THE BROWN DAILY HERALDVolume CXLI, No. 36 An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com

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INFUSED

Meg Boudreau / HeraldThe Fusion Dance Company is performing its annual dance show March 15 through March 19 at Ashamu Dance Studio.

see ARTS & CULTURE, page 3

Student recovering after fall from 3rd-floor Buxton windowBY REBECCA JACOBSONSENIOR STAFF WRITER

A female student fell out of a third-floor Buxton House window early Thursday morning, sustain-ing minor injuries, according to University spokesperson Molly de Ramel.

Two Department of Public Safety officers responded to the incident, which occurred at about 3 a.m. The student was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with “minor injuries,” de Ramel said.

Local fire and rescue officials also responded to the scene.

The incident occurred after the student and friends returned from Fish Co Bar and Grill, ac-cording to John Shields ’07, a Buxton resident. Shields, who had been at Fish Co with the stu-dent, said she “had been drinking a bit.”

Shields accompanied her to the hospital after the fall and re-mained with her until 10 a.m. yesterday. As of last night, the student was still recovering in

the hospital, Shields said. He de-clined to provide details about the student’s injuries, but said he expected her to suffer “no perma-nent damage.”

On returning to Buxton from Fish Co, the female student en-tered a women’s restroom, while others waited outside. After sev-eral minutes, Shields said he en-tered the restroom, which was empty. He said he saw the open window and went to look out-side, where he saw the student lying on the grass about 30 feet below.

Shields said he ran down-stairs, yelling for people to call emergency services. Before DPS and local fire and rescue officials responded, Shields said he sup-ported the head of the student, who he said was breathing, but added that she could not move her feet and was bleeding. De Ramel said the student was alert enough to tell the officers that the fall “was an accident.”

— with additional reporting by Eric Beck

Providence after Plunder DomeThe fall of Buddy Cianci and the rise of cleaner city government

BY BEN LEUBSDORFMETRO EDITOR

More than anything else, Provi-dence over the past three de-cades has been defined by one man: Vincent “Buddy” Cianci.

Cianci was the longest serv-ing mayor in the city’s histo-

ry, elected to six terms and serving a total of 21 years in of-

fice. When Cianci first took of-fice in 1975, Providence was a decaying industrial town, blighted and failing. He left it in 2002 as the “Renaissance City,” a modern city with a rebuilt downtown and, perhaps more importantly, a thriving sense of civic pride.

“There was no one more bril-liant or more dedicated. He was just incredible,” said a former Cianci aide who asked not to be identified. “I think one of his major contributions was drawing every-one in and making everyone feel like they had a stake in the city.”

But, as U.S. District Judge Er-nest Torres said when he sen-tenced Cianci to 64 months in prison in September 2002, “there appear to be two very different Buddy Ciancis.”

One was the beloved visionary who uncovered the river, moved the railroad and remade down-town into a more attractive, safer place. The other Cianci was the felon convicted under the Rack-eteer Influenced and Corrupt Or-ganizations Act in 2002 of head-

ing a criminal enterprise, who presided over one of the most corrupt governments in the city’s history. Both made Providence the city it is today.

Buddy I and Buddy II

Cianci, a native of the Silver Lake neighborhood of Provi-dence and head of the Organized Crime Unit in the state attorney general’s office, was first elected mayor in 1974, running as a Re-publican to take advantage of a split in the Democratic Party ma-chine. His campaign posters an-nounced he was “the anticorrup-tion candidate,” ready to clean up City Hall as Providence’s first Italian-American mayor.

Cianci clashed often with the Democratic-dominated City Council during his first period in office — popularly known as Buddy I — but brought an in-flux of federal funding into the city. Re-elected in 1978, Cianci steered Providence through a fiscal crisis in 1980 and ran for re-election again in 1982 as an Independent.

He won, but even as he did, the FBI was moving in on corruption in City Hall. Patronage, bribes and city employees being required to buy tickets to Cianci fundraisers were all investigated, leading to the indictment of 24 city officials and the jailing of 19, including several top Cianci aides.

Rita Williams, who now rep-resents Ward 2 on the City Coun-cil, remembers being on a grand jury for six weeks during those investigations.

“I re-m e m b e r h e a r i n g things about the stolen things at (the Department of Public Works) and the corrup-tion there,” W i l l i a m s said. She said her grand jury made indict-ments that led to convictions.

Cianci had legal troubles of his own. On March 20, 1983, he summoned a man he believed was having an affair with his ex-

PROVIDENCE TODAY:Fifth in a series

buddycianci.comBuddy Cianci at the post-verdict press conference, as shown in the a w a r d - w i n n i n g d o c u m e n t a r y “Buddy.”

BY ALISSA CERNYSTAFF WRITER

As any campus tour guide will tell you, Brown already has more students in a cappella

groups per capi-ta than any other school. But that

number grew this Wednesday when Menia Pavlakou started a new singing group for students with anorexia and bulimia.

The group will provide an outlet for students suffering from eating disorders, and its activities and impact will also be the subjects of Pavlakou’s the-

sis project. Pavlakou currently holds a courtesy appointment with the Department of Music after completing one music de-gree in Greece and a master’s degree in music psychology at Sheffield University in England.

“I am very interested in the everyday effect of music outside of therapy, and how people use music to consciously alter their moods,” Pavlakou said.

Because singing involves the entire body, Pavlakou said she thinks a singing group will pro-vide a friendly, safe and non-critical atmosphere where stu-dents with anorexia or bulimia

are free to explore their voices and bodies.

Heather Bell, a nutritionist at Health Services, said she was familiar with the concept of ex-pressive art therapy.

“Arts and music can be very emotionally powerful and peo-ple have the potential to com-municate thoughts and feelings through art that they are unable to articulate verbally, and that means in a good — or potential-ly vulnerable — way,” Bell said. “People can feel opened up and very exposed.”

Singing group to provide outlet for students with eating disorders

see SINGING, page 6

FEATURE

see CIANCI, page 4

‘Elegant’ revamped admissions mailings greet accepted studentsBY MELANIE DUCHSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Mailings from the Office of Admission got a makeover this year. About 2,400 accepted students from both the regular and early decision applicant pools will receive a “stylish” and color-coordinated assort-ment of written materials and a car decal in their forthcom-ing deliveries from Brown, ac-cording to Dean of Admission Jim Miller ’73.

Michael Goldberger, former director of admission and cur-rent director of athletics, said

admissions mailings became more and more weighed down with information over the 20 years he worked in the admis-sions office. He added that this trend caused “all sorts of prob-lems” with coordinating the in-dividual packages sent to ac-cepted students.

Miller, who was appointed dean of admission last year, brought up the possibility of revamping the packets several months ago, and others in the admissions office were recep-tive to the idea.

see ADMISSIONS, page 6

RUE-DE AWAKENINGThe Resumed Undergraduate Students Association is working to increase the presence of RUE students on campus CAMPUS NEWS 5

SMALL TALKEric Perlmutter ’06 encourages sports commentators and athletes to express their inner voices SPORTS 12

LOUNGE LIZARDSHousing crunch forces ResLife to place some students in temporaily converted lounges CAMPUS NEWS 5

C R O S S W O R D

THIS MORNINGTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 2

Jero Matt Vascellaro

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

M for Massive Yifan Luo

Homebodies Mirele Davis

Freeze Dried Puppies Cara Fitzgibbons

Silentpenny Soundbite Brian Elig

THE BROWN DAILY HERALDEditorial Phone: 401.351.3372

Business Phone: 401.351.3260

Robbie Corey-Boulet, President

Justin Elliott, Vice President

Ryan Shewcraft, Treasurer

David Ranken, Secretary

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ACROSS1 Bottom line4 Kent classmate8 Light up

13 “__ see it ...”14 Subj. concerned

with bioregions15 Phrase with

page or corner16 Bulletin board

lineup?19 Bed neatener20 “Just watch me”21 Victim of a 1994

strike23 Stable noise25 Building group26 Mythological

libertine28 Bear witness30 Vague

sensations31 Golfer Sabbatini32 URL starter36 Place to get off:

Abbr.37 Architectural

groove38 Carnival site39 Anasazi

descendant41 The Star Wars

films, e.g.42 Blond comic

strip teenager44 Without a

downside46 Trendy tie47 Kind of fatty

acid50 It may be rare52 ’90s winner of

back-to-backBest ActorOscars

54 Corresponds57 “I, __”58 Timely subject

of five mix-upsin this puzzle

60 Vaticanvestment

61 Tony’s cousin62 N.L. East team,

on scoreboards63 Cuts64 Blasts, in a way65 Absorb, with

“up”

DOWN1 Part of NAACP:

Abbr.2 Morales of` “Bad

Boys”3 Aid for a

commutinginsect?

4 Flat figures5 Part taker6 Opposite of sou’7 Smooth-tongued8 Some

Rijksmuseumpaintings

9 Spa treatment10 Church keys?11 Proposed,

perhaps12 British nobles17 Lake Victoria’s

eastern tip is init

18 Magician’sassortment?

22 “Bye!”24 Fruit pie

selections?26 Pane holder27 Turnpike roller29 Spelling et al.33 Tout’s offering?

34 Martinez ofbaseball

35 __ l’Évêque:pale-yellowcheese

37 Small finch40 Not solvent42 Ophelia’s

brother43 Allegheny, as of

197945 Declaims

47 Work on thecutting edge

48 Irish lullaby start49 Put in jail51 “Truth is more of

a stranger thanfiction” writer

53 Pull the plug on55 Comeback56 Cap’n59 Gp. focused on

pins

By Geri Hagborn(c)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

3/17/06

3/17/06

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, March 17, 2006

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword PuzzleEdited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

“VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM IN EUROPE: DO THEY STILL EXIST? CAN THEY SURVIVE?”Friday, 4 p.m., (McKinney Conference Room, Watson Institute) — Peter Hall, professor of European studies at Harvard University, will deliver a lecture.

2ND ANNUAL CHINA CARE BROWN BENEFIT DINNERFriday, 7 p.m., (Alumnae Hall) — A semi-formal fundraising dinner with performances from the Jabberwocks and the Lion Dance Team. Student tickets are $15. All proceeds will benefit the Weifang City Orphanage in Shandong, China.

KLEZMERPALOOZA! 2006Saturday, 2 p.m. , (Alumnae Hall) — The 8th annual intercollegiate klezmer festival will feature world-renowned clarinetist David Krakauer and members of Klezmer Madness!

CHORUS CONCERTSaturday, 8 p.m. , (Sayles) — The 13th Annual William R. Ermey Memorial Concert, featuring the Brown University Chorus under the direction of Conductor Frederick Jodry. Featuring works by Bach, Brahms, Lasso and Schumann.

