T H E O L D E ST C O L L E G E DA I LY · FO U N D E D 1 8 7 8
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 91 · yaledailynews.com
INSIDE THE NEWS MORNING EVENING
CLOUDY RAINY
37 39
CROSS CAMPUS Love songs. Assistant
professor Sarah Demers was treated to not one, not two, but three singing valentines during her “Physics of Music” class Monday. As members of the Yale Slavic Chorus and of a cappella group The New Blue serenaded Demers with love songs, Demers looked embarrassed but “dealt with it well,” a tipster who took photographs said.
EATING RIGHT PEABODY LOOKS AT ROLE OF FOOD
CONTRACEPTION
EXPERIMENTAL ART
W. TENNIS
Students, religious leaders weigh in on national debate
ARTIST DISCUSSES FUSION OF MUSIC AND IMAGE
No. 25 Bulldogs roll to consecutive victories on Arksansas road trip
PAGE 6-7 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
PAGE 3 CITY
PAGE 5 CULTURE
PAGE 12 SPORTS
Dongguk lawsuit to proceed to trial AFTER FOUR YEARS, $50 MILLION CASE AGAINST YALE WILL HEAD TO COURT THIS JUNE BY DANIEL SISGOREO AND TAPLEY STEPHENSON STAFF REPORTERS A $50 million lawsuit filed against Yale by South Korea’s Dongguk University will proceed to trial in June, following a
Friday ruling by a Connecticut federal judge. The ruling is the latest development in a legal saga that began in March 2008, when Dongguk sued Yale for first confirming that the professed doctorate degree of
Dongguk art history professor Shin Jeong-ah was real, and then claiming the error had never occurred. The story drew national attention in South Korea and led to the resignations of Dongguk’s president and board of trustees. Over the past four years, Dongguk’s lawyers have argued that Yale was negligent both in failing to verify the authenticity of a letter confirming Shin’s degree and in subsequently
denying the mistake. Though Yale has twice attempted to have the case dismissed, the second motion — which argued that Dongguk’s lawyers did not have sufficient evidence to argue their claims — was denied Friday and a trial is now scheduled for June 4. Robert Weiner, an attorney at New York law firm McDermott Will & Emery which is representing Dongguk, called the ruling a “big event” for
Yale. “This means there will be a trial, and it means that many of [Yale’s] senior administrative officials will be serving as witnesses for a trial that will be covered internationally,” Weiner said. “I guarantee to you that the Korean press will be there in droves.” The case filed against Yale had three claims: the University SEE DONGGUK PAGE 4
Flower lady gets competition.
A temporary stand selling roses appeared at the corner of York and Elm streets Monday.
BARNEY FRANK SPEAKS OUT
Support groups to form
Stop, thief! Students eating
in the Ezra Stiles dining hall on Monday were greeted by “valentines” posted on the walls exhorting them to return missing dishware. One read: “Roses are red/Violets are blue/Our silverware and china are MISSING/Can it be you?”
BY DANIEL SISGOREO AND CAROLINE TAN STAFF REPORTERS
No more Sex Week. Sex Week
2012 wraps up today with the last event in a faculty lunch series and a 6 p.m. talk by “pleasure activist” and sexologist Carol Queen. True Love Week held its last event on Sunday, but members of Undergraduates for a Better Yale College are encouraging students to go on traditional dates tonight.
Get tested. Sex Week’s STI testing drive ends today. HIV and general STI testing will take place in WLH 309 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Perks for good teaching.
Two professors were awarded DeVane Medals at a Phi Beta Kappa banquet Monday, in recognition of their commitment to undergraduate teaching. Peter Brooks, a professor emeritus of comparative literature, and Kang-I Sun Chang, a professor of East Asian languages and literatures, were chosen to receive the prize by the graduate members and undergraduate members of Phi Beta Kappa, respectively.
Trouble in Davenport. After
windows in Davenport’s common room were smashed, the lock to the Davenport Dive was broken and the college’s seminar room was trashed this weekend, Davenport Master Richard Schottenfeld is considering banning parties in the college until students come forward with information about the incidents.
Graduate and professional students who are victims of sexual assault will soon have access to a new confidential support group, organized by the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education Center.
SEXUAL MISCONDUCT
Submit tips to Cross Campus
crosscampus@yaledailynews.com
ONLINE y MORE cc.yaledailynews.com
nally proposed in October, is modeled after the one that Princeton uses. The YCC first brought photos of the Princeton laundry system to Yale Facilities last fall, Sheth-Shah said, and after receiving positive reviews from the pilot in Silliman this semester, YCC members presented the idea to individual college masters. He added that Yale Facilities is financing the initiative. “All the colleges have signed onto this system, and now it’s just the process of having the bins installed durSEE LAUNDRY PAGE 4
SEE SHARE PAGE 4
YALE COLLEGE DEMOCRATS
FRANK DISCUSSES ISRAEL, LOOKS FORWARD TO RETIREMENT Thirty two-year veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.) spoke to a crowd of about 200 Monday night, touching on themes ranging from gay rights to foreign policy. Known for his outspokenness, Frank also declared that he was eagerly anticipating leaving public life. See story on page 3.
Fundraising begins in Singapore BY TAPLEY STEPHENSON STAFF REPORTER Though the University is not contributing to Yale-NUS fundraising efforts, the Singaporean college has raised roughly $16 million in donations, National University of Singapore President Tan Chorh Chuan said Friday.
YALE-NUS Tan and the NUS Office of Estate and Development are currently handling fundraising for the jointly run liberal college — efforts Yale decided to forgo as a logical extension of the Yale-NUS founding agreement, which states that Yale will not pay for any of the college’s costs,
University President Richard Levin said. Though no formal campaign is in place and philanthropy toward universities is a less common tradition in Singapore than in the United States, Tan said many NUS alumni and benefactors have shown interest in contributing to the new college. “While the culture of giving to universities here is not as well established as in the United States, it is gaining traction in recent years,” Tan said in a Friday email. “There is growing excitement and buzz around Yale-NUS, and we are encouraging donors to help contribute to the establishment and growth of this important [program].” Tan said the fundraising strategy has mainly targeted Singaporean donors so
THIS DAY IN YALE HISTORY
1964 A News poll finds that after the publication of a government report on smoking in mid-January, at least half of smokers at Yale attempted to change their habits, switching to pipes and cigars, or gum, instead of cigarettes. “Our English class used to look like a political caucus, now it looks like the Bazooka Clubhouse,” one sophomore said, describing the change.
Lyvonne Briggs DIV ’12, who worked with SHARE Director Carole Goldberg to create the group, said she hopes the new initiative will provide a place where graduate and professional school students can comfortably discuss and cope with sexual assault experiences. The new group comes as SHARE works to expand its influence on campus and serve as a primary resource for students facing issues of sexual misconduct. “To be a graduate and professional school student at [Yale], you’re under so much pressure, and those pressures are exacerbated by any type of internal struggles that may be going on caused by sexual assault,” Briggs said. “If you have a 25-page paper due, and you keep having flashbacks about getting raped two years ago, you just can’t focus.” Briggs said she hopes the program will begin by March after Goldberg conducts initial interviews with participants — a standard procedure for students seeking SHARE’s services. She added that she expects the group to meet twice per month on different weekdays to accommodate interested students’ schedules. Briggs said the group will be led by a licensed therapist and provide a sense of community that is often hard to find in the graduate and professional schools. Whereas undergraduates have immediate access to a larger community through the residential college system, she said students at other schools might have trouble finding a similar layer of support. “I know a lot of times, people can go to a hospital or some type of doctor’s office and feel a little clammed up or uncomfortable, or not as free,” she said. “Our space is different because it’s not going to be quite as ‘clinical.’” Briggs said she approached Goldberg about the possibility of creating a sexual assault support group late last month, adding that she thought the group would help students recognize that they are not alone in their struggles with overcoming past experiences of sexual assault.
far, and prioritizes unrestricted gifts and donations earmarked for financial aid and professorships. American donors can donate to the Singaporean college through Yale’s Office of Development, but University Vice President for Development Inge Reichenbach said Monday that her office is not seeking donations and no donors have approached her about giving to Yale-NUS. At this point, the roughly $16 million donated has only included one major gift, Levin said. Several Singaporean companies donated $9.3 million in honor of Singaporean businessman J.Y. Pillay in January, Levin said, which will fund two professorships, a fellowship and financial SEE YALE-NUS PAGE 4
Pilot laundry system to expand BY SOPHIE GOULD STAFF REPORTER A new Yale College Council initiative aims to keep students’ freshly washed laundry off the floor. The program, which was piloted in Silliman College this semester, will install cubbies, plastic bins and whiteboards in every residential college by next fall in an attempt to keep laundry rooms better organized, YCC President Brandon Levin ’13 said in an email. Many students interviewed expressed frustration that clothes are often
strewn across college laundry rooms, and they said they supported a system for managing clothes left in machines. “This program was created to formalize and make easy the transfer of clothes,” Levin said, explaining that clothes left in machines can get lost or dirty when other students remove them to make room for new loads. With the new system, students can place abandoned clothes in a basket and use the whiteboard to indicate from which machine they came, he said. YCC Treasurer Archit Sheth-Shah ’13 said the system, which was origi-
PAGE 2
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011 · yaledailynews.com
OPINION
.COMMENT “In the future we’ll restrict all political discussion to the topics of Justin yaledailynews.com/opinion
Bieber and the Jonas Brothers.”
‘RIVER_TAM’ ON ‘CPAC SMITTEN BY MITT, MARCO’
Sex in space: the Freedom in the modern state final frontier T
P
ity the columnist forced to publish on Valentine’s Day. My loyal readers don’t usually expect insightful commentary on love and related matters; after all, my true love is science policy, which is generally a lousy turn-on. Perhaps a compromise exists: sex in space. In fact, human spaceflight is on a collision course with virtually every flashpoint of modern sexual politics. Early astronauts were straightlaced representatives of civilized America. They attended church regularly with their happy wives and children and otherwise embodied the Right Stuff, at least as far as the public knew. Starting with Project Mercury and continuing through the space shuttle program, missions were tightly choreographed affairs with popular perception as prized as any technical goal. But the marketing of the astronaut as paladin cannot last. When people are working in space for years — or shorter stays just for fun — they will want to have sex. So far, with their missions in mind, astronauts have resisted the urge. With longer missions being planned, however, Congress must eventually appropriate taxpayer dollars for NASA to accommodate sexuality. But the first people to have sex in space will likely pay their own way. Robert Bigelow, who owns the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, founded Bigelow Aerospace in 1998 to feed the emerging demand for expandable spacecraft and space stations. Their current production mode can to host up to six people in spacious luxury with better protection from radiation and micrometeorites than the International Space Station. Prototype spacecraft have been orbiting Earth since 2006, and Bigelow hopes to begin charging rent as soon as 2016. Most of Bigelow’s clients will be researchers and national space agencies, but tourists will eventually flock to space. Soon, people will be doing the sorts of things they do in Bigelow’s budget hotels. Something about altitude is an aphrodisiac, and an inflated space habitat is more comfortable and exotic than, say, an airliner lavatory. People might shrug off the canoodling of playboy space tourists, but everyone will scrutinize the amorous adventures of astronauts on the federal payroll. For long-duration space missions, sex cannot simply be treated with a wink and a nod; it must be either nonexistent or dealt with openly, beginning with the initial spacecraft designs. Either alternative requires unpleasant decisions. While astronauts are able to abstain from sex during sixmonth jaunts to the space station, the thought of withdrawing from this basic human activity for years is unbearable. NASA could invest in drugs that would prevent debilitating levels of arousal. After all, some birth control and antidepressant medications suppress libido. However, dosing people
with enough chemicals to suppress an urge as fundamental as hunger reads like a dystopian novel. We might as JOSEPH launch O’ROURKE well robots with human faces. Space Cadet But what if we sought to facilitate sex instead of preventing it? Sex is straightforward on Earth, at least physically, but satisfying earthly urges in space requires specialized hardware. Newton’s third law of motion says that if you exert a force on a person, then the person will exert an equal and opposite force on you — isn’t physics fun? Now, Earth’s gravity normally resists this reactionary force. Space is not as kind, leaving two options: have lame sex or strap yourself in something like a two-person Snuggie. The need for sex is thus a design requirement calling for the attention of engineers and mission planners. Bringing even a strap — not to mention a multi-year supply of contraceptives — to space requires building storage and inventing specialized procedures. Ironically, astronauts would need to be very professional about managing the need for sexual release without compromising interpersonal relations and common trust. Imagine training for that! On a more serious note, medical necessities for women on long-duration spaceflights are straight out of Rick Santorum’s nightmares. Many female astronauts rely on various forms of contraception to avoid disrupting training and to suppress menstruation in space. For voyages on which returning quickly to Earth is impossible, astronauts must have the capacity to perform medical abortions. Pregnancies in space would be unacceptably hazardous. Everything from an ectopic pregnancy to many common complications could be fatal. Conception would still be unwise in a spacecraft equipped with modern obstetrics and neonatal facilities because preliminary research indicates that microgravity increases the risks of birth defects. Human spaceflight would require enshrining abortion in federal policy with federal funding for the first time. Only in space does the messiness of human interaction meet humorless engineering and keen public attention. Matters that are normally dealt with in private are judged by the public and voted on by Congress. Although these policies would only directly affect the lucky few who travel the cosmos, a frank discussion of these issues would benefit us all. JOSEPH O’ROURKE is a senior in Silliman College. His column runs on alternate Tuesdays. Contact him at joseph.orourke@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS PUBLISHING CO., INC. 202 York Street, New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 432-2400 Editorial: (203) 432-2418 editor@yaledailynews.com Business: (203) 432-2424 business@yaledailynews.com EDITOR IN CHIEF Max de La Bruyère MANAGING EDITORS Alon Harish Drew Henderson ONLINE EDITOR Daniel Serna OPINION Julia Fisher DEPUTY OPINION Jack Newsham NEWS David Burt Alison Griswold CITY Everett Rosenfeld Emily Wanger FEATURES Emily Foxhall CULTURE Eliza Brooke
SCI. TECH Eli Markham SPORTS Zoe Gorman Sarah Scott ARTS & LIVING Nikita Lalwani Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi Chase Niesner Erin Vanderhoof MULTIMEDIA Christopher Peak Baobao Zhang MAGAZINE Eliana Dockterman Molly Hensley-Clancy Nicole Levy PHOTOGRAPHY Zoe Gorman Kamaria Greenfield Victor Kang
PRODUCTION & DESIGN Sophie Alsheimer Mona Cao Raahil Kajani Mason Kroll Cora Ormseth Lindsay Paterson Yoonji Woo
PUBLISHER Preetha Nandi
COPY Illyana Green Nathalie Levine
BUSINESS DEV. Lily Mu
LEAD WEB DEV. Mike DiScala
DIR. FINANCE Albert Chang DIR. PRINT ADV. Matthew Hoffer-Hawlik
DIR. ONLINE BUSINESS Max Cho
ILLUSTRATIONS David Yu
PRINT ADV. MANAGER Sophia Jia NATIONAL ADV. MANAGER Julie Kim ONL. DEV. MANAGER Devon Balicki ONLINE PRODUCT MGR. Gwendoline Tilghman SPECIALTY MARKETING MGR. Gabriel Botelho
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sam Greenberg INSIDER’S GUIDE Hai Pham
THIS ISSUE COPY STAFF: Maggie Brown PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS: Jake Allen CROSS CAMPUS: Antonia Woodford EDITORIALS & ADS
The News’ View represents the opinion of the majority of the members of the Yale Daily News Managing Board of 2013. Other content on this page with bylines represents the opinions of those authors and not necessarily those of the Managing Board. Opinions set forth in ads do not necessarily reflect the views of the Managing Board. We reserve the right to refuse any ad for any reason and to delete or change any copy we consider objectionable, false or in poor taste. We do not verify the contents of any ad. The Yale Daily News Publishing Co., Inc. and its officers, employees and agents disclaim any responsibility for all liabilities, injuries or damages arising from any ad. The Yale Daily News Publishing Co. ISSN 0890-2240
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
SUBMISSIONS
All letters submitted for publication must include the author’s name, phone number and description of Yale University affiliation. Please limit letters to 250 words and guest columns to 750. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit letters and columns before publication. E-mail is the preferred method of submission. Direct all letters, columns, artwork and inquiries to: Julia Fisher, Opinion Editor, Yale Daily News http://www.yaledailynews.com/contact opinion@yaledailynews.com
COPYRIGHT 2012 — VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 91
he political brouhaha over a government mandate for coverage of contraception continues. On Friday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rejected President Obama’s compromise proposal, arguing that pregnancy is not a disease and that those with moral or religious objections to various forms of birth control should not be compelled to sacrifice their principles. The administration counters that contraception is a vital element of medical care that patients have a right to expect from their health care providers. Furthermore, they insist that religious coercion is not at issue here. After all, religious organizations may still practice however they please; only religious organizations that wish to receive government funding to perform public charitable work must play by the government’s rules. Underlying the conflict is a deeper question: What does freedom mean in the context of the modern welfare state? This may seem like a silly question. Whenever libertarian crazies like Ron Paul or Grover Norquist ascend their soapboxes to preach that big government is a gargantuan beast that crowds out our liberties with its sheer size, I roll my eyes. What does size of government have to do with personal freedom? Good governments protect liberties; bad governments violate them. Size doesn’t factor in. I never understood how anyone could object to money for social wel-
fare programs, schools and medical care. R e c e n t events have demonstrated precisely where the problem lies. YISHAI modern SCHWARTZ The welfare state has created The Gadfly a new zerosum game between public values and personal freedoms. A government that played no role in health care could remain neutral with regard to contraception. But when taxpayer dollars are a central source of support for the nation’s health care and the government uses the power of its purse to maintain basic standards and protect consumers, the state cannot help but take a stand. It must either fund these groups or deliberately reject them. There is something twisted about a state that collects taxes from Catholics and shuts down Catholic hospitals because they practice medicine in accordance with the dictates of Catholicism. Surely governments need not employ Christian Scientist doctors who refuse to practice medicine altogether, but to gut hospitals that provide state-ofthe-art care and simply do not provide contraceptives seems absurd. In displaying inflexibility on the peripheral aspects of a job rather than focusing on the substantive core, the state unjustifi-
ably violates the liberty and conscience of providers. At the same time, if government fails to mandate coverage for birth control, a service the vast majority of the American public sees as a necessary feature of health care, it fails to protect consumers. Nor is this a unique occurrence. In Illinois, Massachusetts and elsewhere, Catholic adoption agencies have shut down rather than cave to the government’s demand that they tacitly endorse same-sex marriages and child-rearing. In England last year, a high court decision that found Jewish day schools in violation of nondiscrimination regulations (the schools define Jewishness traditionally, by lineage and formal conversion rather than faith and practice) threatens to destroy an entire community’s school system. For libertarians, the solution to this catch-22 is as simple as it is fanciful: scale back the size of government to 18th-century levels. If governments don’t fund adoption agencies, health care or education at all, then they have far less regulatory power. Ta-da — no more problem! But most of us realize this sort of far-sweeping solution is both untenable and undesirable. Government-created programs are entrenched in citizens’ expectations and corporate strategies, and no one has the political capital to work against this widespread public support. But even if we could shift these expectations, would we want to? State
safety nets protect those who are most vulnerable, and the patchwork of private charities that operate in the absence of government lack the resources and the organizational reach to offer comparable services. In the face of this conflict, most people have simply given up. They have resigned themselves to the necessity of government arbitrarily drawing a line where religious freedom must give way to public interest. But throwing up our hands ultimately betrays limited thinking and a woeful political laziness. We need not choose between women’s easy access to contraception and religious freedom of genuine believers. The real solution lies in government working to supplement existing programs, allowing citizens access to the services they need while institutions continue to offer only the services they can faithfully provide. We need not compel Catholic charities to do as we wish; we simply must ensure that alternative options exist. Let new programs provide contraception, and let the Catholic hospitals get on with the good work that fills 99 percent of the public’s health care expectations. Government should view its role as filling in gaps, not engineering changes in believers’ practice. YISHAI SCHWARTZ is a junior in Branford College. His column runs on Tuesdays. Contact him at yishai.schwartz@yale.edu .
