Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxlv, no. 105 | Thursday, November 4, 2010 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Jewish and Muslim comics laughing toward ‘Peace’ Rock to By Amy Rasmussen Contributing Writer
Peace” tour, “One Muslim. One Jew. One Stage.”
In efforts to strengthen interfaith relations, university officials across the world sometimes turn to forums, academic lectures and focused leadership groups as vehicles for discussion. Sometimes, laughter works just as well.
Comedians on college circuit Though the pair has performed at venues across the nation — from the local synagogues of Alper’s hometown in Vermont to appearances on the Daily Show and CNN — Alper insisted that the college shows are often the most rewarding. One particularly memorable experience, he said, came from an evening spent at the University of Pennsylvania. Audience members were hanging out together after the show, when the students were asked to leave — the conversation had gone on for so long that Hillel staff members needed to go to bed. “It’s a pinch-me situation that I’m 65 and doing the college circuit,” Alper said. “No one my age doing is colleges — it’s a real thrill to be able
FEATURE For the past eight years, Bob Alper — an ordained rabbi with 14 years of congregational experience and more than 20 years of comedic experience under his belt — has traveled the country not to preach, but to joke. This evening, Alper and his performing partner Azhar Usman, a well-known Muslim comedian, will come together in Salomon 101 to perform the 90 minutes of interfaith comedy that have come to compose the nationally acclaimed “Laugh in
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add study space By Ju Myoung Kim Contributing Writer
Rhode Island governor. According to PolitiFact, the story missed “key facts” in its attempt to tie Chafee to Ukrainian mobsters. Fenton said GoLocalProv stands behind the story “100 percent.” He called Stephen Beale, who wrote the story, “one of the best investigative journalists in America.” “I think we must be of some impact to the marketplace, that (the Journal) seems to be motivated to evaluate our content,” Fenton said. The company is located in a small downtown office, tucked between larger buildings on Weybosset Street. The office itself is under-
A new study area will open in the Rockefeller Library at the beginning of next semester. The new area will be located on Level A, to the left of the Absolute Quiet Room. The plan is to remove three bookshelves and create an open space with large tables and seats similar to those in the Friedman Study Center at the Sciences Library, said Associate University Librarian for Access Services David Banush. But carrels by the windows will remain for those who prefer individual study areas. The books that will be removed along with the shelves will be mainly index and bibliography books, which Banush said have been mostly “superseded by online resources.” Some of the books are already being moved to the Library Collections Annex, an off-campus facility. The rest will be transferred once the construction begins at the end of this semester. Administrators decided to undertake this project last summer in response to general student requests for more study spaces, Banush said. Level A is one of the most used floors of the library, according to Banush. The new area will provide “improved spaces for students,” he said, and allow better access
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Courtesy of Bob Alper
Azhar Usman and Bob Alper will perform an interfaith comedy skit tonight in Salomon 101 as part of the “Laugh in Peace” tour.
Alums bring new outlet to the Prov. news scene By Shefali Luthra Contributing Writer
Josh Fenton MA’94, CEO and cofounder of GoLocalProv — an online startup covering the Providence area — will tell you there are three
METRO things to distinguish the site from a traditional news organization. First, GoLocalProv operates exclusively online, posting stories because there are stories, rather than because there are pages to fill. Second, the website relies on social media, deriving about 20 percent of its visits from Facebook.
And third, the site relies heavily on video, shooting and producing — rather than writing — “a lot” of its news coverage, Fenton said. Fenton and GoLocalProv cofounder Paul Krasinski ’98 had the idea for the site two and a half years ago, Fenton said, but did not start actively working on it until last year. “Our strategy was to go recruit all the smart people,” Fenton said. “That is really a core component to our business.” Fenton said GoLocalProv also differs from other online news destinations in terms of the kind of stories it produces. It is neither a blog nor an aggregator. “Most of the digital replacements
F eeling h ungr y
for newspapers, things like the Huffington Post, don’t do fact-based journalism,” he said. “They do aggregation and opinion. But opinion has to start with fact-based journalism.” In its first five months, the site has garnered the attention of both Providence residents and the traditional media. In an e-mail to The Herald, Michelle Nguyen ’11 wrote the site had surpassed a million page views, and a claim made in a GoLocalProv article was investigated by the Providence Journal’s PolitiFact Rhode Island. The organization questioned the accuracy of a story published on the site about Lincoln Chafee ’75 P’14 during his successful campaign for
Czech it out: hockey player looks for gold By Tony Bakshi Spor ts Editor
Most student athletes at Brown have to carefully balance their schoolwork and the meetings, practices and road trips that make up Division I athletics. But women’s ice hockey player Alena Polenska ’13 has to balance those commitments with another huge role — ser ving as captain of her national team.
Evan Thomas / Herald
inside
Brown’s chapter of Nourish International hosts “hunger breakfasts” every Wednesday on the Main Green. See article on page 2.
News.....1–4 Sports.....6–9 Editorial....10 Opinion.....11 Today........12
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Olympic dreams Polenska, a native of Kutna Hora, Czech Republic, is the captain of the Czech Republic’s Olympic development team, a team preparing for the 2014 Winter
Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Qualifications for the tournament begin next spring at the World Championships, but Polenska and the squad are already beginning to practice as a group in hopes of eventually making it to Russia.
SPORTS Polenska left Providence on Tuesday to attend a training camp in Slany, Czech Republic, before traveling with the team to play in the Four Nations Tournament. She will miss two weeks of school. “It’s the start of the new team — the Olympic development team,” she said. Polenska was named captain of
the team earlier this year. She said the national team’s head coach, Karel Manhart, used to hint at the possibility of her becoming a team leader. “Sometimes he would mention, ‘When we name you captain’ and stuff, but I sort of didn’t pay attention to it,” she said. And when the day came, Polenska was not even aware it had happened. “One day, he e-mailed me, ‘How does it feel to wake up and know that you’re captain?’ But I didn’t even know because I wasn’t home and couldn’t check the website,” she said. continued on page 7
Food venture
Series shakeup
Frat culture
Post- magazine
Student group brings breakfast to the Main Green
Sam Sheehan ’12 surpised by world series matchup
Norris-LeBlanc ’11 criticizes frat values on campus
gets baked, gets down at PC FishCo, and gets to feelin’ like P. Diddy
News, 2
SPORTS, 6
Opinions, 11
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