Thursday, February 15, 2018

SINCE 1891

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018

VOLUME CLIII, ISSUE 17

Guy Benson talk provokes student criticism Event sparks discussion about free speech, communication in context of political correctness

By KATHERINE BENNETT SENIOR STAFF WRITER

In the face of student pushback and criticism, Guy Benson, conservative journalist and author, argued that “weaponized political correctness” has stifled free speech in the Petteruti Lounge Tuesday during a discussion titled “The Millennial Conservative: A Conversation with Guy Benson.” The event was hosted by the Brown Republicans and co-sponsored by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the Young America’s Foundation and the Brown chapter of the American Enterprise Institute.

During the event, Benson said liberals use claims of micro-aggressions and privilege as well as trigger warnings to squash productive conversations with conservatives. “I want to talk about why they’re legitimate and why there’s a kernel of truth (in these tactics) and why

we think it’s maybe been pushed a bit too far,” he said.

Benson went on to discuss situations in which he felt that these tactics were overused. Citing the study of an unnamed Ivy League professor who found micro-aggressions sometimes involved “insults so slight and subtle that neither party fully understood what just happened,” Benson said he could loosely define micro-aggressions as “anything that offends anyone for any reason.”

Benson said that “rolling your eyes at overexpanded micro-aggression hypersensitivity” is not rude; however, in general, conservatives “should still be nice to people and treat them nicely even if you think they’re too sensitive.”

The discussion then shifted to the “overuse” of trigger warnings, which Benson said had “mutated into something weird and damaging.” Benson referenced an incident in a North Carolina bar where a DJ was fired after refusing to comply with a woman’s request to stop playing the song “Blurred Lines.” The song was subject to intense criticism and controversy for containing lyrics with undertones of sexual violence, the » See BENSON, page 2

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Tarana Burke discusses #MeToo Leader of movement engages in conversation about its beginnings, larger picture

By LYDIA DEFUSTO SENIOR STAFF WRITER

“#MeToo is just so simple,” said Tarana Burke, founder and leader of the movement, during an event at the Salomon Center for Teaching Wednesday evening. “It is really just a conversation starter,” Burke said. “Or, (it can be) the whole conversation.”

The discussion on the creation and future of the #MeToo movement, entitled “#MeToo: What’s next in healing and activism, a conversation with movement founder Tarana Burke,” was moderated by Assistant Professor of History Emily Owens, whose area of expertise includes the history of sexuality and slavery, according to her research profile.

The event “was a wonderful success,” Owens told The Herald. “Tarana Burke is an extraordinary human being and a real model of organizing and also just graciousness and delightfulness.”

The #MeToo movement “envisions

SAM BERUBE / HERALD

Co-hosted by RISD and Brown, Tarana Burke addressed the community, expanding on the past, present and future of the #MeToo movement. intersectional survivor-centered solidarity for people of all races, classes, genders and abilities,” according to the event’s website.

“This is a movement that’s about healing,” Burke emphasized. The phrase “comes from a place of trying to connect.”

With over a quarter of a century’s worth of experience as an activist,

Burke is also the founder and director of Just Be, Inc., which she created in 2006. This “youth organization (is) focused on the health, well being and wholeness of young women of color,” according to its website.

“My heart is the heart of an organizer,” Burke said. She explained how her interest » See BURKE, page 3

UCS discusses campus of consent bill U. addresses student accessibility concerns Administration, SEAS work to improve access, faculty specialization for those with disabilities

By CORAL MURPHY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

MELANIE PINCUS / HERALD

The Undergraduate Council of Students met with representatives from various student groups such as the African Students Association and the Class Coordinarting Board to discuss changes to the Campus of Consent Bill.

Recognizing limitations of previous bill, group moves to mandate stronger changes for clubs

By MELANIE PINCUS SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students discussed changes to the Campus Consent Bill with members from several Category III student groups at its general body meeting Wednesday evening.

Representatives from the Sexual Assault Peer Education program,

INSIDE

Shakespeare on the Green, the African Students Association, the Class Coordinating Board and the Brown Noser attended the meeting. Establishing partnerships between UCS and such groups will be important for the Campus Consent Bill’s success, said UCS President Chelse-Amoy Steele ’18.

“It’s really important to me personally that we are creating something together that will actually be able to have a longstanding impact,” she said.

The bill, which UCS passed in a unanimous vote last spring , mandates that a liaison from every Category III student group receives training from

SAPE by the end of spring 2018 in order for the group to maintain its funding and classification. Category III student groups have access to funding from the Undergraduate Finance Board above the baseline $200 amount provided by the Student Activities Office, according to UCS’ website.

A proposed amendment to the bill eliminates the liaison position. Instead, the new bill would require that groups alter their constitutions to outline how they will work to prevent and respond to incidents of interpersonal harm within their groups. It would also mandate that » See UCS, page 4

Following the implementation of the University’s Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan and the creation of departmental and administrative DIAPs, the University has demonstrated progress in addressing accessibility-related issues on campus, said Catherine Axe ’87, associate dean and director of Student and Employee Accessibility Services.

Over the past year, academic and administrative departments have been working with SEAS to “make sure the … physical accessibility (of their buildings) is increased,” Axe said.

