Tuesday, February 24, 2015

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015

VOLUME CL, ISSUE 23

Felon arrested for alum assault

Alcohol policy, U. growth may alter College Hill dynamics Community members, students question if recent policy change will drive parties off campus

By DUNCAN GALLAGHER SENIOR STAFF WRITER

47-year-old convict Salvatore Romano previously sentenced to 40 years on robbery charges

By ANICA GREEN STAFF WRITER

A man suspected to have assaulted a Brown alum near the intersection of Waterman Street and Gano Street last Wednesday night has been apprehended by the Providence Police Department, the Providence Journal reported Monday.

The accused — 47-year-old » See ASSAULT, page 2

WWW.BROWNDAILYHERALD.COM

RYAN WALSH / HERALD

The Office of Residential Life has granted 1,163 rising seniors and 324 rising juniors off-campus permission for the 2015-16 academic year.

The off-campus house where Christine Mullen ’16 and David Weinberger ’16 live was packed with over 100 people Feb. 14. They were hosting a party that overflowed from the building, with people gathering outside the house and in the street in front of it, Weinberger said.

The party was advertised via a Facebook event, which was eventually posted in the Class of 2017’s Facebook group, leading the party to grow much larger than anticipated, Weinberger said. Still, “We had no real problems,” he added, noting that the windows were closed, keeping much of the noise inside.

The closed windows, the students said, may have kept them from

repeating an unpleasant police encounter that occurred last summer. Just after midnight, the Providence Police Department responded to a noise complaint at the same building — this time in response to an event of about 50 people.

Mullen contested a $200 fine, which was ultimately reduced to $50, resulting from the complaint. In court, Mullen noted that her neighbor, who presumably contacted the Providence Police, had previously complained about the disruption caused by college-aged neighbors ­and had made frequent calls to the police.

“Obviously when (the neighbor) calls, the police are obligated to come and see what’s happening,” Weinberger added. They have not had issues with their neighbor since this incident, Mullen said.

Mullen and Weinberger are part of an increasingly large contingent of upperclassmen who live off campus.

Around 1,300 students live off campus every year, said Richard Bova, senior » See OFF CAMPUS, page 4

PawSox make tracks to Providence Leaving Pawtucket behind, triple-A baseball team to provide new attraction for Providence

By MATT BROWNSWORD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

In two years, the Pawtucket Red Sox — or the PawSox, as they are affectionately known — will be no more.

Boston Red Sox President Larry Lucchino and a group of local investors purchased the Triple-A Red Sox affiliate Monday from Madeleine Mondor, widow of the late Ben Mondor. The sale was north of $20 million, the Boston Globe reported. A proposed location switch will change the team’s nickname from the PawSox , and lawyer Jim Skeffington — the club’s new president — told the Globe he wants to rename the team the Rhode Island Red Sox. Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien said in an interview on WPRO that he was informed of the plans for the team to leave the city Sunday evening and expressed sorrow at the proposed move.

Plans for the new ownership include moving the team to Providence — away from its Pawtucket home, where the minor league team has been situated since 1970.

“We’re trying to do our due diligence on a possible site in the city,” Skeffington

INSIDE

said. “We’re aiming to make an announcement regarding the potential site in two to three weeks.”

The potential site is located in downtown Providence near the Providence River, Skeffington said. Part of the land on which the new ownership group plans to build the ballpark is owned by Brown, Skeffington added, acknowledging that the owners must reach out to the University in an effort to purchase it.

“Brown University congratulates Jim Skeffington, Larry Lucchino and their partners on their successful acquisition of the Pawtucket Red Sox and applauds their desire to keep this important Rhode Island institution in our state,” wrote Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, executive vice president for planning and policy, in an email to The Herald. “The proposed location of a Providence home for the team is in an area of the capital city where Brown has invested significant financial resources.”

Skeffington said he believes the site will be a “game changer” for Providence, attracting a lot of people to the city.

“We’re planning on building a multipurpose ballpark,” Skeffington said. “The skyline will be lit up for maybe 100 days a year. We will have 71 home games, and we want to stage other events there.”

The proposed 10,000-seat ballpark could be home not only to the PawSox but also to college athletes, musicians and local performers. For example, it could » See PAWSOX, page 4

ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD

Restrictions on the number of international applicants accepted to medical schools and the lack of financial aid limit options for students coming to study from abroad.

Int’l med school applicants face challenges Only 75 U.S. medical schools accept international applicants, increasing competition

By ALEKSANDRA LIFSHITS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

With admission notification dates on the horizon, international applicants to medical school likely have more to worry about than their domestic counterparts. Need-aware admission processes, high tuition costs and individual medical school policies toward

accepting international students can restrict these students’ opportunities.

Few U.S. medical schools admit international applicants. Only 75 universities indicated they would accept international applicants in 2013, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Out of 1,777 international applicants to U.S. medical schools in 2013, 346 gained admission and 264 matriculated, according to the AAMA. For some, the limited financial aid packages accompanying their acceptance letters made matriculation an uncertain prospect.

Brown is not exempt from these

national trends. The Alpert Medical School only considers applicants who have completed pre-medical classes in an institution in the United States or Canada, according to the University’s website. In addition, admission to the Med School, like the undergraduate program, is need-aware for international applicants, the University’s website states.

“It is important to be realistic and cast a wide net,” said Minoo Ramanathan ’11 GS, Med School student from Oman. Though she was originally discouraged from applying to medical » See MED APPS, page 2

WEATHER

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015

UNIVERSITY NEWS Professor Adam Teller receives medal from Polish Minister of Culture for museum contribution

SCIENCE & RESEARCH Movie “Interstellar” oscillates between scientific accurary and creative liberties

COMMENTARY Suglia ’15: Lack of ecofriendliness limits ability to focus on pure learning in science

COMMENTARY Asker ’17: Assuming Chapel Hill shootings are hate-crime points to problem in national discourse

PAGE 3

BACK

PAGE 7

PAGE 7

TODAY

TOMORROW

17 / 15

32 / 9

UNIVERSITY NEWS PAGE 2 • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015

» ASSAULT, from page 1 Salvatore Romano — is a convicted felon recently released on parole, according to the Journal.

Romano was arrested last Thursday night. He and an accomplice, Christopher Goodwin, crashed a stolen vehicle while attempting to evade police after robbing a Shell gas station, leading to their arrests. Romano has an extensive criminal history. He has been sentenced to a total of 40 years in prison for a number of robbery charges, according to the Journal article.

