NYU’s Daily Student Newspaper
washington square news Vol. 40, No. 11
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012
nyunews.com
Hawk cam soars into educational role
New law to raise minimum wage
NYU plans to reinstate the Hawk Cam, according to the university spokesman John Beckman. A camera called the Hawk Cam began streaming the activity of two red-tailed hawks outside Bobst Library last spring. To monitor the birds and their eggs, the camera was placed near the nest of Violet, named after NYU’s school color, and Bobby, named after Bobst. The live feed from the Cam was available on livestream.com. However, it shut down in August because the birds were no longer living in the nest. Beckman said the university would like to take this opportunity to learn more about the red-tailed hawks. “We’ve actually been talking with prominent wildlife and bird organizations about coming in as partners,” Beckman said. “Experts [can] do Q and As on-site and do feature pieces or blog posts about behaviors that you expect to see from red-tailed
New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver proposed a new bill to raise the state minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 per hour last week. The 17 percent increase would make New York’s minimum wage the third highest in the country, after Washington and Oregon. The bill would also raise the minimum cash wage for tipped servers from $4.60 to $5.86 an hour. “Corporate profits of low-wage employers are soaring while the wages of working people remain stagnant or are eroding in value,” the Manhattan Democrat said in a press release, citing the latest Census data that almost one in two Americans have fallen into poverty. For CAS sophomore Dylan Iannitelli, who makes $7.25 an hour as a lab assistant at the Biology Department, his part-time job is
By Emily Smith
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By Justina Lee
Liam Cotter for WSN
New Yorkers rally to save Tibet Chants and song filled Union Square as 500 protesters gathered in solidarity of the Free Tibet movement yesterday. Dubbed the #tsamparevolution, the movement advocates against China’s controversial occupation of Tibet. The latest stage of the protests ignited when a young Tibetan monk set himself on fire yesterday in China. Word spread quickly on Twitter, and activists gathered in support of Tibet’s large-scale demonstrations. — Hanqing Chen
Professor recognizes Gay novelists By Nicola Pring
Gallatin professor Christopher Bram describes his new book, “Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America,” as a happy accident. With nine fictional novels under his belt, Bram said beginning his first non-fiction book was quite different. He didn’t known where to start. “One day, a friend of a friend called me, asking for some information on the literary history of gay writing in the 1950s and ’60s,” Bram said. “I gave him a kind of Gay Lit 101 talk, and he said, ‘This is great stuff. Where can I read it?’ I realized no such book existed.” Bram began to research and write about some of the most prominent gay writers from the World War II era through the end
of the 20th century. Among the featured writers are James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg and several other novelists, playwrights and poets. “It’s interesting how many of them knew each other,” Bram said. “Some were friends and some were enemies, but their paths would cross.” Bram’s publisher at Twelve Publishers, Cary Goldstein said, “What distinguished this book for us was Chris’ ingenious decision not to write a work of literary criticism, but to use his skills as a novelist to weave these disparate lives into one dramatic, unfolding narrative that utterly reframes the way we think about gay writers and writing.” Bram began work on the book just after he joined the faculty parttime at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2008. He con-
ducted most of his research at Bobst Library, where he read the work of the writers he was studying, as well as biographies, magazine articles and book reviews. He taught a Gallatin advanced writing course called Lives in Brief for the first time just before he started his research. The class teaches students the art of writing short biographies in different forms. “[The class] was almost like preparation for this book,” Bram said. In addition to Lives in Brief, Bram teaches a class called Writing About Film. “I like Gallatin because the students are really interesting,” Bram said. “They write well. [My students] are self-starters. They have their own ideas and drive, and they’re
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‘In Darkness’ respects its characters with style By Jeremy Grossman
“In Darkness,” Poland’s submission for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, is undeniably reminiscent of “Schindler’s List.” Both are Holocaust-centric films about men who grow out of their selfishness in order to rescue a persecuted group. Despite the similarities in plot, “Darkness” is boldly directed with style that feels less like a retread and more like a tribute to films that challenge the norm. Director Agnieszka Holland takes her audience deep into the sewers of Poland, where sewage worker Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz) risks his life to protect a group of Jewish runaways.
via sonyclassics.com
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