Most notably, the University has taken steps to make Wilson Hall — a building that previously held 40 percent of University classes — accessible to students with disabilities, she said, citing ongoing renovations.

SEAS is also in the process of

creating a checklist for departments to reference so that they can “independently look at their own space(s) … to make adjustments in the areas that lack accessibility and a sense of inclusivity,” she added.

At the same time, a digital offshoot of the Campus Access Advisory Committee, which works to resolve issues facing students with disabilities at Brown, was created to improve the accessibility of technology on campus, Axe said.

These “working groups are part of having greater visibility and better reach when it comes to having (favorable) outcomes,” she said.

Components of the University’s DIAP and DDIAPs — such as the University’s goal to hire more faculty specialized in disability studies — have helped raise awareness of accessibility-related issues on campus, Axe said. While the University does not recognize disability studies as an official concentration, students have still pursued these courses, creating independent concentrations from American Sign Language and speech pathology class offerings, she added. » See SEAS, page 2

WEATHER

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018

ARTS & CULTURE App “Snackpass” brings convenience, social component to students, locals ordering food

SCIENCE & RESEARCH Researchers receive DARPA funding to develop connected neural devices

COMMENTARY Friedman ’19: Don’t allow displays of unity to soften the reality of North Korea’s regime

COMMENTARY Okin ’19: Effective activism begins with displaying signs of humanity in everyday actions

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NEWS

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ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SPRING PRIZES 2018 Betsy Amanda Lehman ’77 Memorial Award for Excellence in Journalism 1st prize $1200 2nd prize $500

Casey Shearer Memorial Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction 1st prize $1000 2nd prize $500

(Hard news pieces and entries over 3000 words will not be considered.)

PRESTON GURNEY PRIZES Literary Criticism Cultural Criticism Literary Criticism of Fiction of Poetry st st st 1 prize $3500 1 prize $3500 1 prize $3500 nd nd 2 prize $1800 2 prize $1800 2nd prize $1800

Entries must be submitted online at: http://www.brown.edu/go/english-prizes-2018

by 3:00 pm on Thursday, February 22, 2018. *ONE ENTRY PER COMPETITION.* *NO HARD COPIES OR LATE SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED.* *ESSAYS THAT HAVE PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED AN ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AWARD ARE NOT ELIGIBLE.*

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» BENSON, from page 1 Guardian previously reported. Benson said the woman was worried because the song could have been triggering for guests at the bar. “A DJ fired for playing the number one song in America, … not because someone was triggered, but because some might have been triggered,” he said.

Benson then qualified his original statement, adding that he acknowledged the existence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among “people coming back from war (and) people ... who are survivors of sexual assault.”

“This is a real psychological phenomenon that we should be sensitive to,” Benson said.

In the discussion, Benson also accused liberals of using claims of privilege to exclude white, cisgender men from conversations. It’s important to “recognize that white, cisgender men have enjoyed a position of immense privilege in our society (for) basically forever (and) … sometimes at the subjugation of other people,” he said. But Benson is concerned “when privilege hierarchy and privilege scolding turns a corner into ‘your type has had your say, so shut up,’” he said.

The discussion also included an opportunity for attendees to direct questions toward Benson. One attendee questioned Benson’s depiction of micro-aggressions by pointing out the “power dynamics” and the “systems of oppression” at work within such acts.

In his response, Benson referenced the golden rule and that ultimately “a lot of it does come down to ... trying to treat people with respect and dignity and keep in mind that their worldview and

their experience might be different than yours,” he said.

“Some people are wanting to be offended by things, and this is not only on the left … just jumping down peoples’ throats for saying things slightly wrong or micro-aggressing,” he added.

Several Department of Public Safety officers were present at the event. While the event unfolded smoothly, the Brown Republicans received criticism and pushback from members of the Brown community before the discussion, said Ethan Shire ’19, president of the Brown Republicans .

On the day of the event, a student collective published an open letter on the website of Bluestockings Magazine, condemning the University’s decision to host Benson. In the letter, students wrote that they predicted Benson would “make arguments in support of the freedom of any person to make hateful, oppressive or damaging remarks based on their constitutionally-protected right to free speech.”

“So often, popular conversations around free speech focus on the right of people with power or who hold privileged identities to espouse hateful rhetoric which actively makes others less safe. Rarely do these mainstream conversations on free speech consider the urgent need for people of color and other marginalized people to speak back against systems of oppression for their own self-preservation,” according to the letter.

Chiara Wadsworth Arellano ’20, one of the letter’s signatories, said that she believes that freedom of speech and allowing different perspectives to come forward is important. But Benson’s politics of free speech “supports structural violence,” she said.

One of the event’s co-sponsors, the Young America’s Foundation, has also received criticism over the past year for sending incendiary conservative speakers to liberal college campuses and has been questioned for sponsoring events that are “cynically intended to provoke reaction,” the New York Times previously reported. Last year YAF sponsored conservative pundit Ben Shapiro’s visit to the University of California at Berkeley.

“Since Brown University refuses to fund conservative speakers or support ideological diversity, YAF stepped in to help the conservative students at Brown host an event with Guy so students could hear, for once, an articulation of conservative ideas,” wrote Spencer Brown, the spokesperson for YAF, in an email to The Herald.

