiles, she smiles. “You did win the last time we played, just so you know.” Tucked away in the back corner of Julian’s Restuarant on Broadway, the Providence Scrabble Club meets weekly for casual competition. The club’s members are an unlikely mix of locals. “All we have in common is that we give up a Monday night to play Scrabble,” said Rich Lupo ’70, the club’s founder and director. Every Monday around 7 p.m., the players drift into Julian’s. New games start with each new arrival, and players settle into a row of two-person games. Once in a while, some of the players order food, but more often they stick to coffee, ginger beer and the occasional glass of wine. Squeezed in at a long table under dim lights, each game proceeds on a slightly different edition of the Scrabble board. At least half the players bring their own equipment, and there is a house set too, though it may be

Emmy Liss / Herald

An eclectic mix of Providence locals gather to play Scrabble.

missing a tile or two. Both players keep careful score, constantly checking the numbers to ensure consistency and calling out the tallies as they go along. “159-83.” “326-298.” “405-366.” In such close proximity, it’s hard not to pay attention to the other games. “I saw you looking at my tiles,” one player jokes to a seatmate, before pointing out a word he had missed himself. When a game finishes, the players carefully watch the active

boards, looking for their next opponent. Though an odd number show up on Monday, the players passed around a recent New Yorker article about Scrabble to keep the extra person entertained. Ability levels range, as do the strategies players employ. “At a big Scrabble tournament, 10 of the first 20 are computer programmers,” Lupo said. But here, there’s a lawyer, an urban planner, a newspaper columnist, a realtor. continued on page 2

Women the focus of film festival In a slumping economy, Valentines find a way

By Anita Mathews Contributing Writer

The annual French Film Festival, organized by the French and Modern Culture and Media Departments, kicks off Thursday, Feb. 19 at the Cable Car

By Brigitta Greene and Hannah Moser Senior Staff Writers

ARTS & CULTURE Cinema and Cafe. Composed of 19 films and one program of shorts, this year’s line-up has a special focus on female directors and producers. The women featured in the festival range from cinema newcomers to established veterans. Celine Sciamma is making her directorial debut with

inside

continued on page 6

News.....1-4 Arts........5-6 Spor ts...7-8 Editorial..10 Opinion...11 Today........12

www.browndailyherald.com

Herald File Photo

The Cable Car Cinema and Cafe will host the French Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday, Feb. 19.

It’s that time of year again. With Valentine’s Day falling on a Saturday this year and warm weather forecast, many Brown students are planning trips to spend the day with friends or significant others, even if it means dipping into their wallets. It may be a little tougher this year with the countr y in a deep economic recession, but Brown students aren’t letting that put a damper on their plans. “I’m taking my girlfriend to Bos-

ton to spend a weekend together,” said Jonathan Liu MD’12. “I can splurge for one day and save for the rest of the year.” Brent Lunghino ’12 even purchased round-trip plane tickets for his date to fly in for the weekend. But after buying a plane ticket, he’s not looking to spend much more on gifts or festivities. His weekend dining plans are more likely to include the Verney-Woolley Dining Hall — which, as always, is decorated for the occasion continued on page 3

Arts, 5

Sports, 7

Opinions, 11

Grand slam Andrea Gibson captivated the Hourglass Cafe with her slam poetry

En garde The fencing team is taking a stab at competition success this year.

Stimulate this Drew Harris ’11 argues the stimulus bill should help defray college tuition.

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

herald@browndailyherald.com

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS news in brief

Revamped transcript format delayed An enhancement of Banner’s internal transcripts that was scheduled to debut Thursday has been delayed indefinitely, the Office of the Registrar said in an e-mail to students yesterday afternoon. Though Computing and Information Services tested the new interface for “roughly six weeks” in two testing environments, the upgrade was unsuccessful, Senior Associate Registrar Robert Fitzgerald told The Herald. Fitzgerald said CIS took programming for the new transcript out of Banner to fix the problem, allowing students to once again access Banner’s existing self-service transcripts. The registrar’s office “can’t afford” to inconvenience students further, he said. The attempted changeover meant students were unable to access transcripts for most of the day Thursday. The new transcript format has been “a long time coming on our enhancement list,” Fitzgerald said. Besides not being able to print in its entirety on certain Web browsers, the current transcript format does not include student

names and ID numbers and is not laid out clearly, especially for students who have both undergraduate and graduate records from Brown. The new system will be “far more concise” and “printready,” Fitzgerald said. CIS and the registrar’s office modeled it on the internal transcripts that were available before the school switched to Banner. For students who were familiar with that transcript format, the current online transcripts look “like we took a step backward when we went to Banner,” he said. The new transcripts are “95 percent comparable” to the pre-Banner format, Fitzgerald said. In addition, they now include student names and ID numbers, convenient additions for advisers who are often looking at a pile of transcripts at once. The new format also specifies that marks of “S*” denote classes that students are required to take Satisfactory/No Credit. The registrar’s office hopes to have the new transcript program up and running next week. — Nicole Friedman

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The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to 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 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Friday, February 13, 2009

“But then he got a girlfriend and lost interest.” — Rich Lupo ’70, on a young Scrabble enthusiast.

Across the board, Scrabble entertains continued from page 1 The only common thread among the Scrabble players is that everyone has to be a “nerd,” Lupo said, “somewhere inside.” Lupo, the owner of Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, the famous downtown concert venue, has a long history with the game. He used to sometimes drive to three Scrabble clubs in Boston and played with a regular group in Providence, first at Coffee Exchange on Wickenden Street and then in the Blue Room at Brown. But the Blue Room group — the “forefather” of the current club — petered out over time. In 2000, the National Scrabble Championships were held in Providence, a nod to Pawtucket-based company Hasbro, which holds the domestic rights to Scrabble. Lupo, who played competitive Scrabble for 25 years, decided to enter. To help Lupo practice, a friend suggested restarting the club. Lupo sought out other enthusiasts at a Providence Journal Scrabble fundraiser and placed an ad in the Providence Phoenix. The small group of five or six — none of whom knew each other — started playing at Julian’s. The restaurant was closed on Mondays, but Lupo had a key. Though patrons now fill the room even on Mondays, the owner still lets the group occupy the back no matter how crowded the restaurant is. These days, eight to 14 players show up each week. Most new players who join hear about the group through word-of-mouth, though the club has received some media coverage over the years. Lupo attributes a recent influx of younger players to the online Scrabble phenomenon. Once in a while, a restaurant patron wanders to the back and starts playing. “Lots of people see us in Julian’s and tell their friends,” Lupo said. Jacque Russom, who has been playing since the club’s inception, used to work doing spell checking for the American Heritage Dictionary and is now an etymology editor. Her husband Rick, who also frequents the meetings, retired last month from his post as a professor of english at Brown. “I’m a word person,” she said, referring to what she said was a Scrabble dichotomy between players like her, who “get by on our giant vocabularies,” and those, especially numerous among the newest generation of Scrabble players, who have strategically memorized the 101 two-letter words and 1,008 threeletter words. “It was a shock to us when we started playing,” Russom said. “I like to make nice words, but this game is about points.” She joked that maybe now since her husband has retired, he will get around to the memorization method, too. The group is not a sanctioned National Scrabble Association Scrabble Club, “which requires rules, and record-keeping and calculating player ratings, and dues and such,” said Beth Comery, the group’s de-facto secretary. Instead, “we are just a

Emmy Liss / Herald

A Scrabble enthusiast ponders his next move.