Though the victim reported that the perpetrator said, “You’re coming with me,” the Providence Police plan to amend the charges, Major David Lapatin said. “We’re going to change (the abduction charge) to assault with attempt to rob,” Lapatin said.

Paul Shanley, deputy chief of police for the Department of Public Safety, said this incident does not reflect an upward trend in the amount of crime happening around campus, calling it “out of the ordinary.”

» MED APPS, from page 1 school because of limited spaces for international students in U.S. universities, Ramanathan applied to about 25 different medical schools in the United States and the United Kingdom after obtaining an undergraduate degree from the University.

“If I didn’t go to undergrad in the (United States) and complete my premed requirements here, it would have been 10 times harder to get accepted,” she said.

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Humanitarian efforts constrained by militaristic aid War often seen as humanitarianism in globalized, post-9/11 world, barring other methods of relief

Whether humanitarianism occupies a “shrinking space” in the contemporary world was the question Unni Karunakara, former international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres and senior fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale, posed to a crowd of about 40 in the Watson Institute for International Studies’ Joukowsky Forum Monday.

Karunakara tackled this question by drawing on his nearly 20 years of MSF experience, which began when he set up a tuberculosis control program in Ethiopia in 1995, according to the Watson Institute’s website.

It has become increasingly difficult for humanitarian agencies to gain access to the people who need assistance in a political climate in which

“bureaucracy and red tape are not insignificant barriers,” Karunakara said.

“What has narrowed is that area ­— that space to find a common ground and to put people on the ground,” he added.

Karunakara kicked off the lecture by describing the history of humanitarianism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, setting the stage for his analysis of the current state of humanitarianism in a post-9/11 world while also noting that aid organizations have never been entirely unhindered by politics.

His lecture centered on the forces that constrain humanitarianism post-9/11. He argued that modern humanitarianism has been “shaped by the global war on terror” and must now adapt to a world in which security overrides concerns about human rights and sovereignty.

“The world is in a perpetual state

of hot war,” he said.

Karunakara recalled an advertisement he saw in a Danish movie theater that equated joining the military with humanitarian work, noting that “war itself is being portrayed as humanitarianism.”

This modern idea of military humanitarianism, he argued, is damaging to international aid work because it “confuses two profoundly different human endeavors,” undermining the trust that allows humanitarian organizations to operate in dangerous areas.

Throughout the lecture, Karunakara cited real examples of incidents in which violence against medical aid agencies, especially hospitals, led to people in crisis being deprived of the medical care they needed. The narrowing of humanitarian space is important not only because of “our concern for the integrity of humanitarian action,” but even more so because of “a pragmatic concern” regarding the destructive impact on those who

do not otherwise receive medical care, he said.

Karunakara’s descriptions of instances of violence against humanitarian workers were “very shocking,” said Allison Schaefer ’17, adding that she “didn’t realize quite how little security these MSF people have.”

The ability of international aid organizations to provide medical care to those in need is “predicated on the trust that we are able to build with local authorities,” because organizations like MSF have no armed guards, Karunakara said.

Elena Lledo, a local art historian, attended the lecture because she is “interested in anybody who takes human rights seriously.” It was “hard to disagree with that amount of experience,” Lledo said, but she added that she had hoped there would be more emphasis on the amount of good that humanitarian efforts have accomplished. Activists “have done a lot of good … within this very confusing situation,” she said.

Finances further complicated her road to matriculation.

Ramanathan took out private loans to demonstrate to universities that she would be able to pay tuition for the next four years. When she applied to the Med School, admission officers asked to see financial records before even scheduling an interview, she said. “If you can let the schools know that you are not looking for any aid, they are more willing to look at your application,” she added.

Undergraduates also expressed

concern about the fraught process of applying to U.S. medical schools.

Calin Manea ’16, who hails from Canada, said applying back home is simpler because tuition is much less expensive and acceptance rates are higher for domestic applicants.

The average cost of a private U.S. medical school for the year 2013-2014 was $50,476, according to the AAMA — far more expensive than most Canadian medical schools, many of which charge less than $20,000 per year, according to Ivy Global.

But Canadians, in comparison to other international students, do experience some benefits in the United States, Manea said. The Canadian government gives out student loans to study abroad, and some American universities reserve spots specifically for Canadian students, he said.

For example, New York University Medical School and Michigan State College of Human Medicine do not accept international students except for Canadians, according to a pre-med advisor reference manual on Johns

Hopkins University’s website.

“I did not want to take a risk,” said Fadwa Ahmed ’18, who resides in Kuwait but was born in the United States.

Ahmed applied to Brown’s Program in Liberal Medical Education in the hopes of ensuring a spot in a U.S. medical school in advance.

“My American passport probably played an important factor in my admission,” she said, adding that she has not yet met any PLME students who are from abroad without citizenship or a green card.

By CASSANDRA COLE CONTRIBUTING WRITER

UNIVERSITY NEWS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Phi Beta

Kappa announces inductees Thirty-two juniors to join Brown’s chapter of prestigious national academic society

By CAROLINE KELLY UNIVERSITY NEWS EDITOR

COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS

Students will visit the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which strives to “make a better reality” in Jewish-Polish relations, during their trip to Warsaw, Poland, over spring break for a course developed by Associate Professor of History and Judaic Studies Adam Teller and Brown/RISD Hillel.

Professor recognized for work in Jewish-Polish history Governmental recognition begins to heal bitterness staining historical relations between two cultures

By ELANA JAFFE SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Adam Teller, associate professor of history and Judaic studies, was awarded the “Zasluziny dla Kultury Polskiej” — an Order of Merit for a Contribution to Polish Culture — last week. Given by the Polish Minister of Culture, the medal recognizes Teller’s central role in creating the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. Teller contributed to the museum, which exhibits a narrative of Jewish life in Poland, by recreating the stories of Polish Jews who lived during the early modern period, between 1500 and 1800, he said.

The coexistence of Jewish and Polish cultures during the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was one fraught with difficult relations. Teller said he strives to create a dialogue between “two peoples separated by a historical chasm of hatred and resentment,” adding that his academic work serves as a bridge between the two.

The museum, which opened in October 2014, marks a major step forward

in acknowledging that Jewish culture is integral to Polish history, Teller said.

The Polish government and the Warsaw City Council funded the project, but the academic team was comprised of a mix of Polish, Jewish and Polish-Jewish scholars.

“We have not quite rewritten history, but we are showing it in a different light,” Teller said. The museum does not present the shared past “through a prism of hatred and persecution,” but rather, it attempts to reconstruct the creativity and mutualistic relations fostered during that time.