However, the University contests YAF’s view. “Members of the campus community are free to invite any speakers,” said Brian Clark, director of news and editorial development. “The assertion that Brown does not host speakers from a wide diversity of views is just patently false.”

“If you look at the line-up of events on campus for just about any week during the semester that is abundantly clear. … Members of the community are allowed to express a wide range of perspectives and they grapple with some of the most challenging issues that we’re all facing today in society,” he added.

Addressing the accusations levelled at YAF, Shire said the criticism was “blatantly unfair.” “It’s more that they’re bringing speakers who embody conservative values who come and then they spark protest. … I know they have some speakers that are probably more fiery and antagonistic, but (Benson) doesn’t really fall under that,” he added.

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» SEAS, from page 1

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In the DDIAP for the anthropology department, students and faculty chose to prioritize accessibility for students with disabilities, said Anna Stacy ’17, a former anthropology student who helped create the department’s DDIAP. Given the lack of physical accessibility in two of the department’s buildings, students and faculty requested “assistance from SEAS staff members, arranging for them to visit our buildings and advise us on the challenges the buildings present and changes we might make to mitigate those challenges,” according to an online version of their DDIAP.

“Just because you say you want a certain group to be there, doesn’t mean they’re actively encouraged to be there. That’s the key difference between diversity and inclusivity,” Stacy said.

The Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity has also aided SEAS in its efforts to make Brown more accessible for students with disabilities, wrote Shontay Delalue, vice president for institutional equity and diversity in an email to The Herald.

“Ensuring that individuals of all groups, including all ability statuses, thrive at Brown and are equipped with resources and tools for success is absolutely a goal of the DIAP. Therefore, OIED’s role is to help guide SEAS in

implementing its plan, while relying on SEAS to set achievable goals,” Delalue wrote.

In light of these changes, Axe said a shift has clearly occurred in the way the University is addressing accessibility issues affecting students with disabilities. “Whether we can attribute that to the specific, broader University plan alone or the individual departments, I think that University plans trickle down and then we see active response in the departments.”

But, SEAS still recommends that the University continue to support disability-related issues in the future updates of the University’s DIAP and DDIAPs, Axe said.

NEWS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018 • PAGE 3

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

» BURKE, from page 1 in social justice issues started at a young age. “I had all of this racial pride in my community,” she said, as she discussed her family’s influence on her. Burke’s grandfather, for example, gave her the book “They Came Before Columbus” when she began learning about slavery in school, and she had access to her mother’s personal library full of literature by authors like Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.

Burke realized she wanted to be an “organizer” in 1989 when she became involved with the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement’s response to the racially-charged Central Park jogger case. Donald Trump, who Burke later referred to as the “orange cloud,” bought full-page ads in several newspapers to reinstate the death policy in New York State in light of the case, according to a Guardian article. Burke called Trump’s involvement in that situation, and his current activity, a full-circle.

Burke also emphasized the importance of “the system” when discussing the many recent high-profile sexual assault allegations and potential solutions. “A person like Harvey Weinstein doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” she said.

Audience member Heidy SantosValencia ’19 appreciated Burke’s emphasis on the importance of regular and continual work in order to make social movements successful. Movements are “a constant thing,” Santos-Valencia said.

Despite receiving hate mail and death threats, Burke stressed the importance of continuing her work. “It is worth the risk because I don’t know if I’ll have this opportunity again.”

“The visibility is something I’m trying to navigate,” Burke said when discussing her rise to fame. Up until recently, she said she had been largely “behind the scene.”

Laura Costa, who is on the board of the Rhode Island chapter for the National Organization for Women, attended the lecture. “I’m always looking for other people’s perspective on things, especially people who are different from me in a number of ways,” she said. “It’s a topic that is both personal and professional for me.”

Throughout the event, Burke spoke about the importance of younger generations to the movement, and discussed the ways in which they inspire her. “I really like to talk to young people directly on the campus,” she said, adding that it is significant to her to try to “help young people navigate how to respond to the movement.”

Burke said that it’s “still really difficult to have community-based conversations about these issues.” Activists must address how to take “this wonderful dialogue (occurring in academia) and bring it to the community.”

“There’s so much curiosity on this campus and there’s so much desire for change,” Owens told The Herald. “I think (Burke) has deep wisdom and experience and she shared that with us in often really concrete and specific ways.”

The lecture was co-hosted by the University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Sponsors included the Brown University Office of BWell Health Promotion, Office of Campus Life and Student Services, Watson Institute, Office of Institutional Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Office of Residential Life, Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, according to the event’s website.

Food app Snackpass expands to Providence Food pickup app helps Thayer Street restaurants reach students, permits users to share gifts

By ANNABELLE WOODWARD SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The food pickup app “Snackpass” arrived in Providence Jan. 24 with the goal to help locals order food electronically from Thayer Street restaurants such as East Side Pockets, Vivi Bubble Tea and Pokeworks.

The app “lets you save time because you can order ahead and skip the line.

You can save money because there are tons of student discounts,” said Jamie Marshall, a Yale student and one of the app’s founders.

The app has a social component that facilitates interactions between friends.

“Every time after you order, you get a bonus stamp that you can send to a friend. If it was your birthday, I could send you your favorite smoothie,” Marshall said.