bunch of random people who get together,” she said. Comery, who answered Lupo’s original ad nine years ago, writes a weekly newsletter to the 150 people on the club’s e-mail list. An editor and director of sales for the blog Providence Daily Dose, Comery fills the newsletter with Scrabble-related anecdotes and game recaps. Recipients of the newsletter, both former and current players, are scattered across the world — one lives in Liberia — and across generations. The youngest member to ever attend was 14 years old and “had a bright Scrabble future,” Lupo said. “But then he got a girlfriend and lost interest.” The group’s members have become friends after years of playing. “Occasionally some hang out outside Scrabble,” Lupo said. After a pause, he added, “to play Scrabble.” Anytime a movie about Scrabble or gaming comes out, the club goes on a group outing. According to Jacque Russom, the group, “newly infatuated with the game,” attended the 2000 tournament. “We were the only spectators,” she said. Some Brown students have attended over the years, including a few from Professor Russom’s courses. He never advertised the club explicitly, his wife said, but word of the club spread through his classes. A “clot” of alums come from time to time, usually as a group, Comery said. State Representative David Segal, D-Dist. 2, is also a regular attendee. “We had time to discuss the proScrabble initiatives he will introduce in the new year,” Comery joked in an old newsletter. One of the group’s younger players is Jesse Stout ’06, who has been attending for two-and-a-half years — “basically the entire time since I

graduated from Brown,” she said. Stout walked in late on Monday night as Martha Barrett, a retired teacher and one of the last stragglers, was putting on her scarf and coat. Unable to resist another game, she pulled her board, pad of paper and official Scrabble dictionary back out of her bag. Opening with a “bingo,” a play that uses all seven tiles, Barrett placed SEQUINS across the center of the board. The lead alternated between the two: Stout played three bingos, but was forced to score zero twice (once for an incorrect challenge, once in a pass). Words unfamiliar to anyone but a Scrabble buff — JO, ZIN, IBEX — covered the board. By the end of the game, each player knew exactly what was on the other’s rack. Expert Scrabble players keep careful mental track of the tiles in the bag and guard sacred spots on the board, like the triple word score. As the game drew to a close, Barrett and Stout realized they had pulled off an unusual Scrabble feat: a tie. With scores of 380 each, the two started scooping the tiles back into the bag, but not before analyzing the game. Nearly ever y game ends in a quiet discussion of turns well-played and moves that could have been. The dictionary reappears as the players look up the possibilities, making mental notes for the future. “Oh, but you got that.” “I should have known you still had an S.” “You really went for the H’s.” Earlier in the night, examining a game he had played with Max, a new addition to the club, Lupo went through the moves he had made. Remembering one turn specifically, he just shook his head. “You know, I saw that word.”

Friday, February 13, 2009

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

C ampus N EWS news in brief

Honoring Darwin, with art and cake The process of natural selection may be fueled by life’s impermanence, but the legendary naturalist who introduced it to the world left a legacy that has long outlived the man himself. Though Charles Darwin has been dead now for almost 127 years, his birthday is still marked by celebration and respect. At Brown Thursday, exactly 200 years after Darwin’s birth, that homage was paid with carrot cake and giant balls of lab tape. Students and faculty celebrated Darwin’s bicentennial yesterday with a small party in the lobby of Sidney Frank Hall. Inspired by the prospect of bringing art and biology together, the festivities involved displaying scientific artwork — everything from images of chromosomes to a ball of hundreds of pieces of old lab tape — on the walls. “I thought it would be nice to incorporate science and art together,” said Braelyn Weaver, a research assistant in the Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry. She organized the celebration along with Aubrey Frank GS. To publicize the event, the two women posted flyers around campus and solicited artwork submissions from both graduate and undergraduate students. Most of the displays were the work of graduate students — often images taken from their labs — though some undergraduates submitted for the exhibition, Weaver said. In perhaps a symbolic testament to Homo sapien’s drive for nourishment, Weaver and Frank’s four home-baked chocolate, lemon and carrot cakes were devoured within the first 15 minutes of the event. “We did not expect a lot of people,” Weaver said. “But it was nice that a lot showed up.” Many attendees, like Ray Enke GS, creator of the labtape ball, were graduate students, taking a well-needed break to snack and admire their peers’ creations. Now in his sixth year of graduate work, Enke compared the addition of each small piece of tape to “ticking off the days on a deserted island.” Professor of Biology Ken Miller ’70 P’02, one of Brown’s highest-profile evolution enthusiasts, was unable to attend the event, as he was giving a lecture on the teaching of evolution at the University of Pennsylvania to coincide with the anniversary. — Brigitta Greene

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“I’m having trouble putting my brain back together.” — Tasha Pelaez ’10, on spoken-word performer Andrea Gibson

Prof.’s South Side story to debut this weekend By Qian Yin Contributing Writer

A Brown professor’s documentary about the transformation of South Providence will air on the state’s Public Broadcasting Service this weekend. “Southside: The Fall and Rise of an Inner-City Neighborhood,” a 55-minute documentary created by Associate Professor of Sociology Hilary Silver, tells the story of the ups and downs of the neighborhood and current efforts at its revitalization. The documentary will air Saturday at 7 p.m. on Rhode Island PBS, which is channel 36 in Providence and channel 26 on Brown’s cable lineup. Funded by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the film traces the neighborhood’s history from an earlier time when it was occupied predominantly by white

or black residents. Later, in the 70s and 80s, local organizations were developed to create new housing and jobs, and immigrants from places like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic started moving in. The film details the efforts and successes of the neighborhood residents who joined hands to revitalize the neighborhood after it went through a period of deterioration, during which the community suffered from depopulation, abandonment and arson. “I made (the film) because I wanted people from the neighborhood to hear the story about how neighborhoods in general can turn themselves around,” Silver said, “how neighborhoods, if they organize and work with partners, are able to overcome deteriorated conditions.” Silver said the film is special because it doesn’t have an outside

narrator. “It’s all made by people in the neighborhood, strung together, expressing themselves,” she said. “My goal was to let the community speak for itself.” Silver said she chose PBS to broadcast the documentar y because public television reaches a wide audience. “This is a neighborhood that has come back,” she said. “It has come back from the residents themselves. People of color are able to retain their neighborhood and still develop it.” But Silver also said she hopes the film will reach and inspire people beyond Rhode Island. “This is a general story that can be applied in many different cities and in different neighborhoods,” she said. “People can learn the lessons from South Providence and apply them to other places.” Though it took two years to make

Panel discusses Congo violence Sara Sunshine Senior Staff Writer

Increased awareness and a boycott of companies with ties to the Congo may help stem violence against women in the area, a panel concluded last night in MacMillan 117. Four experts on the Congo came together to discuss the current crisis in Central Africa and what students can do to help. Jimmie Briggs, a journalist and human rights lecturer, Colin Thomas Jensen, a policy advisor for the anti-genocide group Enough, Dr. Roger Luhiriri, a women’s rights activist, and Sarina Virk, Congo campaign assistant for Enough, talked about the bloodshed currently taking place in the Congo — the aftermath of a devastating five-year civil war that ended in 2003. The event — sponsored by the Darfur Action Network, the Brown chapter of the national organization Students Taking Action Now: Darfur — focused on violence against women in the Congo. “East Congo today is perhaps

the worst place on Earth to be a woman,” said a narrating voice in an informational film played at the event. About 500,000 women and girls have been raped during the recent Congo conflict, often in public, in front of their husbands, children and neighbors, Luhiriri said. But, Briggs added, “what happens in the Congo is more than just numbers.” Briggs shared a story about an interview he conducted with a 22-year-old Congolese woman who was gang-raped by five soldiers in the morning and again by a different group of soldiers that night. The second group of men became annoyed by her children’s cries and, as the mother watched, shot and killed all of them. It was the worst day of the woman’s life, Briggs said, and she wanted him to give her suffering meaning by telling the story to others so other women could avoid that pain. “We cannot save the Congolese. ... We can bear witness, listen to the stories and pass them on,” Briggs said. Despite this, he added, we have a duty to do what we can.

“If you know what’s going on and don’t do anything about it, you’re culpable,” he said. Virk said students can help with their own unique skills. She cited Lisa Shannon, a runner from Oregon who was motivated to start a run for Congo after watching an Oprah segment on Central Africa. Though there has not yet been as large a popular support movement for the Congo as for Darfur, Virk said, “you guys can figure out a way to build this movement with us.” One significant way that students as consumers can work to stop the violence in Congo, said Jensen, is boycotting companies that use the tin, tungsten and other minerals that come from the region. These corporations include the cell phone companies Nokia and Erickson, as well as the technology giant Apple, he said. The U.S. government could also help the situation, Jensen added, by sending “a high-level envoy with the support of the president” to engage in rigorous diplomacy with the area.