Integrating the historical intellectual moments with those of persecution was “complicated to do in a way that expressed everything in a natural way,” he said. The Polish government exerted some pressure to underline positive facets of its political history, he added.

“After this long period of bitterness and hatred, Jewish life in Poland is beginning to be celebrated for its vibrant, integral culture,” which marks a large change, Teller said. The museum opening last fall was a “shining example” of

collaborative success. “Both sides are coming to a rich understanding of how important it was and how much was lost,” he added.

It is a “historic moment” for the Polish government to grant Teller the award and acknowledge that Jewish culture is a part of its own culture and history, Teller said. The Polish government of the early 20th century did not fully recognize several prominent Jewish-Polish historians as Poles before the Holocaust, and Teller said he hopes his recognition by the government will be seen as an indication that the contributions of those scholars are now accepted.

“It’s really quite exciting that Professor Teller’s contributions to Polish history have been recognized in this way,” wrote Saul Olyan, professor of religious studies and director of the program in Judaic studies, in an email to The Herald.

This semester Teller is teaching JUDS 0901: “Brothers Betrayed: Jews and Poles from 1500 until today,” a class for which students will travel to Poland over spring break. Teller has taught this class in the past, but this year it coincides with a grant awarded to Brown/RISD Hillel by a private family foundation

interested in enabling Brown students to have first-hand experiences with European Jewish culture.

“The course fit in beautifully” and lent itself well to the goal of hands-on experience, said Marshall Einhorn, executive director of Hillel.

The group of 20 students will travel to Poland, where they will visit the museum. While there, the class will focus on history, the Holocaust and current Jewish life in Poland. They will work with students from Jagiellonian University and meet contemporary Jewish communities in Poland.

The medal Teller received is an “incredible” sign of the changing PolishJewish relations, said Shayna Zema ’15, a student in the class. The culture, values, traditions and history are very much intertwined, she said, adding that the recognition of this as a “crucial” part of Polish history is exciting.

Zema has familial roots in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but that line perished during the Holocaust.

She said she hopes the trip will be a way to see how life was for her relatives and gain insight beyond “the textbook account that looks at specific, individual and very complex relations.”

The Rhode Island Alpha chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected 32 juniors Thursday, wrote Chapter Administrator Mary Jo Foley in an email to The Herald. Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1776, and Brown’s chapter became the organization’s seventh in 1830.

To be eligible for induction to the nation’s oldest academic honor society, juniors must have taken a minimum of 20 courses and have earned an A or S with distinction in at least 18 of them, according to the Brown chapter’s website. No less than two-fifths of those courses must be in the arts, humanities, pure mathematics or social sciences.

The number of inductees in a class may not exceed one-sixth of its members, and no more than one-third of this cohort may be elected as juniors, according to the chapter’s election procedures.

The undergraduate members who choose new inductees will vote twice more this year: once in April to elect seniors and again in May to elect seniors who transferred to Brown as juniors.

The members of the Class of 2016 elected Thursday are: Crystal Avila Aaron Samuel Beller Kirsten Grace Bredvik Nicholas Wilbur Chan India Halff von Busch Ennenga Jason Scott Ginsberg Grant Matthew Glovin Sarah Brooke Grace Christopher D. Huber Lucia Gressani Iglesias Sukrit Sanjay Jain Yulia Khoruzhik Hochan Kim Henry Ace Knight Yutong Liao Hannah Etta Margolin Grant Anthony Meyer Dante John O’Connell, a former Herald sports editor David Adams O’Connell Max Mackenzie Quinn Julia Romanski Meredith Cady Ruskin Aanchal Saraf Kimberley Brooke Sarnoff Emily Petruzzelli Schell Jared Robert Schober David Bertram McCartney Schwein Eli Benjamin Sharf Jake Aaron Soloff Merone Gez Tadesse Maite Beatrice Van Hentenryck Robert Samuel Weiner

UNIVERSITY NEWS PAGE 4 • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

N I C H O L A S B ATC H E L D E R ‘ 17: C H A I R W I T H C LOT H

ARJUN NARAYEN / HERALD

VISA 0100: “Studio Foundation” offers students the chance to develop a broad background and portfolio.

The course is a prerequisite for any further art classes students wish to take at Brown.

» OFF CAMPUS, from page 1 associate dean for Residential Life and Dining Services.

The Office of Residential Life is responsible for granting off-campus permission and having discussions with students who have conflict with their neighbors, but problems are rare between students and other residents of College Hill, Bova said.

Diffusing tensions Kate Tompkins, associate director for off-campus living and programs, said that ResLife will “have conversations with students if there are issues with noise ordinances” or other city laws. “We need to make sure they’re abiding by (these laws) to make sure our relationship with the community — the permanent community — stays strong.”

These conversations do not occur frequently, she said, adding that students are more likely to have issues adjusting to living in the neighborhood when they first move in.

ResLife’s primary goal is to support students, Bova said, but the office becomes directly involved in the affairs of students living off campus when they are contacted by police or through a direct complaint. Students are then brought in for a discussion with Tompkins. “We don’t immediately rush to judgment on anyone. We have lots of good dialogue with students about living off campus and how they should be behaving,” Bova said.

“I think the vast majority of students off campus are very mature and very capable of handling themselves in a decent and respectful way and they’re respectful of their neighborhoods,” he said. “We do have problems with a handful. But that’s to be expected in any population.”

Though administrators stressed that these problems are uncommon, some

community members have expressed concerns that the University’s interim alcohol policies and the growth of the student population living off campus may exacerbate disruptive behavior in the neighborhoods surrounding Brown.

Enraged about ragers The impact of students living in the College Hill neighborhood has become a topic of increased discussion in recent weeks following the University’s Jan. 19 announcement that it will prohibit alcohol service at large-scale events in residence halls. The ban is part of a set of interim rules that will govern social events while the University determines its new permanent policy on alcohol, according to multiple campus-wide emails.

The University notified College Hill residents of the interim policies in a Jan. 29 email, the Providence Journal reported. The email contained contact information for representatives from the Office of Government and Community Affairs and ResLife.

The temporary policies ignited frustration among several residents.

Ronald Dwight ’66, a 15-year College Hill resident who formerly served on the board of directors of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, said the community is concerned that the prohibition of parties with alcohol service in residence halls will force parties off University property and into neighborhood homes and backyards.

A Facebook community page called “Protect College Hill” appeared Jan. 31, presumably in response to the announcement. The group, which uses a crossed-out Solo cup as its logo, has garnered 52 followers. Its prominently displayed motto reads, “No ragers in our neighborhood.”