Snackpass was launched in spring 2017 by Marshall, Kevin Tan, who attended Yale, and Jonathan Cameron, who attended Ohio State. According to Tan, who came up with the idea for the app and codes its back end, Snackpass was the lovechild of “procrastination during finals” and “trying to impress a

girl who really liked Tropical Smoothie Cafe.”

“I was trying to think of ways I could send her gifts from Tropical Smoothie Cafe, … so that turned into the gifting part [of the app,] where you can send people gifts from their favorite restaurants.”

The app was launched with little to no external funding, and its marketing was remarkably “grassroots … just flyers and talking to people,” Tan said. “We didn’t have any funding or anything, but I think that forced us to get creative and figure out what people actually wanted,” he added.

Between student discounts and social engagement, it seems like Snackpass has succeeded in figuring out what students want. Less than a year after its launch, the app has made over 600,000 sales and 80 percent of Yale undergraduates are active users, according to Tan. Marshall, a neuroscience major who grew up in Providence, explained that they’ve decided to expand to Brown because “it’s a great place, [has] a very walkable campus and is a similar size to Yale.”

“We launched about a week and a half ago, but we have about 800 users from Brown ­— but also RISD, Providence College and even some of the local high schools,” Tan said. “Brown has great vibes,” he added.

Snackpass aims to help local

TIFFANY DING / HERALD

Founders of the app aim to boost business for local Providence eateries.

Snackpass is set to expand further into Boston in the near future. restaurants reach the student market and receive business on slow days.

Marshall explained that food-delivery companies like UberEats can take up to 30 percent commission on each transaction, meaning that restaurants lose money by working with them.

Snackpass “is so small compared to that (so) it’s a welcome commission,” Marshall said. “It’s a pick-up app, not a delivery app, so that helps us stand out.”

Since partnering with Snackpass, “we’ve definitely seen some new faces,” said Kai Li, the part-time manager of Vivi Bubble Tea. “People from downtown are realizing there’s another bubble tea place (on Thayer).”

While Li was enthusiastic about

Snackpass, he suggested that digital orders can be stressful for him and his coworkers when the store is busy, “We can’t just ignore the people in the line, so sometimes (app users) have to wait longer,” Li added.

Reflecting on his experience as a young entrepreneur, Tan said: “you don’t need the funding especially these days where software is essentially free.

The most important thing is to build a product and get users first, and then try and get the funding if you need it, but not the other way around.”

Tan and Marshall mentioned that their “next move” is to bring Snackpass to students in Boston and, eventually, “the whole world.”

“I, Tonya” skates over quality despite buzz Biopic features multifaceted narrative, sacrifices proper analysis of Harding and her story

By DANIEL WAYLAND ARTS AND CULTURE CRITIC

Plenty of ink had been spilled about “I, Tonya” before it arrived at Thayer Street’s Avon Cinema, where it is currently enjoying a run. Unsurprisingly, my critic’s log line — ­­ that “I, Tonya” is a messy biopic buoyed by stellar performances from its leads – reads like a template into which you could plug and place nearly half of the modern cinematic canon. Nonetheless, the template fits “I, Tonya” like a glove.

Margot Robbie and Allison Janney have received critical acclaim from both highbrow media corners and the awards circuit for their portrayals of disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding and her mother LaVona Harding, respectively. Strip away those performances though, and you are left with a film that fails to properly tap into the storytelling goldmine of one of the most seminal moments of 90s popular culture.

For those who are unfamiliar, “I, Tonya” draws its source from the infamous 1994 attack on the beloved American figure skater (and rival to Tonya Harding) Nancy Kerrigan.

Harding’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly,

played by Sebastian Stan, eventually confessed to planning the assault and implicating Harding in the plot. The film relies on interviews from many of the drama’s primary instigators, remagining the incident from Harding’s perspective. Director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Steven Rogers allow Harding’s life to unfold through a series of talking-head testimonials, which weave together a complicated and ultimately inconsistent portrait of the controversial figure skater and her alleged role in the kneecapping of her competitor.

In forcing audiences to reconsider one of pop culture’s great villains, Gillespie and Rogers move the film into a well-worn cinematic sweet spot — one ripe for a thoughtful character study. Moreover, the existence of a real Tonya and LaVona covers most of the creative heavy lifting, as they provide vivid and wildly singular vessels through which Robbie and Janney can map their presences on screen.

Yet “I, Tonya” ultimately disappoints in its narration of Harding’s life, as its attempt to problematize the villainous portrayal of the eponymous athlete leads to an empathy for its protagonist that ultimately feels misplaced, if not necessarily unearned.

“I, Tonya” sites the locus of that empathy in the abusive and antagonistic relationship between Tonya and LaVona. Janney’s portrayal of LaVona is a model of callous malevolence, firing

off explicit invectives and often inciting physical harm upon her daughter during her formative years. The film establishes Harding as a perpetual victim of abuse, as her mercurial relationship with Gillooly oftens leaves her bloodied and bruised. This angle of Harding’s life was largely absent from her criminalization in the media, even though it provides deeply rooted cycles of violence that are worth exploring carefully and thoughtfully. Gillespie and Rogers’ darkly comedic approach, however, obscures this pattern of domestic abuse. At times, these many scenes of domestic violence feel like a cheap storytelling trick ­— a surface tactic employed to suggest that Harding was not guilty of her purported role in the Kerrigan attack, but a superficial one lacking depth.