Valentines carry on despite gloomy economy continued from page 1 — than a night out at Al Forno. Maybe even a Valentine’s Ratty sundae — with two spoons. Alexander Gard-Murray ’09 said he and his date will “probably go out to dinner,” he said, adding that they are “tr ying to figure out a movie to see.” College students, he said, may naturally find it easier to enjoy Valentine’s Day when money is tight. “It might be easier for college students, because the line between fancy and not fancy is thinner,” he said. Others have already dipped into their pockets for a small pre-

Valentine’s treat. Starbucks is brewing its Caffe Verona — a “seductive blend of beans” — and the lovers of Thayer Street are drinking it right up. A pair of coffee canoodlers, Joe Forgione and Amanda Blanchard, shared a cup at a table for two last night. The couple met in March at a Gore Mountain mogul skiing competition. Joined by a mutual love for skiing and cof fee, the pair hit it off immediately. Forgione, who confessed to drinking “hundreds of gallons” of coffee ever y year, lives in New Jersey. He drives up to Providence

ever y weekend to see Blanchard, and the pair go north to ski. But for some Brunonians, the holiday isn’t just for romance. Evan Sumor tin ’12 intends to go up to Boston with a group of about five friends, with plans to spend the day shopping and maybe enjoying dinner at a restaurant. And Manuel Lam MD’09 plans to spend tomorrow catching up with his younger brother. “I feel the holiday itself is a special time,” he said. “It should involve a special relationship.”

­— With additional reporting by Mitra Anoushiravani

the documentary, Silver said her knowledge of the neighborhood has accumulated over nearly 20 years. In the 80s, she first became interested in the South Side because of her research interests in social issues like urban poverty and racial discrimination. She and her students conducted fieldwork in the neighborhood, accumulated data and wrote research papers on the area. “After about 20 years of this, it became clear that there is a story to tell,” she said. During their time as Brown undergraduates, Stephanie Breakstone ’06, Julia Liu ’06 and former Herald Editor-in-Chief Robbie Corey-Boulet ’07, assisted in the film’s production. A campus screening of the film and discussion with Silver will take place Feb. 23 in the Joukowsky Forum at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Ralliers push for same-sex marriage continued from page 1 But for Valmas, the goal is to let the legislature know the importance of the issue and to give the students “a venue for their voices to be heard,” he said. During the rally, Reverend Eugene Dyszlewski was joined at the podium by 10 other clergy members who represented the Religious Coalition for Marriage Equality. But Dyszlewski said he did not expect the legislature to make their decision on basis of religion. Rather, he said, “We ask the legislature to improve marriage equality because it harms no one and it’s the right thing.” MERI also used the rally as an opportunity to present the results of a survey of Rhode Island voters. Patrick Crowley, a MERI Education Fund board member, presented the results of the poll, which recorded 49 percent of the electorate in favor of same-sex marriage, while just 37 percent opposed to it. Even among Catholic voters, Crowley said, 45 percent are in favor of gay marriage and only 37 percent are opposed. Crowley said he was speaking to politicians when he pointed to the survey’s finding that voters found a candidate’s stance on gay marriage relatively unimportant. Same-sex marriage ranked last, behind factors such as the economy, government spending, health care and education as issues important to voters, he said. During the rally, a representative from Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, Karen Loewy, said MERI’s goal is to gain marriage equality in all six New England states by 2012.

Arts & Culture The Brown Daily Herald

the origin of carrot cake

Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 5

Festival debuts in-progress works By Rosalind Schonwald Staff Writer

Janine Cheng / Herald Students celebrated Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday Thursday in Sidney Frank Hall with Darwin-themed art and refreshments.

Film documents dying languages By Heeyoung Min Contributing Writer

About once ever y two weeks, a language goes extinct, said David Harrison, a Swarthmore linguistics professor, before a screening of his documentary “The Linguists” last night in Smith-Buonanno 106. “The Linguists” compellingly argues that endangered languages — some spoken by less than 100 people — deserve scientific documentation before they vanish. The film depicts Harrison, in partnership with linguistic researcher Gregory Anderson, undertaking an expedition to track down the last speakers of Chulym, Sora and Kallawaya, languages spoken in areas of Siberia, India and Bolivia, respectively. The 64-minute film chronicles the linguists’ efforts to document the three languages, a tall order when surviving speakers are few, and many among them are old and hard of hearing. But the linguistically endowed duo, who speak a combined 25 languages between them, embraces immersive learning, quickly acquir-

ing the basics of each language. Even from such elementary words as the vocabulary for body parts, colors and numbers, they unearth surprising cultural features. They find, for instance, that Sora, with only 300,000 speakers, has one of the most complicated number systems in the world. According to Harrison, marginalized languages are being deserted because their speakers perceive them as socially inferior. It’s important to document them because language contains human knowledge and histories of entire cultures, he told the audience of about 50. Some tribal cultures discourage or outright forbid children to speak the indigenous language, Harrison said. “People are abandoning their native language because they assume they will gain an economic advantage.” It is a common practice in tribal communities to send children to boarding schools to learn a modern language, which is “practical,” Harrison said. But “abandoning the native language is not necessary” because children can easily become

bilingual. The film screening was sponsored by the Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Department Undergraduate Group. “In the past, cognitive events have been narrowly focused,” said Ana Van Gulick ’09, who heads the DUG. “Showing this film was an effort to contribute to a larger audience.” “The Linguists,” directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy S. Newberger and funded by the National Science Foundation, premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and will air on the Public Broadcasting Service on Feb. 26. Since their initial trip, Harrison and Anderson have made multiple visits back to the tribal communities, Harrison said. Upon returning, the two linguists discovered that, inspired by the existence of academic interest in their languages, members of these groups had found a renewed desire to preserve their modes of speech. “People were glad to get their story to a global population,” Harrison said.

Slam poet performs for crowded cafe By Melissa Shube Senior Staff Writer

Spoken-word artist Andrea Gibson held the rapt attention of a crowded Hourglass Cafe throughout the duration of her performance there last night. Gibson, a four-time Denver Grand Slam Champion and 2008 winner of the Women of the World Poetry Slam, said she was happy to perform at Brown. Brown is, she said, “one of those schools that I did not get into, which is really exciting to come to later in my life, and be like, you (expletive) didn’t accept me.” “It’s good to see you’re all friendly, welcoming people,” she added.

Gibson’s poetr y tackled such issues as religion, sexuality and rape. She spoke of sadness and family, love and sex, and sometimes soundtracked her poetr y with music from her iPod. Gibson would follow up her sadder poems with more uplifting material, joking that she had to lighten the mood. “God knows/The holy have done more damage to the world then the devil ever could,” performed Gibson, in a satiric poem about virgin birth. Gibson periodically took poem requests from the audience, and the room erupted into applause when she announced, “Okay, let’s do something gay.” Her poems touched on the queer experience (“I knew there

were things I should never find beautiful/like death, and girls,”) and expressed a fluid and tolerant appreciation for sexuality. As she began a poem about a woman wanting to visit her partner of fifty years in a hospital, she said, “This is for California.” Gibson, whose Web site describes her as a “queer poet/activist,” often infuses her poetr y with contemporar y political issues. She said, in between poems, that she felt “queer marriage” should be tied “together in basic human rights,” but it seemed hard to justify putting “a lot of energy into that when the earth is collapsing.” The event, hosted by Gender continued on page 6

World premieres abound on campus this week as the Brown University MFA Playwriting program presents the 27th annual New Plays Festival from Feb. 11 to 15. The festival consists of work written, directed and performed by Brown graduate and undergraduate students in conjunction with the Brown University/Trinity Repertory Consortium faculty. The program also includes a presentation of works in progress by MFA candidates and a panel discussion with faculty. “Exquisite Corpse,” a play by Mia Chung MFA ’10 kicked off the festival Wednesday night. “Mo’Reece and the Girls,” by Jackie Sibblies MFA ’10, premiered last night. For the two playwrights, the festival is yet another step in the development of scripts they began writing a semester ago. “The first year of graduate school, the first semester in writing workshop, you’re writing the play that you’ll put up this semester,” Chung explained. “It’s kind of designed to put a fire under your butt and also see what you can learn and discover in a really fast process.” Playwriting program faculty matched each writer with a graduate student director, keeping their reasoning for the specific pairings opaque. “It’s a mysterious process,” said “Exquisite Corpse” director Michael Perlman MFA ’10. “This year there are four first-year playwrights, two first-year directors and two second-year directors,” he said, adding that the heads of the

program were like “puppet masters” for the production teams. Though the playwrights and directors had their own defined roles, the festival’s structure put an emphasis on collaboration. “It’s definitely considered a workshop production for developing the play,” Chung said. “I have to say, it’s a hugely beneficial learning experience to be able to develop your play and have rehearsal with directors and actors who know it’s your process. I’m definitely not done with the play.” She added that throughout rehearsals and the early part of production, she “had a draft that had lots of holes in it,” with notes reading “scene to come...” scattered throughout the document. Chung may not have been exaggerating when she said the play isn’t necessarily “done.” Actors received “new lines until 3 o’clock” in the afternoon before opening night, she said. But Wednesday’s performance showed little evidence of last-minute revisions, instead coming across as polished and professional. The opening-night atmosphere fit the festival’s collegiate spirit, with an audience that included professor-types with floral, woolen scarves and graduate students in tailored canvas jackets, perfectly suited to the unseasonably warm night. The New Plays Festival runs through Feb. 15, with performances and events in the McCormack Family Theater at 70 Brown Street. A limited number of tickets are available for reservation on the Musical Forum Web site. If a performance is sold out, e-mail NPF271@gmail. com to be added to the wait-list.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Friday, February 13, 2009