“I think that people who are 21 should be able to drink in a responsible manner at Brown … and not be

forced off campus to do those things,” Dwight said.

Dwight, who lives at the corner of Benefit and South Court Streets, said that in his experience, Brown students can be particularly disruptive to their neighbors, more so than their counterparts at RISD. “They’re more into this heavy partying — raging, it’s called,” he said. “They just can’t wait to get off campus and have these wild parties.”

Heading off campus ResLife granted 1,163 rising seniors and 324 rising juniors off-campus permission for the upcoming academic year, Bova told The Herald earlier this month.

Around 100 students also rent properties that are owned and managed by the University through its auxiliary housing system. These properties, which are mostly concentrated on the southern side of campus, are not officially considered to be off campus, Bova said.

Though President Christina Paxson’s P’19 strategic plan calls for an annual 1 percent expansion of the undergraduate student body over the next decade, ResLife has not announced plans to expand residence hall accommodations on campus. ResLife will grant more students off-campus permission to account for this change, Bova previously told the Herald.

Dwight said that the presence of Brown students has been felt more intensely over the last five to eight years, adding that he perceives the affluence of the student body has increased, leading to more students living in posh residences off campus. He expects this to intensify as enrollment grows and residential capacity does not, he said.

“Their parents buy these big mansions, and they party in them,” he said.

“They ruin them, and then they sell them and go off.” This phenomenon detracts from the value of other property in the neighborhood, he said, adding that the prevalence of increasingly crowded rental properties is “going to ruin Providence.”

» PAWSOX, from page 1 host concerts and other performances such as Shakespeare in the Park, Skeffington added. “We plan to make use of it just like Fenway Park.”

“We welcome the prospect of a multiuse athletic, cultural and community facility, including the prospect of college athletics played in a new stadium, as a positive contributor to this environment and believe it will complement our academic investments in the area,” Carey wrote.

Luchino, who previously oversaw Fenway renovations and the construction of Petco Park in San Diego and Camden Yards in Baltimore, would be responsible for the construction of the new site, the Globe reported.

The construction of similar Triple-A stadiums has cost between $60 to $70 million dollars, and this kind of pricetag will require some local and state financial support, Skeffington said in the Globe article.

“We’re not even concerned about that right now,” Skeffington said. “We have to first finally decide on a site, and then we have to design the ballpark and see how that checks out.”

But locals have already expressed concern about building the ballpark in the city. One comment on the Providence Journal article regarding the move questions why Rhode Island taxpayers should “pay for another stadium for the Pawtucket Red Sox when we have the

Not all community members view the policies in such a negative light. Stephen Foley ’74 P’04 P’07, associate professor of English and comparative literature, lives on Cushing Street near Machado House and has lived on college campuses his entire life. He said that the nearby French and Spanish houses have not been disruptive in his experience. He noted that he observes more activity from students in the spring and summer, when he has his windows open.

Foley said he has not noticed any increase in disruptive student conduct in his neighborhood over the last several months. He said it is difficult to predict what the effect of the interim alcohol policies on off-campus parties will be and to imagine how the policies will be enforced.

All in the neighborhood “I don’t want to come off like I think the administration’s doing something wrong,” Mullen said. “I just think that they don’t really have it figured out yet, and they’re going to try different things to make our campus safer,” she said.

Mullen, who is a member of the Undergraduate Council of Students and a student representative on the Alcohol and Other Drugs subcommittee of the Campus Life Advisory Board, said the administration has communicated its reasoning in regards to the interim policy to UCS. Bova told The Herald he is aware of concern from community members that the interim policy will push parties off campus, but he said he feels there is a lot of “misinformation” about the policy’s impact. “It does not work like that. We know that,” he said, adding that there has been no uptick in reported “egregious policy violations.”

“We are concerned about the welfare of the Brown University student.

That does not mean we are not cognizant that 1,300 of our students live in a community,” Bova said. “Community

‘renovated’ stadium with plenty of parking.” Another comment reads “don’t use MY hard-earned money to fund a new stadium when an adequate one exists.”

Skeffington added that he wants to make the ballpark like McCoy Stadium — the PawSox’s current stadium — but that its new location in Providence would be an important factor. The most recent renovations to McCoy, in 1999, made the ballpark handicap accessible and increased the seating capacity to over 10,000.

Former PawSox and Red Sox player Lou Merloni said in the same Globe article that “it kind of hurts to think they would even move it,” but added that he “understands why they’re doing it. This is the age of improvements, and I think people will be pleased if they do move that stadium.”

“The Boston Red Sox have enjoyed a productive relationship with the Pawtucket Red Sox for more than four decades,” Lucchino said in a statement on the PawSox’s website. “The franchise has played key roles in the Red Sox’ historic success, both as a player-development affiliate and as a Rhode Island home for affordable family entertainment.”

“We seek to enhance those roles and to honor the substantial contributions that Ben Mondor and his loyal team have made to this community for generations,” the statement reads.

Whether that Rhode Island community will be a little closer to the Providence River remains to be seen.

relationships are very important to us also.”

The Department of Public Safety declined to comment for this story and it is the stated policy of the Providence Police Department to only verify noise complaint records for single addresses, not entire neighborhoods. Therefore, it is difficult to determine if there has been any rise in noise complaints in neighborhoods surrounding campus in recent weeks.

Dwight said the University’s failure to involve the neighborhood in developing the interim alcohol policy is part of a larger problem: The University has a legacy of ignoring the concerns of its neighbors as it constructs policies that may affect them.

Dwight, who had previously taken the University to court over the development of the BioMedical Center on Meeting Street, said administrators should have met with the College Hill Neighborhood Association to discuss the policy. “Brown never does that.

Brown is extremely arrogant towards the community,” he said.

The Office of Government Relations and Community Affairs has taken steps to include community members in discussions of the new policy, wrote Mark Nickel, interim director of news and communications, in an email to The Herald. In addition to sending the letter describing the change, Katie Silberman ’94, the University’s community liaison also addressed the policy in a “neighbors meeting about the new Applied Mathematics building,” Nickel wrote.

“She summarized the University’s plans for policy review, and the reaction was quite positive.”

Nickel added that the Office of Government Relations and Community Affairs has received fewer than six calls about the policy. “Callers have appreciated getting a response to questions and have been generally supportive of the University’s policy review,” he wrote.