In its intent to rewrite Harding’s story, “I, Tonya” too often hesitates to question its protagonist’s viewpoint.

Though it employs an overlapping perspectival storytelling style, the film

often unfairly handles the narratives of every character other than Harding.

Though the talking-head perspective is a neat technique that proves sometimes successful and often times quite funny, all “I, Tonya” can muster in its inquisition of Harding is to have Robbie repeat some variation of “it wasn’t my fault.” While these moments feel like a half-hearted attempt to establish Harding as the classically misunderstood antagonist, the film more often leans into the idea that Harding was the real victim of the 1994 attack.

“I, Tonya” still offers plenty to enjoy. The script’s dark and biting humor gives the film a jaunty beat, and Gillespie’s alternating takes on Scorcese and Soderbergh make for entertaining cinema. Moreover, Robbie’s visceral and humanizing turn as Harding provides one of the year’s best performances. Ultimately, though, I left the theater disappointed that a film that had received legitimate Oscar buzz could suffer so many missteps.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH PAGE 4 • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Researchers receive grant to record neural activity DARPA grant to fund potential medical solutions to physical injury, lost hearing

By KENDRICK TAN SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Funded by a grant of up to $19 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the University will lead an international team of scientists to create an implantable wireless brain interface system. The project aims to develop a system able to record neural activity at an unprecedented level for potential medical applications.

“We’re trying to build better ways of interfacing computers to the human brain so that we can help restore lost movement for people who have an

» UCS, from page 1 a student leader from each Category III student group attends a training. Groups must prove that they have amended their constitutions and completed training before their recategorization or re-registration process, Steele said.

Changes to groups’ constitutions should establish “an action plan so that not only are you being proactive on the front end and thinking about how interpersonal harm can manifest within your student group, but also being able to actually address those issues when they

injury, or lost vision or hearing,” said Lawrence Larson, dean of engineering and co-investigator of the project. “To do this, we have to be able to track the activity of many regions in the brain.”

The funding is coming from DARPA’s Neural Engineering System Design program, which aims to develop interfaces that allow “data transfer between the brain and electronics” and which may one day become “capable of mitigating the effects of injury and disease,” according to its website.

In addition to members of the University, the team includes researchers from the University of California at San Diego, the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford University, Qualcomm, the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering and IMEC, an international research group based in Belgium.

The funding will be distributed to the team over four years. “At the end of the four years, our goal is to have functional, implantable procedures and devices that have been tested in animals and (are) ready to go through FDA testing, so that (they) can used in humans,” said Farah Laiswalla, a senior research associate in engineering at the University.

Laiwalla also mentioned the unprecedented scale of this project, in terms of the large scope of the brain that is being analyzed. “What is novel about this project is that instead of building a single, monolithic implant, which is something that we’ve done in the past, (it) is trying to build a distributed network, almost like an internet type of network approach to implants in the brain,” she said.

One of the key parts of this project

is the development of very small, wireless devices the researchers call neurograins. “These tiny sensors have all the electronics you need and their own wireless link. We plan to put hundreds of thousands of these into the brain,” Laiwalla said.

The wireless system will be able to both record and stimulate neural activity through electrical signals, according to a University press release.

This will allow researchers to better understand how the brain reads signals from the world. Researchers hope that this knowledge may one day be applied for medical purposes.

“We can transmit data from the outside world into the neurograins that stimulate the neurons. That could potentially project sound or image to those who are deaf or blind,” said Vincent Leung, technical director of the

Circuits Labs at UC San Diego, where some of the project’s technologies will be tested. The process could also “potentially help a paralyzed person move their prosthetic arms just by thinking.

This is the bidirectional communication that is an important part of this project.”

“This project is very ambitious,” Larson said. This grant allows researchers from many different countries and disciplines to work together to better understand singaling activity in the brain, potentially changing the lives of millions of people in the world who have lost limbs. “We hope that this technology will enable this to happen in the future, and we hope that we, through this project, will have had made a significant step forward for these healing types of applications,” Larson added.

come up,” Steele added, addressing the representatives from the student groups.

There will be six trainings available for student leaders to attend. “These trainings are going to be hosted by UCS, but the actual teaching and education that would take place during the workshop would be done by the people who are already doing interpersonal harm prevention work on campus,” Steele said. This could include members from SAPE or the Social Justice Peer Education Program.

The training structure under the previous version of the bill required that a designated liaison from each student

group attend a three-hour training with SAPE and then host a connected training with their group, The Herald previously reported.

However, SAPE was not equipped to provide all types of training desired by student groups, said Ryan Anderson ’18, SAPE’s UCS Coordinator.

“The SAPE program is designed to talk about sexual-based violence or gender-based violence, and parts of our curriculum went into other parts of power (and) privilege, … but there are certain groups on campus … that want to learn about how race is a system of

oppression,” Anderson said. “With this new model, we’ll be working with other student groups as well.”

Members of the general body also discussed the limitations of UCS’ influence in mandating broad training and conversations within student groups concerning interpersonal harm.

“That’s something where I would go back and build onto the language of the bill to say that this is something that we really encourage, ... (but) that won’t be something that we can be accountable for, which is a drawback,” Steele said.