S TA F F I L L U S T R AT O R K A R E N T I A N
Meme Family Night
G U E S T C O L U M N I S T D AV I S N G U Y E N
Matchmaking on Valentine’s Day A
year ago, my girlfriend and I drove to the base of Stone Mountain in Georgia. We spent two hours hiking up the three-mile trail to the mountain’s peak. At the top, we set up a picnic and shared a meal as we watched the sun set. In the fall, we would head in different directions. She would stay in Georgia; I would not. College brought opportunities to meet new people. We agreed that a long-distance relationship would not be in our best interests, but that at the end of that summer we would still be close friends and still have countless memories, and if we were truly meant to be, it would work itself out. Since coming to Yale, I have had a few dates, but there is no one at the moment I could say is ma petite amie or mi novia. For those of us who will not be giving or receiving love letters, kisses or singing Valentines today, Valentine’s Day could seem like Single Awareness Day. But being single isn’t as bad as my favorite movie genre might have you believe. The name Valentine comes from the Latin valens, which means “worthy, strong, pow-
erful.” People who are single exhibit those traits every day. I realize that being single has given me more time to explore new hobbies and develop old ones. Since my last relationship, I have picked up a few new hobbies like learning card tricks, experimenting with chiromancy and even joining a dance group. When I do find that special someone, I will know new activities for us to enjoy together. When you are single, you discover what makes you happy. You are free to meet new people and date freely if you wish. In your spare time, do you want to have movie nights with friends, take random trips to New York or even indulge in “The Hunger Games”? If you can’t be happy about yourself, can you really expect to be happy in a relationship? While my grandmother would say it is way too early to think about marriage or my love life, I must admit that, sometimes, I do wish I had someone special to spend a Friday night watching “50 First Dates” with, someone to read the little love notes I leave under her pillow or someone who I could tell about
my day, goals and worries. Of course, I have my friends, but it’s just not the same. For those who are still hoping to find love or someone close at Yale, realize that even if you have not found a close friend, hope is not lost. Two weeks ago, I was still frantically searching for screw dates for three of my friends. After hours of failed phone calls and text messages, I turned to Facebook. With a simple post, I was blasted, in just under an hour, with about 40 offers, each describing roommates’, suitemates’ or even the poster’s personalities, pastimes and preferences. I created a Google Doc and sent it out to the whole freshman class. I would help others in my position find screw dates. When I closed the application two days later, I had over 140 requests. Five of my friends and I read through each response, and we were amazed at how diverse everyone’s interests were. But even more amazing was the number of people with similar interests who did not even know each other. We paired them together.
We put the poster who wrote, “I am a girl taking two physics classes, looking for someone who loves math and science,” with the “Guy taking multiple 300-level math courses. Looking for person who likes to talk about math and science.” The one who said, “My suitemate loves dance and theater” went to screw with “My roommate is a dancer.” While the pairings my friends and I made are not in any way soul matches, we realize that there are plenty of Yalies out there who would be instant friends if they ever knew the other existed. So to the Yalies who post on YaleFML looking for a hookup, a boyfriend or even a close friend, please know that there are people out there who feel the same way, and even if you do not find what you are looking for here, you have the rest of your life to look. Today, show that you are worthy, strong and powerful. DAVIS NGUYEN is a freshman in Berkeley College. Contact him at davis.nguyen@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 3
PAGE THREE TODAY’S EVENTS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14 12:30 PM “Dark Side of the Moon: Joseph Wright of Derby and the Night Side of Enlightenment. Paul Shin, an MD/ Ph.D. candidate at Yale and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, will give this Art in Context talk. Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St.). 4:00 PM “In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes.” Scott Wallace is a writer, producer and photojournalist specializing in hard-hitting reportage of world and national affairs. Come hear him speak about his work with the last uncontacted tribes of the Amazon. Davenport College (248 York St.), auditorium.
Contraception debate hits Elm City BY MONICA DISARE STAFF REPORTER The debate about whether President Barack Obama’s recent compromise on health care policy is an affront to religious freedom has sparked conversation in the Elm City. The compromise, announced on Friday, allows employees of Catholic institutions to obtain free contraceptives from insurance companies if the institution opts out of purchasing insurance that includes these services. This marks a change from Obama’s stance in January, when he mandated that all employers pay for insurance covering birth control and other reproductive services, including some objectionable to the Catholic church. Left-leaning organizations in New Haven have greater applauded the availability of free contraceptives, with some questioning the necessity of the compromise. But local religious organizations said they still oppose the policy, and consider the mandate a direct assault on their religious freedom. Though employees of Catholic institutions, such as schools, charities and hospitals, can now apply directly to the insurance companies for birth control coverage, he said, the fiscal burden may fall on the Catholic institutions as they still have to pay the premium and the coverage, said Jonah Pollock, associate pastor at the Church of St. Mary on Hillhouse Avenue. If insurance companies raise the price of insurance to accommodate the new mandate, he added, the cost structure will be unchanged. “The compromise is a step in the right direction, but there are a lot of issues that remain unresolved,” Pollock said, adding that the church does not believe that either Catholic institutions or private employers who oppose birth control should be obligated to fund it. Planned Parenthood of Southern New England sent out a press release on Feb. 10 taking the opposite stance. The press release applauded Obama for supporting affordable contraceptives. Birth control prevents unintended pregnancies and improves health outcomes for women and their families, among other health benefits, Judy Tabar, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southern New
England, said in the release. Access to these services has become an economic problem for women, Tabar said in the press release, and “[just] this last year, nearly one out of four women has put off a gynecological exam or birth control visit to save money.” Liberal organizations on campus said they object to claims that the new policy hinders religious freedom. “Religious freedom doesn’t mean that religion has the power to exercise complete control over people,” said Jess Belding ’13, a member of the Yale Political Union’s Party of the Left. Mandating that people use birth control would be an affront to religious freedom, she said, but taking birth control access away from people only denies them a necessary health service. She added that while the church disagrees with birth control, using contraception helps in preventing abortion, a higher priority for the church. But Pollock said the use of birth control is still “morally objectionable” in the eyes of the church, even though abortion is considered worse than birth control in the Catholic faith. Zak Newman ’13, president of the Yale Democrats, said he does not believe it was necessary for Obama to compromise at all. “It seems that the President unnecessarily bowed to pressure from the right wing on this issue, but the compromise does not ultimately impact the services offered to individuals,” he said in a Sunday night email to the News. Not even the majority of Catholics oppose birth control, he added, citing a statistic stating that 53 percent of Catholics support funding for birth control while just 44 percent oppose it. According to Planned Parenthood’s press release, 99 percent of women, including 98 percent of Catholic women, use birth control at some point in their lives. According to a Feb. 13 Washington Post article, a poll of 1,100 registered voters conducted by Fox News from Feb. 6 to Feb. 9 reported that 61 percent said employer health plans should be required to cover birth control, while 34 percent said they should not. Contact MONICA DISARE at monica.disare@yale.edu .
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Obama’s compromise on contraception has sparked a national debate to which students and religious leaders in the city reacted Monday.
“Safe sex is great sex, better wear a latex cuz you dont want that late text, that ‘I think am late’ text.” LIL WAYNE RAPPER
Frank addresses gay rights, Israel BY NICK DEFIESTA STAFF REPORTER United States Rep. Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, came to Yale Monday to address U.S. policy toward Israel and the state of American politics in front of about 200 people. During the talk, sponsored by Yale Hillel and the Yale College Democrats, Frank, who is Jewish, argued that Democrats have compelling reasons to support Israel given the Jewish state’s liberal values. Following his address, the openly gay congressman answered questions about LGBTQ rights, the 2012 elections, his impending retirement and his July marriage to partner James Ready. Although he said he disagrees with some aspects of Israel’s government policies — he wishes Israel were “more restrictive” when choosing to build new settlements — Frank said he is a strong supporter of the country. “Based on the values I have as a man of the left, Israel is by a very large margin the best country in its part of the world,” Frank said. “I am troubled when I see people who claim to share the values of the left join in Israel-bashing.” He cited Israel’s commitment to gender equality and freedom of religion as two reasons the nation should have more in common with the American left than the right. He also addressed the issue of gay rights, contrasting LGBTQ citizens’ open service in the Israel Defense Force with the United States’ “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which was repealed last year. Frank also described Israel as a premier example of democracy, arguing that it contradicts the notion that democracy is only possible for states that are unthreatened. “The high court in Israel has a better record of protecting civil liberties than the United States,” Frank said. “Israel stands out as a stunning refutation to the idea that democracy is only for the secure.” The congressman also defended President Barack Obama’s handling of relations with Israel, describing Obama as a “very good friend” of the country, citing the administration’s diplomatic handling of the Palestinian request for statehood at
the United Nations as an example of how the president has fought on Israel’s behalf. Frank stressed that criticism of Israel from Obama and the left comes out of a “friendly” responsibility for the country’s well-being. “Frank made a strong case in support of our ally — one that ought to resonate with Democrats and Republicans Alike,” Dems President Zak Newman ’13 said. “Alliance and friendship does not disallow disagreement and constructive conversation, and Democrats understand that.” Elizabeth Henry ’14, a member of the Yale Political Union’s Tory Party, said she thought Frank gave one of the more conservative talks the Dems have ever sponsored. “So many liberal Yalies think that as liberals they should automatically support Palestine and that Israel is the human rights violator,” Henry said. “Frank eloquently shot down those beliefs — pointing out that Israel is the nation that is the most respecting of human rights in the entire Middle East and that liberals should stand up for Israel.”
Israel is by a very large margin the best country in its part of the world. I am troubled when I see people who claim to share the values of the left join in Israel-bashing. BARNEY FRANK U.S. Rep, Mass. After his address, Frank, who co-sponsored the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, was asked why, three years after the financial crisis, nobody has been prosecuted for illegal actionsthat led to it. Frank explained that, at the time, much of what was done was not illegal and thus could not be prosecuted, much like how monopolies went unregulated in the 19th century until the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Frank, one of the most outspoken advocates for gay rights in
YALE COLLEGE DEMOCRATS
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) discussed his views on the state of American politics, gay rights, and foreign policy at a talk Monday night. Congress, said he never thought he would see gay marriage legalized in the United States when he first ran for state office 40 years ago. Then, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a gay marriage case as a unsubstantiated challenge — a far cry from the current state of gay rights in the country, with the state of Washington this week becoming the seventh to allow gays to marry. Last month, after his district was redrawn, Frank announced that he would not seek re-election this year after serving in Congress for 32 years. Nearly 71 years old, and facing one of the most polarized political climates in the nation’s history, he said he was tired of reading about the financial sector and did not want to work to meet new constituents. “Campaigning sucks,” Frank said. “I’m going to be married in July. I want a life.” Frank said he plans to lecture, write and give television commentary after he retires, adding that he and partner Ready will split their time between Maine and Massachusetts, where the two have homes. In 2010, Frank was voted the “funniest,” “brainiest” and the “workhorse” member of Congress in a survey of Capitol Hill staffers published by the Washingtonian. Contact NICK DEFIESTA at nicholas.defiesta@yale.edu .
BARNEY FRANK ON GAY AND STRAIGHT SOLDIERS SHOWERING TOGETHER POST-DADT: I have been showering with my straight colleagues for many years. It has been, I guess to their disappointment, much less interesting than they think. ON ELECTION FUNDRAISING: I am one of the great fundraisers in American history. I raise millions for myself and millions for whoever runs against me. ON THE 2012 ELECTION: If Rick Santorum is elected, God only knows what happens. I mean that literally.