TODAY

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015 • PAGE 5

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

menu

artwork

SATELLITE DINING JOSIAH’S Made-to-Order Quesadillas, Gnocchi BLUE ROOM South Indian Chicken Curry with Vegetables Soups: Butternut Squash, Turkey Sausage and Kale, Three Bean Chili ANDREWS COMMONS Pizza: Bacon Chicken Ranch, Spicy Five Cheese and Garlic, Pepperoni and Meatball

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Butternut Squash Cannelloni, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Tater Tots

LUNCH

Apricot Beef with Sesame Noodles, Grilled Lemon and Pepper Chicken

VERNEY-WOOLLEY

Cheesy Zucchini Casserole, Grilled Rotisserie Chicken, Celery and Carrot Sticks

DINNER

Cauliflower Au Gratin, Candied Yams, Green Peas, Tortellini Italiano with Sausage

sudoku

KATE TALERICO / HERALD

Chefs at the new Thayer Street restaurant Skewers Kabobs and Wraps cook up a new option among the variety of choices that students have when dining off campus.

comic Class Notes | Phillip Trammell ’15

crossword

Got something to say?

Leave a comment online!

Visit www.browndailyherald.com to comment on opinion and editorial content. calendar TODAY 4:30 P.M. SELF-CARE, COPING AND CUPCAKES

During Eating Disorder Awareness Week, the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center will provide interested students with crafts, cupcakes and more. Sarah Doyle Women’s Center

TOMORROW 3:30 P.M. GOING TO SCALE: DELIVERING VACCINES TO THE WORLD’S POOREST COUNTRIES

Seth Berkley ’78 MD’81, CEO of Gavi, will discuss his company’s initiative to vaccinate a quarter billion children in the developing world. Salomon 001

6:00 P.M. INNO-DATE: VENTURE SPEED DATING

Create student start-up partnerships and hear ideas from Social Innovation Fellows and Brown Venture Fellows.

6:00 P.M. SCIENCE AND SOCIETY DEGREE DAY

Petteruti Lounge, Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center

Alums who studied Science and Society will discuss the pathways they took after graduation. Science Center, 3rd Floor Sciences Library

6:30 P.M. A LOT LIKE YOU: A LECTURE ON BLACK

8:00 P.M. 50 SHADES OF BDSM: A SHAG MYTHBUSTER

IDENTITY WITH ELIAICHI KIMARO

WORKSHOP

Eliaichi Kimaro, a documentary artist and activist, will talk about film, race and identity and answer audience questions. Salomon 001

The Sexual Health Awareness Group will demystify BDSM and its portrayal in the movie “Fifty Shades of Grey.” The Underground, Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL

What made the Oscars worthwhile this year This year’s Academy Awards ceremony, while far from perfect, was worth the watch. Aside from the red carpet glamor, the ostentatious displays of wealth and Neil Patrick Harris’ (bad) jokes, this year’s ceremony illustrated to viewers the extent of our culture’s tolerance — both how American society has evolved to incorporate the values we claim to constitutionally defend and how much further we have to go.

Many on campus have expressed sentiments ranging from disappointment to outrage at the lack of representation of a more diverse filmmaking body since the Academy Awards nominees were announced in January.

This is especially true in regards to Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” a film that tells the story of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1965 campaign for equal voting rights. Despite widespread critical acclaim, no major prognosticators picked the film to win Best Picture — an acknowledgement that it was not a serious contender in the race. While unfortunate, this reality is both unsurprising and predictable. This year, all of the Best Actor and Actress nominees and Best Supporting Actor and Actress nominees were white.

Given the lack of diversity in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — in terms of both its members and its films — “Selma’s” plotline, which depicts the black civil rights movement’s struggle and success without the typical “white savior” character, does not fit into the typical mold. Still, “Selma’s” position as a non-contender is a pertinent case study of an issue that pervades our culture and underscores the evident disparity between the country we are and the one we claim to be.

Despite this concern, the 87th Academy Awards did show us that our country has made some progress in embracing both diversity and more diverse values in the American film industry. “Selma” was nominated for Best Picture and won Best Original Song for Common and John Legend’s “Glory.” The Oscars also reflected the changing views of the American public — Laura Poitras’ “CitizenFour,” which tells the story of Edward Snowden’s 2013 National Security Agency leaks, won for Best Documentary.

Harris called the Oscars a ceremony that honors “Hollywood’s best and whitest. Sorry, brightest” — a joke, but also a poignant condemnation.

Patricia Arquette, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Boyhood,” discussed how “all women deserve equal pay” in her acceptance speech. Other award winners talked about suicide awareness, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, incarceration and Alzheimer’s disease.

But more than the speeches made by individuals, it is the commercial and critical success enjoyed by films about those subjects, as well as posttraumatic stress and gay rights, that testify to progress. Their impact is visible and immediate. Projects like these are related to a larger political and social environment, particularly in the case of “Selma,” whose actors wore shirts bearing “I Can’t Breathe” in solidarity with Eric Garner at the film’s New York premiere. Those on Twitter participated in the discussion Sunday evening with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. Some even boycotted the screening altogether. These films do not just exist on screen. They can incite action, which is something that we, as members of a student community dealing with the same issues, should take advantage of. If watching the Oscars this year spurred progressive thought in viewers, the glitz and the glamor were worth it.

K I M B E R LY S A LT Z ’ 1 7

Q U O T E O F T H E D AY

“War itself is being portrayed as humanitarianism. ” — Unni Karunakara, former international president of Medecins Sans Frontieres

See humanitarianism on page 2.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editors, Alexander Kaplan ’15 and James Rattner ’15, and its members, Natasha Bluth ’15, Manuel Contreras ’16 and Baxter DiFabrizio ’15. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

Editorial Leadership

Sections

Visuals & Production

Business

Editors-in-Chief Michael Dubin Maxine Joselow

Arts & Culture Editors Eben Blake Gabrielle Dee

General Managers Sarah Levine Winnie Shao

Managing Editors Kiki Barnes Jillian Lanney

Metro Editors Alexander Blum Emma Jerzyk Drew Williams

Design Editors Loren Dowd Carlie Peters Taylor Schwartz Assistant: Meryl Charleston Assistant: Andrew Linder

Senior Editors Camilla Brandfield-Harvey Isobel Heck Molly Schulson

Science & Research Editors Andrew Jones Steven Michael

BLOG DAILY HERALD Editor-in-Chief David Oyer

Sports Editors Andrew Flax Alex Wainger

Managing Editors Deena Butt Jacob Koffler

University News Editors Emma Harris Caroline Kelly Joseph Zappa

POST- MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief Adam Asher DIGITAL Online Editor Marcy Huang

COMMENTARY Editorial Page Editors Alexander Kaplan James Rattner Opinions Editors Megan GrapengeterRudnick Kate Kiernan Evan Sweren