A rts & C ulture

Queer poet Gibson recites in Hourglass Local festival to focus on francophone female’s films continued from page 5

Action, a sub-group of the Queer Alliance, also drew suppor t from the student poetr y group WORD! The captivated audience — full of both QA and WORD! members — followed Gibson’s every rhyme, snapping, stomping and clapping in appreciation. Katie Lamb ’10, head chair of Gender Action and QA secretary, called Gibson’s poetr y “beauti-

ful” and said it meant a lot to her. “I thought she would be a great person to bring to Brown, just sort of what her work encompasses,” she said. “She’s not afraid to tackle issues of God, especially from a queer perspective,” said Devin Streur ’11. “That’s really powerful because a lot of the problems in queer America and the queer world today ... are aggravated by religious forces, and so she addresses that.”

“Andrea Gibson is a brilliant, brilliant poet,” said WORD! Event Coordinator Tasha Pelaez ’10. “She’s just got really powerful things to say — it’s not just her writing style, it’s the message she delivers,” she added. After her hour-long per formance, Gibson received a standing ovation. “I have a poet crush on her now, like more then I did before,” Pelaez said. “I’m having trouble putting my brain back together.”

continued from page 1 “Naissance des pieuvres” (“Waterlilies”), while 80-year-old director Agnes Varda boasts over five decades of experience in French cinema. A popular figure known for grappling with feminist issues, Varda is the subject of her own retrospective, “Les plages d’Agnes” (“The Beaches of Agnes”). The festival will include a talk by Geraldine Michelot, producer of three of the films showing this year, all of which were showcased at the Cannes Film Festival. Her “Versailles” is nominated for a Cesar award — the French equivalent of an Oscar — for best first film of the year. The event’s other two guests are French-Canadians Simon-Olivier Fecteau and Marc-Andre Lavoie, who collaborated on “Bluff,” a dark comedy showing in the festival. Richard Manning, film archivist in the MCM department and one of the festival coordinators, said the planning committee chose cinematic pieces that represent multiple cultures and experiences. “We intentionally want to make our selection of films across genres and countries,” Manning said. Shoggy Waryn, a senior lecturer in French studies, echoed Manning. “We are talking about French-speaking cinema, not merely French as in from France,” Waryn wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. Waryn said he expects the comingof-age story “Waterlilies” to be “the sleeper hit of the festival.” “Capitaine Achab,” on the other hand, is a new take on “Moby Dick” that focuses

on four nonsequential segments in the title character’s life. “Les Enfants de Don Quichotte” is a documentary that tackles the issue of homelessness in France. “Kinshasa Palace” is, in Manning’s words, “a real smart road movie” detailing a man’s journey through Lisbon, France, Belgium and Cambodia to find his brother, a Congolese war refugee. The black-and-white film “La frontiere de l’aube” is “in some ways a romantic melodrama, but has a real subtle sense of horror that jolts the audience,” Manning said. “It’s not an easy film.” Waryn said he is most interested in movies that are very different from American cinema. “Some can be quite ‘charming’ in a French way, but more often than not, their narrative structures are quite off-beat — their subject matter, too,” he said. “Very often, we are talking about oneof-a-kind films.” The opportunity to screen these movies, some of which are making their North American premieres, is a unique one, and though the festival is open to the Providence community as a whole, Manning said he hopes to see more students in the audience than have attended in years past. He said that often the last few days of the festival bring more students, many of whom attend as part of a course requirement. The French Film Festival runs through Sunday, March 1. Film synopses, trailers and a full schedule of screening times can be found on the Cable Car Web site. Tickets for each film are available on the day it shows.

French Film Festival Highlights

Roses are red, house ads are blue, Fridays are sweet and so are you! Will you be The Herald’s Valentine?

• “L’age des tenebres” (“Days of Darkness”) Canada, 2007. 104 min. Dir. Denys Arcand. “American Beauty”-esque exploration of a civil servant’s mid-life crisis. • “Bluff” Canada, 2007. 88 min. Dir. Simon-Olivier Fecteau & Marc-Andre Lavoie. Secret lives of apartment-dwellers in a soon-to-be-demolished building. • “Capitaine Achab” Sweden/France, 2007. 105 min. Dir. Philippe Ramos. “Moby-Deconstructed”: Melville’s novel as seen through the eyes of Captain Ahab. • “Les enfants de Don Quichotte” (“The Children of Don Quixote”) France, 2008. 75 min. Dir. Ronan Denece & Augustin Legrand. Stark documentary chronicling a Paris social movement raising awareness about homelessness. • “Entre adultes” (“Among Adults”) France, 2007. 81 min. Dir. Stephane Brize. Low-budget exploration of relationships, based on Max Ophuls 1950 film “La Ronde.” • “La frontiere de l’aube” (“Frontier of Dawn”) France, 2008. 106 min. Dir. Philippe Garrel. “Dreamers” (2003) heartthrob Louis Garrel stars in father Philippe’s black-and-white drama. • “Il y a longtemps que je t’aime” (“I’ve Loved You So Long”) France/Germany, 2007. 115 min. Dir. Philippe Claudel. English actress Kristin Scott Thomas delivers a wrenching performance as an ex-convict in this family drama. • “Kinshasa Palace” Democratic Republic of Congo, 2006. 70 min. Dir. Zeka Laplaine. Transnational study of displacement and diaspora. • “Naissance des pieuvres” (“Waterlilies”) France, 2007. 85 min. Dir. Celine Sciamma. Coming-of-age film about three teenagers in a Paris suburb. • “Les plages d’Agnes” (“The Beaches of Agnes”) France, 2008. 110 min. Dir. Agnes Varda. A storied director offers up a memoiristic self-portrait in film. • “Versailles” France, 2008. 102 min. Dir. Pierre Scholler. A recluse living on the grounds of Versailles finds himself responsible for the life of a young boy.

SportsWeekend The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 7

Much ado about something

“Don’t just do something! Stand there!” You might ask, “Ben, why are you yelling at me?” The reason has as much to do with the beginning of spring training in baseball this weekend as it Ben Singer does with ConHigh Notes gress’s new $789 billion stimulus plan. And no, Congress isn’t subsidizing the Yankees’ payroll. It’s about how people perceive the short run versus the long run. Major League Baseball teams play 162 games a season. Try playing 162 games of Rock Paper Scissors. It takes a long time, and those aren’t three-and-a-half hours each. But each of those games can feel monumental. A five-game losing streak is enough to have people calling in on talk radio to demand a team’s manager be fired. After hitting .182 in his first month with the Boston Red Sox, it seemed nearly everybody in New England thought Dustin Pedroia should have been sent back to the minor leagues. “He’s too small. It just doesn’t look like he has the size and power to compete with these guys,” I remember my dad telling me. What did Terry Francona, the manager of the Boston Red Sox, do? He let Pedroia work through it. Was it a good move? Only if you consider batting .317 and winning the American League Rookie of the Year Award that season, then winning Most Valuable Player and a Gold Glove the next year, good enough. The point is this: people, particularly spectators who aren’t playing the game, frequently overreact to short-run events. In other words, we react as though the long run is going to be an extended version of what we’ve seen in the short run. Congress’s action to pass a massive stimulus plan isn’t so different. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but apparently the U.S. economy isn’t doing so hot right now. People are concerned about this, and the general consensus is to demand an immediate response. I’m not going to get politically involved in the specifics of Congress’s plan, partially because I don’t think anybody fully understands what’s happening right now. That being said, it would be ridiculous to say that Congress’s action wasn’t motivated by the large public outcry for immediate relief. A prolonged recession, just like a prolonged losing streak, ignites the “do something!” mentality. I’m not suggesting that Congress or baseball managers should always ignore short-run losses. There are many instances in which responding substantively is appropriate. Longcontinued on page 8

Fencers start season off on the right foot By Dan Alexander Sports Staff Writer

Justin Coleman / Herald

The men’s and women’s fencing teams practice as a single co-ed team but compete separately in meets.