UCS also distributed copies of a

template for a clause to remove a member from a student group. New student groups or groups applying for recategorization from Category II to Category III will be required to include the distributed clause or a version of it in their constitutions.

“This is just a template, and we thought that it’d be helpful for groups to have that, and we encourage groups to change it to fit their needs,” said William Zhou ’20, chair of the Student Activities Committee.

UCS will hold its next general body meeting Feb. 21.

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THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

menu

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SATELLITE DINING ANDREWS COMMONS

Pizza: BBQ Bam Bam, Meatball, Provolone, Rosemary Gridner, Pho Car, Poke Bowl JOSIAH’S

BLUE ROOM

Chicken Wings Bar Mac and Cheese Bacon Burger

Turkey Chili, Minestrone Soup, Chicken Tikka Masala

DINING HALLS SHARPE REFECTORY LUNCH

DINNER

Six Bean Soup, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Cachupa, M&M Rice Krispie Treats

Yogurt Bread, Bratwurst, Mustardy Potatoes, Angel Food Cake with Tangerine Glaze

VERNEY-WOOLLEY LUNCH

DINNER

Country Wedding Soup, Spicy Pepper Pulled Chicken, Pork Adobo, Ranger Joe Cookies

Cream of Mushroom Soup, Pork Adobo, Roast Turkey with Gravy, Yogurt Bread

sudoku

RELEASE DATE– Monday, April 16, 2012

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Edited by Rich c rNorris o s sandwJoyce o rNichols d Lewis

ACROSS 1 Puts behind bars 6 Opera headliners 11 Dairy creature 14 Stan’s sidekick, in old comedy 15 Call forth 16 Hubbub 17 Dish that’s thrown together?

19 Fix a button, say 20 PDQ, in the ICU 21 “__ I a stinker?”: Bugs Bunny 22 Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa 24 Belted out 26 __ B’rith: Jewish org.

27 Phone bk. info 30 Where 6-Across often are when performing 35 Most of 34Down’s surface 37 Sugar suffix 38 Visiting Hollywood, say 39 Protective feature of most power strips 43 Ticklish Muppet 44 Bearded grassland grazer 45 Rib cage locale 46 Wall protector near a room entrance 50 Campfire residue 51 Catches some Z’s 52 Musical work 54 Traveler’s entry document 55 Woman’s sleeveless undergarment, for short 57 Watchman’s order 61 Tasseled headgear 62 One who follows tornadoes ... or an apt description of the starts of 17-, 30-, 39- and 46Across 65 Get along in years 66 “Casablanca,” for one 67 Protein-building acid 68 Low-quality 69 Make off with 70 Liberal voter, slangily

DOWN 1 Scribbles (down) 2 “That’s __ of hooey!”

3 “Casablanca” heroine 4 Leans to port or to starboard 5 “Get it?”

6 Draw up plans for 7 “Fathers and Sons” novelist Turgenev 8 Chevy’s plug-in hybrid 9 Rap sheet abbr.

10 Some Avis rentals 11 The Volga River flows into it 12 Dedicated poetry 13 “Holy guacamole!”

18 Copenhagen native 23 Not quite timely 25 Skin breakout 26 Uncle Remus title 27 Hard-__: very strict 28 Eye-related prefix 29 Spoke from the pulpit 31 Refresh, as a cup of coffee 32 Psychic hotline “skill,” briefly

33 Shine 34 Fifth-largest planet 36 Old Greek markets 40 Capt. saluters 41 “__ momento!”

42 Neutral shade 47 Cricks and tics 48 Saddle knob 49 Sweeping in scope 53 Disgrace

54 Folk singer Suzanne 55 Sheltered inlet 56 “The Marriage of Figaro” highlight 58 “In your dreams!”

59 Pre-Easter time 60 City tricked by a wooden horse 61 “Marvy!”

63 Trike rider 64 Actor Holbrook

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

SAM BERUBE / HERALD

A view from the banks of the Providence River offers a scenic look at the city skyline. The river, eight miles in length, runs through the heart of the city and separates the downtown from College Hill.

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

“Brown has great vibes.”

— Kevin Tan, Snackpass co-founder

See snackpass on page 3.

xwordeditor@aol.com

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Meeting the ClimateChange Challege 4:30 P.M. IBES, 130

Classics Lecture: Nandini Pandey 5:30 P.M. Rhode Island Hall, 108

Brown Outing Club Spring Meeting 7:00 P.M. MacMillan, 117

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Nationalism and Immigration Policy 5:30 P.M. List Art, 120

Shabbat Services and Dinner 6:00 P.M. Hillel

COMMENTARY PAGE 6 • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

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COMMENTARY THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018 • PAGE 7

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

Kindness is a powerful form of activism tivism, we are attentive and determined and firm. However, when we simultaneously display an inability to properly respect our surroundings, we suggest that our intense care does not extend to the somewhat simpler measures that better our local communities.