Orgs. join forces for education reform BY ALEKSANDRA GJORGIEVSKA STAFF REPORTER The Connecticut Parents Union and education reform group StudentsFirst joined forces last week to promote a multifaceted educational reform in the state legislature. The two organizations finalized their partnership last Thursday at a meeting in Hartford, said Gwendolyn Samuel, founder of CTPU and member of StudentsFirst — the national organization promoting teacher tenure changes. Samuel said she heard of StudentsFirst CEO and founder Michelle Rhee’s activism in the field of social work, and initiated the partnership to jointly back “profound and lasting changes” in Connecticut’s education system at the 2012 legislative session. One of the organization’s major goals is to close the state’s achievement gap, which ranked as the largest in the nation in 2011, according to the Department of Education. “Connecticut’s large achievement gap, which is severely impacting the stability of its economy, as well as its unjust laws that enable unqualified professors to teach our children, require immediate legislative action,” Samuel said, adding that her organization’s cooperation with StudentsFirst has already resulted in plans for a parents’ rally scheduled to take place on March 13 in Hartford. Rhee and Gov. Dannel Malloy are expected to speak, and around 700 parents have already expressed their interest in attending, Samuel said. Samuel said she believed both organizations’ commitment to grassroots organizing would prove crucial to their collaborative success, adding that hundreds of concerned parents as well as social justice advocates
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov. Dannel Malloy, right, toursan elementary school in Meriden, Conn. Malloy is pushing for significant reforms to the state’s educational system this legislative session. contact her daily with requests to join the educational reform cause. Rhee expressed similar sentiments in a Feb. 9 StudentsFirst press release, announcing her organization’s plans to begin advocating for reform initiatives in Connecticut at the request of CTPU and other Connecticutbased organizations. “We’re excited about the hunger for change we’re seeing at the grassroots level. There is a clear push for reform coming from state leaders, moms and dads, teachers and the business community,” Rhee said, adding that aware citizens should make sure the policies implemented and decisions made in Connecticut
schools are centered around the needs of children. Yet Samuel and StudentsFirst spokesperson Nancy Zuckerbrod agreed that while the grassroots movement is powerful, reform must also come from the top. There is “an undeniable conflict of interest,” Samuel said, in trying to protect both the interest of students and the interest of teachers — a conflict, she said, recently exemplified by the arrest of Tanya McDowell, a homeless mother charged with larceny for sending her five year old son to a Norwalk, Conn., elementary school despite having no permanent residence in the district. Connecticut State Sen. Martin Looney — the State Senate
Democratic majority leader who began the 2012 legislative session earlier this month by supporting Malloy’s education plan — said that issues of schooling reform “will be looked into.” “There will be proposals to address tenure, and student progress will be a factor considered in evaluations regarding tenure,” Looney said, adding that a periodic review of teachers is a solution that might be debated. Samuel founded CTPU in 2011. StudentsFirst was founded by Michelle Rhee in 2010 and now operates in 16 states. Contact ALEKSANDRA GJORGIEVSKA at aleksandra.gjorgievska@yale.edu .
PAGE 4
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
FROM THE FRONT Independent fundraising in Singapore YALE-NUS FROM PAGE 1 aid at the new college. Though Tan is currently overseeing fundraising, those efforts will pass to Yale-NUS administrators this summer once the school’s president and vice president for development are appointed. Yale-NUS’s vice president for development will have a role analogous to that of Reichenbach, Levin said, who coordinates fundraising across Yale. Levin added that the Singaporean college’s office of development is expected to be much smaller than Yale’s office. Levin said he has helped Tan by speaking with several Yale-NUS donors, but added that the new college is not a fundraising priority for Yale. “We’re not making a special effort to raise money here in the United States,” Levin said. “Yale has lots of priorities on our own campus that we’re focused on for our domestic sources of funding, so [Yale-NUS] fundraising efforts are going to be focused in Asia.” But Ronald Ehrenberg, director of Cornell’s Higher Education Research Institute, said Yale could benefit from the donor base the overseas college is building. Though benefactors to YaleNUS are not people that Yale would typically approach for donations, Ehrenberg said the donors that become connected with Yale-NUS could potentially become fundraising sources for Yale as well. The Singaporean government offers a 250 percent tax deduction for any donations to Yale-NUS, Tan said.
3.881
Billions raised by Yale over seven years
Yale concluded its largest fundraising campaign ever on June 30, 2011 with $3.881 billion raised over seven years. Inge Reichenbach, vice president for development, spearheaded the campaign.
Yale to present ‘vigorous defense’ DONGGUK FROM PAGE 1 committed “reckless and wanton” actions, was negligent and defamed Dongguk. Judge Tucker Melançon ruled Friday that Dongguk’s lawyers’ evidence did not support claims of “reckless and wanton” actions by Yale because those actions did not cause physical harm or injury. But Melançon also ruled that a trial was needed to determine whether Yale had acted negligently or defamed Dongguk. University President Richard Levin declined to comment Monday because he had not read Melançon’s ruling. Both University General Counsel Dorothy Robinson and Yale spokeswoman Elizabeth Stauderman said the ruling was partially in Yale’s favor, and that the
University is preparing its case for the trial. “Yale continues to believe that the lawsuit is without merit, and we will present a vigorous defense,” Stauderman said in an email Monday. Though Melançon dismissed one of the claims against Yale, Weiner said Dongguk’s case will not be weakened in court. After Shin’s degree was found to be fraudulent, lawyers representing Dongguk argued that Yale’s negligence had damaged the South Korean school’s reputation and cost it millions. Dongguk’s lawyers alleged in 2009 that the school lost $18 million on a cancelled law school, $8 million in government grants and $15 million in promised donations as a result of Yale’s negligence.
If the court were to rule in Dongguk’s favor, Weiner said Yale could be liable for the cost of Dongguk’s financial losses, along with compensation for alleged damage to the university’s reputation. Weiner added that the latter is more difficult to quantify and could vary as a result. “Particularly in an Asian country, reputation is very important,” Weiner said. “That damage is not easily measured.” Shin served 18 months in prison for forging her Yale degree and two others from the University of Kansas. Contact DANIEL SISGOREO at daniel.sisgoreo@yale.edu and TAPLEY STEPHENSON at preston.stephenson@yale.edu .
TIMELINE DONGGUK VS. YALE SEPTEMBER 2005 Yale verifies the authenticity of Shin Jeong-ah’s fraudulent doctorate degree to Dongguk University. SEPTEMBER 2007 Yale issues a statement denying that it had confirmed Shin’s doctorate. JANUARY 2008 University President Richard Levin writes a letter expressing his “deep personal regret” for an “administrative error” that led the University to confirm the doctorate. MARCH 2008 Dongguk sues Yale for $50 million in damages. FEBRUARY 2012 A Connecticut federal judge rules that the case will proceed to trial. JUNE 2012 The trial date has been set for June 4.
YCC pilot to span colleges
Contact TAPLEY STEPHENSON at preston.stephenson@yale.edu .
Support groups expand to grad students SHARE FROM PAGE 1 Sean McAvoy DIV ’11, who worked with Briggs to reach out to Goldberg and is an assistant director of admissions and recruitment at the Divinity School, said he and Briggs were surprised SHARE did not already offer a similar support group. “It was one of those things that we thought should be there,” McAvoy said. “A lot of sexual assault victims feel alone, and they really shouldn’t.” The University has offered various sexual assault support groups since 2000, Goldberg said, but they were generally formed in response to student requests. She added that she would be open to creating a similar support group for undergraduates if any expressed interest. Thirteen of the 52 sexual misconduct complaints brought to University officials from July 1 to Dec. 31 last year were filed by graduate and professional school students, according to a recent report released by Deputy Provost Stephanie Spangler. Contact DANIEL SISGOREO at daniel.sisgoreo@yale.edu and CAROLINE TAN at caroline.tan@yale.edu .
JACQUELINE SAHLBERG/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The Yale College Council’s laundry organization program, which was piloted in Silliman, will be expanded to every college’s laundry room next semester. LAUNDRY FROM PAGE 1 ing breaks because that’s the most convenient time,” YCC Vice President Omar Njie ’13 said. Njie added that the program has received some criticism that the bins are too small, but Levin said Silliman will soon get larger bins, as will the rest of the colleges when they are outfitted. All 16 students interviewed, including five in Silliman, said they supported the initiative. Mon-
Love all your vegetarian choices ~ and don’t forget dessert! Organic soups and salads, Mexican, Italian and Middle Eastern cuisines
ica Ague ’14, a Silliman resident, said the new system allows students “more leeway” in when they need to pick up their clothing, and will also reduce the confusion that causes clothes to fall on the floor or mix with other people’s clothes, she added. “Having your clothes fall on the floor or sit in soap spills on the washing machines when you were 10 minutes late to pick them up was really, really annoying,” Ague said.
Leah Campbell ’15, who also lives in Silliman, said she lost “a lot of socks” from people moving her clothes out of washing machines. Having a system with bins leads to a better “atmosphere” in the laundry room, she said, adding that now there is “never any awkwardness about moving other people’s clothes.” Still, a few students complained that Yale has a shortage of working laundry machines, which the new
system does not address. Others noted that some students have used the whiteboards for purposes other than laundry assignments, such as posting personal ads and other “funny comments.” The laundry machines began accepting credit and debit cards last fall. Contact SOPHIE GOULD at sophie.gould@yale.edu .
YALE DAILY NEWS ¡ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 ¡ yaledailynews.com
NEWS
PAGE 5
The Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry Established in 2000, the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry serves to integrate, strengthen and direct research, education and outreach pioneered by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
FES promotes wood as ‘medium’ BY LILIANA VARMAN STAFF REPORTER This spring, wood will take center stage at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies as students hope to boost appreciation of the material in unconventional ways. The environment school’s Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry is hosting a semester-long event entitled “The Art of Wood,� which aims to celebrate the cultural and aesthetic values of New England wood and forest products, Maisah Khan FES ’12, one of the event’s coordinators, said. She added that the purpose of the event, which officially celebrated its kickoff on Friday with a bluegrass concert, is to bring together artisans who use wood to make crafts and furniture and connect them to members of the community who might wish to buy their work. Mary Tyrrell, executive director of the Global Institute of Sustainable Forestry, said a large grant allowed the institute to fund a project focusing on the cultural aspects of forests rather than just the scientific and practical applications of the industry. “I think the students saw a need to go back to the basics and appreciate wood for what it is — something beautiful and something that a lot of beautiful things that we use every day are made out of,� Khan said. The celebration will bring craftspeople, artisans and forest owners from throughout New England to the environment school. Visitors include University of Maine professor of forest biology Dick Jagels, who hosted a 20-person workshop last Friday on wood anatomy, and U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, who will visit on March 28. Khan said the Art of Wood events have generated a lot of buzz, and added that the next two events — a webinar with Anders Hildeman, the forestry manager for Ikea Sweden, and a visit to the Yale Art Gallery furniture study — are currently at full capacity. As part of the event, students con-
Artist merges music and visuals BY ALEKSANDRA GJORGIEVSKA STAFF REPORTER
LISA MAY
The School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is hosting a semester-long event meant to express the cultural aspects of forests and the role of wood as an artistic medium. structed a tree sculpture from recyclable items collected throughout the environment school, said Alisa May FES ’12, president of the school’s Arts & Media student interest group. The sculpture, along with photography by artists Dan Ladd and Lydia Nettler, is currently on display on the third floor of Kroon Hall, she said, and more artwork will be added by Friday. The Art of Wood event series is funded by the Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Foundation’s $100,000 gift, which is expected to support similar events over the course of four years, said Tyrrell. Khan said she hopes that her fellow students and the broader community will use the celebration as an opportu-
nity to appreciate the beauty and utility of wood. “I hope people just take a step back and realize how awesome a medium it is,� she said. Planning for the celebration, Khan said, began in April and involved the Arts & Media group, the Yale Student Chapter Society of American Foresters, the environment school’s Forestry Club, and STIGMA — the school’s Ethnobotany and Economic Botany student interest group. The celebration will culminate in a wood-themed arts and crafts festival on March 30. Contact LILIANA VARMAN at liliana.varman@yale.edu .
Dating should be revived, prof says
While the fields of music composition and visual art may seem disparate to some, experimental artist and composer Marina Rosenfeld’s art attempts to weave a dialogue between the two. Rosenfeld, a New York-based artist and professor at Bard College, discussed the possibility of a creative synthesis of music and visuals before an audience of about 30 Yale students and faculty in a Monday afternoon lecture at the School of Art. A graduate of the California Institute of the Arts, Rosenfeld showed photographs of her installations and played recordings of her music in an attempt to explain her hybrid conception of art. “I want to stab the eye of the viewer,â€? Rosenfeld said. “I take two most incompatible works and make them communicate with each other.â€? Reflecting on her childhood training as a pianist, Rosenfeld said she felt music was lacking something as a venue of expression. Fascinated by the relationship any piece of art generates between the artist and the viewer, Rosenfeld said she sought to combine different artistic media in order to trace the dual experience of creating and viewing art. Yet Rosenfeld said that in the past, she often felt a lack of audience for her hybrid artistry. “I couldn’t attract an audience, and an artist needs an audience,â€? she said. “So I instead decided to create work out of the audience that I like.â€? Through communication with several young amateurs interested in experimenting with art, Rosenfeld conceived projects such as “Teenage Lontano,â€? an adaptation of GyĂśrgy Ligeti’s ethereal 1967 musical work “Lontano.â€? “Teenage Lontano,â€? which Rosenfeld said is perhaps her most famous work, is based on her wish to convey the experience of “hearing someone hear.â€? Its performance consists of around 30 teens in a row listening to their music players,
either alone or in pairs, listening to parts of Ligeti’s original song and singing along according to Rosenfeld’s prerecorded cues. The audience cannot hear what the teenagers hear, but can hear their responses to it. “It might seem at first glance that ‘Teenage Lontano’ has no connection with visual art, but it does,� Rosenfeld explained. “My ‘Lontano’ explores the spatial nature of music. This idea of creating my own, modified versions of other artists’ works communicates to me and my audience the all-important question of reception — of what is going on when we listen, experience or think about art.�
I want to stab the eye of the viewer‌ I take two most incompatible works and make them communicate. MARINA ROSENFELD Artist Attendees had a wide range of opinions about Rosenfeld’s lecture. Stephanie Adcock ’15 said she found Rosenfeld’s compositions “uninspiring,â€? adding that Rosenfeld’s attempt to combine music composition and visual media results in art that is heavily mismatched. Others, including Jessica Tordoff ’15, said they were intrigued by Rosenfeld’s aesthetic and view of art. “She is bold, and she is not afraid to do things differently,â€? Tordoff said. “These are the most important qualities in an artist, and I think Rosenfeld is employing them well.â€? Rosenfeld’s other projects include the Sheer Frost Orchestra, a graphically scored musical installation performed by 17 women on floor-bound electric guitars, using nail polish bottles as sensitive sound-producing implements. Contact ALEKSANDRA GJORGIEVSKA at aleksandra.gjorgievska@yale.edu .
Y
Y
Love served from the kitchen to the dining room.
SELEN UMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Boston College philosophy professor Kerry Cronin spoke about the pitfalls of the college hook-up culture at a Sex Week event Monday. BY CATHERINE DINH CONTRIBUTING REPORTER “Dating doctor� Kerry Cronin encouraged students to turn to dating — rather than hookups — as a source of intimacy and fulfillment at a Monday talk in St. Thomas More Chapel. Cronin, a professor of philosophy at Boston College and widely known there as the “dating doctor,� outlined problems with the prevalent college hookup culture in front of about 30 students. Cronin said that students tend to use hookups, which she defined as physical or sexual interaction without intended emotional attachment, as a substitute for intimate relationships. But Cronin argued that the practices of dating and relationships hold greater long-term benefits to students than the hookup. “What the hookup culture teaches us is disconnect, and not attachment and learning who we really are,� Cronin said. Cronin said the hookup culture is grounded in student anxiety over graduating without sexual experiences. Students use hookups to attain the emotional “intensity� of relationships without the intimacy and potential awkwardness of dating. But she said random hookups tend to be unfulfilling and do not help students feel more desirable in the long run.