W E E K E N D E V E N T S

M E N U

SHARPE REFECTORY

LUNCH — Noodle Kugel, Chicken Fingers, Oven Browned Potatoes, String Beans La Belle, Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Sandwich, Kielbasa, Butterscotch Layer Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER — Corn Pudding, Colcannon Potatoes, Carrots Vichy, Corned Beef, Colcannon Potatoes, Baked Sweet Potatoes, Grilled Cheese, Braised Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread, Strawberry Jello, Cherry Pie

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Vegetarian Caribbean Black Bean Soup, French Onion Soup, Chicken Fingers with Sticky Rice, Vegan Vermicelli with Garlic Sauce, Savory Spinach, Chocolate Chip Cookies

DINNER — Vegetarian Caribbean Black Bean Soup, French Onion Soup, Corned Beef, Grilled Chicken, Vegan Roasted Vegetable Stew, Colcannon Potatoes, Carrots Vichy, Braised Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread, Cherry Pie

BY KATE GOLDBERGCONTRIBUTING WRITER

The 23rd annual Fusion Dance Show underscores the benefits of moving beyond past traditions to deal with changing circumstanc-

es. As articulated by co-director Heather McLeod ’06 in the show’s program, “When the rules of the past no longer apply to us in the present, you must change.”

The ability to change requires both mental and physical flex-ibility and knowledge of past traditions and possible alternatives. Throughout the show, change is demonstrated in the versatility of its dancers and pieces. Performances range from classical and bal-let-like dancing — such as “Winter,” choreographed by Divya Ku-maraiah ’07 — to the fast-paced and sharp movements of “Geno-cide License,” choreographed by Oneca Hitchman ’06.

The talent of the company begins to truly shine in “Jamai-can Dance Clip” and “What’s Right is Right and What’s Wrong is Wrong…” In “Jamaican Dance Clip,” a number that is both awe-inspiring and engaging, Dianna Anderson ’09 and Hitchman, who choreographed the dance, move with great elegance while also picking up on the fun aspect of the music. On the other hand, in “What’s Right is Right and What’s Wrong is Wrong…” choreo-graphed by McLeod, it is only the freestyle words of rap artist Talib Kweli that serve as a basis for the movements of dancers Ander-son, Christina Boursiquot ’08, Karina Ikezoe ‘09, Alexander Leydon ’07, John McCutcheon ’06, McLeod and Ramel Murphy ’06. Despite the absence of music, the dancers are able to express the pulsating rhythm of Kweli’s words through their pointed motions.

The second act is as varied and as strong as the first. The second number, “Samba Dance Interlude,” directed by guest choreogra-pher Russell Monk and performed by Murphy and Wen-Chuan Dai ‘06, combines sheer talent with grace and ease to produce a truly spectacular interpretation of the sexy Latin dance.

In “A New Life for Me,” Murphy, who choreographed the dance, wrote in the program that his own range of emotions served as the basis for the piece, describing it as “a represen-tation of the energetic, uplifting and aggressive feelings I have when I dance.” Combining a wide variety of dance genres — in-cluding African, hip hop, dance hall and house — the perfor-mance perfectly demonstrates the company’s talent and range. Ultimately, audience members are left in awe by the creativ-ity they have just witnessed and fully inspired by the power of change.

The high-caliber tradition of the Fusion Dance Company is cer-tainly maintained by this year’s performance. The show continues Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Ashamu Dance Studio.

ARTS & CULTURETHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 3

Fusion changes directions, upholds high standard

REVIEW

New film festival calls for humanitarian actionBY ALLISON EHRICH BERNSTEIN STAFF WRITER

Before last night’s screening of “Darfur Diaries,” Jen Marlowe, one of the film’s three creators, described her experiences visit-ing genocide-torn Darfur, a re-gion in western Sudan, in Octo-ber and November of 2004. Mar-lowe — who traveled with col-leagues Aisha Bain and Adam Shapiro to collect stories and testimonies from refugees and survivors — cited the trio’s “re-sponsibility to the people who trusted us with their stories.” Following the screening, which took place in List 120, she spoke further about the political situ-ation in Darfur, saying, “Let’s take the focus off of what to call (the genocide in Sudan) and look at how to end it.”

Marlowe’s statement could serve as a slogan for the entire first annual Human Rights Film Festival. Lisabeth Meyers ’06, the events chair for the Darfur Action Network, conceived of the idea for the festival.

“I knew of (‘Darfur Diaries’). I had been to some of the Hu-man Rights Watch Film Festival in New York this summer, and I had seen this movie ‘Seoul Train,’ which we’re showing, and I knew I wanted to bring it to Brown,” Meyers said.

Others in DAN suggested films as well, but “Seoul Train,” which traces North Korean ref-ugees’ attempts to escape to South Korea, would need al-ternative sponsorship, given its lack of connection to Dar-fur. Meyers started contacting various public service organi-zations across campus for sup-port and suggestions, and the Human Rights Film Festival was born.

Meyers had already been in touch with Carly Edelstein ’08, the chair of Tzedek Hillel, a community service and so-cial action umbrella organiza-tion. “I had this idea of focus-ing on more educational ideas — we’ve had lectures and film nights (this year, but we) had

people interested in Darfur,” Edelstein said. She and Meyers ultimately became the driving force behind the festival, along with a committee of about eight student leaders from various organizations.

One of these leaders was Andrea Titus ’08, president of Brown’s chapter of Amnesty In-ternational, a group that was mainly responsible for the festi-val’s massive budget. “Amnesty held a small (film festival) last year with only a few films, and not many people came. So we’re hoping to attract people from many different service groups on campus,” Titus said.

Grant money for the festi-val, in addition to various on-campus sponsorships, went to a variety of outlets. Screening rights for the films cost $300 to $500 each, Meyers said, and each film is accompanied by a topical speaker — in several cases one of the film’s makers — who had to be brought to campus.

“Born Into Brothels” — which won director-produc-er Ross Kaufman an Academy Award — and “Devil’s Miner” are both accompanied by talks from their acclaimed creators. “Devil’s Miner” filmmaker Kief Davidson will arrive fresh from his film’s New York City pre-miere to attend the screening in List 120, Edelstein said.

The festival’s planners focused on “finding speakers who could bring the cause back to Brown.” The hardest aspect of planning the festival “was money — both raising it and having all the groups bring in their money. It’s all working, but it’s just been an obstacle with such a big coalition of groups,” Edelstein said. Mey-ers also recalled the difficulty she and her peers faced in both find-ing films and securing screening rights, often from major distribu-tion companies.

The festival’s organizers “tried to choose films that (ex-hibited) diversity of issues and geography (and) appeal,” Mey-ers said.

Though neither Meyers, who is graduating, nor Edelstein, who plans to study abroad, will be present next year, they hope to establish the festival as an annual event.

“Next year, we’ll have more legitimacy; (it will be) some-thing that’s been done before,” Meyers said. DAN, Tzedek Hil-lel and several other heavily in-volved organizations, she add-ed, have students ready to as-sume leadership roles for the second annual festival.

The festival runs through Monday night and concludes with a closing panel on film-making and activism, which Meyers said she hopes will provide some courses of ac-tion for student viewers. Mon-day’s events will also feature a screening of “Pasajes de Junín,” a short film co-directed by Jes-sica Weisberg ’06 while work-ing in Apuela, Ecuador, on a Swearer International Fellow-ship. The film, which Weisberg made with Williams College senior Benjamin Brown, ex-plores the community of Intag and its resistance to the influ-ence of and potential overrun-ning by mining companies. “Pasajes de Junín” has been screened at various colleges and universities with people who “have connections to the area,” which is “one of the most biodiverse areas in the world,” said Weisberg, who leapt at the opportunity to screen the film during the festival.

Overall, the festival’s orga-nizers hope to “inform and in-spire,” said UNICEF co-chair Katherine Campo ’08. After each screening, there will be what Edelstein calls an “activ-ist table” with information for students interested in learning about and doing more for the issues featured onscreen.

“There are so many differ-ent ways to get involved,” Mey-ers said.

Titus concurred. “We want students to know there are pub-lic service organizations; they can act on these issues.”

www.browndailyherald.com

wife to his house at 33 Power St. just off of Benefit Street. He beat the man with his hands for hours, tried to put out a lit ciga-rette in the man’s eye, attempt-ed to hit him with a log from the fireplace and threw an ashtray at him. Cianci pled no contest to

felony assault charges, was given a suspended five-year sentence and was forced to resign from of-fice in April 1984.

During his time out of office, Cianci became the host of a top-rated radio talk show and invest-ed in real estate. But he didn’t stay away for long — in 1990, Cianci again ran for mayor, under the slogan, “He never stopped caring about Providence.”

He was elected again and took

office in 1991, beginning a 12-year administration known as “Buddy II.” But some were skep-tical of his motivations.

“He comes in saying he’s changed, he’s reformed,” said Williams, who was first elected as a Democrat to the City Coun-cil in 1990. “You know, I have to say, I didn’t trust him at all. I was very leery, very cautious about having too much of a relation-ship with him.”

The 1990s saw a dramatic re-vitalization of Providence, espe-cially downtown.

“The mayor used to say that you could stand on Westminster Street and throw a bowling ball down the street and hit nothing, because people were afraid to come downtown at night,” said the former Cianci aide. “It was just not a place that attracted anybody except vagrants.”

With help from the state and federal government, the city made progress. An arts dis-trict — the first in the country — was implemented downtown. Streets were rebuilt, the river was uncovered, unsightly rail-road tracks were relocated and WaterPlace Park was built. The city gave tax breaks and loans to restaurants and provided seed money to projects such as the river project.

“(Cianci) saw the arts as a driving force and a force to be celebrated (as well) as a part of the city, not removed from the city,” said the former aide. “It was a matter of pride to work at the time and place, when things were exploding with creativity and a vision for the city.”

Corruption and change

At the same time, the city was rife with corruption, as detailed in “The Prince of Providence,” by Providence Journal reporter Mike Stanton.

In his book, Stanton describes Providence under Cianci as be-ing run under a system of pa-tronage — with no-show jobs given to political allies and un-qualified residents given impor-tant posts — and bribes, intimi-dation and mayoral interference with the police department.

In 1980, Stanton recounts, when Brown rejected one of Cianci’s nephews for admission, the city delayed issuing zoning ordinances for the University to build the Olney-Margolies Ath-letic Center. In 1992, Williams and other council members who were considering voting for a city tax freeze were berated by Cianci for two and a half hours in his office. When Williams went on to vote for the freeze, Stanton writes, Williams’ hus-band’s city job was eliminated, he was trailed by city police and was fought by the city over his efforts to collect worker’s com-pensation after double-bypass heart surgery.

The FBI’s investigation of cor-ruption in City Hall in the late 1990s — codenamed Operation Plunder Dome — led to a num-ber of indictments, beginning in mid-1999 with city tax officials and culminating with the indict-ment of Cianci and four other city officials for corruption in 2001.