Weekend preview The prodigal teams have returned to Brown’s campus. The reeling men’s basketball team returns to the Pizzitola Center for the first time since Jan. 16 to play two Ivy League games, while women’s hockey makes a long weekend of its return to Meehan Auditorium, playing games on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday evenings. The men’s hoopsters (6-14, 0-6 Ivy) will take a 5-3 home record (better than their 1-12 road mark) into contests with Penn (5-13, 1-3) on Friday and Princeton (9-8, 4-0) on Saturday. Both games tip off at 7 p.m. Since starting 6-8 against a slate of non-conference foes, the Bears have lost six straight against Ivy teams. After losing at home to Yale, Bruno fell again on the road to the Bulldogs, then to Cornell and Columbia. Last weekend, the Bears took two games to the wire but fell to Dartmouth, 63-61, in overtime, and to Harvard, 64-63, at the buzzer. Matt Mullery ’10 powered Brown by notching his first double-double of the season, with 12 points and 13 rebounds, against Dartmouth

before pouring in a career-high 27 points against Harvard on 13-of-16 shooting. The women’s hockey team (518-1, ECAC Hockey 4-13-0) is a rare team that has preferred road trips to the cozy confines of Meehan, going 4-9-1 on the road but just 1-9 in Providence. Last weekend, despite getting 88 total saves in two games from Nicole Stock ’09, a Herald sports staff writer, the Bears were blanked by No. 8 Dartmouth, 1-0, and Harvard, 4-0. But Bruno will face a much easier task this weekend, taking on three of the bottom five teams in the ECAC. The Bears will host conference doormat Union (2-25-3, 0-17-1) on Friday at 7 p.m., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (13-13-3, 8-8-2) on Saturday at 4 p.m. and Yale (9-15-0, 5-12-0) on Tuesday at 7 p.m. This weekend will also mark the conclusion of Breast Cancer Awareness Week, during which many Brown teams have sported pink and raised money for cancer research. — Sports Staff Reports

No, their swords aren’t lethal. No, they don’t do backflips in the middle of their bouts. And no, they don’t wear masks or carve Z’s into their opponents. But yes, Brown fencers do claim that they could beat Zorro. They say it with a smile, of course. “Well Zorro seems to be completely invincible and he has real swords and a better mask,” captain Nick Bender ’09 said. “But I have better protection, so I think that I have the edge.” Head Coach Atilio Tass has firsthand experience fighting Zorro. Tass fought the actor who played the television version of the franchise character in a choreographed bout when Tass was the South American fencing champion in the ’80s. Zorro actor Guy Williams was on a travelling tour doing shows for audiences in Argentina. “They stopped in Buenos Aires and I was asked to do a presentation for big audiences,” Tass said. Tass “died” in the choreographed fight after Zorro sent his sword sailing out of his hands, but he was resurrected backstage and is now the head coach of Brown’s fencing team. His office is lined with trophies, and his team is off to another successful season this year. They finished first in their first tournament of the year — The Big One at Smith College — and were undefeated at the Northeast Fencing Conference No. 1. The Bears hadn’t finished a tournament with a losing record all season, until the Ivy Championships No. 1 at Columbia last weekend, where

the men went 1-2 and the women went 0-4. “The whole athletic department is really behind — to give all of the facilities,” Tass said of the department hosting the NFC No. 2 at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center. The budget is tight for the fencing team, Tass said. They have only one full-time coach for a team of 31 fencers. Tass has one volunteer coach and another part-time assistant, who give one-on-one lessons. But with a limited budget, Tass can’t hire any full-time assistants. The program has no fencing room or facilities. They practice and compete on the OMAC floor. Yet Tass said he remains appreciative for what they do have. “We do have more now than ever before,” he said, but added, “We can get better results if I have a little bit more.” Tass, an Olympian from Argentina, said he doesn’t think that an Olympic-caliber fencer would want to come to a school with such a limited fencing budget. He also said that he doesn’t think anyone on the team right now has Olympic aspirations. “If you are at Brown, you are at the Olympics of academics,” Tass said. A student would have to take a year off of school in order to go through the training and qualification process, he added. Having “Olympic goals is a fulltime dedication,” he said. The team holds practices with both men and women. They practice with each other but compete separately during the meets. Captain Deborah Gorth ’09.5 said it helps “getting to fence against men continued on page 8

Page 8

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

S ports W eekend

Friday, February 13, 2009

“To be a co-ed team is very exciting.” — Atilio Tass, fencing head coach.

Singer ’09: Managers, Congress must act continued from page 7

run losses don’t occur without shortrun losses, and often losses are a sign that something is wrong in the first place. Inaction can be just as costly. Just ask former Red Sox manager Grady Little why he didn’t pull Pedro Martinez out of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS when he had just given up back-to-back hits in the eighth inning. What I am suggesting is that those capable of reacting, whether they are baseball managers, general managers or Congressmen, take into account that people disproportionately value the short run over the long run. If you’re under pressure to do something and there’s no reasonable solution out there, you don’t need to go blow $20 million on Kei Igawa (see Yankees, New York). Short-run responses aren’t free, and they can end up causing you more long-run strife. Baseball managers and Congress also share an attitude of perceived control over their respective games. In the NBA, coaches can make a big difference, as they draw up plays and frequently make substitutions. In the

NFL, coaches have undeniable value, because strategy and designing plays have a huge role in determining the outcome of games. In MLB, managers have relatively little power compared to its two main competitor sports in the U.S. Sure, they can switch in players and signal infield shifts and bunts, but the players go in knowing how they have to hit the ball, catch the ball or throw the ball to get the guy out. The manager’s greatest asset is managing the egos in the clubhouse away from the field. Despite this, countless managers are sacked each year when their clubs go into a funk. As David Fabianic found in his study on managerial replacement in the Journal of Sports Behavior (2004), teams play better after the replacement. If you didn’t look closely at the results, you might think that firing the old manager got the players to play harder or that the new manager knew how to do something the old manager didn’t. What closer examination reveals is that teams with the same players play no differently than they did prior to entering a losing stretch. Essentially, if a team starts playing poorly,

even if nothing changes, they tend to bounce back. Congress’s legislative power certainly has a substantial impact on our economy. However, just because the economy recovers after a stimulus bill is passed does not mean that the stimulus bill is fully responsible for the recovery. It may have worked, or maybe the economy bounced back for some other reason. The problem is that the “do something!” mentality generally likes to assign causality of short-run reactions to the consequences that follow. But this only reinforces the bad ideas that happen to work out all right and inhibits critical thinking. That being said, I don’t see this general short-sighted approach changing. Regardless of whether anything is getting accomplished, people feel a little better when those in power “do something!” If you’re unsure about the situation you’re in control of, sometimes making people feel better is the best thing you can do, short- or long-term. Ben Singer ’09 won’t stop playing rock, paper, scissors until the economy recovers.

Justin Coleman / Herald

The fencing team holds co-ed practices but competes as separate men’s and women’s teams.

Fencing practice leads to success, marriages continued from page 7 (in practice), and then having to face women in competition. Men are generally faster, so it’s good practice.” She added that women tend to be more technical fighters, so it benefits both teams. More than just good practice conditions have come out of the mixedgender teams. Two couples Tass used to coach are now married. “To be a co-ed team is very exciting,” Tass said. Most Brown fencers join the team with previous fencing experience. There are fewer than five walk-

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ons on the men’s team, according to captain Elias Jaffa ’09, himself a walk-on. Jaffa didn’t start fencing until six months before he came to Brown. “I had done track and field and cross country” in high school, Jaffa said, “so I was somewhat athletic.” But Jaffa didn’t know much about fencing. His exposure to sword fighting was limited to seeing it “mostly in the movies,” Jaffa said. Jaffa’s idea of the sport has since changed. “I watch a movie now and they’re fencing and I’m like, I could have gotten him four or five times in the space of that action.”