“It promises a feeling of desirability which it doesn’t deliver on,� Cronin said. “What we crave is real intimacy, but it’s too scary and dangerous and awkward. What [we] substitute it with is intensity.� Only about 40 percent of students participate in the college hookup culture, Cronin said. These students often gain social status and recognition from their hookup activities, which Cronin said is partly what makes the culture attractive. Though Cronin said the meaning of “hooking up� is often unclear when used in conversation, she claimed that students on college campuses have a “hookup script� — implicit understandings and expectations about how to behave in a hookup situation. Not all hookups are the same, Cronin said, as she elaborated on different types of hookups such as the “friend hookup,� the “mistake hookup� and the “revenge hookup.� While the reasons behind hookups vary, Cronin said the defining characteristic of all hookups is a lack of intimacy. Students have told her that all hookups follow similar rules, she added, such as that hookup partners should drink equally, know where their shoes are, tell stories of their hookups the next day and remain emotionally detached. In an effort to combat this culture, Cronin said she has students in one of her philosophy classes at Boston Col-
lege ask someone on a date for an assignment. Students today struggle with the concept of dating, Cronin said, calling it a lost social skill. She relayed humorous anecdotes about her students’ dating attempts, describing how one panicked male student ended a date with a highfive when he could not figure out what to do. While Cronin admitted that many dating customs are now old-fashioned, she said college students should still pursue relationships despite the risk of embarrassment. Cronin said the communication involved in dating is the “antidote� to the hookup culture, and helps students both with self-esteem and with figuring out their personal desires. Jeff Marrs ’13 said he was glad to hear issues of sexual climate and dating discussed, noting that these problems are frequently overlooked. Grace Hirshorn ’15 said she was struck by Cronin’s emphasis on the courage it takes to ask someone on a date. “The act of courage is ‘I just want to get to know you better,’� Hirshorn said. “Hopefully many people will take the time to find that courage.� The event was organized by St. Thomas More as part of Sex Week 2012. Contact CATHERINE DINH at catherine.dinh@yale.edu .
r $MBTTJD *UBMJBO SFDJQFT XJUI B NPEFSO JOUFSQSFUBUJPO NBEF XJUI PSHBOJD BOE TVTUBJOBCMF WFHFUBCMFT IBSE QBDLFE SJDPUUB BOE GSFTI NP[BSFMMB r &OUSÊFT JODMVEF "OHVT DFSUJđFE CFFG .VSSBZ T GSFF SBOHF DIJDLFO BOE TVTUBJOBCMZ DBVHIU đTI r *UBMJBO XJOFT GSPN TNBMM GBNJMZ QSPEVDFST BOE SFBMMZ HPPE NBSUJOJT Open for dinner every night, and lunch Saturday and Sunday. 1006 Chapel St., right next to Claire’s Corner Copia New Haven, CT (203)772-1715
CROSS CAMPUS THE BLOG. THE BUZZ AROUND YALE THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
cc.yaledailynews.com
PAGE 6
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
320
Peabody serves ‘Big Food’
The number of calories average U.S. adults absorb from sugar every day. These calories come exclusively from the sugars and sweeteners contained within non-whole foods, such as processed snacks, candy and soft drinks.
Food aid doing harm? BY PAAVAN GAMI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
YALE PEABODY MUSEUM
“Big Food: Health Culture and the Evolution of Eating,” a new exhibit at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, includes interactive features and displays about the history, science, and culture of food. BY JACQUELINE SAHLBERG STAFF REPORTER Shelves filled with bags of chips and bottles of soda may feel more like a supermarket aisle than a museum, but the “Big Food Corridor,” which shows an average American’s yearly food consumption, is the entrance to a new Peabody exhibit. On Saturday, over 850 visitors attended the opening of “Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating” at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. The exhibit features educational displays and interactive experiences that engage visitors in the history, science and modern-day culture surrounding food. Museum administrators said in a press release
that they want to use the exhibit to help visitors understand the complex factors, risks and consequences involved in their eating habits. “‘Big Food’ pushes the envelope for the Peabody,” said Derek Briggs, director of the Peabody Museum. In addition to participating in health-related activities such as a scavenger hunt for children and a Zumba fitness class, Saturday’s visitors explored the exhibit’s offerings. Past the “Big Food Corridor,” information displays present everything from the neuroscience of appetite and the genetics of obesity, to the composition of food and the influence of the media on our foodrelated decisions. One display shows the teaspoons of added sugar in drinks like Coca-Cola and AriZona
iced tea. Another provides visual examples of the recommended portion sizes for foods, such as a serving of meat the size of a deck of cards.
We hope that [the exhibit] will educate and entertain, and leave people walking out ready to make a change. JEANNETTE ICKOVICS Director, Community Alliance for Research and Environment Visitors are also encouraged to interact with the exhibit’s hands-
on experiences. A stationary bike enables museum guests to see how long they have to pedal to burn off the number of calories in a french fry. Across the room, guests can learn about the sugar, salt and oil content of milkshakes and hamburgers while playing the virtual “Smash Your Food” game. Marlene Schwartz GRD ’96, deputy director for the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, explained that with increasing rates of obesity and chronic disease, people need access to reliable information on how their choices affect them. In the center of the exhibit, visitors can see and feel the health consequences of obesity. One display showcases models of healthy and
Bacteria linked to obesity
BY ROBERT PECK STAFF REPORTER
Richard Flavell, Sterling Professor of Immunology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, uses a technique of his own invention, known as reverse genetics, so study immunology. His current project is on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and he published an article Feb. 1 in the journal Nature. is nonalcoholic fatty QWhat liver disease, and how does it develop, based on your findings?
A
the infection involves QBecause bacteria, it could be easily transmitted, right?
A
Yes. That was a surprising finding. When placed in the same cage and fed the same Western diet, the mouse that was immunocompromised infected the healthy mice. The infected mice became obese and developed fatty liver disease.
are these bacteria? Have QWhat you identified them?
A
Almost. We’re still working on proving that they’re the ones. We have a candidate that we
YALE
Immunobiology professor Richard Flavell studies non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, the most common cause of liver disease worldwide. know increase when the mice goes into a Western diet, one associated with inflammatory diseases. But we haven’t yet proved that it is this one, as the bacteria are very hard to grow. It is exciting to know that they occur in people though. Because they are of the same family of those involved in gum disease and heart disease, and inflammatory diseases, they’re very good candidates of what’s happening here.
All three play a role. It’s wellestablished that if you eat healthy you’ll do better, being less prone to diabetes, obesity and liver disease, but less is known about the contributions of bacteria and much less on the contribution of immune genes.
Q
What is the role of genes, food and environment?
A
disease?
Without the diet, you don’t get obesity, which is influenced by the microbes. The genes increase the damaging influence of the microbes.
A
large is the impact of QHow nonalcoholic fatty liver dis-
does diet fit into the proQHow cess of developing fatty liver In the lining of the gut, we have many and varied types of bacteria. Their composition is determined by our diet. At the same time, diet influences obesity, when the mice get fatter and develop much worse fatty liver disease.
ease in the U.S.?
A
works in metabolic syndrome?
It’s really serious. A third of the population is considered to be obese, and at least 75 percent of them have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. But this disease goes far beyond our country. It is the most common cause of liver disease worldwide.
A
did you start this projQWhen ect?
does the focus of your QHow research compare to other We’re interested in the interaction between our genes, our food and our environment as it influences metabolic syndrome.
selves, their families and their communities. Jeannette Ickovics, director for the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement at the School of Public Health, said the pledge jars were inspired by a similar system at Blue State Coffee, where customers vote which local nonprofit should receive a donation. “We hope that it will educate and entertain, and leave people walking out ready to make a change,” Ickovics added. “Big Food,” a collaboration between the Peabody, the Rudd Center and CARE, will remain open through Dec. 2, 2012. Contact JACQUELINE SAHLBERG at jacqueline.sahlberg@yale.edu .
Researchers call for sugar tax
BY MARIANA LOPEZ-ROSAS STAFF REPORTER
Nonalcoholic liver disease is the accumulation of fat in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol. It may lead to liver failure. In a normal mouse the genetically expressed inflammasomes (an immune system cell that activates inflammation) in the lining of the gut direct the synthesis of molecules that keep different species of microbes. We found that when the inflammasomes aren’t working, because the genes are not expressing them, the system gets out of control and the microbe composition changes radically. The bacteria then invade the epithelium of the gut, where it is not normally found. The immune system responds causing inflammation and killing the bacteria. But then the pieces of dead bacteria, we also found, travel through the bloodstream to the liver, which are then attacked by immune system cells, causing inflammation. This inflammation is liver disease.
unhealthy organs — including a liver, heart and kidney — to show how obesity damages the organ system. Next to the display of organs, visitors can see and feel a model of five pounds of body fat. “Genetics accounts for 30 percent of the differences in body size and shape, the rest is the environment,” Schwartz said, emphasizing the role of individual choices in maintaining health. She added that she hopes exhibit will provide museum guests with the tools to change their lifestyles and improve their health. In the final area of the exhibit, visitors are encouraged to place wooden tokens in jars as pledges of healthy changes — such as exercising more and drinking less soda — for them-
New research supports the controversial conclusion that foreign aid can actually harm recipient countries. A new working paper by researchers including Yale assistant economics professor Nancy Qian has found evidence that American food aid to developing countries may hurt those countries more than it helps. Qian described the unintended consequences as potentially devastating, by spurring conflict between ethnic groups and exacerbating pre-existing strife. The paper also found that the amount of U.S. grain sent abroad depended more on domestic levels of grain production than on the actual need by the recipient countries. “Before this paper, journalists who spent time in these donation countries had told anecdotes about how bad things can get [as a result of food aid], but we didn’t know whether these stories represented the actual picture,” Qian said. “What we have done with the data is quantified the average effect and proved that these aren’t random stories and that these unintended consequences do exist.” Qian said rival factions compete to steal food from aid convoys, which they then barter for weapons or use to feed their soldiers. Once armed groups have monopolized aid resources, the rest of the population may be forced to join the conflict simply to get enough food to survive. An analysis of 35 years of data about food aid to 134 developing countries strongly correlated consistent American food aid with an increased likelihood and duration of civil war. The paper cited examples of anecdotal evidence of food aid causing internal conflict from Afghanistan, Western Sahara, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Israel, Iraq, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and the former Yugoslavia. “Food aid simply becomes another resource to fight over,” Qian said. Paul Macek, a food aid expert from the humanitarian organization World Vision said he thought the relationship between food aid and civil wars remains unclear, but agreed that food-based aid programs
A
We started this towards the end of 2009, that’s when we looked at the immune system genes. It took us about a year and a half to make the gene-microbe connection. It has taken at least a year and a half or two years.
are the next steps in your QWhat research?
A
I would like to show first that the bacteria and the means of transmission that we found apply to people. Then I would like to work on developing a drug that works in mice, as a model for people. Ultimately, the goal is to find a drug that will work on people.
do you think a potential QWhat cure might look like?
A
It might be an antibiotic, although I’m not quite sure. But we do know that if the outcome of our work applies to humans, it might lead to treatments that will help to reduce obesity medically. Yet again, there’s still a lot to do. Contact MARIANA LOPEZ-ROSAS at mariana.lopez-rosas@yale.edu .
Some researchers believe it is time to impose legal limits on sugar, similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. In a article published Feb. 1 in the journal Nature, three researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, argue that the harmful effects of sugar extend far beyond its calorie count. To reduce national sugar consumption, the government should regulate it the way it regulates alcohol and tobacco, said Robert Lustig, director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health program at UCSF and one of the article’s co-authors. . “Sugar meets the same criteria that alcohol and tobacco meet in terms of societal intervention,” Lustig said. “Every chronic disease we’ve got is exacerbated, if not brought on, by sugar consumption.” Lustig said there are four factors that make sugar eligible for government regulations: its unavoidability, its toxicity, its addictiveness and its negative effects on the rest of society. Sugars are so prevalent in daily life that people have no choice but to consume them, Lustig said. This risk is compounded by sugar’s tendency to cause users to develop liver fat, leading to chronic diseases such as hypertension and heart disease. Lustig added that early data suggests liver fat could contribute to the development of cancer. In addition, sugar is an addictive substance, he said. Sugar creates a “positive feedback cycle” in the brain, which keeps the consumer coming back for more. Lustig added that this cycle impacts not just the user, but also his peers, much as how secondhand smoke has negative effects on nonsmokers. Sugar consumption leads to chronic diseases, which imposes high health care costs on all members of society, Lustig said. Lustig said these attributes of sugar have made it difficult for purely educational efforts to get people to cut back their intake, just as education is ineffective in addressing tobacco and alcohol abuse. Lustig called for the federal government to become involved in the regulation of sugar, possibly through taxation, as Brownell has been publicly advocating. Lustig described Kelly Brownell, director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, as one of the most influential figures in the movement to regulate sugar. “Dr. Brownell has been on the forefront of identifying the role of dietary changes in the promulgation of the obesity epidemic,” Lustig said. He has been instrumental in showing that sugar-sweetened beverages correlate with obesity nationwide … [and] made the effective argu-
ment for societal intervention, with one method being taxation for generation of money for programs.” In October, the Rudd Center, led by Brownell, released a report detailing the marketing of sugary drinks to youth, especially minority youths. The report was the third in a series of research projects the Rudd Center has conducted regarding the effects of food industry marketing on youth. The first study, in 2009, detailed harmful effects of sugar in children’s cereals, and the second, in 2010, criticized the fast food industry for false claims that industry giants were cutting down on their advertisements to children.
Every chronic disease we’ve got is exacerbated, if not brought on, by sugar consumption. ROBERT LUSTIG Director, Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health program, University of California, San Francisco The Rudd Center’s director of marketing initiatives, Jennifer Harris GRD ’08, told the News in November that the ultimate goal of such studies was to provoke a change in food industry regulations and marketing practices involving sugary products. “Adding a penny-per-ounce tax on any beverage with added sugar could not only help reduce obesity and its accompanying high health care costs, but would also generate much-needed revenue,” Brownell wrote in an October Time Magazine article. “The projected benefits estimated by economists are impressive: 10- to 23-per-
cent reduced consumption, and $50 billion in health care savings and $150 billion in revenue over 10 years.” Brownell could not be reached for comment. Lustig said that current financial concerns were making made these unprecedented regulations necessary for the first. He said $147 billion is spent each year in therapy for chronic diseases, 75 percent of which can be blamed directly on sugar. Lustig suggested two other possibilities to regulate sugar: access limitation and age restrictions, similar to the restrictions on alcohol. He said that these kinds of regulations, in addition to taxation, have been much more effective in limiting tobacco and alcohol use than educational campaigns about the harm they cause. Researchers interviewed had mixed feelings about the feasibility of governmental regulations on sugar. Roger Cone, director of the Vanderbilt University Institute for Obesity and Metabolism, said some foods might be easier to regulate than others. “It would be pretty hard to regulate fruits and starchy vegetables,” Cone said. “On the other hand, the government could gradually phase out the subsidies that have pushed down the cost of corn-based sweeteners.” Benjamin Land, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at Yale, said that, if regulations are enacted, they should include fructose, which is often included in sugary drinks. Lustig, much of whose research has been directed at demonstrating the harms associated with fructose, agreed. Currently, 33 states have a sales tax on sugary beverages, while six impose excise taxes in addition to a sales tax. Contact ROBERT PECK at robert.peck@yale.edu .
CREATIVE COMMONS
Some reserchers advocate regulations for sugar similar to those governing alcohol.