A jury convicted Cianci on one count of RICO conspiracy — a charge originally intended to prosecute organized crime boss-es not directly involved in crimes

committed on their behalf — in July 2002.

Cianci was sentenced to five years and four months of jailtime in September of that year and left office, reporting to Fort Dix Federal Correction-al Institution in New Jersey in December. He is eligible for re-lease in July 2007.

In the wake of Cianci’s convic-tion, then-State Rep. David Cicil-line ’83 was elected mayor in a landslide on a platform of anti-corruption measures and neigh-borhood development.

“I’ve described the work that we’ve done to change the cul-ture of government in Provi-dence as akin to rebuilding an airplane in mid-flight,” Cicil-line said. “I think the citizens of Providence had lost faith in their city government.”

Cicilline said he created a five-year fiscal plan — making “some very serious reductions in personnel” to close a $59 million budget gap — and instituted a new data analysis system for the city “so we can hold ourselves accountable.” He appointed an ethics task force to draft a “com-prehensive” ethics code for the city, which is currently pending before the City Council.

Cicilline said he hired leader-ship in city departments based on merit and “professionalized the hiring process,” adding that he has tried to separate politics from city governance.

“I refused during my cam-paign and during my term to accept campaign contributions from city workers or city ven-dors,” he said.

The result, Cicilline said, has been a government that is “hon-est, transparent and dependable.”

Progress and problems

Cicilline’s reforms have gar-nered praise.

“Certainly in the new admin-istration … ethical standards have been improved,” said Gary Sasse, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.

“Under Cicilline, the business of the city is transacted in a more regular matter than it was pre-viously,” said Gregory Smith, a Journal reporter on the city desk. “There are policies and proce-dures in place to govern what happens rather than ad hoc de-cision making.”

Additionally, Smith said, “Cicilline is much more of a pol-icy wonk than Cianci ever was” and has a much different style of governing.

“I do not detect any feel-ing any longer that you have to pay people off in City Hall to get things done,” said M. Charles Bakst ’66, a former editor of The Herald and political columnist for the Journal. “I don’t see po-licemen holding fundraisers for Mayor Cicilline,” he added.

“City politics have become much more honest and straight-forward,” said Darrell West, pro-fessor of political science and di-rector of the Taubman Center for Public Policy. “I think the current mayor has brought profession-alism to City Hall that was not there before.”

But concerns remain about political appointments to city posts.

“I think that there’s been a lot of political hiring — people are hired because of who they know,”

Williams said. “I’m not a part of that, but I sense that has hap-pened with this mayor as well. … Especially early on, I heard there were some hires in (the Depart-ment of Public Works) that really sounded questionable,” she add-ed, noting that the council has not received any personnel re-ports on hirings and firings from the city in three years.

But, Cicilline said, “When I hire someone to lead a depart-ment or they hire someone to work in the department, they are people who are the most quali-fied people for the job.”

District 3 State Sen. Rhoda Perry P’91 agreed, saying that “as long as the person has the quali-fications and the education and the experience,” a level of politi-cal justification for appointments is understandable. She praised “the people who are leading City Hall” for being “sterling as far as their credentials go.”

Buddy’s legacy

Cianci has often declared his love for Providence — it was said he had the city as a mistress — and he has been credited with its “Renaissance” by marshalling state and federal aid with local tax breaks and benefits to “devel-op the central core and also con-nect it to the neighborhoods,” as his aide noted.

But the reforms in how the city is governed since Cianci was jailed, Cicilline said, have led to a “trust dividend” — an explosion of private investment in Provi-dence over the past three years. Though he acknowledged, “there were a lot of things done a de-cade ago that were really proj-ects of the city, state and feder-al governments,” Cicilline said the Cianci administration drove away private investors.

But the Cianci aide said Cicil-line gives too little credit to Cian-ci.

“There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors, I think,” the aide said. “I don’t see why anyone can’t say, ‘He really did a good job and we’re moving on from there.’”

As far as Cianci’s legacy goes, people must reconcile the great strides Providence made dur-ing his tenure with the pervasive corruption he oversaw.

Cianci’s “ability to promote the city and his vision for devel-oping the city” were paired with “running a government that was not exactly efficiently managed,” according to Sasse.

“The rebuilding of the city, downtown, is in large part at-tributed to Cianci. He could be, at times, very affable. He was a witty and wry speaker, people enjoyed hearing him and listen-ing to him. And he certainly was a hard worker in his own way,” Perry said.

But, she added, “I think he had a lot of personal characteristics that were bad. He could frighten people. He would threaten peo-ple. If anyone stepped out of line, politically, from what he wanted, he would say, ‘I’m going to get you.’”

The former Cianci aide has calculated that, under state law, Cianci will be eligible to run again for mayor in the 2014 elec-tion. But the aide does not think Cianci, who would be 73 in 2014, will return to politics.

“I think he will hopefully try to enjoy the last years of his life,” the aide said.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006

Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com.

Fill in the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Ciancicontinued from page 1

www.browndailyherald.com

CAMPUS NEWSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 5

BY ROBIN STEELESTAFF WRITER

While many students are preoc-cupied by the stress of trying to obtain an ideal room for next year in the housing lottery, others are still coping with less-than-ideal living spaces this year. Housing shortages in the past few years have caused the Office of Resi-dential Life to house some stu-dents in converted lounges.

“It’s concerning, but it’s not a big number,” said Rosario Navarro, as-sistant director of housing. She at-tributed the housing shortage to fewer students living off campus as well as the decrease in the number of students going abroad due to re-cent world events.

Converted lounges are gener-ally located in buildings in Wris-ton, Keeney and Vartan Grego-rian Quadrangles. While Navarro said no Vartan Gregorian Quad lounges are being used as student rooms this year, she said “all Kee-ney lounges were used (for hous-ing) at some point.” The rooms typically house two students, al-though there are four quads and six triples available, Navarro said. While some of the lounges have attached kitchens, the majority do not, she said.

Typically students live in con-verted lounges for a single semes-ter, Navarro said. ResLife tries to move students living in temporary housing to permanent housing within the first couple of weeks of the semester when some students who are expected to return do not, she said.

Navarro said not all temporary housing consists of lounges. Oth-er options include smaller-than-average doubles, rooms that have a small window or those that have been taken out of the housing lot-

tery for some other reason. These options are generally used before ResLife turns to the lounges, she said.

ResLife has also tried to solve the housing crunch this year by placing students in rooms that usually serve as libraries for Greek and program houses. For example, Interfaith House’s li-brary was used for temporary housing last semester, Navar-ro said. “Actually (it) ended up working out really well,” Navarro said. “They loved the temporary (housing). The students actually requested to be in there all year, but we needed to return the li-brary space back to (Interfaith).”

While students in converted lounges face unusual challenges, some like their housing situation. One transfer student, Julia van De Walle ’08, currently lives alone in a converted lounge in Keeny’s Jameson House. She shared the space with two other students last semester.

RUE group forms board to enhance presence on campusBY JEAN YVES CHAINONCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Though there are often fewer than 10 Resumed Undergradu-ate Education students admit-ted to the University each year, members of this segment of the Brown community boast a wide variety of backgrounds and life experiences. With an average age significantly higher than most undergraduates — The Herald reported in October that the program includes 35 RUE students ranging in age from 25 to 50 — the RUE popula-tion contains students who are married, have children or have served in the armed forces.

Despite their unique sto-ries, some administrators and student leaders feel RUEs are among the least visible stu-dents on campus and are at times separated from the rest of the Brown community.

“Students’ usual reaction is: ‘Who’s that old guy?’” said Jeremy Bedine ’07, a 28-year-old RUE student who served in the Israeli Army and previ-ously attended the University of Colorado.

Bedine, who is the new president of the Resumed Un-dergraduate Students Asso-ciation, said RUSA formed a board to initiate “a pretty wide-range agenda” with the goal of larger visibility in mind. The board will try to have a recep-tion table at Commencement in May and is investigating the possibility of communicating RUE students’ own advice and experiences in collaboration with the Career Development Center.

In addition, Bedine is also working to become an associ-ate member of the Undergrad-uate Council of Students to give RUSA a voice on the council.

Many of the board’s ideas re-main in the planning stages. “I have not yet been involved in any proposals,” said Perry Ash-ley, executive associate dean for academic advising and support and dean of the RUE program. Ashley said he has spoken with Bedine a number of times and appreciates his motivation.

Still, “(the RUSA board) just had the elections and he’s brand new,” he said. “Maybe a year from now there will be a lot more” improvements, he

said. RUE students have often

been the ones working toward increased visibility, but admin-istrators have also made efforts recently to improve the pro-gram. Prompted by the urg-ing of Teresa Tanzi ’07, RUSA’s former president who stepped down this semester to give birth to her fourth child, the Office of Campus Life and Student Ser-vices has attempted to increase its financial contributions to the program.

Though “Brown has shown that the RUE program is impor-tant … there are resource con-straints,” Bedine said. Due to these limitations, there are no substantial plans to change the size of the program in the near future, said David Greene, vice president for campus life and student services. Previously, faculty have pushed to enlarge the RUE program, “but it has not been as involved” recently, Greene said.

Both Greene and Bedine said the entire Brown community can benefit from an increased presence of RUE students.

“We have something to con-tribute to the Brown community

that other students don’t have,” Bedine said. “Overwhelmingly, those who have contact with non-traditional students have benefited from that contact.”

Greene echoed the idea that RUEs offer a unique perspective that benefits the entire Univer-sity community. “It’s clear how returning students enrich dis-cussion in class,” because “di-versity of life experience really matters,” he said.

“For a long time there was hesitancy on the part of ad-ministrators to impose com-mitments on RUE students,” Bedine said. But “we’re not ask-ing the school to be left alone. We’re asking to be involved,” he said.

But RUE students’ unique experiences can sometimes also hinder their on-campus visibility. There are 30 students officially enrolled in RUSA, but many of them “do have to pri-oritize,” Bedine said. He him-self has to balance between on-campus commitments and time with his wife.

Despite these obstacles, “We came to Brown to play a part in enriching a community,” Be-dine said.

Juliana Wu / HeraldLounges converted to dorm rooms are still in use to accommodate an ongoing housing shortage.

For some, housing shortage means living in a lounge

see LOUNGES, page 9

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006

A veteran of several a cappel-la groups herself, Pavlakou said she personally has found expres-sive art therapy to be therapeutic and liberating, providing her the opportunity to learn more about herself.

As a graduate student in Eng-land, Pavlakou led a short singing workshop called Sing Out Proj-ect, also for students struggling with eating disorders. Students in the group told Pavlakou they had learned things about themselves and gave her positive feedback, she said. The group at Brown is currently unnamed.