World & Nation The Brown Daily Herald

Federal court rules link between vaccine, autism By Jia-Rui Chong Los Angeles T imes

In a major setback for the fight to link autism to vaccines, a special federal court ruled Thursday that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and vaccines that contained a mercury-based preservative were not connected to autism that developed in three children. The cases of the Cedillo, Hazlehurst and Snyder families could potentially sink the claims of several hundred other families who believe the MMR vaccine alone or in combination with vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal caused their children’s autism, said Curtis Webb, a lawyer for the Hazlehurst family. The outlook appeared particularly grim, he said, because these three cases were considered among the strongest. “We’re extremely disappointed,” Webb said. “It wasn’t even a close case.” The families’ attorneys are considering appealing, the lawyer said. Vaccine supporters and public health experts applauded the decision by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, hoping it would reassure parents that the shots recommended by federal scientists are safe. “It’s a great day for science and I’d like to think it’s also a great day for children with autism,” said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine (a standard childhood immunization that does not contain thimerosal). Offit said he understands that many parents have been scared by the controversy but believes those who refused to vaccinate their children contributed to a 12-year high in measles cases last year and a recent outbreak of bacterial meningitis. Both of these outbreaks could have been prevented by standard childhood vaccinations, he said. “It’s time to put the vaccine hypothesis aside and focus on the real causes of autism and not be diverted by a dead end,” said Offit, who was not involved in the case. Congress set up the special vaccine court in 1986 when pharmaceutical companies faced a liability crisis. Vaccines were being blamed for catastrophic injuries to children, and some vaccine manufacturers threatened to quit the business. The court shields vaccine makers from paying damages, drawing money from a surcharge levied on every vaccine. Parents who believe their children have been injured by vaccines can file petitions at this court and receive compensation from a pool funded by a surcharge on the vaccines. Roughly 5,000 families have filed claims involving autism, a spectrum of developmental disorders whose hallmarks are impaired

social interaction and communication. The appointed judicial officers in this case, known as special masters, decided to hear test cases on different causation theories to develop general principles that they could apply to the flood of claims. Three special masters heard the cases of the Cedillo, Hazlehurst and Snyder families in 2007. Lawyers for the families argued that vaccines containing thimerosal weakened the children’s immune systems, allowing the viruses in the MMR vaccine to take hold and lead to autism. In the Hazlehurst case, lawyers for the family came to argue that the MMR vaccine was the primary culprit. Thimerosal was used to keep bacteria from growing in multidose containers. The MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal, but some other routinely recommended vaccines such as the hepatitis B vaccine did. Thimerosal was phased out of most shots around 2000. Trace or small amounts of thimerosal remain in a few vaccines recommended for children, including the flu shot. The special masters rejected practically all of the families’ arguments. “I concluded the evidence was overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners’ contentions,” George L. Hastings Jr. wrote in the Cedillo opinion, which was similar to the others. “The expert witnesses presented by the respondent were far better qualifed, far more experienced and far more persuasive than the petitioners’ experts.” Several parent-advocates were frustrated by the decisions. “I’m sure the decision was based on some of the current science that is out there and the scientific community hasn’t invested in the types of independent research necessary to get to the bottom of the issue,” said Rick Rollens, the parent of an autistic son and co-founder of the University of California, Davis M.I.N.D. Institute. Rollens and others said these verdicts won’t make parents stop questioning the safety of vaccines, especially when parents witness changes in their children right after vaccination. “There’s no denying what happens to your child when you see it first-hand,” said Rollens, a Sacramento, Calif., resident. “Maybe we haven’t asked all the right questions yet.” The special masters are still working on another group of test cases alleging that the thimerosal itself causes autism. Final briefs on those cases are still being filed, with decisions expected sometime after this summer. Thursday’s decisions “won’t resolve the thimerosal cases,” said Webb. “There are more people that focus on thimerosal than focus on MMR. ... Those cases are still viable.”

Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 9

Cao Jun / Los Angeles Times

Yum Brands is China’s largest restaurant chain, with nearly 2,500 KFCs and 416 Pizza Huts. But sales of Western fast food are slowing. Here, a KFC in Wuwei, Anhui province. Street vendors also sell food in front of the store.

Asian fast food not cheapest game in town By Don Lee Los Angeles T imes

SHANGHAI, China — Down an alley from a KFC, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut here, Li Hong sat inside a dingy little storefront that serves full-course dinners for a dollar. Her tray was filled with cabbage, carrots, potatoes, a chicken leg and rice, plus soup. A Western fast-food meal would have cost three times that much, said the young woman, who works as a sales clerk. “Why should I go there?” she said. In the U.S., fast-food chains often thrive in tough times. But not so in China, where Western quick-service food isn’t the cheapest stuff in town and, in target markets like Shanghai, there’s too much competition. Plus, a growing number of consumers see it as unhealthful. “Western fast food is still not cheap enough,” said Yee Mei Chan, a group-account director at Millward Brown’s office in Beijing. In a recent survey, the marketing research company found that 78 percent of Chinese consumers were feeling some effect from the global financial crisis. About half said they were likely to cut down on eating at Western fast-food restaurants. That might help explain why Yum Brands Inc., China’s largest restaurant chain with nearly 2,500 KFCs and 416 Pizza Huts, said samestore sales in the country were up just 1 percent in the fourth quarter compared with year-earlier growth of 17 percent. In the U.S., Yum’s same-store sales, an industr y measure of branches open at least a year, rose 2 percent in the latest quarter, ended Dec. 27. McDonald’s Corp. doesn’t report such figures for China, where it has about 1,050 stores. But Jeff Schwartz, head of China operations, said, “We had some softening at the latter part of 2008.” Like many retailers in China, including Wal-Mart, McDonald’s cut prices recently, saying it wanted to

do its part to keep China’s economy growing. Its new “value meals” cost $2.42, a saving of up to one-third for combos such as a double cheeseburger, medium-size French fries (or cup of corn) and a drink. Schwartz said he remained “very bullish” on China. McDonald’s is on its way to opening 175 stores in China this year, he said. Yum is also planning for another year of high growth in China, which has been increasingly driving the corporation’s profits. And other food and beverage retailers, including Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks and Cold Stone Creamery, are bulking up in China as well. With rising affluence and changes in lifestyle, the pace of China’s spending on eating out has been growing by double digits year after year. The China Cuisine Association estimates that sales surged 24 percent last year to $225 billion at the nation’s 4 million eating and drinking establishments. If Western fast-food diners are slipping a bit, it could be that they’ve “lost some of their freshness,” said Xu Yunfei, the association’s industry development director. KFC, which opened its first store in China in 1987 and since has penetrated deep into the nation’s heartland, still has a lot of cachet in rural areas, where its restaurants are often packed. But most foreign retailers in China have yet to enter such smaller markets inland, tending to focus on young consumers and the middle class in China’s urban centers. Yet once-booming coastal cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen are now reeling from a falloff in exports and industrial production. Even in Shanghai, with its large service economy, it isn’t hard to find people who are battening down the hatches. On a recent Friday evening, Wu Lei, 40, and her 11-year-old son were having dinner at a McDonald’s in a northeast Shanghai neighborhood. Most of the seats in this two-story restaurant were taken, although

plenty of students had only books and papers spread out on the tables. Wu said she and her husband, both architectural designers, saw a 20 percent cut in pay between them in the past year because of a lack of work. “I might come more if it’s cheaper,” she said, adding that she takes her son to McDonald’s and KFC each once a week. On this evening the total tab was about $5. Other customers at this branch and several others said lower prices wouldn’t change their eating-out routine. “It’s fast food; it’s not good for you,” said a 30-year-old tech worker who identified himself by his English name, Alex Lu. KFC in particular met with early success in China in part because consumers viewed it as cleaner and offering more-hygienic foods. In recent ads and promotional materials, KFC and McDonald’s have been stressing good value, high quality and healthful lifestyles.