LEAKS
F R O M T H E
Danger on the horizon for fish
A new study by Yale scientists is putting a damper on the Valentine’s Day atmosphere by revealing that there may not, in fact, be more fish in the sea any time soon. The study, published this week, said that rising Antarctic temperatures may be harming fish that developed specifically to live in the cold. These fish, called notothenioids, developed a special “antifreeze” protein thousands of years ago that allowed them to survive the extreme polar temperatures, but a move towards a more moderate climate could devastate the fish. “A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature will likely have a devastating impact on this Antarctic fish lineage, which is so well adapted to water at freezing temperatures,” said associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Thomas Near, the lead author of the study. -Robert Peck
Correlation between C-sections WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
U.S. soliders distribute food and humanitarian aid to an Afghan village. A new Yale study has food aid is correlated with increased levels of civil war. are flawed because they create a dependency on external goodwill. The root of this dependency, he said, was the inabiity of food aid to generate long-term agricultural development. Macek added that he hadn’t read the paper, but thought it might understate the humanitarian benefits of food aid. He said that a long-term solution to food insecurity in Africa would require improving farming techniques to enable poor countries to achieve food self-sufficiency, but that food aid would continue to be important in emergency situations. The paper also found that volumes of American food aid from year to year were affected more by domestic supply levels than global demand for aid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with the U.S. Agency of International
Development, purchases surplus grain to stabilize prices in the domestic market. This extra stock is then donated to developing countries, the paper said. Qian said that one important remedy to the negative effects of food aid would be to start basing food aid on countryspecific consumption levels, not domestic supply. “I don’t see any reason for why it has to be this way. Hopefully, people will realize this is a serious problem and that current policy needs some meaningful reform,” Qian said. Nathan Nunn, an economics professor at Harvard, co-wrote the paper with Qian. Contact PAAVAN GAMI at paavan.gami@yale.edu .
The drug shortage crisis requires intervention
A
s the 2012 presidential campaign continues, we’ll only hear more and more repetitive statements about healthcare coverage plans. Lost in the partisan debate about Romneycare vs. Obama-care is a very immediate health concern: drug availability. As of last summer, almost two hundred drugs crucial for treating infections and several types of cancer were in limited supply. This is a record drug shortage, and the situation is so critical that President Obama issued an executive order in October to give the Food and Drug Administration more power to report drug shortages and drug price gouging, as well as fast-tracking drug production applications. Unfortunately, this action was insufficient to alleviate major drug shortages, and several pieces of similar legislation have not made it through the Senate. Last week, the FDA revealed that hospitals might run out of methotrexate — a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and childhood leukemia — within two weeks. For both arthritis and leukemia, methotrexate must be taken on a frequent basis in order to be effective. An interruption in supply will cripple the effectiveness of the drug. While there are several alternate medications for arthritis, methotrexate — like many of the other drugs that are in limited supply — is essential to treating childhood leukemia. There are several causes of drug shortages. Often plants have to be closed due to concerns about contamination, since contaminated drugs would be especially dangerous to cancer patients, who have particularly vulnerable immune systems. Many companies outsource production to international plants where labor is cheaper and quality control is less stringently enforced. While this enhances the profit margin, patients in the U.S. are stuck because the drugs often lack proper clearance for import. Some plants lack the infrastructure required to mass produce drugs. Finally, drug production is controlled by just a few companies. For example, there are now only four American producers of methotrexate, meaning that when one company stops producing a particular drug it can have large implications for the entire market. With demand consistently high and supply low, the prices for many limitedsupply drugs have skyrocketed — and insurance plans may not cover alternative treatments, or the alternative treatments may be sub-par.
Both parties claim to want to alleviate the drug shortage but, unsurprisingly, the blame game has already started. Predictably, Republicans are not keen on governSAHELI ment intervention, SADANAD but it is clear that the administration’s Techno-rants executive order does not go far enough. While it makes it easier for the FDA to identify future shortages, it does not provide any strategies for actually alleviating existing shortages. Republicans and fellow free market champions bemoan regulations as the death of business, but it is absolutely essential that the FDA continue to rigorously scrutinize plants — contamination could be deadly. Constant vigilance can help prevent costly plant closures ahead of time by having them maintain health standards. The drug industry has agreed to invest millions in improved quality control at foreign plants. While this would be helpful, in the long-term, the government should find sustainable ways to incentivize efficient drug production in the United States. Perhaps financial incentives can be provided to pharmaceutical companies for research into improved production strategies. The number of cancer patients per year that require a given drug is fairly predictable; given this, perhaps the government could mandate that manufacturers produce a certain number of drugs yearly or face penalties. In the short-term, the government should invest in stockpiling essential cancer and chronic illness medications — that is, those for which there are no suitable alternatives. Drug companies that participate in this stockpiling could be reimbursed for their efforts, with perhaps an additional financial reward for their public service. At the end of the day, helping critically and chronically ill Americans should not be left to the whims of the free market. The president and Congress can and should do more to end the drug shortage. SAHELI SADANAND is a fifth-year graduate student in the Department of Immunobiology. Contact her at saheli. sadanand@yale.edu .
and breathing problems Heather Lipkind, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the School of Medicine, lead a study which surveyed 2,885 preterm babies. A slight correlation between cesarian sections and respiratory problems for infants was shown, but Lipkind said more research is necessary to determine the optimal birth method to avoid these problems. A birth is considered pre-term if it occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy. -Robert Peck
Supercontinent to be form, called Amasia Two hundred million years ago the supercontinent Pangaea broke up, and in approximately 50-200 million years a new supercontinent will form, located over the North Pole. Yale researchers predict that the Carribean will disappear as South America collides with North America and the combined American landmass collides with Siberia. By comparison, Pangaea was centered on modern-day Africa.
Healthier hearts now Another science valentine, this one about your heart: in honor of American Heart Month, which began Feb. 1, Angelo A. Alonzo, director of the Yale Heart Study, sat down with the Meatless Monday blog to discuss the effects of protein on a healthy heart. In the interview, Alonzo discussed the harms that the “bad cholesterol” contained in red meats like steak can have on your heart. He said that even a moderate reduction in these meats can have a profound, beneficial effect on hearth health. “All of the research that I’ve looked at urges for a balanced diet with a good distribution between fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates and protein,” Alonzo said. “We also know that proteins that contain a lot of saturated fat are not good for people, while the Mediterranean diet, which is abundant in plant-foods and low on red meat, is better for heart health.” -Robert Peck
Research team discovers mechanism for molecule freezing Yale researchers have published a study detailing how molecules maintain precise and complex shapes. They used a unique research technique which froze noncovalently-bonded molecules to produce a “snapshot” of the molecular bonds. Mark Johnson, a Yale chemistry professor and head author of the study, describes the process as cryogenic infared spectroscopy, and has filed a patent for it.
PAGE 6
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 7
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
320
Peabody serves ‘Big Food’
The number of calories average U.S. adults absorb from sugar every day. These calories come exclusively from the sugars and sweeteners contained within non-whole foods, such as processed snacks, candy and soft drinks.
Food aid doing harm? BY PAAVAN GAMI CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
YALE PEABODY MUSEUM
“Big Food: Health Culture and the Evolution of Eating,” a new exhibit at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, includes interactive features and displays about the history, science, and culture of food. BY JACQUELINE SAHLBERG STAFF REPORTER Shelves filled with bags of chips and bottles of soda may feel more like a supermarket aisle than a museum, but the “Big Food Corridor,” which shows an average American’s yearly food consumption, is the entrance to a new Peabody exhibit. On Saturday, over 850 visitors attended the opening of “Big Food: Health, Culture and the Evolution of Eating” at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. The exhibit features educational displays and interactive experiences that engage visitors in the history, science and modern-day culture surrounding food. Museum administrators said in a press release
that they want to use the exhibit to help visitors understand the complex factors, risks and consequences involved in their eating habits. “‘Big Food’ pushes the envelope for the Peabody,” said Derek Briggs, director of the Peabody Museum. In addition to participating in health-related activities such as a scavenger hunt for children and a Zumba fitness class, Saturday’s visitors explored the exhibit’s offerings. Past the “Big Food Corridor,” information displays present everything from the neuroscience of appetite and the genetics of obesity, to the composition of food and the influence of the media on our foodrelated decisions. One display shows the teaspoons of added sugar in drinks like Coca-Cola and AriZona
iced tea. Another provides visual examples of the recommended portion sizes for foods, such as a serving of meat the size of a deck of cards.
We hope that [the exhibit] will educate and entertain, and leave people walking out ready to make a change. JEANNETTE ICKOVICS Director, Community Alliance for Research and Environment Visitors are also encouraged to interact with the exhibit’s hands-
on experiences. A stationary bike enables museum guests to see how long they have to pedal to burn off the number of calories in a french fry. Across the room, guests can learn about the sugar, salt and oil content of milkshakes and hamburgers while playing the virtual “Smash Your Food” game. Marlene Schwartz GRD ’96, deputy director for the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, explained that with increasing rates of obesity and chronic disease, people need access to reliable information on how their choices affect them. In the center of the exhibit, visitors can see and feel the health consequences of obesity. One display showcases models of healthy and
Bacteria linked to obesity
BY ROBERT PECK STAFF REPORTER
Richard Flavell, Sterling Professor of Immunology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, uses a technique of his own invention, known as reverse genetics, so study immunology. His current project is on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and he published an article Feb. 1 in the journal Nature. is nonalcoholic fatty QWhat liver disease, and how does it develop, based on your findings?
A
the infection involves QBecause bacteria, it could be easily transmitted, right?
A
Yes. That was a surprising finding. When placed in the same cage and fed the same Western diet, the mouse that was immunocompromised infected the healthy mice. The infected mice became obese and developed fatty liver disease.
are these bacteria? Have QWhat you identified them?
A
Almost. We’re still working on proving that they’re the ones. We have a candidate that we
YALE
Immunobiology professor Richard Flavell studies non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, the most common cause of liver disease worldwide. know increase when the mice goes into a Western diet, one associated with inflammatory diseases. But we haven’t yet proved that it is this one, as the bacteria are very hard to grow. It is exciting to know that they occur in people though. Because they are of the same family of those involved in gum disease and heart disease, and inflammatory diseases, they’re very good candidates of what’s happening here.
All three play a role. It’s wellestablished that if you eat healthy you’ll do better, being less prone to diabetes, obesity and liver disease, but less is known about the contributions of bacteria and much less on the contribution of immune genes.
Q
What is the role of genes, food and environment?
A
disease?
Without the diet, you don’t get obesity, which is influenced by the microbes. The genes increase the damaging influence of the microbes.
A
large is the impact of QHow nonalcoholic fatty liver dis-
does diet fit into the proQHow cess of developing fatty liver In the lining of the gut, we have many and varied types of bacteria. Their composition is determined by our diet. At the same time, diet influences obesity, when the mice get fatter and develop much worse fatty liver disease.
ease in the U.S.?
A
works in metabolic syndrome?
It’s really serious. A third of the population is considered to be obese, and at least 75 percent of them have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. But this disease goes far beyond our country. It is the most common cause of liver disease worldwide.
A
did you start this projQWhen ect?
does the focus of your QHow research compare to other We’re interested in the interaction between our genes, our food and our environment as it influences metabolic syndrome.
selves, their families and their communities. Jeannette Ickovics, director for the Community Alliance for Research and Engagement at the School of Public Health, said the pledge jars were inspired by a similar system at Blue State Coffee, where customers vote which local nonprofit should receive a donation. “We hope that it will educate and entertain, and leave people walking out ready to make a change,” Ickovics added. “Big Food,” a collaboration between the Peabody, the Rudd Center and CARE, will remain open through Dec. 2, 2012. Contact JACQUELINE SAHLBERG at jacqueline.sahlberg@yale.edu .
Researchers call for sugar tax
BY MARIANA LOPEZ-ROSAS STAFF REPORTER
Nonalcoholic liver disease is the accumulation of fat in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol. It may lead to liver failure. In a normal mouse the genetically expressed inflammasomes (an immune system cell that activates inflammation) in the lining of the gut direct the synthesis of molecules that keep different species of microbes. We found that when the inflammasomes aren’t working, because the genes are not expressing them, the system gets out of control and the microbe composition changes radically. The bacteria then invade the epithelium of the gut, where it is not normally found. The immune system responds causing inflammation and killing the bacteria. But then the pieces of dead bacteria, we also found, travel through the bloodstream to the liver, which are then attacked by immune system cells, causing inflammation. This inflammation is liver disease.
unhealthy organs — including a liver, heart and kidney — to show how obesity damages the organ system. Next to the display of organs, visitors can see and feel a model of five pounds of body fat. “Genetics accounts for 30 percent of the differences in body size and shape, the rest is the environment,” Schwartz said, emphasizing the role of individual choices in maintaining health. She added that she hopes exhibit will provide museum guests with the tools to change their lifestyles and improve their health. In the final area of the exhibit, visitors are encouraged to place wooden tokens in jars as pledges of healthy changes — such as exercising more and drinking less soda — for them-
New research supports the controversial conclusion that foreign aid can actually harm recipient countries. A new working paper by researchers including Yale assistant economics professor Nancy Qian has found evidence that American food aid to developing countries may hurt those countries more than it helps. Qian described the unintended consequences as potentially devastating, by spurring conflict between ethnic groups and exacerbating pre-existing strife. The paper also found that the amount of U.S. grain sent abroad depended more on domestic levels of grain production than on the actual need by the recipient countries. “Before this paper, journalists who spent time in these donation countries had told anecdotes about how bad things can get [as a result of food aid], but we didn’t know whether these stories represented the actual picture,” Qian said. “What we have done with the data is quantified the average effect and proved that these aren’t random stories and that these unintended consequences do exist.” Qian said rival factions compete to steal food from aid convoys, which they then barter for weapons or use to feed their soldiers. Once armed groups have monopolized aid resources, the rest of the population may be forced to join the conflict simply to get enough food to survive. An analysis of 35 years of data about food aid to 134 developing countries strongly correlated consistent American food aid with an increased likelihood and duration of civil war. The paper cited examples of anecdotal evidence of food aid causing internal conflict from Afghanistan, Western Sahara, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Israel, Iraq, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan and the former Yugoslavia. “Food aid simply becomes another resource to fight over,” Qian said. Paul Macek, a food aid expert from the humanitarian organization World Vision said he thought the relationship between food aid and civil wars remains unclear, but agreed that food-based aid programs
A
We started this towards the end of 2009, that’s when we looked at the immune system genes. It took us about a year and a half to make the gene-microbe connection. It has taken at least a year and a half or two years.
are the next steps in your QWhat research?
A
I would like to show first that the bacteria and the means of transmission that we found apply to people. Then I would like to work on developing a drug that works in mice, as a model for people. Ultimately, the goal is to find a drug that will work on people.
do you think a potential QWhat cure might look like?
A
It might be an antibiotic, although I’m not quite sure. But we do know that if the outcome of our work applies to humans, it might lead to treatments that will help to reduce obesity medically. Yet again, there’s still a lot to do. Contact MARIANA LOPEZ-ROSAS at mariana.lopez-rosas@yale.edu .