Higher Keys member Em-ily Borromeo ’09 said she ben-efits from her group’s dynamic and the freedom of a cappella singing.

“When you’re singing, you don’t have to think about classes or anything but making beautiful music,” Borromeo said. “It’s just a completely separate, carefree and therapeutic experience.”

Pavlakou said she chose to study the effect of music on stu-dents with eating disorders in part because of her experience with friends and family who have suffered from eating dis-orders. She is also interested in using music to relieve the stress that can overwhelm students in a highly competitive intellectual atmosphere.

To combat these forces, stu-dents will work together and in-dividually, Pavlakou said. “In a singing group, everyone’s con-tribution will be important and there won’t be a need to compete and feel in control,” she added.

Beverly Williams, a psycho-therapist who works in Psycho-

logical Services, said she is hesi-tant to list Brown’s atmosphere or academic competition as causes contributing to eating disorders.

“Eating disorders have a com-plex nature,” Williams said. “I think that body image and food become an issue for billions of different reasons because every-one is unique in their circum-stances, childhood, media expo-sure and genetic predisposition.”

Pavlakou emphasizes that the singing group is not a form of ther-apy and that she is not a trained therapist.

“My focus is on the group as a musical project and anything else that may happen to come along with it, including how the members feel,” Pavlakou said.

Despite these disclaimers, Pavlakou’s lack of psychiatric training has raised some con-cerns from members of Health Services and Psych Services.

Williams said she was wary of endorsing any program that did not use a therapy-based methodology.

“I’ve been trained as a clini-cian. I tend to set things up with a clear outcome and therapeu-tic context. As a psychologist on Brown’s campus I’m concerned for the well-being of students,” Williams said. “If something pos-itive happens I would be very happy, and if it isn’t positive we will try to be helpful in healing and treating students.”

Due to Pavlakou’s lack of psy-chiatric expertise, Bell recom-mended she enlist the assistance of a psychiatrist as a resource and support to supervise certain as-pects of the group.

“When you create a group for people with a certain issue and plan to process this issue, even if there is no intent of therapy, there can still be significant psy-chological content,” Bell said. “If

you are someone with no back-ground in psychology you may underestimate potential triggers, and you may find yourself over-whelmed as well.”

A music student herself, Bell said singing requires listening to, being aware of and responding to the body, which could be over-whelming for someone simulta-neously trying to address an eat-ing disorder.

Pavlakou said the results of the group are difficult to predict.

“I suppose it will affect people on whatever level they allow it to, whether it’s solely to relax, to ex-press their emotions or to admit that they have a problem,” Pav-lakou said.

Diaries, questionnaires and voluntary interviews will allow Pavlakou to collect information for her thesis. Pavlakou plans to move to the United States per-manently and said she will con-tinue the group next year if there is significant interest.

In contrast to Pavlakou’s work-shop in England, this group is open to both men and women and may include a performance aspect, if there is interest.

“At Sheffield people told me they wished there had been a performance because it would have been nice to have a goal to work towards. I’m not planning to do anything except see what the members of this group want the objective to be,” Pavlakou said. “Obviously it’s a very sensi-tive subject so I’m not starting a performance group.”

Advertising in Morning Mail, the Sarah Doyle Women’s Cen-ter, the Swearer Center for Pub-lic Service as well as through the Daily Jolt and the graduate student listserve has already yielded responses from a dozen students interested in joining the group.

Singingcontinued from page 1

“We’re going to try to make the admission package a littler clean-er. We have been putting a lot of appropriately beautiful stuff in there,” Miller said.

Among the items undergoing changes are the folders and the acceptance letters, which Mill-er said would be more “elegant” than before.

“We’re trying to coordinate whole presentation … color, style, tone,” Miller said.

Accepted students will also re-ceive admissions certificates this year, which Miller said are “sort of official.”

The office also added Brown car decals in the initial accep-tance letters, all of which were purchased directly from the Brown Bookstore.

David Pagliaccio ’10, who was accepted early decision to Brown but also received acceptance let-ters from Brandeis and Drew uni-versities, said he did not really notice Brown’s admission letter because all the letters he received were “pretty similar.”

He did, however, appreciate the car decal, though he did raise one complaint about it.

“They left the price tag on,” he said of the decal, which cost $1.09.

Miller said he was unaware of the prices being left on the stickers.

“Whoops,” he joked. “That’s really classy. Here’s your bumper

sticker for 84 cents.”The price tags are printed di-

rectly on the decal and are there-fore probably difficult to remove, Pagliaccio said.

Another reason Pagliaccio did not really pay much attention to his admission letter was because he already knew he was admit-ted when he received it, having checked his decision online sev-eral days before.

Because admissions letters are often mailed the same day the decisions are available on-line, “almost everybody” chooses to check the admissions office’s Web site rather than wait for the mail, Goldberger said.

The office’s Web site also un-derwent changes this year. “The presentation of the decision hasn’t changed but the admitted students Web site is undergoing renovation,” Miller said.

Though the upgrades may please many future Brunonians, several undergraduate students were upset about the new accep-tance mailings, saying they felt forgotten.

“I think they should consider reparations,” said Krishna Chok-shi ’09.

Despite all the changes made, Miller said the cost of the admis-sions packages was not dramat-ically higher than in previous years.

Miller said he believes as long as students are accepted, presen-tation probably matters little.

“I think if you get good news it probably doesn’t matter what (the admissions mailings) look like,” he said.

Admissionscontinued from page 1

Mourners file past Milosevic coffinBY DANIEL WILLIAMSWASHINGTON POST

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro — A line of mostly elderly mourn-ers filed by Slobodan Milosevic’s coffin Thursday, and though the turnout was light, the govern-ment was accused of allowing the late war crimes defendant to re-ceive what was, in effect, an offi-cially sanctioned wake.

The wooden casket lay in the Museum of Revolution, an out-of-the-way place once devoted to the communist leader Josip Broz, known as Tito. The location on a hill above the Serbian capital of Belgrade required something of a hike, yet several hundred mourn-ers climbed the snowy steps to the hall where wreaths and Mi-losevic’s Socialist Party comrades flanked the closed casket.

The site is within a few hun-dred yards of the presidential res-idence where police arrested Mi-losevic in April 2001. The govern-ment later extradited him to the United Nations war crimes tribu-nal in The Hague, where he died Saturday of a heart attack.

Outside the museum on Thursday, the waiting crowd had angry words for the tribunal. “Murderers! Traitors!” old wom-en in shawls, roses in their hands, shouted at television cameras.

“We had everything taken from us when they turned him over to The Hague,” said Sava Darma-novic, 82, a retiree. “He fought for his people. The stories about the crimes were inventions of the West and Serbian mercenaries.”

Darmanovic entered the mu-seum, bowed to Milosevic’s pho-to, then kissed the coffin.

There were fewer mourn-ers than Socialist Party organiz-ers had predicted. But officials said thousands more admirers of Milosevic would gather in Bel-grade on Saturday, when the par-ty hopes to place the casket for two hours outside the parliament building. It will then be transport-ed 50 miles east to Pozarevac, Mi-losevic’s home town, for burial.

Socialist Party leaders criti-cized Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica for trying to keep the funeral out of the public eye. “They bowed to Western pres-sure, but we are managing to give Belgrade a chance to pay its respects,” said Alexander Vulin, a top party official.

So far, no flags on government buildings have flown at half-mast. The government sent no representative to the viewing.

But after television footage showed a government official inspecting the museum before Thursday’s wake, anti-Milosevic politicians attacked Kostunica for allowing the wake to take place. Ljiljana Cetinic, the museum di-rector, complained that the place had been “turned into a funeral parlor” against her will. “There is no precedent for this,” she said.

As night fell, text messages be-gan to circulate on cell phones calling on citizens to mount an anti-Milosevic demonstration in Belgrade on Saturday, after the body’s departure from the city.

“Milosevic was the creator of all the conflicts in the Balkans,” declared the Civic Alliance par-ty, one of an amalgam of groups that helped overthrow Milosevic

see MILOSEVIC, page 8

WORLD & NATIONTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 7

Many Catholic bishops relent, allow meat on St. Patrick’s DayBY MICHELLE BOORSTEINWASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — Corned beef and cabbage will be on the menu Friday. Call it a gift from Saint Patrick.

Despite the Vatican’s prohibi-tion against eating meat on Fri-days during Lent, Catholic bish-ops in about one-third of the country’s 197 dioceses have is-sued a one-day waiver of the rule, citing the benefits of Irish-American tradition and com-munity. After all, what do you wash down with green beer if not corned beef and cabbage?

“I think it’s marvelous,” said Pat Troy, who moved to Virgin-ia from Ireland and runs a pub called Ireland’s Own in Alexan-dria. “It took the hardship away from people.” On the subject of economic hardship, he noted that his business attracts more than 2,000 people on St. Patrick’s Day and that tables have been booked since last week.

The culinary identities of the non-Irish are also at stake, es-pecially in an area as diverse as Washington. The Rev. Jose Eugen-io Hoyos, a Colombian who min-isters to Salvadorans in Northern Virginia, has the Irish holiday to thank for the pork pupusas he will be serving tomorrow night.

“That’s great news! I can change the menu!” he said Wednesday when he heard that Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde had waived the no-meat rule.

Earlier Hoyos, who heads the Spanish Apostolate at the dio-cese, had planned to serve lob-ster at a dinner party he is host-ing for a group of Central Ameri-can ambassadors.

For centuries, the Vatican re-quired Catholics to abstain from eating meat on all Fridays to ob-serve the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Forty years ago, it decided that Catholics needed to follow that rule only during Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

The bishops who waived the rule for this St. Patrick’s Day said that Catholics eating meat should offset their action by making another sacrifice Friday or on another day during Lent. All Christians are called upon to pray and perform acts of char-ity during Lent, a solemn period of penance. Among Catholics, there has been more focus in re-cent years on doing good deeds rather than on giving up some-thing pleasurable, said Monsi-gnor Kevin Irwin, dean of Cath-olic University’s School of Theol-ogy and Religious Studies.

“In the last 30 years, there has been an emphasis on the positive — giving money for food, work-ing at a soup kitchen — not wor-rying so much about amounts of food we eat and instead about how we can help others eat,” he said.

Irwin said he has childhood memories of his father, who was a plumber, going to confession

during Lent and asking the priest for dispensation from the meat ban. The priest always granted the request.

“His work required him to in-gest enough to sustain his work,” he said. “I’ll never forget it.”

That resonates with Manuel Aviles, who was born in El Salva-dor and lives in Arlington, Va. He said that although he might not get around to celebrating St. Pat-rick’s Day, he will have a busy day at work and needs the extra en-ergy meat gives him.

“I agree with the dispensa-tion. It gives people the opportu-nity to celebrate as a family, and that’s the most important part of the church, so praise God,” Aviles said.