Photo Editors Head: Brittany Comunale David Deckey Katie Liebowitz Arjun Narayen Ashley So Ryan Walsh Graphics Editors Avery Crits-Christoph Emma Jerzyk Web Producers Joe Stein Harsha Yeddanapudy Abdullah Yousufi Copy Desk Chief Madeline DiGiovanni Illustrations Editor Angelia Wang Video Editor Richard Flores

Directors Sales: Moniyka Sachar Sales: Jess Urrutia Finance: Josh Tartell Alumni Relations: Marley Rafson Business Dev.: Yuta Inumaru Sales Managers Matthew Meyer Henry Ritter Gulmira Hamit Taylor Casey

facebook.com/browndailyherald

Location: 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. www.browndailyherald.com

@the_herald

Editorial contact: 401-351-3372 herald@browndailyherald.com

browndailyherald.com

Business contact: 401-351-3260 gm@browndailyherald.com

Corrections: The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

Commentary: The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

Finance Managers Collections: Neil Wathore Collections: Benjamin Wesner Operations: Carin Papendorp

Letters to the Editor: Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for length and clarity and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

Business Dev. Manager Project Leader: Kaden Lee

Advertising: The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

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 and once during Orientation by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for each member of the community. Subscription prices: $280 one year daily, $140 one semester daily.

Copyright 2014 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Postmaster: Please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906.

COMMENTARY TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

For the sake of science

ELENA SUGLIA guest columnist

Last summer, I spent my days kneedeep in mud, traipsing around doggedly through the marsh. Here I am with a lovely pair of Sesarma reticulata, or purple marsh crabs. They probably would have pried off a good chunk of my nose if I had let them get any closer to my face. Incidentally, if left to their own devices, these crabs can also snip and ingest chunks of cordgrass at such high rates in certain marshes that the crabs can cause mass die-off of the cordgrass. And in some places, this is already happening.

Human beings pollute their surroundings, including the ocean, and create environments unhealthy for organisms to live in. When we add overfishing and overexploitation to this equation, the number of fish in the affected waters can drop to low levels.

Certain predatory marine creatures eat purple marsh crabs and efficiently control their population levels, keeping the crabs’ herbivory and appetites in check.

But when there aren’t enough predatory fish because they’re all fished out of the water and onto our dinner plates, purple marsh crab populations explode and eat a lot of marsh grass, a phenomenon called “runaway herbivory.” The grass that prevents erosion in the marsh slowly erodes and our shores begin to look like receding hairlines instead of Rhode Island coastlines. Sometimes, big chunks of the marsh fall into the water, reducing the seaward extent of the marsh and shrinking our landmass.

And Rogaine doesn’t help.

The shrinking of our coastline is an important issue. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past decade — which purple marsh crabs surely have not been! — then you’re aware that climate change is happening.

The ice is melting, the sea is rising and storms will likely get stronger. Many are not aware that our shrinking coastlines are as important and equally dangerous to our planet. But it is happening,

situation.

Unfortunately, the fact that mankind is currently in a dire situation with impending waves — both figurative and literal — about to come crashing down on our shoulders is not necessarily enough for us respond appropriately. Certainly we are making leaps and bounds in environmental policy, but as a student of science, I always feel like there simply isn’t enough political and societal oomph behind the environ-

belittle the inherent value of obtaining knowledge. Nevertheless, I have been thrust into this world as part of a generation that is responsible for cleaning up our act as living creatures gracing — or perhaps “ruining” is more appropriate — this planet with our presence.

And so I move forward as a scientist not with the enticing words of the wind whispering to me to “Discover all that there is to discover!” but with the words of a Jiminy Cricket-type character sit-

COURTESY OF ELENA SUGLIA

There is a huge disconnect between doing science and using science, the latter of which — application — is arguably the more important pursuit. and the results are as plain as day: Salt marshes are being destroyed.

Salt marshes act as a buffer against sea level rise, waves and storms, all of which are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change. Let’s put it this way: We’re making a mess and throwing away our sponges. As the ice sheets melt and the water rises, our coastal buffers are shrinking, and this makes for a slippery

mental movement given the grimness of the state of our planet. And I believe that we are not wielding hefty enough policy to tackle the bigger monsters of human-caused environmental degradation like climate change.

There is a huge disconnect between doing science and using science, the latter of which — application — is arguably the more important pursuit. The discoverer in me cringes a bit when I

ting on my shoulder and twittering into my ear to “Fix the damage that has been wrought by your predecessors. Please, I beg of you!”

I’m not complaining, I assure you.

I accept this burden freely and understand that this is simply what has to be done. It is my responsibility to do science for the sake of the human race rather than just for the sake of science — for knowledge alone. Because of my

research last summer in the marsh, where I was out in the field studying the crabs, I have seen the damage humans can do firsthand. And hopefully, as a result of my actions and others’, we will stop the harm we are causing in its tracks. Hopefully, there will be future generations who can study the natural world just for science’s sake — to learn, expand and grow.

But for now, all we can do is change our behaviors. We must all continue to try to live more sustainable lives and make a smaller negative impact on our surroundings and the environment. Everyone is not capable of enacting or enforcing hefty policy, but we can all do things like recycle our plastic so less of it ends up in the ocean, or bicycle to the corner market down the street instead of driving in order to reduce our carbon footprint.

Go to the salt marsh and see what nature has to offer: the odd fiddler crabs with their lopsided claws, the bulbous strands of pickleweed that actually taste like pickles if you chew on them, and the vast stretches of cordgrass that survive despite being covered by water during high tide and exposed to the harsh combination of salt, sun, and heat during low tide. Think about how every square meter of that marsh buffers storms from flooding and wrecking nearby homes. Resolve to make your own small positive difference on the world — if not for me, if not for nature, then for future generations. Please, I beg of you. For the sake of science!

Elena Suglia ’15 is a biology concentrator, science communicator, writer and rugby player.

Conclusions after the Chapel Hill shooting NICK ASKER opinions columnist

After three Muslim students attending the University of North Carolina were shot dead in their apartment by a white, atheistic neighbor Feb. 11, many people across the nation and the world spoke out against the egregious murders. They expressed support for the friends and families of the victims and commemorated the deceased as exemplary students and good people.

In social media posts bearing the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter, some alleged that the students had been murdered because of their religious beliefs. Speculation about the killer’s motives ignited when it was discovered that his Facebook profile contained posts expressing antipathy for all religions, despite the police releasing a preliminary statement indicating that the killing had been the result of a parking dispute, the New York Times reported.