Some researchers believe it is time to impose legal limits on sugar, similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. In a article published Feb. 1 in the journal Nature, three researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, argue that the harmful effects of sugar extend far beyond its calorie count. To reduce national sugar consumption, the government should regulate it the way it regulates alcohol and tobacco, said Robert Lustig, director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health program at UCSF and one of the article’s co-authors. . “Sugar meets the same criteria that alcohol and tobacco meet in terms of societal intervention,” Lustig said. “Every chronic disease we’ve got is exacerbated, if not brought on, by sugar consumption.” Lustig said there are four factors that make sugar eligible for government regulations: its unavoidability, its toxicity, its addictiveness and its negative effects on the rest of society. Sugars are so prevalent in daily life that people have no choice but to consume them, Lustig said. This risk is compounded by sugar’s tendency to cause users to develop liver fat, leading to chronic diseases such as hypertension and heart disease. Lustig added that early data suggests liver fat could contribute to the development of cancer. In addition, sugar is an addictive substance, he said. Sugar creates a “positive feedback cycle” in the brain, which keeps the consumer coming back for more. Lustig added that this cycle impacts not just the user, but also his peers, much as how secondhand smoke has negative effects on nonsmokers. Sugar consumption leads to chronic diseases, which imposes high health care costs on all members of society, Lustig said. Lustig said these attributes of sugar have made it difficult for purely educational efforts to get people to cut back their intake, just as education is ineffective in addressing tobacco and alcohol abuse. Lustig called for the federal government to become involved in the regulation of sugar, possibly through taxation, as Brownell has been publicly advocating. Lustig described Kelly Brownell, director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, as one of the most influential figures in the movement to regulate sugar. “Dr. Brownell has been on the forefront of identifying the role of dietary changes in the promulgation of the obesity epidemic,” Lustig said. He has been instrumental in showing that sugar-sweetened beverages correlate with obesity nationwide … [and] made the effective argu-
ment for societal intervention, with one method being taxation for generation of money for programs.” In October, the Rudd Center, led by Brownell, released a report detailing the marketing of sugary drinks to youth, especially minority youths. The report was the third in a series of research projects the Rudd Center has conducted regarding the effects of food industry marketing on youth. The first study, in 2009, detailed harmful effects of sugar in children’s cereals, and the second, in 2010, criticized the fast food industry for false claims that industry giants were cutting down on their advertisements to children.
Every chronic disease we’ve got is exacerbated, if not brought on, by sugar consumption. ROBERT LUSTIG Director, Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health program, University of California, San Francisco The Rudd Center’s director of marketing initiatives, Jennifer Harris GRD ’08, told the News in November that the ultimate goal of such studies was to provoke a change in food industry regulations and marketing practices involving sugary products. “Adding a penny-per-ounce tax on any beverage with added sugar could not only help reduce obesity and its accompanying high health care costs, but would also generate much-needed revenue,” Brownell wrote in an October Time Magazine article. “The projected benefits estimated by economists are impressive: 10- to 23-per-
cent reduced consumption, and $50 billion in health care savings and $150 billion in revenue over 10 years.” Brownell could not be reached for comment. Lustig said that current financial concerns were making made these unprecedented regulations necessary for the first. He said $147 billion is spent each year in therapy for chronic diseases, 75 percent of which can be blamed directly on sugar. Lustig suggested two other possibilities to regulate sugar: access limitation and age restrictions, similar to the restrictions on alcohol. He said that these kinds of regulations, in addition to taxation, have been much more effective in limiting tobacco and alcohol use than educational campaigns about the harm they cause. Researchers interviewed had mixed feelings about the feasibility of governmental regulations on sugar. Roger Cone, director of the Vanderbilt University Institute for Obesity and Metabolism, said some foods might be easier to regulate than others. “It would be pretty hard to regulate fruits and starchy vegetables,” Cone said. “On the other hand, the government could gradually phase out the subsidies that have pushed down the cost of corn-based sweeteners.” Benjamin Land, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry at Yale, said that, if regulations are enacted, they should include fructose, which is often included in sugary drinks. Lustig, much of whose research has been directed at demonstrating the harms associated with fructose, agreed. Currently, 33 states have a sales tax on sugary beverages, while six impose excise taxes in addition to a sales tax. Contact ROBERT PECK at robert.peck@yale.edu .
CREATIVE COMMONS
Some reserchers advocate regulations for sugar similar to those governing alcohol.
LEAKS
F R O M T H E
Danger on the horizon for fish
A new study by Yale scientists is putting a damper on the Valentine’s Day atmosphere by revealing that there may not, in fact, be more fish in the sea any time soon. The study, published this week, said that rising Antarctic temperatures may be harming fish that developed specifically to live in the cold. These fish, called notothenioids, developed a special “antifreeze” protein thousands of years ago that allowed them to survive the extreme polar temperatures, but a move towards a more moderate climate could devastate the fish. “A rise of 2 degrees centigrade of water temperature will likely have a devastating impact on this Antarctic fish lineage, which is so well adapted to water at freezing temperatures,” said associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Thomas Near, the lead author of the study. -Robert Peck
Correlation between C-sections WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
U.S. soliders distribute food and humanitarian aid to an Afghan village. A new Yale study has food aid is correlated with increased levels of civil war. are flawed because they create a dependency on external goodwill. The root of this dependency, he said, was the inabiity of food aid to generate long-term agricultural development. Macek added that he hadn’t read the paper, but thought it might understate the humanitarian benefits of food aid. He said that a long-term solution to food insecurity in Africa would require improving farming techniques to enable poor countries to achieve food self-sufficiency, but that food aid would continue to be important in emergency situations. The paper also found that volumes of American food aid from year to year were affected more by domestic supply levels than global demand for aid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in conjunction with the U.S. Agency of International
Development, purchases surplus grain to stabilize prices in the domestic market. This extra stock is then donated to developing countries, the paper said. Qian said that one important remedy to the negative effects of food aid would be to start basing food aid on countryspecific consumption levels, not domestic supply. “I don’t see any reason for why it has to be this way. Hopefully, people will realize this is a serious problem and that current policy needs some meaningful reform,” Qian said. Nathan Nunn, an economics professor at Harvard, co-wrote the paper with Qian. Contact PAAVAN GAMI at paavan.gami@yale.edu .
The drug shortage crisis requires intervention
A
s the 2012 presidential campaign continues, we’ll only hear more and more repetitive statements about healthcare coverage plans. Lost in the partisan debate about Romneycare vs. Obama-care is a very immediate health concern: drug availability. As of last summer, almost two hundred drugs crucial for treating infections and several types of cancer were in limited supply. This is a record drug shortage, and the situation is so critical that President Obama issued an executive order in October to give the Food and Drug Administration more power to report drug shortages and drug price gouging, as well as fast-tracking drug production applications. Unfortunately, this action was insufficient to alleviate major drug shortages, and several pieces of similar legislation have not made it through the Senate. Last week, the FDA revealed that hospitals might run out of methotrexate — a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and childhood leukemia — within two weeks. For both arthritis and leukemia, methotrexate must be taken on a frequent basis in order to be effective. An interruption in supply will cripple the effectiveness of the drug. While there are several alternate medications for arthritis, methotrexate — like many of the other drugs that are in limited supply — is essential to treating childhood leukemia. There are several causes of drug shortages. Often plants have to be closed due to concerns about contamination, since contaminated drugs would be especially dangerous to cancer patients, who have particularly vulnerable immune systems. Many companies outsource production to international plants where labor is cheaper and quality control is less stringently enforced. While this enhances the profit margin, patients in the U.S. are stuck because the drugs often lack proper clearance for import. Some plants lack the infrastructure required to mass produce drugs. Finally, drug production is controlled by just a few companies. For example, there are now only four American producers of methotrexate, meaning that when one company stops producing a particular drug it can have large implications for the entire market. With demand consistently high and supply low, the prices for many limitedsupply drugs have skyrocketed — and insurance plans may not cover alternative treatments, or the alternative treatments may be sub-par.
Both parties claim to want to alleviate the drug shortage but, unsurprisingly, the blame game has already started. Predictably, Republicans are not keen on governSAHELI ment intervention, SADANAD but it is clear that the administration’s Techno-rants executive order does not go far enough. While it makes it easier for the FDA to identify future shortages, it does not provide any strategies for actually alleviating existing shortages. Republicans and fellow free market champions bemoan regulations as the death of business, but it is absolutely essential that the FDA continue to rigorously scrutinize plants — contamination could be deadly. Constant vigilance can help prevent costly plant closures ahead of time by having them maintain health standards. The drug industry has agreed to invest millions in improved quality control at foreign plants. While this would be helpful, in the long-term, the government should find sustainable ways to incentivize efficient drug production in the United States. Perhaps financial incentives can be provided to pharmaceutical companies for research into improved production strategies. The number of cancer patients per year that require a given drug is fairly predictable; given this, perhaps the government could mandate that manufacturers produce a certain number of drugs yearly or face penalties. In the short-term, the government should invest in stockpiling essential cancer and chronic illness medications — that is, those for which there are no suitable alternatives. Drug companies that participate in this stockpiling could be reimbursed for their efforts, with perhaps an additional financial reward for their public service. At the end of the day, helping critically and chronically ill Americans should not be left to the whims of the free market. The president and Congress can and should do more to end the drug shortage. SAHELI SADANAND is a fifth-year graduate student in the Department of Immunobiology. Contact her at saheli. sadanand@yale.edu .
and breathing problems Heather Lipkind, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the School of Medicine, lead a study which surveyed 2,885 preterm babies. A slight correlation between cesarian sections and respiratory problems for infants was shown, but Lipkind said more research is necessary to determine the optimal birth method to avoid these problems. A birth is considered pre-term if it occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy. -Robert Peck
Supercontinent to be form, called Amasia Two hundred million years ago the supercontinent Pangaea broke up, and in approximately 50-200 million years a new supercontinent will form, located over the North Pole. Yale researchers predict that the Carribean will disappear as South America collides with North America and the combined American landmass collides with Siberia. By comparison, Pangaea was centered on modern-day Africa.
Healthier hearts now Another science valentine, this one about your heart: in honor of American Heart Month, which began Feb. 1, Angelo A. Alonzo, director of the Yale Heart Study, sat down with the Meatless Monday blog to discuss the effects of protein on a healthy heart. In the interview, Alonzo discussed the harms that the “bad cholesterol” contained in red meats like steak can have on your heart. He said that even a moderate reduction in these meats can have a profound, beneficial effect on hearth health. “All of the research that I’ve looked at urges for a balanced diet with a good distribution between fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates and protein,” Alonzo said. “We also know that proteins that contain a lot of saturated fat are not good for people, while the Mediterranean diet, which is abundant in plant-foods and low on red meat, is better for heart health.” -Robert Peck
Research team discovers mechanism for molecule freezing Yale researchers have published a study detailing how molecules maintain precise and complex shapes. They used a unique research technique which froze noncovalently-bonded molecules to produce a “snapshot” of the molecular bonds. Mark Johnson, a Yale chemistry professor and head author of the study, describes the process as cryogenic infared spectroscopy, and has filed a patent for it.
PAGE 8
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
NATION
T
Dow Jones 12,874.04, +0.57%
S NASDAQ 2,931.39, +0.95% Oil $100.39, -0.51%
S S&P 500 1,351.77, +0.68% T
10-yr. Bond 1.99%, +0.02
T Euro $1.31, -0.14
S
Obama budget grows government spending BY ANDREW TAYLOR ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Taking a pass on reining in government growth, President Barack Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year budget plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spending on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill. Though the Pentagon and a number of Cabinet agencies would get squeezed, Obama would leave the spiraling growth of health care programs for the elderly and the poor largely unchecked. The plan claims $4 trillion in deficit savings over the coming decade, but most of it would be through tax increases Republicans oppose, lower war costs already in motion and budget cuts enacted last year in a debt pact with GOP lawmakers. Many of the ideas in the White House plan for the 2013 budget year will be thrashed out during this year’s election campaigns as the Republicans try to oust Obama from the White House and add Senate control to their command of the House. “We can’t just cut our way into growth,” Obama said at a campaign-style rally at a community college in the vote-rich Northern Virginia suburbs. “We can cut back on the things that we don’t need, but we also have to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share for the things that we do need.” Republicans were unimpressed. While the measure contains some savings to Medicare and Medicaid, generally by reducing payments to health providers, both programs would double in
DESIGN We’re the best-looking desk at the YDN.
We see you. design@yaledailynews.
size over the coming decade. “It seems like the president has decided again to campaign instead of govern and that he’s just going to duck this country’s fiscal problems,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. By the administration’s reckoning, the deficit would drop to $901 billion next year - still requiring the government to borrow 24 cents of every dollar it spends - and would settle in the $600 billion-plus range by 2015. The deficit for the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, would hit $1.3 trillion, a near record and the fourth straight year of trillion-plus red ink.
It seems like the president has decided again to campaign instead of govern and that he’s just going to duck this country’s fiscal problems. PAUL RYAN House Budget Committee Chairman, R-Wis. Obama’s budget blueprint reprises a long roster of prior proposals: raising taxes on couples making more than $250,000 a year; eliminating numerous tax breaks for oil and gas companies, and approving a series of smaller tax and fee proposals. Similar proposals failed even when the Democrats controlled Congress. The Pentagon would cut purchases of Navy ships and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters - and trim
J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Copies of President Obama’s fiscal 2013 federal budget arrived at the House Budget Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. 100,000 troops from its rolls over coming years - while NASA would scrap two missions to Mars. But there are spending increases, too: The Obama plan seeks $476 billion for transportation projects including roads, bridges and a much-criticized high-speed rail initiative. Grants for better performing schools would get a big increase under Obama’s “Race to the Top” ini-
tiative, and there would be an $8 billion fund to train community college students for high-growth industries. Republicans accused the president of yet again failing to do anything meaningful to reduce deficits that could threaten the country with a European-style debt crisis unless they are wrestled under control. As a political document, the
Obama plan blends a handful of jobs-boosting initiatives with poll-tested tax hikes on the rich, including higher taxes on dividends and income earned by hedge fund managers. That would allow Obama to draw a contrast with GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, whose personal fortune and relatively low tax rate would be an issue in the general election campaign.
Another contrast with Republicans will come on Medicare, the enormously popular health care program for the elderly. Obama leaves the program mostly alone, while Republicans are on record in favor of gradually replacing the current system in which the government pays doctor and hospital bills with a voucher-like plan that would have government subsidize purchases of health insurance.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 9
BULLETIN BOARD
TODAY’S FORECAST
TOMORROW
Cloudy, with a high near 43. Calm wind becoming south between 5 and 8 mph.
THURSDAY
High of 48, low of 33.
High of 47, low of 36.
ZERO LIKE ME BY REUXBEN BARRIENTES
ON CAMPUS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15 11:45 AM “Animal Frontiers: A Tale of Three Zoos in Israel/ Palestine.” Irus Braverman, associate professor of law at SUNY Buffalo, will give this talk as part of the Council on Middle East Studies colloquium series. Institution for Social and Policy Studies (77 Prospect St.), Room A001. 4:30 PM “Disaster, Development and Democracy: Japan after 3-11.” Mary Alice Haddad, associate professor of government at Wesleyan University, will discuss how Japan has responded to the “Triple Disaster” on March 11, 2010. She will focus on governmental responses at the national and local levels, civil society responses and those from business. She will also discuss the potential long-term effects of the disaster on Japan’s politics, economy and society. Hosted by the Council on East Asian Studies. Sociology Department (10 Sachem St.), Rm. 105.
WATSON BY JIM HORWITZ
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16 4:00 PM “Roundup-Ready Alfalfa: Queen of Forages or Whore of Babylon?” Dan Putnam, professor of plant science at the University of California, Davis and chairman of the California alfalfa workgroup Western Alfalfa Symposium, will give this Biotechnology in Agriculture seminar. Kline Biology Tower (219 Prospect St.), Room 1214. 7:00 PM “Blue Valentine.” This 2010 film, by Derek Cianfrance, will be followed by a discussion with producer Jack Lechner. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), auditorium.
