friday, november 2, 2007

12
BY DANA TEPPERT CONTRIBUTING WRITER Students attending the panel dis- cussion on “the Teach for America Controversy” packed into Petteruti Lounge Thursday night. The event, sponsored by the Roosevelt Institu- tion, a non-partisan student think tank, addressed the effectiveness and long-term impact of the Teach for America program. The panel included Professor of Education Kenneth Wong, As- sociate Professor of Histor y James Campbell, Visiting Lecturer in Edu- cation Maureen Sigler, University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson, Teach for America Recruitment Director Meredith Boak and Erin Brown ’08. Brown published a paper in the latest issue of the Brown Policy Review called “Why Temporary Is Not Enough: The Controversy Over Teach For America,” which ultimately led to the current panel discussion, said Camilla Hawthorne ’09, Brown Policy Review educa- tional policy editor and co-organizer of the event. TFA’s mission is to ensure that “one day, all children in our nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education,” states Wendy Kopp, founder and chief executive officer of TFA, on the organization’s Web site. TFA is a nonprofit organi- zation that recruits college gradu- ates to teach two years in urban and rural public schools. The program is highly competi- tive — last year 18,000 individuals applied nationwide and approxi- mately 2,900 were accepted. Over the past five years, 106 Brown al- ums have joined TFA, Boak told The Herald. In 2006, TFA accepted 25 Brown students, the greatest T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD F RIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2007 Volume CXLII, No. 102 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island News tips: [email protected] INSIDE: UNPACK THIS! Painting, sculpture and eye- brow plucking feature in a student group show curated by Ann Kidder ’08. CAMPUS NEWS 5 OPINIONS 11 CUT THE CANDLES Room inspectors found 22 hazardous situations cre- ated by excessive debris this semester. SPORTS 12 MAN ON THE STREET Student dish about the good and the bad in off- campus housing on Col- lege Hill. FOOTBALL SHOWDOWN The Bears head to New Ha- ven, seeking a win against the Bulldogs to keep cham- pionship hopes alive. ARTS & CULTURE 3 Med school admission gets increasingly competitive BY HANNAH MINTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER As first-years finally recover from the trauma of applying to college, some college seniors around the countr y and at Brown are duking it out for coveted seats at medical school. The already demanding process of applying to med school has be- come even more difficult in recent years. Nationally, the number of people applying to med school this year has increased by 8.2 percent from the year before, according to an Oct. 16 press release from the Association of American Medical Colleges. Nearly all applicants begin by filling out a primary application online, which is then sent to the applicant’s designated institutions. Upon receipt of the primar y applica- tion, med schools send secondary applications for prospective students to submit — while many schools send secondaries to all applicants, others are more selective. Admis- sion offices then decide whether to invite the applicant to on-campus interviews. At Brown’s Alpert Medical School, which enrolls 370 medical students, 2,599 secondary applica- tions were completed last year, but only 93 offers of admission were made, in addition to places reser ved for participants in the Program in Liberal Medical Education, accord- ing to the Med School’s Web site. In the past two years, the number of applications has increased by 63 percent, said Kathy Baer, director of admission and financial aid at the Med School. But Brown is a special case — the “standard” admission route was only implemented in 2004. Previously, admission had been limited to stu- dents from special programs, such as PLME students or participants in an early identification program for Rhode Island students. And as the Med School has expanded in size, more spaces have opened up. Not only are national applicant pools larger this year, but applicants have stronger qualifications than ever. “MCAT test scores and cu- mulative grade point average were the highest we’ve ever seen,” said AAMC President Darrell Kirch in Simmons is a Glamour Woman of the Year — again BY MICHAEL BECHEK SENIOR STAFF WRITER President Ruth Simmons has been named one of Glamour’s Women of the Year for 2007, according to a press release Thursday from the popular women’s magazine. Simmons has received the hon- or once before, in 1996, when she was president of Smith College. Simmons will be featured in the magazine’s December issue, on newsstands Nov. 13, along with the three other female presidents of the Ivy League — Har vard Univer- sity’s Drew Faust, Princeton Uni- versity’s Shirley Tilghman and the University of Pennsylvania’s Amy Gutmann. The magazine notes that, with Faust’s election as Har vard’s president in February, “Half of the Ivy schools are now helmed by women.” “There is a new order,” Sim- mons is quoted as saying in the magazine. Actress Jennifer Garner, author Toni Morrison and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are among the 21 women the magazine chose to recognize this year. Simmons was not available for comment Thursday, said Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president. A crew from Glamour came in October for a photo shoot, Quinn said, to snap the shot that appears in the magazine along with a short video that will appear at a ceremony to be held on Monday in New York City. The crew tried out a number of locations but settled on 55 Pow- er St., the president’s residence, Quinn said. Simmons plans to attend the awards ceremony, which will be held in New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Quinn said. She most recently attended the Glamour Women of the Year ceremony in 2005, when she introduced a tribute to civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who had recently passed away. The awards ceremony will feature a “star-studded list of pre- senters,” according to the press release, and a special performance by singer Mariah Carey with the African Children’s Choir. Honorees are nominated by Glamour’s Women of the Year Ad- visory Board, which is made up of former winners, the magazine said. The annual special issue cel- ebrates “inspirational women who have made unprecedented contri- butions to the worlds of entertain- ment, business, sports, fashion, philanthropy, science/medicine, education and politics.” Courtesy of Glamour President Ruth Simmons has been named one of Glamour’s Women of the Year for 2007. Panel questions impact of Teach For America Chris Bennett / Herald Professor of Education Kenneth Wong participated in a panel discussion Thursday night on the effectiveness of Teach for America. Documentary screening kicks off Asian history month BY MAX MANKIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER Following a screening of her docu- mentary “My America ... or Honk if you Love Buddha,” producer and director Renee Tajima-Pena spoke Thursday night in List 120 about her experiences as a social activist, film- maker and Japanese American to kickoff Asian/Asian-American His- tory Month. Thirty-seven more film screenings, discussions, speakers, workshops, ceremonies and dances celebrating Asian and Asian-American history will occur almost daily throughout November. The events are also part of a month of themed programming sponsored by the Third World Cen- ter, “Community at Odds: Looking Inward, Reaching Outward.” Tajima-Pena spoke of the 1990s, when U.S. immigration laws loosened and Asian Americans started emigrat- ing from not-as-traditional countries, which created a more diverse Asian- American population. “The 1990s was a period of confu- sion, of wondering, ‘Well, who are we and how do we define ourselves?’ So, I decided to travel across the country and answer that question,” Tajima- Pena said. Now, she makes “social change documentaries about whatever piss- es me off,” Tajima-Pena said with a laugh. Tajima-Pena became involved in social activism while in elementary school, when she was assigned a report for which she had to use pri- mary sources. Because it was a topic with which her family was familiar, Tajima-Pena interviewed her mother and grandmother about the Japanese- American internment camps during World War II. When Tajima-Pena presented her findings to the class, her teacher yelled, “That’s not true — things like that don’t happen in America.” “I got angry,” Tajima-Pena said, “because my mother had shown us where they were interred for two and a half to three years. The truth can be dangerous.” As she got older, Tajima-Pena continued as a social activist for Asian-American causes at Harvard University. She said she had trouble deciding whether to “wield the cam- era or the picket sign. Sometimes, I was wielding both.” Tajima-Pena was also actively involved in protesting the Vincent Chin case during the 1980s, when Chin — an Asian American — was killed by two white men who were only punished with probation and a fine. Tajima-Pena pointed out the changing face Asian-American iden- tity. “I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. There was no info on Asian Ameri- cans then,” she told The Herald. “Things started closed off to Asian Americans,” Tajima-Pena said, includ- ing jobs and education opportuni- ties, but “awareness has changed 180 degrees.” Janine Kwoh ’09, a co-program- mer for the month’s events, said the events are about gaining “a better idea of what it means to be Asian or Asian-American. We have to be self continued on page 4 continued on page 8 continued on page 8