As the Times highlighted in a different article, some social media users condemning what they saw as a hate crime also criticized the news media for their initially meager coverage of the shooting.

They creatively argued that if the ancestry of the killer and the victims were reversed, the incident would have more immediately outraged the West and received more comprehensive coverage.

At the victims’ funeral assembly, the father of two of the students told the crowd of around 5,000 that “this (shooting) has hate crime written all over it,” the Times reported.

It is perfectly reasonable to demand that local, state and federal justice systems rigorously inves-

tigate all aspects of the case, including the possibility of religious hatred being a motivating factor.

On the other hand, though it is understandable for family members and the world to be upset by the loss of life and to be angry at the murderer, it is not right to jump to conclusions and claim that this incident was a hate crime.

As a murder, it is an undeniably heinous act, one that deserves public censure and demands immediate justice before the law. And any person with half a heart agrees that the lives of the victims matter. But the number of people who have voiced with such conviction that the killing was motivated by religious hatred, as though it were an incontrovertible fact, is shocking. You can’t legitimately infer from the case as of now that the killer was motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment. Having

does not justify the use of false propaganda.

We need to realize that ends-justify-the-means rhetoric sets dangerous precedents and repurposes fanatical logic that has led to innumerable atrocities throughout history. We need to respect the intelligence of the masses we are trying to sway and show them facts. We can denounce Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment by accurately depicting facts with which the public can engage.

Why falsely cry wolf now when demonstrable wolves exist and will exist in the future?

Take, for instance, the fact that hate crimes against Muslims have jumped five-fold since 9/11, according to a Washington Post article citing data from the FBI. Though these hate crimes are rarely murders, this statistic shows that intimidation and violence are a reality for many American

We can denounce Islamaphobia and anti-Arab sentiment by accurately depicting facts with which the public can engage. an inkling does not warrant such a bold assertion.

Though it might appear hate-crime believers are only making innocuous overstatements — after all, the reasoning goes, the killer is a scumbag who deserves any criticism we can throw at him — what they’re doing is actually more harmful than they think. Prematurely labeling the incident a hate crime sensationalizes and foments an unproductive uproar from the previously uninformed, and now misinformed, masses. As a result, the facts — the firm foundation on which productive dialogue rests — are confused, turned into shifting sands, thereby miring constructive debate.

Even if the goal of the claims is to create a public conversation about minorities’ human rights, which I agree is a noble cause worth pursuing, it

Muslims. To make things more concrete, we don’t have to look any further than West Warwick. Over the weekend, the Islamic School of Rhode Island was vandalized with orange spray paint covering its doors reading, “‘Now this is a hate crime’ and ‘pigs,’ along with expletives referring to the prophet Muhammad and to Allah,” according to the Providence Journal. These are just a few of the many facts we can appropriately use that speak to the injustice Muslims face in the United States today.

Moreover, drawing attention to the legitimate fear felt by Muslims across the United States because of gratuitous Islamophobic reactions to 9/11 — and, more recently, to the shootings in France and to the film “American Sniper” — is a more ac-

curate way to appeal to the general public’s emotions and convince them that people’s basic human right to feel safe where they reside is being violated.

The demand for level-headed assertions is not limited to some hasty social justice advocates.

American people generally, including those most susceptible to the fear-mongering television news channels, need to be open-minded and willing to accept reason as the basis of their sentiments toward others. We cannot let fear dictate our everyday actions and conversations.

It is all too predictable that, after a terrorist attack somewhere, ignorant people will indiscriminately alienate Muslims, not recognizing that for every belief, there are wingnuts whose views are in no way representative of the entire group.

Failure to understand this, and failure to call people out who commit these irrational generalizations, allows hate to thrive. It marginalizes communities that have a rightful place and play a valuable role in America. To those fanatics with whom the humanity argument doesn’t resonate, I say: Your zealotry ultimately fuels the very thing you single-mindedly try to prevent — terrorism.

Impulsivity and lack of reflectiveness are never excusable, no matter the hardship and how natural it is to fall prey to them. They lead to hatred like Islamophobia. And as much as people may balk at the assertion, they lead to assumptions of antiMuslim motives in the Chapel Hill shooting. To prevent these undue reactions, our goal should be to have debates over the controversies of our time rooted in reason and reason-checked emotions.

Nick Asker ’17 can be reached at nicholas_asker@brown.edu

SPORTS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015

SPORTS COMMENTARY

Angry ‘Thunder’-storm shakes the NBA With chip on its shoulder, Oklahoma City looks to silence doubters and return to NBA finals

By JAMES COHAN SPORTS COLUMNIST

In the NBA, like in so much of popular culture, new rules the day. Something bursts onto the scene and sucks up all the air. For a while it is everywhere and everything. Then, one day, it stops being cool. And just like that, its “thing” — whatever made it fresh and exciting, that made people stop, pay attention and want more — is just “meh.”

In the NBA, nothing excites like a new group of stars — a Super Team — awkwardly trying to combine powers without trampling one another. I can’t remember anything in sports that has generated the torrent of feeling that swirled around LeBron, Wade and Bosh at all times during their first two years together. It was often hard to tell what exactly it was: some boiling mixture of hatred, awe and fascination. But what was undeniable was its intensity, the force with which it pervaded every basketball discussion.

The Heat are the best example but certainly not the only one. The early Pierce-Garnett-Allen Celtics years dominated the league’s headlines. Lob City was cool for a little while. Following the Kobe-Dwight Lakers was like staring wide-eyed at a train careening toward a cliff. Even Amar’e and Melo had their moment.

Young players — the potential franchise saviors we know so little about — are just as gripping. Imagine how far the watchability of the Timberwolves would plummet if Wiggins got hurt. His thin shoulders are the only things separating the Timberwolves from “Fun Team To Check In On” to “The Team That’s Unfortunately On Your TV That Night.”

For another example, look no further than the earthquake that was this year’s NBA trade deadline. The onslaught of movement, players crisscrossing the nation until the map was nothing but a scribbled mess, generated more excitement in a few hours than all of the actual games played this season combined.

For a few years, the Thunder were firmly entrenched in the cool category.

They were Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka and James Harden. They were talent. They were youth. New city. New name. The Thunder were it.

But the league changed around them, and they pretty much stayed the same. They traded Harden, who went on to become one of the league’s six best players. They added a few role players and got rid of a few.. They drafted some young guys and watched as those guys became pretty good or not so good.

After making steady progress — going a little further in the playoffs each year, culminating in their 2012 Finals loss to the Heat — injuries struck, and they took a few steps back.

At some point it became fact: The Thunder were stale.