DOONESBURY BY GARRY TRUDEAU
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17 8:00 PM “Talley’s Folly.” This 1979 play by Lanford Wilson is the comedic story of a couple and a boathouse. This production is a senior project in theater studies for Lily Lamb-Atkinson ’12. Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St.), theater. 8:00 PM “I Heart DPops.” The Davenport Pops Orchestra will perform “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “I Will Survive,” music by Frank Sinatra, and selections from “Gone With the Wind,” “The Lion King” and “Aladdin.” Battell Chapel (400 Chapel St.).
y SUBMIT YOUR EVENTS ONLINE yaledailynews.com/events/submit To reach us: E-mail editor@yaledailynews.com Advertisements 2-2424 (before 5 p.m.) 2-2400 (after 5 p.m.) Mailing address Yale Daily News P.O. Box 209007 New Haven, CT 06520
Questions or comments about the fairness or accuracy of stories should be directed to Max de la Bruyère, Editor in Chief, at (203) 432-2418. Bulletin Board is a free service provided to groups of the Yale community for events. Listings should be submitted online at yaledailynews.com/events/ submit. The Yale Daily News reserves the right to edit listings.
To visit us in person 202 York St. New Haven, Conn. (Opposite JE) RELEASE FEBRUARY 14, 2012 FOR
Interested in drawing cartoons for the Yale Daily News? CONTACT DAVID YU AT dayu.yu@yale.edu
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
CLASSIFIEDS
CROSSWORD Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Lewis ACROSS 1 Place for family game night 4 Book of poems partly by King David 10 Farm grazer 13 Egg cells 14 Communicating regularly 16 Fat Tire product 17 Ballplayer’s hat 18 Woos, minstrelstyle 19 N.J. neighbor 20 Dismiss an occult doll-making practice? 23 Hanukkah money 24 Govt.-issued ID 25 Donahue and Collins 26 Double Stuf cookies 28 With 57-Down, wealthy people 31 Hair removal brand 32 “What’s that chocolate beverage you’re drinking, Yogi?” answer? 36 Raggedy doll 37 Debate side 38 PC component 39 Studio whose films get off to a roaring start 42 Model train expert? 45 Speed-of-sound name 48 Wee, like bairns 49 Sarandon of “Bull Durham” 50 Snow-block home 52 Hippie’s home 55 When Romeo meets Juliet 56 Frilly Hawaiian dress? 60 Small amount 61 Temps 62 Fib, e.g. 64 Dark time for a poet 65 Kind of fiction 66 Recreational transport, briefly 67 Driller’s deg. 68 More sexy 69 Manhattan liquor
CLASSICAL MUSIC 24 Hours a Day. 98.3 FM, and on the web at WMNR.org. “Pledges accepted: 1-800345-1812” Tuesday is Opera night!
PERSONAL COACH / ASPERGERS, LD, ADD. Lifeskills for work/school. Encouraging & experienced. www.UpwardWayCoaching.com
CALL (203) 432-2424 OR E-MAIL BUSINESS@ YALEDAILYNEWS.COM
THE TAFT APARTMENTS: Studio to 2BR styles for future & immediate occupancy at The Taft on the corner of College & Chapel Street. Lease terms available until 5/31/12. It’s never too early to join our preferred waiting list for Summer/ Fall 2012 occupancy. Public mini-storage available. By appointment only. Phone 203-495-TAFT. www.taftapartments.com.
2/14/12
By Marti Duguay-Carpenter
DOWN 1 Bespectacled dwarf 2 Role for Patti LuPone or Madonna 3 Layered pastry 4 “Hogwash!” 5 Scissors cuts 6 Periodic table figs. 7 Access with a password 8 “Faster, huskies!” 9 John Candy skit show 10 Golf bag carrier 11 World Cup chant 12 Runner-up’s news 15 Earring style 21 Texter’s “From a different aspect ...” 22 “Say it isn’t so!” 23 “La maja desnuda” painter 27 Second-year student 29 High, in Hamburg 30 Spanish river 33 Top Olympic medals, in Madrid 34 Rapid economic expansion
Want to place a classified ad?
Monday’s Puzzle Solved
SUDOKU MEDIUM
5 2 1 9 3 6 5 4 8
1 2 (c)2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
35 Plains tribesmen 39 Powerfully built 40 Tip on a table 41 City bond, informally 42 Dynasty during Confucius’ time 43 Juliet’s family name 44 American territory in the Pacific 45 Offended 46 Signed a pact, say
9
2/14/12
47 Circus performers 51 Slays, mob-style 53 “Care for __?”: after-dinner offer 54 Numbskull 57 See 28-Across 58 Hodgepodge 59 Mouse manipulator 63 Night of anticipation
4 6
1
9 3 6 2
1 9 9
5
4 6
8
PAGE 10
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
SPORTS
PEOPLE IN THE NEWS RANDY MOSS The NFL wide receiver announced yesterday on his 35th birthday that he wants to come out of retirement. Moss last played in 2010, a year in which he was traded from the Patriots to the Vikings to Tennessee.
Elis disappoint at H-Y-P TRACK AND FIELD FROM PAGE 12
ANDREW GOBLE/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Matthew Bieszard ’12, captain of the men’s track and field team, finished second in the 400-meter dash.
Gymnastics meets goals
William Rowe ’15 placed fourth in an extremely tight 500-meter dash. Like his fellow freshman, Daniel Kemp ’15 came up big in the 60-meter hurdles, where he ended in fourth and set a personal record. Dana Lindberg ’14 placed fourth in the long jump with a height of 6.94 meters. He said that he was disappointed that he could not top his similar performances in the last two meets and that the Bulldogs could easily have beaten the Crimson. However, Lindberg said the Elis will have a chance for revenge against Princeton at the Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships later this month. “We are good team, but if we are going to do well at the [Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships], then every individual will need to take it upon him or herself to compete better than they ever have before,” said Tim Hillas ’13, who finished fourth in the mile run with a personal-best 4:08.43, improving his previous best this
season by over three seconds. Like the men’s team, the women’s track and field team was able to attain four top-three finishes, despite scoring only 13.00 points and falling well short of Princeton’s 80 and Harvard’s 65.50. Lindsey Raymond ’12 met success on Saturday, placing third in the 3,000-meter race. Her time qualified her for the ECAC Championships and was the best by an Eli all season. (Raymond is a former city editor for the News.) “I think I could have done a better job of pacing myself so I could have time to catch up to the leaders,” Raymond said. She added that the Bulldogs’ disappointment will motivate them to victory at Heps. Kira Garry ’15, who finished sixth in the 3000-meter, said that she was pleased to set a personal record and to do well in her first HYP meet. She said the team had the right attitude going into the meet and was prepared but simply did not compete to its ability. In the one-mile run, the Bulldogs also fared well, capturing
second and third places. Sarah Barry ’14 finished with a time of 4:50.56, just ahead of Nihal Kayali ’13. “It was an exciting race given the great competition, and I was happy to be able to score some points for the team,” Barry said. The women’s day also featured a fourth-place finish in the 60-meter hurdles by Amanda Snajder ’14, a third-place finish in the pole vault by Emily Urciuoli ’14 and a third-place finish in the triple jump by Elle Brunsdale ’15. “There were a few great performances over the weekend, but as a collective group, we fell short of our goals,” said Urciuoli. “We need to forget about the meet, move forward, and train over the next few weeks.” The Bulldogs will take a week off and then compete in its most important meet yet at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on Feb. 25. Contact JORDAN KONELL at jordan.konell@yale.edu .
W. hockey earns point in ECAC W. HOCKEY FROM PAGE 12 Craig, who was in attendance, brought a little “Miracle magic” to the rink. Former Team US goaltender Craig — who helped the United States defeat Russia for the gold medal in the 1980 Olympics — was at the game to support his daughter, Taylor Craig, who is a forward for Colgate. Craig said he attends as many of his daughter’s games as he can and has been at about 90 percent of them this season. He spent some of the game catching up with college friend Alison Hughes, team captain Aleca Hughes’ ’12 mother. Craig and Hughes both attended Boston University. Although he was concentrated on he game — “My daughter’s out there, so I have to focus” — Craig did observe that Yale is heavy on the cross-check. “They are tougher than the men,” he laughed. And the Bulldogs certainly gave a strong offensive effort on Friday, outshooting Colgate 18–10 in the first period. Colgate, however, scored with just three minutes left in the period. “Our first period against Colgate was maybe our best period of the year,” Ladiges said. “We put a ton of pucks on net and had pressure in the zone for the duration of the period.” Although it was eventually outshot 44–33, Yale maintained its energy throughout the entire game — something it has struggled to do all season — and managed to come back from one point behind after the first period. Just one minute into the second period,
forward Jackie Raines ’14, who leads the team in goals scored, converted off an assist from Mock, and the game remained tied until the end. Though no additional goals were scored, the game was still eventful. Approximately two minutes into the third period, play was stopped as Raiders forward Miriam Drubel hit the ice hard. Tendering her right leg, she was helped off the ice by Craig, and was later taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Reflecting on the final result of Friday’s game, head coach Joakim Flygh said, “We were all happy with our effort and how hard we played. It was a fun game to coach and play in.” Mock added that the game was close and “could have gone either way.” However, Saturday’s game against Cornell was a clear-cut loss for the Bulldogs, who were already down 3–0 within six minutes of play. “We stood around and watched Cornell for the first six minutes,” Flygh said. “But after we started playing and got our competitive level up, we played them as tough as we have in my two years here. They had to earn their scoring opportunities after that.” The Big Red, which Ladiges said is “perhaps the most skilled team in the country,” was up to that challenge. It scored again twice in the second period, and by the end of the first 40 minutes had outshot the Bulldogs 41–5. Raines, who scored both of the Elis’ two goals this weekend, put Yale on the scoreboard one minute into the third period, but Cornell jumped ahead to 6–1 halfway through the third. Even LMFAO couldn’t
get the Blue and White to generate more scoring opportunities when its quintessential college party song “Shots” came on the loudspeaker between plays during the final period. The team was ultimately outshot 53–9. Assistant coach Eddie Ardito noted that the Bulldogs improved during the Cornell game, as they managed to tie the third period. He added that this boosts the team’s confidence going into its final weekend of play. On Friday and Saturday, the Bulldogs will finish their season away as they take on Dartmouth and Harvard. Although the Bulldogs are ranked last in the conference and out of the postseason cutoff, Grant said that she is proud of how the team played in its last home games and that she hopes the team can end its season “on a high note” with a win. Contact LINDSEY UNIAT at lindsey.uniat@yale.edu .
YALE 1 COLGATE 1 YALE
0
1
0
0
1
COLGATE
1
0
0
0
1
CORNELL 6 YALE 1 CORNELL
3
2
1
6
YALE
0
0
1
1
CRISTINA MANOLE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The gymnastics team excelled on bars last weekend, taking first, second, and third in the event. GYMNASTICS FROM PAGE 12 seen,” said Yabut, who, as a senior, has seen Yale compete for four years. The Elis stuck dismount after dismount. Traina stuck her double back tuck, Nicole Tay ’14 stuck her double layout, and Lindsay Andsager ’13 stuck her double tuck dismount. Each salute was met by a smile from the judge, who awarded the Bulldogs the points they deserved. Yale took first, second and third place on bars with Andsager (9.850), Tay (9.775) and Traina (9.750). The total team score on bars was 48.650, which surpassed the team’s goal of scoring 48 on each event. The Bulldogs’ next event was beam. Beam is the smallest gymnastics apparatus, but it has caused the biggest problems for Yale this season. This meet was no exception. The team was forced to count two falls in its team score, plummeting its team score on beam to 46.625 and making it the Elis’ lowest-scoring event of the day. “I think part of the issue is a lack of confidence on some of the rou-
tines,” Feld said. “We need to focus on confidence as a team in general,” she added. As a result, Yabut said the team is expected to work on beam during this week of practice. Yale’s floor routines had a couple of mistakes, but they were much better than last week’s routines as the team scored a respectable 47.850 points. Feld topped the charts. Her sky-high tumbling placed her in second with a score of 9.775. Feld’s finish earned her second place in the all-around with a score of 38.500, edging out teammates Traina (38.475) and Joyce Li ’15 (37.600), who finished third and fourth. The only competitor to beat the trio was Bridgeport’s Monica Mesalles, who competed in the 2004 Olympics for Spain. Next Saturday the team has its last meet before Ivy League Championships, against Southern Connecticut State University. Its goal is to hit 24 out of 24 routines next week, Yabut said. Contact MONICA DISARE at monica.disare@yale.edu .
JACOB GEIGER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Women’s hockey team captain Aleca Hughes ’12 and the rest of the seniors played their final games at Ingalls Rink this weekend.
YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
PAGE 11
SPORTS
Peyton Manning to the Texans? According to radio station KTRK-TV in Houston, the veteran quarterback, who missed last season with a neck injury, may want to join the Houston Texans if he is released from the Indianapolis Colts, the team for which he has played in all of his 14 professional seasons. Manning has thrown for 54,828 career yards.
Mixed results for Elis at Ivies BY EUGENE JUNG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER At the Yale-hosted Ivy League Championship this weekend, the women’s fencing team showed vast improvement over last year’s championship by taking fifth place and defeating Brown and Cornell.
FENCING
ZEENAT MANSOOR/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The women’s fencing team improved upon last year’s performance with a fifth place finish at Ivy League championships this weekend.
W. tennis defeats top teams W. TENNIS FROM PAGE 14 and Yu came out with an 8–5 win at No. 1, along with the victory at No. 3, with Seideman and Kent winning 8–3. Singles was equally as successful, with all but two players out of six winning their matches. Coach Danielle McNamara attributed much of the team’s success over the weekend to the support the teammates showed each other both on and off the court.
It’s a competitive conference, and I think that the hostile fan environment was handled well. DANIELLE MCNAMARA Head coach, women’s tennis “It was a real team effort and everyone contributed in some way — even the cheering on the side helped those still on court,” McNamara said. “Yesterday’s match in particular was rather intense. It’s a competitive conference, and I think that the hostile fan environment was handled well. It was a really tough place to play.” Yale will host Ivy foes and other rivals at the ECAC women’s tennis championships next weekend. Brook said that Yale will be looking to prolong its winning streak. Contact ADLON ADAMS at adlon.adams@yale.edu .
The No. 10 men’s team, which took second place last year, struggled this weekend and slipped to fifth place. The women’s team overall had a 2–4 record for the weekend and the men’s team went 1–4. Foilist James Broughton ’15 and epeeist Peter Cohen ’14 won second team AllIvy honors for their strong performances. On the first day, the women’s team took on Brown, Harvard and Cornell, and ended the day with a 2–1 record. Against Brown, the Bulldogs narrowly escaped defeat with a score of 14–13. Foil and epee prevailed with a 6–3 win, whereas saber endured a 2–7 loss. “Brown was a strong team to
fence, but I am happy that we especially showed strength in foil,” said foilist Jillian Liu ’12. However, in the next round, the Bulldogs had to swallow a crushing 21–6 defeat against the Crimson (foil 6–3, epee 7–2 and saber 8–1). In the last match of the day, the team rebounded by smashing Cornell 16–11 (foil and epee 6–3, and saber 4–5). On the other side of Coxe Cage, the men’s team fenced against Brown and Harvard and took one win and one loss, putting them in third on the first day. The men opened their first match against Brown and won big, posting a 17–10 win. All three weapons scored wins: saber 5–4, epee and foil both 6–3. “Brown was decent, and it is definitely a good start for us,” said saberist Nathaniel Benzimra ’13. “We played really well overall.” Unfortunately, the goddess of victory did not smile upon the Elis in a clash against the No.3 Crimson. “The Game” of the Ivies drew approximately 40 Yale supporters, including the suitemates of saberist Adam Fields ’12, many of whom showed up for the
contest with blue Y’s painted on their bodies. The team dominated in epee with a score of 6–3 but showed ineffectiveness in foil and saber, losing 4–5 and 2-7, respectively, en route to a 15–12 loss overall. On the second day of the championship, both teams faced Princeton, Penn and Columbia but failed to come up with a single win. The women’s side gave in to the Tigers 25-2, Quakers 20-7, and Lions 22-5. Despite these losses, team captain Robyn Shaffer ’13 said she was satisfied with her team’s performance. “We are really proud of our results this year,” she said. “We set our goal for the weekend to beat Cornell and Brown, and we accomplished that goal. It is an improvement from last year, so we can tangibly see that we’ve made progress, which is a great feeling.” Shaffer added that fencing is as much a mental sport as a physical one, and after a loss it is best to “put aside negative thoughts and start preparing for the next bout.” Head coach Henry Harutunian
said the team put dignity in the games and it was quite impressive for the women to beat Brown and Cornell, which are heavily composed of recruits, whereas the Elis have only two foilist recruits: Lauren Miller’15 and Katharine Pitt’12. The men’s side lost 18-9 against No.2 Princeton although it secured a 6-3 victory in foil. The team also submitted to No.7 Penn 16-11, but the Bulldogs did defeat the Quakers in foil 5-4. In the last match against the Lions, the men lost 18-9 despite taking epee with a 5-4 victory. “We are actually disappointed at our result, but the team tried its best,” said the men’s team manager Jose Martinez ’12. Martinez said he was particularly proud of Broughton because he is a freshman who performed well in a high-pressure situation. The Elis will compete in the United States Collegiate Squad Championships on Feb. 26 at NYU in New York. Contact EUGENE JUNG at eugene.jung@yale.edu .