Commentary & Letters The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Friday, February 13, 2009

l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r

Women deserve respect, not objectification To the Editor: In his recent column (The myth of the ‘Brown student,’ Feb. 11), Sean Quigley ’10 comments that he is “not a feminist,” and wonders if this means he is “not welcome here.” While each feminist has his or her own conception about exactly what the word means, most of us would agree at a minimum that feminism is a conviction that women should have the same rights that men do in the political, economic, social and sexual spheres. If Quigley cannot agree at least to this basic idea that women should be full citizens and be treated as human beings worthy of respect, then no, he is not “welcome” in the culture of social justice that most Brown students, faculty and staff are tr ying to create. And if he does, in fact, agree with most of us on this point, then why not identify as a feminist? Quigley also remarks that some gender stereotypes are “biologically, historically and experientially reasonable.” I don’t know what stereotypes he refers to, but I would caution him that just because histor y and experience tell us that women are often denied

citizenship rights and made into sexual objects for men’s pleasure does not mean that these injustices are the way things ought to be. And just because our bodies are not identical to men’s does not mean that all broad biological sterotypes (women’s sexual responses are different from men’s, women are physically weaker than men, etc.) apply to all women, or that they can be used to deny women the rights and respect we all deser ve. I do agree with Quigley that there is nothing wrong with “masculine camaraderie.” But this camaraderie must not come at the expense of women’s dignity. A lingerie show including members of any gender in the cast and the audience (as the Class of ’11 Board claims that theirs was) should be welcome at Brown; a show marketed only toward men and treating only women’s bodies as sexual objects should not. Finally, I encourage Quigley to read Emma Goldman’s essay on “The Hypocrisy of Puritanism.” He may find that he has more in common with this feminist anarchist than he would have thought! Lily Axelrod ’09 Feb. 11

t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d Editor-in-Chief Steve DeLucia

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pete fallon

opinions extra

The case for universal gender neutrality ANISH MITRA Opinions Columnist

After reading a recent editorial (“To the 2011 Class Board,” Feb. 3) I was taken aback. To recap, the editorial page board took issue (and rightly so) with the 2011 Class Board’s sexist decision to host a lingerie fashion show during the Super Bowl’s halftime. After reading the editorial, I fell into a bittersweet mood. While I was glad the editorial page board exposed this instance of misogyny for what it really was, I was disappointed that clear logical transitions were not made to take the case even further. Blatant sexism pervades our campus (along with the rest of the world, and possibly the universe). After excessive thinking, I developed a list of ways to achieve the preferable ideal — a homogenous, gender neutral society where Brunonians can coexist without succumbing to their inner (albeit, natural) sexist tendencies. First, all bathrooms on campus ought to be genderneutral. All Brown students are humans and all humans require bathrooms. Why should men and women be barred from using each others’ facilities when the bathroom is a modern-day necessity for all genders? On a more detailed note, the female stick-figure on public bathroom signs should not have a dress. The suggestion that all females wear dresses is offensive and inaccurate and stigmatizes dress-wearing men. The editorial also noted that football is a “hypermasculine institution.” This assessment was spot-on, and as gender-normative Brown students we ought to do everything in our power to de-hyper-masculinize it. I propose that the “men’s” football team should have to

maintain a one-to-one ratio of males to females. While all-male football teams have traditionally been the norm, especially in the Ivy League, we must abandon outmoded practices when they conflict with our moral values. Lastly, we should apply similar policies to every team, so that they can all benefit from equal representation. The University’s statues should be held to the same standards. Brown should eliminate all notable statues on campus to eradicate the edifice of sexism altogether. These beautiful figures only deserve a place on campus if they’re matched with female and transgender counterparts, preferably sculpted in marble. Statues of different genders should be juxtaposed so that students have to digest the simultaneous female, male and other presences. Brown students will one day graduate and permeate the world’s higher circles. They will inevitably bring the lessons they’ve learned in the classroom into their professional lives. Although academic biases are more difficult to combat, the University should do its part to problematize patriarchal assumptions. Every assigned reading by a male author should be paired with one by a female author. If there aren’t enough prominent female figures to fill half a syllabus, the course should be promptly removed from the Course Announcement Bulletin. Any dropped classes can be replaced with offerings from the prestigious Gender and Sexuality Studies program. Ubiquitous sexism aside, Brown is a bastion of acceptance. I hope we can implement these changes as soon as possible in order to ensure a better, bolder Brown.

Anish Mitra ’10 is an economics concentrator from New York City. He can be contacted at anish_mitra@brown.edu

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Opinions The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 11

A plan for (nationwide) academic enrichment DREW HARRIS Opinions Columnist By now, there is little doubt that Congress will end up passing the president’s American Recover y and Reinvestment Act. The consensus on Capitol Hill seems to be that a massive shot in the arm is just what the doctor ordered. (I sure hope that the proverbial doc holds a Ph.D. in economics.) While Congress bickers endlessly over the details of the largest stimulus package of all time, the majority of Brown’s student population is resting at ease. Rhode Island can expect a deficit to the tune of $357 million this year, but you wouldn’t know it if you stayed on College Hill. Brown’s $1.4-billion fundraising drive and projected $2-billion endowment have provided the University with the financial backbone to stick out this mega-recession with surprisingly little sacrifice required. While President Ruth Simmons’ e-mail to the Brown community outlined planned cuts in administrative spending, the rest of the “bad news” was mainly that the size of the faculty and graduate programs will remain the same (for now) and capital projects will proceed more slowly than before. Other schools’ financial predicaments help put Brown’s recent losses in perspective. Brandeis has been forced to consider selling roughly 6,000 pieces of art and shut-

ting down its Rose Art Museum to raise money. Of course, if Brown were a public university, it would likely rely on state funds for much of its operational budget. The University of Rhode Island, for example, took the drastic step of increasing tuition mid-year because of a massive state-induced budget shortfall. In the face of significant budget cuts, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, increased its tuition by a staggering 8.5 percent last year to make up for decreased funding from the state.

At other universities, large tuition hikes aren’t the only disappointing new trend. Many public schools are also reducing the size of their student bodies. For instance, the University of California system is cutting enrollment of in-state first-year students by 2,300. By contrast, the University has reaf firmed its commitment to providing adequate financial aid by letting students fall further behind than usual on tuition payments and pledging to continue its needblind admissions program. Without broad support from the stimulus

Without broad support from the stimulus bill, public colleges and universities will find a new financial equilibrium, but it won’t be as painless as the one President Simmons described in her e-mail to the Brown community.

Brown raised tuition by a comparatively minor 3.9 percent last year. Accounting for inflation, tuition went up by only 1.1 percent, and Simmons indicated that this year’s increase will be less than originally planned. Given the current financial climate, Brown’s stated commitment to a modest tuition increase is impressive (SDS, please don’t hurt me).

bill, public colleges and universities will find a new financial equilibrium, but it won’t be as painless as the one Simmons described in her e-mail. With America’s troubled public universities in mind, I appreciate the generosity of those who have provided so well for us Brunonians. The University’s ability to raise money from private donors who are willing

and able to give, offsetting the burden on students, has been a godsend to many. Shane Reil ’09’s moving speech, which is available on the Boldly Brown Web site, highlights the importance of financial aid and was a great way to put off writing this column for 10 minutes. If we want to see more stories like Reil’s, we need to make sure that states have enough money to fund their schools. And since we’ve long since passed the era of squabbling over a few billion dollars, why not throw in a few billion more for higher education? Given that House Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they will be opposing the bill anyway, accommodating them ser ves no purpose. The United States has slipped to 12th in college attainment among major industrialized countries, and as Brown students, we should be particularly sympathetic to those who are ranked lower than they probably should be. We should appreciate the fact that Brown will be able to weather the financial storm without reducing financial aid. But most American universities haven’t had a Boldly Brown campaign and aren’t as fortunate. It’s imperative that this stimulus is to other schools what the Campaign was to Brown. Right now it just isn’t enough.

Drew Harris ’11 is a political science concentrator from Montvale, NJ. He can be reached at drew_harris@brown.edu.

What we’re really thankful for on Valentine’s Day ANTHONY STAEHLIN Opinions Columnist Ahhh, Valentine’s Day! It’s one of the most commercial and seemingly ubiquitous holidays of the year, with every store from Whole Foods to CVS decorating its shelves with pink and red hearts. It’s also a remarkable day because it affects almost ever yone — some people will spend a romantic evening with their significant other, others will stay home with a tub of ice cream and a pile of DVDs and still others will spend the evening in a totally normal way, apparently unaware of the holiday… at least until they wake up the next day to an angr y boyfriend or girlfriend! Personally, I am very happy because this is the first year I actually have a girlfriend to celebrate with. Well, that’s not entirely true since I did have a girlfriend when I was in kindergarten. But since my mom recently confessed that it was not out of love that little Abby followed me around, but simply because I always had a bag of candy, I feel used and I’m not counting that year. Anyway, as this is my first real Valentine’s Day, I want to make sure I do ever ything right. (Plus, I’ve been getting subtle hints that I better not “mess up.”) So I recently went to a store to find the perfect Valentine’s Day card to give to my girlfriend with her present. As I perused the shelves of cards, I real-

ized that all of them seemed to say the same things: “you’re always there for me,” “you make me laugh,” “you know how to make me feel better,” etc. And sure, all of those things are true, but there are so many things that are great about being in a relationship, so why is it that only a few of them ever get mentioned in greeting cards, and that they are always the same ones? Yes, “having a shoulder to cr y on” or “someone to cuddle with” are great perks of being in a relationship, but they are the obvious ones. What about all the other, less

and spaghetti alio e olio while I was single and tr ying to meet women. You know how it is — in the war for love, sacrifices need to be made. In my case, this was giving up onion and garlic. Although I loved both of these, I did not want my breath to be the reason the girls noticed me. And as you can never really be sure who you will run into on a college campus, I simply couldn’t take the risk of ever eating those ingredients. But now that I’m in a steady relationship and I know that my girlfriend will love me even if I smell like garlic, a world of possibilities is

Three things that you would never see in a card, but that are truly the great elements of a relationship!