The talk was more of fish and chips in dioceses where bishops opted to leave the ban in place, including Columbus, Ohio, Sioux City, Iowa, and Har-risburg, Pa.

Mike Larkin of the Ancient Or-der of Hibernian, an Irish organi-zation, in York, Pa., said he was surprised by the decision of Har-risburg Bishop Kevin Rhoades.

“Isn’t he Irish?” Larkin said of Rhoades.

Larkin said that he usually follows the rules and doesn’t eat meat — and that he would ob-serve the ban this year as well if he weren’t headed to the St. Pat-rick’s Day parade in New York. The ban on meat has definitely been lifted there, as Saint Patrick is the city’s patron saint.

BY SCOTT WILSONWASHINGTON POST

GAZA CITY — Few theaters have showcased as much of the Israeli-Palestinian dra-ma as Shifa Hospital, a gat-ed compound among food stands and flower vendors at the center of this city. Poor, crowded and governed by rules that no one follows, the Gaza Strip’s primary public health center is a nearly per-fect reflection of the rough world outside its walls.

Now, with Gaza’s own gates shut more often than not, Shi-fa is suffering the debilitating consequences of official cor-ruption, sealed trade passages and the recent victory of the radical Islamic group Hamas in parliamentary elections. Life in its cancer wards, operating rooms and outpatient clinics has become a regimen of com-promise, diminished expecta-tions and poor prognosis, the story of Gaza six months after the Israeli evacuation.

Elective surgery is being delayed to preserve anesthe-sia for emergencies. The staff of hundreds received last month’s paychecks more than two weeks late, and prospects for this month are not encour-aging. Patients must beg for blood as transfusions substi-tute for dialysis because of a lack of necessary drugs.

Chemotherapy has been reduced because of shortages, but sending cancer patients abroad for treatment has be-come a luxury for the nearly bankrupt Palestinian public health system. Gaza’s gun-men have stepped into this unruly triage, demanding at rifle-point that friends and relatives receive scarce medi-cations or costly transfers to Egypt or Israel for care. The deputy health minister react-ed to recent threats by fleeing to the West Bank.

“There is no money, no medicine and no man higher up to sign my orders for more,” said Ibrahim al-Habbash, Shi-fa’s general director. “So the problems always return.”

As foreign donors seek ways to keep the Palestinian Authority afloat without fi-nancing Hamas’ political pro-gram, the public health sys-tem is sinking. Preserving it after Hamas installs its cabinet later this month will present a challenge to the Bush admin-istration and other foreign do-nors now planning to channel future humanitarian aid to the Palestinians through nongov-ernmental organizations.

Foreign governments have demanded that Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel’s de-struction, renounce violence, abide by agreements backed by the defeated Fatah move-ment and recognize the Jew-ish state to continue to receive nearly $1 billion in annual aid. Hamas, known formally as the Islamic Resistance Movement,

has refused to do any of this. As a result, Israel has halted monthly tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, and the United States has frozen de-velopment projects.

Half of the Palestinian Health Ministry’s $2 million monthly budget, excluding salaries, is covered by foreign assistance. But a recent Unit-ed Nations humanitarian as-sessment stated that “it is not possible to transfer respon-sibility of the public health system to the U.N. or NGOs,” while warning that a reduc-tion in aid would “hamper service delivery and preven-tion activities including im-munization and mother and child care.”

Israel, citing threats of a possible Palestinian attack, has closed the main passage for goods and supplies to Gaza for more than five weeks this year. Following dire warn-ings from U.N. humanitarian monitors, Israel began allow-ing sugar, flour, cooking oil and other staples into Gaza for the first time in more than two weeks.

But the first trucks did not carry any of the two doz-en items on Habbash’s list of medications and supplies that have run out at Shifa or will in the next few days. And on Tuesday, the Israeli military closed the crossing again.

“The health system could collapse if we do not get mon-ey,” said Ghassan al-Khatib, the acting health minister.

A tour of Shifa’s wards last week provided ample evi-dence of the problems ahead, from the ethic of lawless-ness apparent on the hospital grounds to the lack of resourc-es available for the more than 600 patients who fill waiting rooms on a typical day.

Habbash, a pale man with a blaze of short red hair, spent his morning in the cancer ward with a group of gunmen. A harrowing and increasingly common aspect of the health care system here, the gun-men demanded that a woman with stomach cancer be trans-ferred to Egypt for treatment. The Health Ministry had re-jected the request for a lack of money.

“Security inside the hospi-tal is terrible,” Habbash said. “I can’t emphasize this enough.”

Signs posted at hospital en-trances and along corridors warn that weapons are prohib-ited. But like many other rules here, the ban is neither heeded nor enforced. In the ward for respiratory disease, a visitor smoked cigarettes a few yards from suffering patients.

The lime-green corridor turns a corner into the can-cer ward, where a young man draped with the black-and-white scarf of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades stood out-side a room shared by three patients. The man grew angry when asked to explain his AK-47 assault rifle.

Gaza clinic a lesson in anatomy of chaos

In Mexico City, paradise is a parking spotBY MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIAWASHINGTON POST

MEXICO CITY — It is 10:30 a.m. Grimy green Volkswagen taxis grind forward, arms punching from drivers’ windows to wave away pedestrians.

Horns screech. Somebody screams, “Muevete!” — Move it!

A man jumps frantically out of an ancient, exhausted Toyota and tries to edge it to the side of the road. Behind him, handcarts piled high with stringy green on-ions seem to lurch and stop on their own, levitating amid the chaos, the drenched men who push them hidden by mountains of produce.

Gridlock.Nothing moves.At the edge of El Mercado de

la Merced, Mexico City’s senso-ry feast of a downtown market, the tangle is getting ridiculous-ly tangly. But somehow, above it all, two magic words ring out: “Viene, viene!”

The meaning, in Spanish, falls somewhere between “Come on!” and “He’s coming!” But every-one in this spectacular morass knows what it means: A parking spot has opened.

Juventino Villegas Alvarez, his jacket slung cavalierly over his shoulder, blows his whistle and shouts again, raspy and loud: “Vi-ene, viene!”

Somehow, impossibly, or-der is restored. Villegas sternly halts one of the edgy taxis with

his outstretched arm, pulls away an old crate and waves a brown sedan into a parking space. The driver steps out, greeted by Vil-legas’ outstretched palm, and dutifully hands over 10 pesos, about $1.

Villegas is a “viene, viene” man, one of thousands in Mexi-co City. It is nearly impossible to park on public streets here with-out sliding a few pesos to one of his brethren or their counter-parts, the “hombres del trapo rojo” — red rag men, so named because they draw parkers by waving a red rag.

Their work is not officially sanctioned. No government en-tity grants them domain over their street corners. But they are universally accepted. Some get by on their charm, their rapid-fire shtick. But there also is a sin-ister undercurrent to their street-level economy: People who don’t pay often return to find their windshield smashed.

Villegas runs his stretch of as-phalt — 100 feet of prime park-ing space across from a guy who sells scorching guajillo chilies by the kilo — with restless, mes-merizing efficiency.

At 10:45, a lumbering deliv-ery truck tries to sneak in with-out his permission. Villegas is apoplectic.

“Para!” he blares. Stop!His cheeks puff out, expel-

ling a series of gusts through his whistle. A woman standing near-by covers her ears.

For a split second, all is still. Vendors turn to Villegas. The truck driver pounds his brakes.

Eyes ablaze, Villegas points to his left. There, wedged next to a pole, is a baby stroller. Two tiny brown eyes are all that is visible amid the mass of blankets.

“Somebody get that baby out of here,” Villegas yowls. “We’re going to have a tragedy.”

No one, including the truck driver, hesitates to follow his in-structions. This is Villegas’ realm, and while he is not menacing, he is clearly in charge.

He has worked this chunk of Mexico City for 15 years. When he leaves in the afternoon, a nephew of his takes over.

Villegas’ voice catches as he looks around his little empire, waxing about the generations he’s rolled into parking spaces — fathers growing old and giv-ing way to sons.

“Everything that begins in life has to end,” he says, his eyes be-coming red. “I’ll be here as long as God’s willing.”

A shrill horn shakes him out of his reflection. Villegas looks up and beams.

Juan Zamora, a squat taxi driver, idles a few steps away. Zamora is an old pal, a customer from way back. He gets special treatment.

Zamora tosses Villegas his keys. He’s not just handing over a car, he’s handing over

see PARKING, page 8

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006

“We actually have gone into the season with the understand-ing that we’re underdogs,” Cot-ter said. “Our offense is relatively young, and I think a lot of teams will overlook us. Our defense will control the game and our youth will help us.”

Much is also expected from a loaded midfield unit, led by co-captain Will McGettigan ’06 and Kyle Wailes ’06. After establishing himself as a face-off specialist last year, McGettigan has polished his overall offensive game this year. He already has nine goals and three assists through four con-tests this season. Wailes, who was third in the country with 30 as-sists last season and will play both midfield and attack this spring, has already tallied six goals and three assists.

Joining McGettigan and Wailes in the midfield will be Alex Buck-ley ’07, co-captain Grant Derkac ’06, Ben Donoghue ’06 and Tom Pitcher ’06. Buckley, who has been slowed by injuries to start the sea-

son, was Brown’s fifth-leading scorer last year with 15 goals and five assists, while Derkac, Dono-ghue and Pitcher are all well-es-tablished players at the defensive midfield.

“Guys bring a lot of different aspects to their game and that’s definitely helpful,” Derkac said of the midfielders. “We have a couple guys with experience and a couple guys that don’t, but I’m confident, judging from the first couple games, that we’re starting to gel. With the return of Buckley and (Michael) Bernard (’07) from injury we’re going to have some-thing.”

The midfield’s ability to con-tribute on offense will go a long way toward Brown’s success this spring, as the Bears’ lack experi-ence at attack. However, Bruno does return Dave Madeira ’07, who led the team with 23 goals last season. Several candidates will need to step up in order to fill the void left by All-Ivy attack-man Chazz Woodson ’05. Who-ever does will benefit from the presence of Wailes, who switches back-and-forth from midfield to attack.

The pieces are in place to bring

Brown back to the NCAA Tourna-ment for the first time since 1997. Standing in its way will be an ex-tremely tough Ivy League sched-ule that all of Brown’s veterans know the rigors of.

“I feel the Ivy League is the most competitive in the nation,” Derkac said. “Each team realizes that they can beat any other team in the league on any given day, which is what makes it really ex-citing. You may seem like a real-ly big underdog and you can still walk out with a victory.”

As in years past, the team’s ul-timate goal is an Ivy Champion-ship and the automatic berth to the NCAAs that comes with it. The Bears are fully capable of get-ting there, as they possess a quiet confidence that belies their un-derdog status.