Strong showing for m. lax BY EUGENE JUNG CONTRIBUTING REPORTER On Sunday, the Elis kicked off spring play with a preseason scrimmage against Siena at Reese Stadium. Although it was a scrimmage and no official score was tallied, captain Michael Pratt ’12 and head coach Andy Shay both said Yale outshot Siena.
MEN’S LACROSSE Despite the freezing weather, a crowd of approximately 40 supporters from both the Bulldogs and Saints sides showed no signs of discomfort as they cheered on their teams. Over the course of the scrimmage, Pratt, Shane Thornton ’15, Michael Lipin ’13, Gregory Mahony ’12, Matt Miller ’12, Conrad Oberbeck ’15, Matt Gibson ’12, Ryan McCarthy ’14 and Benjamin Gifford ’12 secured at least one goal apiece. “Siena was definitely a strong team,” Pratt said. “They played in the NCAA last season, won the MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference), and, importantly, a good goalie returned. However, I am really happy that we did well overall. We played especially good offense by controlling the ball in an offensive set.” Shay was satisfied by his team’s performance, saying it responded well to the difficult conditions. Pratt added that Cole Yeager ’13 did particularly well in faceoff. Miller, a midfielder for the Bulldogs, said the team had good ball movement. Heading into the scrimmage, the greatest uncertainty for the team was who would start in goal. But this area of concern did not seem to matter much in Sunday’s match. Jack Meyer
ZEENAT MANSOOR/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Matt Miller ’12 contributed to the midfield’s successful ball movement and even scoring distribution. ’14, one of the three goalies for the squad, played two quarters, and Peter Spaulding ’13 and Eric Natale ’15 split the other half of the game. The starting spot is still up in the air as the three grapple for the chance to earn fill the gaping hole left by the 2011 AllNew England first team goalkeeper Johnathan Falcone ’11. “All three goalies played well, but we are no further along in our decision because there were not a lot of shots taken in the scrimmages,” Shay said. There were several unofficial practice matches in the fall, but this match
was the first test against live college opponents for Yale’s freshmen. “I was proud of Harry Kucharczyk ’15 since although he was originally recruited as a midfielder, he was able to contribute to the team’s smooth match by excelling in the defense,” Pratt said. “Thornton and Oberbeck obviously did really well by scoring goals. None of them showed nerves in their first match.” The Elis will compete in two more scrimmages next weekend, one against Tufts and the other against Quinnipiac. Pratt said Quinnipiac is usually a
tough team to play in the preseason since its players are adept at running some exotic offenses and rides.The Elis will begin preparing some countermeasures to parry such maneuvers in this week’s practices. The Elis are scheduled to face Division III No. 5 Tufts at 5 p.m. and Quinnipiac at 7 p.m., both at Reese Stadium. The team will play the season’s official first match on Feb. 25 against St. John’s. Contact EUGENE JUNG at eugene.jung@yale.edu .
Woods goes from inevitable to unpredictable BY DOUG FERGUSON ASSOCIATED PRESS PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Phil Mickelson has beaten Tiger Woods the last five times they have played together in the final round. But never like this. This was a pounding at Pebble Beach. Mickelson shot a 64 on a day when no one else could do better than 67. Woods had a 75 on a day when only four players none of whom were in contention - shot worse. One guy left with the trophy, the other guy left with a lot to think about. The relevance of Sunday is still to be determined. The real measure of Woods most likely won’t happen until the Masters, which is just two months away. There is no doubt that Woods is more capable now than he has been since he was derailed from the fast track by chaos in his personal life and leg injuries. He has contended on
Sunday in his last four tournaments, and that’s not an accident. It’s the final rounds that are troubling. In the middle of his last swing change in 2004, Woods had the 36-hole lead in consecutive weeks at Quail Hollow and the Byron Nelson Championship, stumbled badly on Saturday and then came up one shot short of a playoff on Sunday. The last two tournaments, however, he hasn’t even been close. In his 2012 debut at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he was tied with Robert Rock of England going into the final round and couldn’t break par. Two weeks later at Pebble Beach, where he started the last day four shots behind Charlie Wi, he was one shot out of the lead while standing in the fairway on the par-5 sixth hole. Woods wound up nine shots out of the lead in a tie for 15th. The guy dressed in red sud-
denly has a case of the Sunday blues. He attributed his play in Abu Dhabi to not giving himself enough good looks at birdie. He attributed his downfall at Pebble Beach to not being able to make anything. Woods missed five putts in the 5-foot range. Such performances used to be an exception, not a trend. In those five tournaments where Mickelson has beaten Woods while paired with him in the final round, Lefty has won three times. So maybe there’s some truth to the notion that Woods brings out the best in Mickelson, or that Mickelson brings out the worst in Woods. Rivalries are made out of moments like this. In Woods’ benchmark season of 2000, Mickelson stopped his six-tournament winning streak at Torrey Pines and denied Woods a 10-win season on the PGA Tour by rallying to beat him at the Tour Championship. The last time they played
together on a Sunday when both had a chance to win was in Shanghai in 2009 for the HSBC Champions. Mickelson had a two-shot lead over Woods going into the final round, and Woods had to birdie the ninth hole to avoid shooting 40 on the front nine. He was never a factor. And that’s when Woods was at the top of his game. As much as Mickelson enjoyed this latest snapshot, he was quick to observe the big picture. “Although I feel like he brings out the best in me, it’s only been the past five years,” Mickelson said. “Before, I got spanked pretty good. Let’s not forget the big picture here. I’ve been beat up.” Mickelson won for the 40th time in his career, only the ninth player to do that in PGA Tour history. Woods has 71 wins. Mickelson is a four-time major champion. Woods has been stuck on 14 since 2008. But an 11-shot difference between them on a Sunday?
That’s an attention-grabber, especially considering Woods’ performance indicated he was getting close, and Mickelson’s recent record caused him to start doubting himself. Woods drives so much interest in golf that no one is a great victim of a rush to judgment. Remember, it was in 2001 when a golf magazine printed the headline, “What Wrong With Tiger?” on its cover after he failed to win the first five tournaments he played. Woods won the next three, including the Masters, which made him the only player to hold all four professional majors at the same time. Even so, there is something that gives one pause about Pebble Beach. Woods sounded indignant when someone brought up the fact his last PGA Tour victory was in September 2009, and his last win against a full field was two months after that in the Australian Masters, right before the Thanksgiving night fiasco that
shattered his image and moved golf from sports pages to gossip magazines. “People think it’s a couple of years, but I just won a couple months ago,” he said of the Chevron World Challenge, where he birdied his last two holes for a one-shot win over Zach Johnson against an 18-man field. “I look at that as a win. And I’m just kind of off to my first start of the year here in the States, and I made some good improvement this week.” Then again, that win at Sherwood was inches away from being different. Woods had control of the final round early, let it get away, and could only watch as Johnson had an 18-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole that looked all the way until it wasn’t. That would have given him a two-shot lead. Instead, Woods knocked in his 15-footer to tie, then won with a 6-foot putt on the end. If Johnson’s putt goes in, the hole undoubtedly shrinks for Woods’ birdie attempt.
IF YOU MISSED IT SCORES
NCAA B Syracuse 52 Louisville 51
NCAA B Baylor 79 Iowa St. 64
SPORTS QUICK HITS
BRIAN O’NEILL ’12 AND ANDREW MILLER ’13 SEMI-FINALISTS FOR AWARD O’Neill, captain and forward on the men’s hockey team and Miller, a forward on the team, are two of 21 semifinalsts for the Walter Brown award which is awarded annually to the top American-born college hockey player in New England.
NBA Philadelphia 98 Charlotte 89
y
NBA Orlando 102 Minnesota 89
NHL San Jose 5 Washington 3
FOR MORE SPORTS CONTENT, VISIT OUR WEB SITE yaledailynews.com/sports
MEGAN VASQUEZ ’13 IVY LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE WEEK Vasquez, a guard on the women’s basketball team, was awarded the Ivy League Player of the Week and College Sports Madness Ivy Player of the Week awards after a weekend in which she averaged 26.5 points and 4.5 rebounds and scored her 1000th career point.
“Our first period against Colgate was maybe our best period of the year. We put a ton of pucks on net.” GENNY LADIGES ’12 GOALIE, WOMEN’S HOCKEY YALE DAILY NEWS · TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 · yaledailynews.com
Track and field comes up short
Elis dominate on road trip BY ADLON ADAMS CONTRIBUTING REPORTER The women’s tennis team is continuing its success against nationally top-ranked teams. During a road trip this past weekend to Fay-
WOMEN’S TENNIS BY JORDAN KONELL STAFF REPORTER
“I know I could have done better,” Jones said. “I messed up on the little things, the details. And when you mess up a few of the details, that’s the difference between getting third with a 6.96 and getting first with a 6.92.”
etteville, Ark., the No. 25 Yale women’s tennis team (3–1, 0–0 Ivy) defeated No. 31 Oklahoma 6–1 on Saturday and No. 32 Arkansas 5–2 on Sunday. Team captain Vicky Brook ’12 said that the wins on the road were a good way to solidify Yale’s status as a highly-ranked team. “I think because we were ranked a little higher and because we had such a successful start that there was a target on our backs,” Brook said. “They really wanted to beat us, but we did a good job of showing them how strong of a team we are both physically and mentally.” Against Oklahoma on Saturday, Yale swept the three doubles matches. Hanna Yu ’15 and Brook defeated Oklahoma’s Marie-Pier Huet and Whitney Ritchie 8–4 at No. 1. Elizabeth Epstein ’13 and Annie Sullivan ’14 won 8–1 at No. 2, and Stephanie Kent ’12 and Blair Seideman ’14 won 8–4 at No. 3. (Seideman is a staff photographer for the News.) Epstein said she knew the team was capable of a win but did not expect to win by such a large margin. In the singles round the team won every match except for the No. 2 spot, with Seideman falling to Oklahoma’s Ritchie in straight sets 6–3, 6–1. Both freshmen were given the opportunity to play and came out victorious after struggling a little at first. Yu won at No. 2, 6–4, 6–4 and Amber Li ’15 won at No. 6, 7–6, 6–4. “We were in a bit of a hole on Sunday in the singles matches,” Brook said. “Three of the girls on our team were able to dig their heels in and find a way to win, which we are all really proud of.” On Sunday against Arkansas Yale had a repeat performance for doubles. All three spots came out on top, starting with the No. 2 pair of Epstein and Sullivan with an 8–3 victory. Brook
SEE TRACK PAGE 10
SEE W. TENNIS PAGE 11
After showing significant promise last week at the Giegengack Invitational, both the men’s and women’s track and field teams came up short this Saturday in Cambridge against archrivals Harvard and Princeton.
TRACK AND FIELD The Tigers and the Crimson dominated the men’s team. The Elis scored 13.00 points to Princeton’s 100.50 and Harvard’s 56.50. Despite a disappointing team finish, the Bulldogs were able to secure four individual podium finishes. Captain Matthew Bieszard ’12 shone in the 400-meter dash, finishing in second place overall with a personal collegiate best of 48.40 seconds. Daniel Jones ’14 was third in the 60-meter dash with a personal record and IC4A-qualifying time of 6.96 seconds.
I know I could have done better. I messed up on the little things, the details. DANIEL JONES ’14 Sprinter, men’s track and field
YDN
Blair Seideman ’14won both of her matches this weekend with doubles partner and team captain Steph Kent ’12.
Elis break losing streak BY LINDSEY UNIAT STAFF REPORTER On its last weekend of home games this season, the women’s hockey team managed to break its 18-game losing streak with a tie against ECAC rival Colgate.
BY MONICA DISARE STAFF REPORTER It keeps getting better and better for the gymnastics team.
WOMEN’S HOCKEY
GYMNASTICS
The Bulldogs (1–25–1, 1–18–1 ECAC) finished Friday’s game versus the Raiders (10–19– 2, 5–13–2 ECAC) with an even score of 1–1 after three regular periods and a five-minute overtime. On Saturday, however, national No. 3 and ECAC leader Cornell (24–3–0, 18–2–0 ECAC) bested the Bulldogs 6–1. “We got a lot of scoring chances against Colgate and put together one of our best 60 minutes of hockey,” defender Heather Grant ’12 said. “It was nice to finally get rewarded with a point [in the conference standings].” Teammates Genny Ladiges ’12 and Stephanie Mock ’15 echoed Grant’s sentiments and said that although they would have liked to win the game, they were happy not to have suffered yet another defeat. The last time the Bulldogs did not lose was on Nov. 11 when they defeated Union 3–2 in overtime, but this weekend they managed to break out of their dismal rut. Perhaps because it was the emotional and penultimate game at Ingalls Rink for the four seniors on the team. Or because of the tacit, and probably unintended, sartorial support from the Colgate coach, who was wearing blue and white checked pants. Or maybe former Olympic hockey player, Jim SEE W. HOCKEY PAGE 10
Yale achieves highest score yet
JACOB GEIGER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Yale rode a strong first period to a 1–1 tie against Colgate that snapped its losing streak at 18 games.
STAT OF THE DAY 47
Yale scored 190.4 points in its home meet on Saturday, which marks its highest score of the season. It was good enough to beat Springfield College (185.625) and Rhode Island University (170.7), but not to defeat Bridgeport (193.075). The Elis had strong individual performances fueling its end result. Tara Feld ’13 placed second in the all-around competition, and Morgan Traina ’15 took third. “I think it’s great that we’re continuing to get better at each meet,” Traina said in an email to the News, “and I know that we can do even more in the meets to come.” Since the team is focused on its goal of winning the Ivy League Championship, the loss to Bridgeport is not as significant as the team’s improved score, team captain Mia Yabut ’12 said. “At this point we’re just thinking about our [team’s] individual
performance,” said Yabut. Feld added that Bridgeport’s level of competition only helped the Bulldogs compete at their highest level. Vault was a strong start for the Elis. Yale’s two twisting vaults delivered the highest scores for the Bulldogs. Feld, who competed a Yurchenko full, scored a 9.725, and Traina, who competed a Yurckenko tuck full, scored a 9.500. Feld’s score placed her fourth in the event, a solid start to another solid meet for her.
I think it’s great that we’re continuing to get better at each meet and I know that we can do even more in the meets to come. MORGAN TRAINA ’15 Gymnastics Bars was a dynamic event for the Bulldogs. “Bars was the best I’ve ever SEE GYMNASTICS PAGE 10
THE NUMBER OF SAVES GOALIE GENNY LADIGES ’12 MADE FOR THE WOMEN’S HOCKEY TEAM AGAINST CORNELL ON SATURDAY. But the Big Red took 53 shots and won the game 6-1. Yale, which burned Colgate for 18 first-period shots Friday, had just nine shots on goal against Cornell.