Hallmark-y aspects about relationships? They too deser ve a commercial shout-out once in a while! Therefore, with the goal of bringing something new to the world of greeting cards, I’ve compiled a list of just a few of the things I think are great about relationships that you will never see in a Hallmark card: 1) You can eat all the onion and garlic you want. Oh how I missed garlic-roasted calamari

opening up: garlic bread, onion dip, roasted garlic, onion casserole… 2) It’s okay to have a bad hair day. When you’re single and tr ying to meet women, you kind of always have to be careful of how you look. Although we should still try and look nice when we’re in a relationship, we don’t need to try as hard all the time. It’s okay to sleep a little longer and not look so great in 9 a.m. class. And yes, how long you sleep is directly

connected to how good you look in class. We’ve all pushed that snooze button, sacrificing different parts of our morning routine. We think: I’ll sleep five minutes longer and I won’t comb my hair, five more and I won’t brush my teeth, five more and I won’t pee! All this extra sleep is due to being in a relationship and knowing that that person will love you regardless of how you look. 3) It’s easier to kill spiders with two people. This is one of the best things about a relationship. This has nothing to do with me not being man enough, it’s just that... well... there are some seriously big spiders out there! And the great thing about having a girlfriend is she can hold the flashlight and/ or ladder depending on where the spider is as I slam my six-pack of cola (my preferred weapon) on the spider. And there you have it. Three things that you would never see in a card, but that are truly the great elements of a relationship! So this Valentine’s Day, be thankful for that special someone, because they love you regardless of whether your breath smells, your hair is combed or your socks match, and in the direst of moments (such as facing spiders), they will be there for you.

Anthony Staehelin ’10 is a political science concentrator from Geneva, Switzerland. He can be reached at Anthony_Staehelin@brown.edu

Today The Brown Daily Herald

the news in images

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Film tells of near-extinct languages

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Fencing starts season on point

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Page 12

d i a m o n d s a n d c oa l A diamond to the University’s annual employee awards day for handing out feel-good honors like the “Excellence Award for Managing for Excellence.” No, it doesn’t make sense, but it does sound positive. Just like “hiring pause.” Coal to Vitaminwater, which Brown students were recently notified contains substances banned by the NCAA. You’re going to need some major image rehabilitation to regain our trust. Maybe a high-profile celebrity endorsement will do the trick? We hear Alex Rodriguez may be in need of some new sponsors soon. A diamond and a hearty welcome to former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi for accepting an appointment at the Watson Institute. When you get here, can you get the Ratty to bring back the Trattoria line?

7

Coal to Ruckus, the free music service the University subscribed to, which shut down this week without notice. Your exit, leaving just a few black-and-white cartoons of headphones and a turntable on your Web site, was almost as cloyingly emo as the music selection the Indy once used you to play.

c a l e n da r February 13, 2008

February 14, 2008

7 p.m. — Men’s basketball vs. Penn, Pizzitola Center

3 P.M. — “Palestine in Context: The Occupation, the Siege, and What Lies Ahead,” MacMillan 117

8 p.m. & 11 p.m. — “Exquisite Corpse” (8 p.m.) and “Smoke and Mirrors” (11 p.m.), McCormack Family Theater

5 p.m. & 8 p.m. — “First Look: Playsin-Progress” and “Mo’Reece and the Girls,” McCormack Family Theater

A diamond to activism, which valiantly overthrew an undemocratic, elitist Brown Morning Mail policy without aid of ladders. Next up, a grassroots movement for meal credit transparency on Banner? ¡Si, se puede! A diamond to participants in last weekend’s “Ivy Summit,” a gathering of ambitious “student leaders” from around the Ancient Eight. Consider this a stepping stone to the next grand stage at which you future leaders of the world will assemble. (Next year’s Ivy Summit.) A diamond to the men’s tennis team, which beat up on its opponent last weekend while wearing pink to raise awareness for breast cancer. Maybe you’re on to something — every team wearing brown this week got crushed.

menu Sharpe Refectory

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

Lunch — Cavatini, Broccoli Au Gratin, Zucchini Burgers, Cheese Quesadillas

Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Vegan Brown Rice Pilaf with Mushrooms, Corn Cobbets

Dinner — Saturday Night Jambalaya, ATTENTION, EDITORS: Fresh Vegetable Melange, Okra Dinner — Friedto Clams, Stuffed The extra two sentences after the Feb.and 13 puzzle clues are necessary help solvers fully understand the previous day's solution. If you have any trouble fitting them in the allotted Tomato, Rice Shells, Oriental Stireffort Fry,toBananas space, itSpanish is OK to drop the second sentence. However, please make every include the first sentence. Thank you. Foster with Ice Cream RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 13, 2009

c r o sDaily swo rd Los Angeles Times Crossword Puzzle

A cubic zirconium to University of the People, an upstart new online school with big plans to revolutionize higher education. We like that you’re aiming high, but we’re pretty sure Brown students, at least, won’t go for it. We’re more likely to attend class to surf the Web than vice-versa. Coal to Brown’s P.R. unit, which has started using Twitter to announce University news. Is “desperately misguided attempt at relevance” under 140 characters? And finally a totally not-spiteful diamond to campus couples preparing to enjoy a long-weekend Saturday Valentine’s Day together, free of homework, stress and responsibilities. It’ll make a nice gift, and we need the coal to keep our lonely Grad Center single warm tomorrow night. The heat is broken.

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis ACROSS 1 Stradivari’s teacher 6 Wickiup dweller, perhaps 12 Like some tempers 15 Cranial cavity 16 Elton John hit 17 Husband of Fatima 18 Tightwad with emotional problems? 20 Malarkey 21 “Out __?” 22 “An Iceland Fisherman” author Pierre 23 Sitcom landlord 25 Rodeo bling? 29 Jargon ending 30 Summoned 33 1960s-’70s “Jeopardy!” announcer 36 Primary 39 Flight training milestone 40 Massage target 41 Sound of Deborah falling? 44 Concubine’s room 45 Girl in a Beatles title 47 Imperative 48 Butyl acetate, e.g. 50 Break, in Bristol 52 Shingle abbr. 53 Saddle defect? 60 Belong 62 Analgesic’s target 63 “The Great Bridge Scandal” author Truscott 64 “Cold Mountain” heroine 65 Flood in an owned apartment? 69 Nice view 70 Coke alternative, in old ads 71 Conclusion opener 72 Hoop holder 73 Live, after “in” 74 Stranger DOWN 1 Pt. of NASCAR

55 16th century 37 Decorator’s 2 Tiny painter concern 3 Has __ of Veronese 38 Resort feature confidence 56 Colossus 42 Continuously 4 Blush 57 Portmanteau 43 Colombian coin 5 60-yr.-old state 58 Knight stick 46 Asian legend 6 Extra 59 Put in 49 Evened 7 Attach, in a way 60 Celebrity 51 1996 Costner 8 Clownish 61 Plan golf movie 9 XVII x VI 66 Word with day or 52 Hungarian-born 10 Publishing icon, way architect familiarly 67 ATM maker Goldfinger 11 “The Simpsons 68 Sweater letter 54 High styles Theme” composer Danny ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE: 12 Support for ballet practice? 13 Plenty 14 Airhead 19 Allure competitor 24 ER tests 26 “Dilbert” intern 27 Jazz singer Diana 28 “Symphonie espagnole” composer 31 Merrie __ England 32 Big noise 33 Bombard 34 Arizona’s __ Fria River 35 Stun a Beatle? 02/13/09 xwordeditor@aol.com 36 Pipe type

comics Cabernet Voltaire| Abe Pressman

Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

The One About Zombies | Kevin Grubb

By Dan Naddor (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

02/13/09

VDB in yesterday’s puzzle was Victor David Brenner, who designed the Lincoln Head Cent. His initials (circled in the grid) were removed from the 1909 coin as a result of controversy and then restored in 1918.