“Going to the NCAA Tourna-ment is a realistic goal because we feel that we have the talent,” Derkac said. “It’s been a while since we’ve been there, and I feel like this could be the building blocks for years to come in that it’s a real possibility that the pro-gram could turn itself around and make a statement on the national stage.”

M. laxcontinued from page 12

cause my dad played it and al-ways wanted me to try.

Does your family get to see you play a lot?

My freshman and sopho-more years they came about twice a year. … This year, they were there for the opener and against Cornell and for a week when we went to the all-star game. The last couple of weeks they’ve been coming a lot more, because it was hard to know when my last game would be, but it was great to have them at our last home games against Dartmouth and the (ECACHL) finals.

What was it like to see past teammates on the ice at the winter Olympics?

It’s always emotional, but especially so since two of them were seniors when I was a freshman. It means you know you can play with them. You know you’re almost at that level, and it’s inspiring. You’re also so proud of them because that’s such an unbelievable accomplishment. You have people like Kathleen Kauth (’01) who has given up every-thing for the past four years to train for this.

Are you going to play after college?

I actually just found out

yesterday morning that I have the opportunity to play with the Toronto Aeros (a team in the National Women’s Hockey League) next year. I’m really ex-cited and am looking for a job now in Toronto. I’ll be playing around all of the Olympians, and because I know I have so much more in me, to have the opportunity to play with the best women hockey players in the world is an opportunity you can’t give up.

What sort of jobs are you looking at? What is your con-centration?

My concentration is interna-tional relations, but right now I want to get into marketing, ad-vertising and public relations. That’s one good thing about athletes, is you can teach them anything, and they’ll be able to pick it up quickly.

If you could trade places with your coach for one day, what would you do?

Trade with Dig? Wow. Well, I would pick the day she got to coach the women’s team at the NCAA finals the year before I came. I would want to have that experience.

And if you could make her take your place for a day, what would you make her do?

Listen to her screaming from the bench. Not as much this year, but my freshman and sophomore years it was intense. I’d want her to have to experience her own wrath.

Heinhuiscontinued from page 12

Press Sportswriters Poll or the ESPN/USA TODAY Coaches Poll, teams are often ranked in front of schools they have lost to, and a few people vote for squads at the tail end of the rankings in part because of politics.

One would think these prob-lems would not arise in tennis, a sport that does not generate the publicity and hype that col-lege football and basketball do. It seems plausible that the NCAA could generate some more ac-curate, less partisan rankings. It also seems like its current rank-ings system fails that test.

The rankings are calculated by some obscure mathematical formula that collegiate tennis’ Web site fails to explain. The top overall team in the country, with 101.6 points, is the University of Georgia. Brown has 15.09 points. The Dawgs are 15-0 and have beaten seemingly the rest of the top 10, so I will assume that Georgia is the top team in the

nation. Of course, the disparity between No. 1 and No. 20 in the rankings is 60 points. I am not sure if that is large or small, but it seems that if the No. 20 team in the nation is that far behind the first team, the NCAA should not even bother playing the rest of the schedule. It should just give Georgia the top spot now.

I reserve the right to hold my final opinion on the absurdity of the college tennis rankings until after this weekend’s Blue/Gray National Tennis Classic. Brown could possibly face four teams ranked in the top 40 in the na-tion in four days if it reaches the finals — not that outlandish of a proposition. It will be very inter-esting to see how high the Bears climb if they win a few matches, and even more interesting to see if they drop out of the rankings if they win a few matches. Based upon the rankings system, you can never tell.

Gymnasts earn more ECAC honors

The gymnastics team very well might be the most bal-anced of Brown’s 30-plus varsity

squads. Captain Amber Smith ’06 and Sarah Durning ’08 both picked up conference awards following their performances in a close loss to the University of Pennsylvania, one of the league’s top teams, and a thrashing of West Chester University.

Smith was named the ECAC’s player of the week after her best performance of the season — a 37.1 all-around score at Penn. Making her season debut af-ter spending the first half of the year rehabbing an ACL injury, Durning picked up the Coach’s Award.

Of the 15 competitors on the Bears’ roster, six have now won league honors this season. Ear-lier this year, Rachel Foodman ’09 nabbed a Specialist of the Week award, while classmate Brittany Anderson ’09 has two Rookie of the Week awards to her name so far. Sarah Cavett ’06 was a Coach’s Award recipi-ent in January, and Jennifer So-buta ’09 was Specialist of the Week in February.

Stephen Colelli ’08 is a specialist in bracketeering.

Colellicontinued from page 12

his livelihood.“Eh, I just trust the guy,”

Zamora says before dipping out of the sun and into the cool, dark market.

Villegas double-parks Zamo-ra’s green taxi. But within min-utes someone wants to get out from behind it.

Villegas jumps into the taxi’s

driver seat and turns the igni-tion. A weak, rattling sound stirs in the engine. He tries again. And again. Nothing.

Ruben Dominguez Garcia appears. Dominguez works the streets by the market, too, carry-ing a bag of tools that he uses to hammer out dents on the spot. He is a busy man in this zone of constant fender benders.

Two other guys run up. They lean into Zamora’s car, shoving it out of the way, giving it just enough momentum to coax the

engine to life.Villegas glows. He has 130 tax-

free pesos in his pocket, more than twice the minimum daily wage of 48 pesos.

It is only 11:30, but his day is almost done.

He claps Dominguez on the shoulder and the two break out in song. They croon “Marta,” a melodramatic bolero, gloriously off-key. But their celebration is interrupted by a tooting horn.

A man in a fat truck wants a place to park.

Parkingcontinued from page 7

more than five years ago. “Dis-regarding strong opposition by the huge majority of the Serbi-an people, Kostunica is provid-ing amnesty, not only for Mi-losevic, but also for his family members.”

The reference to the family concerns a court decision to al-low Milosevic’s widow, Mirjana

Markovic, to enter Serbia for the funeral without being arrested on a long-standing corruption warrant. “It’s a scandal,” said Vesna Pesic, a democracy activ-ist and a leader the 2000 revolt.

It remains uncertain wheth-er Markovic will come to Ser-bia from Russia, where she now lives. Milosevic’s brother, Borislav, the former Serbian am-bassador to Russia, will not at-tend the funeral because he is recovering from heart problems

in Moscow, news reports said.Defending the decision to al-

low Milosevic’s body to lie in the museum, a government official said Kostunica simply wanted to provide a “civilized” funeral without any suggestion of offi-cial endorsement or sympathy. “We made some arrangements available, but we believe Milos-evic is too controversial a fig-ure to provide a state funeral,” he said. “He was unique, so his burial is going to be unique.”

Miloseviccontinued from page 6

FRIDAY, MARCH 17 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

Let me begin with the inter-actions between athletes and commentators. Interviews with athletes are, generally speaking, a joke. Who was the last sideline reporter that got anything use-ful out of a coach or player in a halftime interview? Interviews are no longer about teasing out sound bytes that are insightful or interesting, but rather aim at getting responses that sim-ply make sense, or vaguely re-fer to players’ emotions so that the viewer at home feels con-nected. After Team USA’s loss to Korea in the World Baseball Classic last Tuesday, third base-man Mark Teixeira astutely not-ed that, “any time you lose, there are things you could have done better.” No kidding.

Most athlete interviews aren’t actually entertaining or grip-ping, but just satisfy some mini-mum standard of English and logic. It’s as if a food chain’s proud selling point is that their product ends that annoying hunger in your belly by taking up the empty space. (Come to think of it, Taco Bell does exactly this. Looks like we’re in deeper trouble than I thought.) Where is the smarmy, snide, honest athlete? The rehearsed culture of much of sports journalism beats him down.

Interviews aside, the anal-ysis by professional play-by-play and color commentators is sub-par and often way too sensational. How often have you heard an announcer sug-gest that a certain player “is happier to be on the field than anybody,” (Brett Favre gets this one a lot), or that there is “no question” that the wrong call has been made despite argu-

able replays? Sunday Night Football commentator Joe Theismann can’t help but de-clare something earth-shatter-ing with every play; but don’t you love his voice? New York Yankees radio personality John Sterling is so eager to spout his home run call that on any deep fly ball, he’ll launch into his shtick and neglects to give any information about the play at hand (too bad the ball was caught 15 feet in front of the warning track, though). And yet, both of these men have re-cently received contract exten-sions and increased scope of coverage.

Unfortunately, this trend seems to be getting worse as the pre-packaged, grab-n-go, speed-over-quality modernism continues to percolate all aspects of our culture. Luckily, some athletes and coaches are fighting back for us and saying what they think. Boston Red Sox pitcher David Wells, who’s never been afraid to say what’s on his mind, is one such “renegade.” Just this week he gave Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig a verbal spanking, saying that “no-body likes him” and suggesting that he Googles himself regularly. And New York Knicks Head Coach Larry Brown is currently tran-scending the usual tit-for-tat me-dia battles between players and coaches by calling out Stephon “Starbury” Marbury. Brown in-sisted that he “never left a team in

worse shape than (he) got it. Not once … think about me and think about (Marbury). All right?” Now that’s some hot fire. Who knows if that’s good for the team, but it sure is refreshing for fans.

Admittedly, honesty and frankness are mere factors in a messy professional calculus. One can’t be sure when these players and commentators learned to suppress their inner voices, but it’s probably when they realized that any devi-ance from the norm might cost them their salaries. If that’s the case, then we’ve got a long way to climb out of this hole. Until then, watch games with the vol-ume off, send your least favorite commentators nasty letters and keep fighting the good fight.

Perlmuttercontinued from page 12

According to van De Walle, there were ups and downs to liv-ing in a converted triple. “Obvi-ously it is tight to have three peo-ple in a room, in terms of sleeping times and noise and all of that,” she said. On the other hand, van De Walle is very happy to have a kitchen. “I cook myself breakfast every morning and it’s very re-laxing,” she said. “I have enough space to do whatever I want and I have a lot of storage space. I still have all the closets and everything. I’m pretty lucky.” Also, the room is carpeted, which is not typical of Keeney rooms, she said.

Navarro said she does not think the converted lounges are worse than other housing op-tions. “I don’t think that they’re less nice,” she said. “I just think that they’re different.” Convert-ed lounges contain the same fur-niture as other housing, but the rooms are much larger, she said.

Residential Council Chair Brendan Hargreaves ’06 said Res-Council has not taken a strong stance on the issue of convert-ed lounges because it recogniz-es the necessity of housing stu-dents during the housing short-age. “They do try to make sure there are common spaces, so at the moment, ResCouncil is more resigned to the fact that it’s a necessary evil,” he said.

“The housing shortage is not necessarily the fault of ResLife,”

Hargreaves stressed. “They do not determine who comes here, they just have to house them all.”

Hargreaves said he has asked ResLife why it has not put up walls in frequently converted lounges to turn them into permanent dou-bles. “In their view, ideally those will be lounges again,” he said.