Why watch the Thunder when you can watch Steph Curry and Klay Thompson rain threes? Why watch the Thunder when you can watch Kevin Love stand helplessly in the corner as LeBron drives to the hoop? Why watch the Thunder when you can watch the Wizards and Raptors fight to make the leap in the East, or watch Rose try to climb the mountain back to superstar status and return the Bulls to glory, or watch the Mavericks or the Rockets or the Bucks or just about anything else?

With change happening so fast, the Thunder have become the league’s biggest constant after the Spurs. That’s certainly not bad company. But unless you’re really an NBA nerd, it’s not making you jump out of your seat.

To tell the truth, I was never all that in on the Thunder. They were cool, I guess, but in a distant “Western Conference Team That Doesn’t Affect My Life” kind of way. When they met the Heat in the 2012 Finals, I desperately wanted LeBron to win his first title and silence the haters. But after the Heat’s riveting seven game series against the Celtics — which hit an emotional peak in Game 6 when LeBron responded to the threat of elimination by strolling onto the Garden floor and scoring every time he got the basketball — the five-game Thunder series was a relative snoozer.

So when the prevailing feeling toward the Thunder turned into apathy, I nodded my head in approval.

Then, a few weeks ago, I saw the light.

I was reading a Grantland article in which the author linked to a video circling around the Internet of the “Four Five Seconds” music video, interspersed with clips of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. One of those weird videos some fan with way too much time on his hands spends hours putting together. It’s a masterpiece.

Kanye starts his verse:

“Woke up an optimist.”

Kevin Durant looks calm as ever, expression blank.

“Sun was shining I’m positive.”

Russell Westbrook grins his gigantic grin.

“Then I heard you was talking trash.”

As Kevin Durant walks down the court, he turns suddenly and makes an angry gesture.

“Hold me back I’m bout to spaz.”

Russell Westbrook, laying under the basket after taking yet another blow driving into the lane, bangs the floor angrily.

“Yeah, bout four, five seconds from wildin.”

Sold. Sign me up. Where do I buy my Westbrook shirt?

Look, new is fun. But ultra-talented with something to prove is better than fun. And if one thing became clear to me while listening to Kanye narrate Durant and Westbrook’s emotional journey, it’s that the Thunder have had enough.

They’re not so young anymore.

The steady progress that was their hallmark lays shattered. So enough being the perfect son. Enough being soft-spoken, humble, doing things the right way. Time to be mad.

All the attention. The criticism.

The creeping doubt. The “Russell Westbrook shoots too much” digs. The “Kevin Durant’s too nice” comments.

The “they shouldn’t have traded James Harden” noise. Enough.

This is the Thunder in 2015. It’s Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.

It’s two of the five best players in the NBA. It’s two guys that will never mesh perfectly, but who are forever linked. It’s two brothers. And if they’re the eighth seed, they’re going to be the most terrifying eighth seed you’ve ever laid eyes on. They’ll walk into Golden State, or Memphis, or into the arena of whatever team has the misfortune of earning the one seed this year, and they’ll skip the niceties and go straight to throwing haymakers.

Over the All-Star break, Durant was asked what storylines he would like the media to focus on more. His response: “To be honest, man, I’m only here talking to y’all because I have to, so I really don’t care. Y’all not my friends. You’re going to write what you want to write. You’re going to love us one day and hate us the next.”

So don’t like the Thunder. Be bored by them. Say the rest of the league has passed them by. Keep fanning the flames. The post-Yeezus Thunder era has begun.

Fact and fiction in “Interstellar” This article is the second in an ongoing series, Science at the Cinema, that explores research and researchers portrayed in film.

BY ANDREW JONES SCIENCE & RESEARCH EDITOR

“Interstellar,” the story of a perilous space journey, is a must-see film for its grand visual effects and far out ideas that bend space, time and the filmgoer’s mind.

The film, which received five 2015 Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar for best visual effects, places its characters in a future world that is nearly depleted of nutrients. Desperate to propagate the human race, a team of astronauts launches a mission to find a distant, potentially habitable planet. The main character, Cooper — played by Matthew McConaughey — leads the space travelers through a wormhole that eventually dumps them in deep space near an enormous black hole called Gargantua.

Though the laws of physics allow the astronauts to explore the far reaches of the universe, the same laws also end up creating immense social tension between the characters. Gargantua’s massive size causes gravitational time dilation, making time progress more slowly for the astronauts than it does for people on Earth. Strained by space and time, Cooper’s Earthly relationships deteriorate as his daughter ages more quickly than he does, eventually surpassing his own age.

Professor of Physics Brad Marston said the film’s representations of various physical phenomena seemed to be generated from a “gradient of speculations,” with some aspects of the movie being more scientifically plausible than others. The elongation of time is a well-known corollary of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and the makers of Interstellar represented the distortion of time accurately with their portrayal of Gargantua, he added.

But other parts of the film, such as its representation of a higherdimensional tesseract in which Cooper can observe instances — like the aging of his daughter — throughout time, are supported

only by theoretical, not experimental evidence, Marston said. Though the possibility of a universe with more than four dimensions is consistent with current theoretical physics, the movie “takes this to an extreme limit,” he added.

The movie also capitalized on some interesting physical extensions of mathematical possibilities, but many of them were not grounded in realism, said Professor of Physics Ian Dell’Antonio.

For instance, traveling through a wormhole is theoretically possible according to relativity, but the necessary conditions have not actually been observed in the universe, he said.

“A plot where the astronauts find a wormhole that can’t be traversed isn’t very interesting,” Dell’Antonio added.

Kip Thorne, a renowned theoretical physicist, was hired as the scientific consultant for the film and provided the scientific knowledge necessary to portray the largescale phenomena in Interstellar.

Marston, who was a student of Thorne’s, said he could see Thorne’s influence on the movie. It was apparent that the producers of Interstellar “strived much harder” to maintain scientific accuracy than the directors of other science fiction films, Marston said.

Though the filmmakers went the extra mile to increase scientific accuracy, they deliberately deviated from the truth at times, Dell’Antonio said. When Thorne worked out the math behind the visual imagery one would experience while traveling through a wormhole, it was too boring, so the filmmakers chose to enhance it for the viewers’ sake, Dell’Antonio said.

When talking to his colleagues about the film, Marston said he noticed that each professor had a criticism that was targeted at their particular field of expertise. For example, one person who primarily studies black holes found Gargantua to be problematic, while a geologist he talked to questioned the distant planet’s physical makeup.

Despite any stretches of scientific truth, a positive side effect of the movie is that it could enhance young students’ interest in physics, Marston said.