We fight for social causes that pro-

REBECCA OKIN staff columnist

After a year that even the creators of South Park found impossible to parody — with “satire becom(ing) reality” — current events have lost their ability to shock us, and something of a formula has formed. As attentive and impassioned students, we see the way things are, we measure our dissatisfaction, we react. But a realization struck me last month as I witnessed the conglomerate of pink that consumed streets and social media feeds across the nation, this year’s Women’s March. Robust voices engulfed cities, an undeniable sense of community buzzed … and the garbage can on the corner of 72nd Street was totally overflowing. Those passing by seemed to dismiss the swamp of wrappers, signs and napkins that cluttered the surrounding concrete and instead threw their water bottles about three feet away from the actual trash can.

I found a symbolism in this sight that has been difficult to shake. It poses a question that is hard to ignore: Are we hyperfocusing on certain issues and thereby ignoring crucial others — in this case, the basic decency that comes with throwing out one’s trash properly? In our ac-

can we retain our credibility in our spirited marches and fiery debates?

I worry about the collateral damage of this hyperfocused mindset — one that neglects the necessity of practicing in our daily lives the values for which we march. In nearly three years at Brown, I have encountered more thrilling rallies and im-

a classmate rather than walking right past them are two of the many ways we can foster an environment of the same kindness we strive to create in the rest of the world. Rather than being trivial, these seemingly smaller acts are what will, incrementally, build the community we are trying to shape. They give us an opportuni-

If we aren’t being kind to our dorm neighbors and classmates and lab partners, how can we retain our credibility in our spirited marches and fiery debates?

mote inclusivity and generosity and try to ensure that all human beings are treated with dignity and respect.

We need to make sure we are advocating for these very themes in our everyday lives at Brown and thinking just as much about individual impact as changing the world. If we aren’t being kind to our dorm neighbors and classmates and lab partners, how

passioned speeches than I ever had in the eighteen years before. At the same time, I have observed the metaphorical overflowing trash cans of our campus: members of such a socially aware student body neglecting each other or foregoing opportunities to be kind to those around them.

Taking the time to thank Brown Dining Services workers or to say hi to

ty to make tangible change and improve ourselves every day. Moreover, the impact that they have far outweighs the minimal effort that goes into them.

I don’t say this to minimize the aims of monumental and urgent social movements, which extend much further than the steps I lay out here.

I am constantly blown away by the

power of my peers’ activism. The care we put into these endeavors is nothing short of amazing. However, I do think that if we want to become better activists and people, we should also expend some of this energy locally on our supposedly mundane interactions with the people around us. Kindness won’t dismantle the systemic inequalities that pervade our society and inspire us to action, but it can have a profound impact on an individual’s life. On a campus where it’s easy to feel ineffective or invisible, you never know how much the smallest effort on your part can mean to someone else. We should hold ourselves to the same standards of commitment, every day, that we demand of ourselves in our vital marches.

How we treat the people around us is not secondary to how we fight for larger causes; rather, it can bolster our ability to be inclusive and mindful in our activism. This activism is essential, but if we lose our values amid these efforts, we might forget what grounded us in these core beliefs in the first place.

Rebecca Okin ’19 can be reached at rebecca_okin@brown.edu.

Please send responses to this opinion letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

Showmanship is not diplomacy ANDREW FRIEDMAN staff columnist As Shaun White is becoming a household name again for the first time in four years, I can finally say with confidence that the Winter Olympics are back in full swing. White, whose back-to-back 1440-degree spins won him his third career gold medal in the men’s halfpipe Wednesday, represents the fourth American gold medal winner thus far in the Pyeongchang games. Oddly enough, the other three American golds also came from snowboarders: Red Gerard and Jamie Anderson for slopestyle and Chloe Kim for halfpipe. As two of the American golds came from historically-young Red Gerard and Chloe Kim, both 17 years old, Brown students who are 18 years and older have to ponder what they’ve actually accomplished with their extra years.

But the Pyeongchang Olympics are historic not only for the impressive athletic performances underway, but also for their significance in the possible unification of the divided Korean Peninsula. The Olympics are theoretically apolitical but notoriously political anyway, and the 2018 Olympics are no different. Concerningly, North Korea has seized this moment in an attempt to whitewash its inhumane regime by making inauthentic gestures at diplomacy.

North Korea did not hold back with its unanticipated showmanship as it deployed a platoon of cheerleaders this past Monday in support of the joint Korean women’s hockey team in its match against Sweden. In addition, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

sent his sister, Kim Yo-jong, (also known as “North Korea’s Ivanka Trump”) as an emissary to sway the opinion of South Koreans during the opening ceremony and hockey match. Of course, the Trump administration could not remain consistent — Vice President Mike Pence disrespectfully remained seated during a standing ovation for the joint Korean hockey team on Sunday, while just two days

Korea has been woefully successful. The governments of South Korea and the United States were charmed into forgetting that North Korea still practices public executions and starves its citizens long enough to initiate peace talks. Kim Yo-jong even achieved a measure of internet fame for the “deadly sideeye” she apparently gave Vice President Pence, leading many on social media to overlook her

If North Korea wants to improve its international standing, it should take steps toward genuinely improving its citizens’ quality of life by reducing censorship, promoting human rights and ending its warmongering campaigns rather than by partaking in meaningless and distracting pseudodiplomacy.

later President Trump entertained the idea of t=alks with North Korea despite its resistance to eliminating its nuclear stockpile. This inconsistency only plays into North Korea’s hands as it continues its propaganda campaign to curry international favor throughout the Olympics.