It is uncertain whether van De Walle will be moved out of her room to free up lounge space. “I actually was told that this might be temporary housing … but I guess that that never happened,” she said. “I think this is pretty much permanent housing.”

Navarro said ResLife begins to notice in July whether the number of returning students looks particularly high. But Re-sLife does not assign converted lounges until it becomes certain no other regular housing will be available by the start of the se-mester, she said. “We don’t put (lounges) into play until the very, very last minute.”

Navarro said though ResLife grants off-campus permission to additional students if a housing shortage seems likely, she thought students who did receive permis-sion in the summer often have trou-ble finding apartments, and there-fore need on-campus housing.

Navarro said for the last two years, transfer students have been assigned housing based on semes-ter level, rather than automatically being put into temporary spaces. ResLife attempts to assign juniors to singles, she said. “Most of the students … that get assigned … to (temporary spaces) are rising soph-

omores and are on the waitlist, or (are) returning students who hadn’t committed to come back until the last minute,” Navarro said.

Van De Walle has a different sense of the situation. “It seems like a lot of transfers live in rooms like this all across Keeney,” she said. “I don’t know of anyone oth-er than transfers living in a con-verted lounge.”

Aubry Bracco ’08, another transfer student who lives in a converted lounge in Keeney, said she has also been pleased with her living arrangement this year. Bracco said after she first found out about her housing arrange-ment, “I was a little afraid, but I was open to anything and happy that there were three other girls in there and the other three were transfers as well.”

The lounge — which she con-tinues to live in this semester with two of her three original room-mates — came with a full kitchen, including her favorite element, “a little retro, 50s-ish booth thing.”

The downside of the arrange-ment was living with three other people, she said. “Four people in the room meaning four beds, four sets of drawers, four desks, four armoire things, four bookcases — there were only so many ways to arrange the furniture,” she said. In addition, Bracco said, there are not many electrical outlets.

Bracco said she was lucky in her roommate assignments. “They are some of my best friends here,” she said. “Surprisingly, we don’t want to kill each other. We don’t hate each other.”

Loungescontinued from page 5

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“Where is the smarmy, snide, honest athlete? The rehearsed culture of sports

journalism beats him down.”

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EDITORIALRobbie Corey-Boulet, Editor-in-ChiefJustin Elliott, Executive EditorBen Miller, Executive EditorStephanie Clark, Senior EditorKatie Lamm, Senior EditorJonathan Sidhu, Arts & Culture EditorJane Tanimura, Arts & Culture EditorStu Woo, Campus Watch EditorMary-Catherine Lader, Features EditorBen Leubsdorf, Metro EditorAnne Wootton, Metro EditorEric Beck, News EditorPatrick Harrison, Opinions EditorNicholas Swisher, Opinions EditorStephen Colelli, Sports EditorChristopher Hatfield, Sports EditorJustin Goldman, Asst. Sports EditorJilane Rodgers, Asst. Sports EditorCharlie Vallely, Asst. Sports Editor

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EDITORIAL/LETTERSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 10

L E T T E R S

A cubic zirconium to “fabulous” Sharpe Refectory renova-tions. Wheelchair accessibility is a plus, but it would be really fabulous if the forthcoming elevator takes you to a floor where salmon provencal and steamed vegetable mélange are only talked about — not actually attempted.

Speaking of exquisite seafood cuisine, a diamond to the Fab-ulous Life of Ruth Simmons, which evidently includes nightly servings of pollack and crab entrees. We only hope that the ar-chitectural style of her home — Gregorian Revival — does not reflect any impending changes in administrative leadership.

A diamond to the study that revealed Brown to be the sev-enth most preferred school in the country. But coal to the fact that its authors aren’t planning to repeat the study anytime soon. With glossy new brochures, fancy admissions certificates and car decals (!), the Office of Admission’s new mailings would have surely launched the University to number one.

Coal to crime, but a diamond to Ben Donahue ’09 and his badass Hap Ki Do skills. Though some suggested that fighting back is not cool, we’re pretty sure Jack Bauer would disagree.

A diamond to Swarthmore College and other schools that have kicked Coca-Cola off campus. We would suggest Brown do the same, but we get irritable and depressed when we go too long without Coke.

Coal to Travis Rowley ’02, who plans to keep the first edi-tion of his new book criticizing Brown’s liberal climate “local.” Though your exposure to an undergraduate population that is evidently “Machiavellian, immoral and dishonest” may have dampened your spirits, at least you retained your ability to coin a euphemism for “unpublished.”

A diamond to students who forgot to enter the housing lot-tery. That’s a tough break, but by giving bright-eyed first-years a better shot at nice digs, you can take solace in the friendships you’ve potentially saved. And, after all, there may be a plush Keeney lounge — complete with a “a little retro, 50s-ish booth thing” — in your immediate future.

A cubic zirconium to Robert Coover, an adjunct professor of literary arts and a passionate protestor at the bookstore rally who compared the bookstore to the “Bengal tiger and the great horned owl.” We appreciate your enthusiasm, but perhaps there’s a more appropriate venue to experiment with complex metaphors and potential book titles.

Diamonds and coal

It’s Friday —know what that means?

Time to write a letter!

send letters to: letters@browndailyherald.com

send guest columns to: opinions@browndailyherald.com

OPINIONS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 11

BY JOEY BORSONOPINIONS COLUMNIST

Last month, President George W. Bush proposed his 2007 federal budget, which, in sum, comes to about $2.77 trillion. This total will surely grow to an even more in-comprehensibly large number as supple-mentary funds for Iraq and Afghanistan are incorporated and Congress adds its own programs and pork barrel spending. What programs and policies will my tax-contributions, which total less than one-billionth-of-a-percent of the budget, go toward? I have no idea.

My tax dollars could buy a few hun-dred 7.62 mm NATO-issue bullets, pay for three weeks worth of coffee at an En-vironmental Protection Agency regional office or contribute to the salary of a De-partment of Justice prosecutor. Not all state and federal taxes are as untrace-able as income taxes. Some, such as gas-oline taxes, are dedicated to legally de-fined purposes, such as highway main-tenance and construction, and should probably be considered more as “user-fees” than anything else.

For me, not knowing exactly where my personal contribution goes, even if I un-derstand the entire budget, makes pay-ing taxes far more palatable. If there is a politician I abhor, I can be comforted with the hope that I may not have paid for their vacation. Conversely, I can al-ways tell myself that I played a small part in funding a program I love.

This state of blissful ignorance could change, however. There are numerous proposals on both the state and federal

level designed to ensure that individuals and groups would know precisely what projects they are and aren’t funding. One of the more prominent is known as the Peace Tax Fund, which calls for legisla-tion “enabling conscientious objectors to war to have their federal income taxes directed to a special fund which could be used for non-military purposes only.”

These types of regulations, known as tax credits, also include programs that allow individu-als and corpora-tions to choose specific schools or educational institutions to be the effective re-cipients of near-ly all of their tax dollars. Instead of checks be-ing written out to the Internal Revenue Service, they would now be written out to a pri-vate school to pay for tuition or books.

On one level, I can understand why pacifists would be hesitant to fund nucle-ar weapons or fighter aircraft, or why peo-ple would want their taxes to directly fund private or religious schools they consider worthy of support. But allowing taxpay-ers to directly choose what programs they fund is a profoundly flawed idea.

These types of tax credit schemes have several faulty assumptions. The first is practical: the accounting lo-gistics of funneling specific monies to specific funds is daunting, and ad-ministrative waste would be consider-

able. Moreover, how would you define “non-military purposes?” Would hos-pital ships or National Guard firefight-ers qualify under that category? For that matter, who would decide what type of “school” counted as a school? Would home schooling expenses, which are educational but not necessarily feder-ally funded, be included?

Besides being inefficient, allowing tax-payers to decide where their individual

taxes go is anathema to the conception of government as something that serves ev-eryone’s interests and not merely those of the stakeholders of a few programs.

The separation of lawmaking pow-ers between the executive and legislative branches ensures that any government policies have the support, or at least tol-erance, of a solid majority of the coun-try. Choosing not to fund the defense department, or directing tax dollars to-wards nongovernmental institutions such as religious schools, which would bring up difficult issues of separation of church and state, is a rejection the con-cept of both majority rule and checks

and balances.The Constitution sets a framework that

ensures that all citizens contribute to-wards federal expenditures, under the as-sumption that having a military or a pub-lic infrastructure benefits everyone. To that end, paying taxes is a fundamental re-sponsibility of citizenship, not a symbolic or political act akin to the right to speech or assembly. Taxation is about public ac-tions and policies rather than individual

beliefs, and there-fore taxation lies at the very heart of gov-ernment. In a demo-cratic government such as ours, those policies are deter-mined through the consent of the gov-erned, and that con-sent is given through the long and de-liberative process known colloquial-

ly as checks-and-balances. The financial support of government policies through taxation is an extension of this democratic process.

If we, as a society, want a government that broadly serves the needs of everyone, we need to ensure that our priorities and policies are chosen through representa-tion — not by each person deciding what they themselves want to do with their indi-vidual dollars. Otherwise, there’s not much point of government at all.

Joey Borson ’07 wants his tax dollars go-ing to a cheesesteak fund.

Learning to love the taxman

Smoking as scapegoat

Proposals to allow taxpayers greater say in how their individual taxes are spent are naive and undemocratic

Anti-smoking legislation ignores larger health threats and sources of pollution

BY LAURA MARTINOPINIONS COLUMNIST

On March 1, 2005, Rhode Island be-came the seventh state to implement a statewide smoking ban, prohibiting smoking in virtually every work place in the state. The ban is enforced under the 2005 Public Health and Workplace Safety Act and applies to all businesses except the state’s two gambling parlors, Newport Grand and Lincoln Park. Busi-nesses must be entirely non-smoking, and the Department of Health recom-mends that patrons who wish to smoke should stand 50 feet away from the do-orframe. The fine for smoking violatio-ns is $250 for the first offence, $500 for the second and $1000 for each subse-quent violation. The business owner is solely accountable for paying the fine. The smoking ban raises serious questio-ns about how we prioritize public health decisions and who is responsible for en-vironmental pollution.

It is quite obvious, of course, that smoking and second hand smoke are linked to heightened cancer and asth-ma risks. An amazingly successful pu-blic health campaign has lead to a heig-htened awareness of the risks associa-ted with smoking. Beginning with Mis-sissippi in 1994, states starting filing individual lawsuits with the top four tobacco companies on the premise that they should be able to recover the costs of treating illness caused by tobacco use. This led to the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998, in which R.J. Rey-nolds, Brown & Williamson, Lorillard

and Philip Morris agreed to pay the sta-tes $206 billion. The settlement was a critical turning point for the anti-tobac-co movement. However, while smoking has become “demonized,” officials and academics have failed to discuss the pu-blic health effects of car exhaust and in-dustrial pollution. Other environmental externalities, such as exhaust pollution, pose an enormous health threat, one which seems more urgent and wides-pread than second-hand smoke.