As Frank Bruni thoughtfully pointed out in a New York Times column this week, this public relations routine on the part of North

complicity in her brother’s dictatorship.

Why is this allowed to happen? Whether Korean reunification is a good idea or not is a different matter, but the Olympics should not serve as the propaganda platform that launches the discussion. North Korea should have to entice the United States and South Korea into peace talks on its own political merit, not on the beguiling charm of a last-minute diplomat. Though I don’t want to be dramatic, I

am tempted to say “now more than ever” — it seems as though the subtext of the Olympics has never overshadowed the underlying athletic achievements more than now. The coverage of North Korea’s new public image has been just as dominant as that of the sports results, medal counts and athlete biographies that usually comprise most Olympic coverage.

The Olympics have been used to paint authoritarian regimes in a less threatening light before. When Nazi Germany hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Adolf Hitler utilized the platform as a way to sway international opinion in favor of his anti-Semitic, white supremacist ideals. Eighty years later, though North Korea is not the host of these games, Kim Jong-un is similarly attempting to soften his reputation and that of his government by taking advantage of the South’s initiative to present a more unified vision of the peninsula.

If North Korea wants to improve its international standing, it should take steps toward genuinely improving its citizens’ quality of life by reducing censorship, promoting human rights and ending its warmongering campaigns rather than by partaking in meaningless and distracting pseudo-diplomacy.

The United States, and the rest of the world, should accept nothing less than tangible change when considering further cooperation with this volatile, authoritarian state.

Andrew Friedman ’19 can be reached at andrew_friedman@brown.edu.

Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2018

Climate change thawing Cold War-era nuclear waste Nuclear, chemical waste unfreezing in Greenland, posing potential diplomatic issues

By EUGENE HRABARCHUK CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Once a military and scientific research base in Greenland during the 1960s, Camp Century is now abandoned with all of its wastes — including chemical, radiological and physical — left frozen, assumedly for eternity. But with temperatures rising in northern environments, there is concern of remobilization of the wastes, spelling implications for who is responsible for the removal and how it will affect the surrounding environment. A study that includes a University researcher examined the potential implications this has for the environment and diplomacy.

While the base “never had nuclear weapons on the site,” the scientists did have a nuclear “test reactor … to see how it would react in that cold of an environment,” said Joseph MacGregor, co-author of the study and deputy project scientist at NASA Operation IceBridge. The reactor was removed, so the true concerns are the wastes that were left behind, MacGregor added.

The major concern, based on current research, is that the toxic compounds known as PCBs being released at the base are “problematic for animal and human

health,” said Jeff Colgan, co-author of the study and associate professor of political science and international studies. According to the study, “persistent organic pollutants, including PCBs, are one of three broad classes of chemical toxins of global significance.”

While these chemicals are of definite concern to the researchers, there are currently no civilizations or animals relatively close by. “The area is quite isolated, and the issue is that the PCBs will get into the water and trickle out into the ocean water that is nearby,” Colgansaid. This makes the issue more global, affecting the larger environment over time, he added.

“Right now, it’s still cold enough that far inland that you don’t really get much melt at all, and the snow just builds up year after year,” explained Mike MacFerrin, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Colorado and co-author of the study. However, “by about 2090, give or take, the amount of melting will exceed the amount of snowfall,” and the chemicals will be exposed to the environment, he said.

Because of the site’s proximity to nuclear waste, it is the first time Deborah Gordon, director of the Energy and Climate Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and senior fellow in international and public affairs at the University, has seen climate change reveal problems publicly regarding a country’s political operations, specifically relating to nuclear development, she said.

MacGregor confirmed that addressing the waste leads to many “unresolved questions,” especially about “who ought to pay for this, what the cost may be and how quickly that it has to be addressed.”

Potential conflict could arise because the site was a U.S. military base built from a treaty with Denmark. But now with Greenland gaining far more independence, there is a strong question of who is responsible for the waste. “There is no easy way to clean it up,” and this leads to a “potential source of political conflict between the United States, Greenland and Denmark,” MacGregor said.

“Neither the (United States) nor Denmark has officially accepted responsibility at this point, and there is a legal treaty that seems to spell out responsibility, but like all legal treaties, especially old ones, there is a certain amount of ambiguity,” Colgan said.

Gordon said nations should look beyond just single cases of expenditure because “you end up having societies that are having big costs — those actual physical costs and also social costs imposed on them.”

This issue will be a recurring problem throughout the next 90 years, as Camp Century is just one of many abandoned sites with probable pollutants waiting to be uncovered, MacFerrin said. The project that included Camp Century also involved three other sites, with some “already melted out, so the pollution is already on the surface, but there is a lot less of it, so it is less of a concern,” Colgan said.

DAPHNE ZHAO / HERALD

“There are other sites on the coast of Greenland, some of which (are) operated by the United States, some by Denmark,” which have rusting drums of unknown materials still present, MacGregor said.

Camp Century’s earliest research was on ice and the environment and contributed to the understanding of impending climate change, MacGregor said, adding

that he hopes more people will learn about the research that has come out of the sites but also the impeding issues they now face.

“Camp Century is much more than just a military experiment and a declined military idea. It was also a significant scientific research outpost, and the amount of data they collected is huge and continues to this day,” MacGregor said.