Car exhaust contains carbon monox-ide, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, suspended particles less than 10 microns in size, benzene, formaldehyde and poly-cyclic hydrocarbons, among other com-pounds. The laundry list of toxic airborne compounds released by car use and by industrial practices is nothing short of terrifying. If these airborne pollutants are so noxious as well, then why has the government pursued the banning of cig-arette smoke so persistently at the ex-pense of regulating greater health risks? There are three simple answers. The first is that enforcement of smoking bans is

much easier to implement than trying to cap industry emissions. Secondly, smok-ing is propagated by one overarching in-dustry — tobacco companies — while industrial and traffic pollution is caused by a whole array of industries. Finally, it is much easier to prove the relationship between cancer and smoking in an epi-demiological study than it is to prove the relationship between cancer and pollu-tion, which comes from an unquantifi-able number of sources.

The difference between banning ciga-rette smoking and decreasing emissions is that it’s easier to blame a huge, visible industry than it is to blame ourselves. In reality, each and every person contrib-utes to local air pollution through driv-ing and day-to-day energy consump-tion. We affect every other citizen with our consumption, but the environment is an externality in our economic system for which no one group or individual is solely responsible. Many towns have a flat fee for household trash removal, but there is obviously no fee on the individu-al for “environmental impact.”

The fact that citizens are often left without a choice but to contribute to lo-cal air pollution is the greatest obstacle standing in the way of reducing noxious emissions. People must drive in order to get to their workplaces, and public trans-portation does not provide a viable alter-native for the majority of suburban pop-ulations. Citizens in most towns are also not held accountable for the amount of trash they generate. By charging per-pound for trash removal, legislation could have a profound impact on the amount of waste generated. Analogous policies for fuel consumption might help reduce air pollution.

The tobacco industry and smok-ers do not deserve to be demonized for threatening our public health. In 1995, the Rhode Island Department of Health survey found that 62 percent of compa-nies in the state were smoke-free, while another 23 percent had “highly-restric-tive” smoking policies. In comparison to the deplorable number of superfunds in the state, smoking in public spaces seems like a lesser threat. Discussion must be extended to the carcinogenic and asthmatic effects of local air pollu-tion. Just as states have sued big tobac-co in order to account for money spent on treating sickness caused by smok-ing, states must further pursue lawsuits against other industries such as the automobile and transportation indus-tries that also cause detriment to pub-lic health.

Laura Martin ’06 knows that exhaust fumes are the ultimate high.

Allowing taxpayers to decide where

their individual taxes go is anathema

to the conception of government as

serving the many, not the few.

Because the environment is

considered an externality in our

economic system, it is hard to hold

individuals responsible for pollution.

SPORTS WEEKENDTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · MARCH 17, 2006 · PAGE 12

BY CHRIS MAHRSPORTS STAFF WRITER

For the men’s lacrosse team, the 2006 sea-son can hopefully make up for last year’s frustrating 6-6 campaign.

Last year, after solid wins against the likes of Hofstra University and Ohio State University and a close-call against then-de-fending national champion Syracuse Uni-versity in the season’s first month, Brown faltered in April and May, finishing with a losing record in the Ivy League.

“For a while last year, we were in con-tention … but we didn’t play well down the stretch,” said Head Coach Scott Nelson. “We had won a couple big games early and looked very good, then lost a couple tight ones. In Division I lacrosse, you have to win tight games.”

With a solid combination of experience and up-and-coming talent that Nelson says “is going to get better all year long,”

the Bears have the ability to win the close games this time around. Bruno stands out the most on defense, where they are an-chored by All-Ivy goalie Nick Gentilesco ’06. In 2005, Gentilesco earned a reputa-tion as one of the best goalies in the Ivy League, leading the Ancient Eight in both goals against average (8.06 per game) and save percentage (.568) in nearly 600 min-utes of action.

“Nick is a difference-maker in that he makes saves he’s supposed to and throws in some incredible saves,” Nelson said. “As a defense, we have to make sure he’s not always making incredible saves. If the defense stays together and plays well as a team he’ll get shots he can save.”

Cohesiveness should not be an issue among a group of defensemen that fea-tures mainstays Bobby Shields ’07 and co-captains Rob Cotter ’06 and James Faello ’06. The trio was a key component of a de-fense that yielded just 9.42 goals per game in 2005, and this year marks its final season of playing together.

“In terms of last year, we had a very tight-knit group that had known each oth-er for a while and played with each other for a while,” Cotter said. “It just worked out very well. Defense is a matter of trust and learning how to play with each other.”

With Shields having garnered preseason All-American honors, expectations are cer-tainly high for a repeat of last year’s perfor-mance. Despite that, the defense is expect-ing most teams to overlook them — some-thing it hopes to use to its advantage.

Two years ago, a buddy of mine and I came upon the “Ask a Dolphin” sec-

tion on the Miami Dolphins’ Web site. Expecting terribly banal commentary from the players themselves, we fol-lowed the links and found ourselves reading some Q&A with tight end Randy McMichael. Luckily for us, we

got what we came for. Check out this gem of a response to a question regard-ing his will to make the Pro Bowl: “The only thing I really want to do is help this team win. But at the same time, I want to have a big year. I want to go out to Hawaii. That’s my ultimate goal.”

It is rare that one is forced to recon-sider the true meaning of the words “only” and “ultimate,” but I guess that is

a power exclusive to Randy McMichael. The point of this nugget of mental den-sity is that it is a shining example of to-day’s sports dialogue. One often finds many equally incoherent and contra-dictory statements from players, coach-es and even the commentators, who are supposed to dissect and analyze the game in a way the average fan cannot.

Sports commentary and dialogue have become so diluted with meaning-less stock phrases and interviews that it’s practically painful to follow along. From an area of entertainment that is so big, particularly in its manifestation on television, talk on sports offers us too much kitsch and surprisingly little substance. I’m not asking for prose at the level of the Federalist Papers or self-psychoanalysis — after all, many pro-fessional athletes didn’t graduate from college. I only ask for something that is not sickeningly familiar.

Most fans on campus know that the men’s tennis team is one of the top

teams in the coun-try. Apparently, though, the people who rank the na-tion’s college ten-nis teams do not.

Last season, Brown was ranked as high as No. 36 in the Fila Colle-giate Tennis Rank-ings. This year, the

Bears have picked up where they left off, reaching as high as No. 41 in late January and, again, two weeks ago. Since drop-ping a match to then-No. 27 Clemson University (the Tigers are now No. 5), Brown has rolled off eight straight wins — and fallen to No. 53 in the nation.

As bizarre as that seems, it is even more unfathomable when one consid-ers the schools that have leapt in front of Brown in the past two weeks. Virginia

Tech University, despite being demol-ished 5-2 by the Bears three weeks ago, sits four spots in front of them at No. 49. The University of Pennsylvania, whom the Bears have not lost to in five years, is No. 41, the same spot Brown was in two weeks ago. The University of Southern California, and its illustrious 6-7 record, is ranked 46th. A few voters must have thought Reggie Bush also wields a racket in his spare time.

What is the point in having rankings if they do not reflect the performance of the teams evaluated? Although the 8-1 Bears have not played the most chal-lenging schedule to date, they have per-formed better than those teams ranked 10 to 15 spots in front of them.

Of course, a rankings controversy is nothing new to college athletics. Year in and year out, the NCAA Division I foot-ball polls are littered with questionable rankings. Whether in the Associated

STEPHEN COLELLIBROWN SUGAR

Ashley Hess / Herald

David Madeira ’07, who scored four goals against Hartford last week, is one of Brown’s many options in the offensive zone.

Skewed ranking does not reflect accurately on m. tennis

M. lax set to battle No. 7 Minutemen on Saturday

THURSDAY, MARCH 16

M. TENNIS: No. 32 Boise State 4, No. 53 Brown 2 (at Blue/Gray National Tennis Classic)

FRIDAY, MARCH 17

W. LACROSSE: at TempleM. TENNIS: at Blue/Gray National Tennis Classic (Montgom-ery, Ala.)W. WATER POLO: at Harvard

SATURDAY, MARCH 18

EQUESTRIAN: at Johnson and WalesM. LACROSSE: vs. No. 7 UMass-Amherst, 1 p.m., Stevenson Field M. TENNIS: at Blue/Gray National Tennis Classic

SUNDAY, MARCH 19

GYMNASTICS: vs. Southern Connecticut, Yale and Rhode Island, 1 p.m., Pizzitola CenterW. LACROSSE: at DelawareM. TENNIS: at Blue/Gray National Tennis Classic

BROWN SPORTS SCOREBOARD

Both athletes and commentators tend to speak often, say little

ERIC PERLMUTTERPERL MUTTERS

see COLELLI, page 8

BY JILANE RODGERSASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

Defender Myria Heinhuis ’06 closed out a stellar career in the ECACHL fi-

nals this weekend against Harvard. Though Bruno lost a hard-fought battle 4-3, Heinhuis earned second team all-ECACHL honors. She ranked 11th this season in the conference for defensive scoring and has not missed a game or practice in her four years at Brown. Ear-lier in the season, she was named first team All Ivy for the second time in her career.

Herald: How did you feel about the end of this season?Heinhuis: It’s always bittersweet to lose, especially to Harvard. We’ve played them 10 times over my four years and lost to them eight of those times. It was nice to make the finals, because it was something we hadn’t done in my time here, so that was a good way to end it.

Do you have any superstitions before games?

I have to put my left equipment on first. Left skate, my left shin guard, left elbow pad. It doesn’t feel right unless I do that.

You’re regarded by Herald Sports Staff-

ers as the unsung hero of the hockey team. Being a defender, most of your work isn’t in the headlines. What are the perks?

I like that you have to work harder to get your name out there. It’s more fun that way. As (Head Coach Digit Murphy) always says, “Defense wins the games.” It’s great to be back there, being a solid part of the team and tak-ing your chances to score when they come. And you get to hit … to a certain extent.

If you could switch it up and play an-other position for one game, what would it be?

I don’t really know if I’d switch. I’ve always played defense, and maybe center a bit. Defense is what I know and enjoy.

How about playing a different sport?I used to play soccer, volleyball

and basketball when I was younger. I played lacrosse in high school and my first year at Brown. If I were to pick up a new sport, I’d go with squash be-

Athlete of the Week: W. icers’ Myria Heinhuis ’06

Ashley Hess / Herald

Myria Heinhuis ’06, one of the most phys-ical defensemen in the ECACHL, totaled 101 penalty minutes this season. see AOTW, page 8

see M. LAX, page 8

see PERLMUTTER, page 9