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The November 2, 2007 issue of the Brown Daily Herald

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Friday, November 2, 2007

By Dana TepperTContributing Writer

Students attending the panel dis-cussion on “the Teach for America Controversy” packed into Petteruti Lounge Thursday night. The event, sponsored by the Roosevelt Institu-tion, a non-partisan student think tank, addressed the effectiveness and long-term impact of the Teach for America program.

The panel included Professor of Education Kenneth Wong, As-sociate Professor of History James Campbell, Visiting Lecturer in Edu-cation Maureen Sigler, University Chaplain Janet Cooper Nelson, Teach for America Recruitment Director Meredith Boak and Erin Brown ’08.

Brown published a paper in the latest issue of the Brown Policy Review called “Why Temporary Is Not Enough: The Controversy Over Teach For America,” which ultimately led to the current panel discussion, said Camilla Hawthorne ’09, Brown Policy Review educa-tional policy editor and co-organizer of the event.

TFA’s mission is to ensure that “one day, all children in our nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education,” states Wendy

Kopp, founder and chief executive officer of TFA, on the organization’s Web site. TFA is a nonprofit organi-zation that recruits college gradu-ates to teach two years in urban and rural public schools.

The program is highly competi-tive — last year 18,000 individuals

applied nationwide and approxi-mately 2,900 were accepted. Over the past five years, 106 Brown al-ums have joined TFA, Boak told The Herald. In 2006, TFA accepted 25 Brown students, the greatest

The Brown Daily heralDFriday, november 2, 2007Volume CXLII, No. 102 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island News tips: [email protected]

INSIDE:

unpack This!Painting, sculpture and eye-brow plucking feature in a student group show curated by Ann Kidder ’08.

caMpus neWs

5OpiniOns

11cuT The canDlesRoom inspectors found 22 hazardous situations cre-ated by excessive debris this semester.

spOrTs

12Man On The sTreeTStudent dish about the good and the bad in off-campus housing on Col-lege Hill.

fOOTBall shOWDOWnThe Bears head to New Ha-ven, seeking a win against the Bulldogs to keep cham-pionship hopes alive.

arTs & culTure

3

Med school admission gets increasingly competitiveBy hannah MinTzContributing Writer

As first-years finally recover from the trauma of applying to college, some college seniors around the country and at Brown are duking it out for coveted seats at medical school.

The already demanding process of applying to med school has be-come even more difficult in recent years. Nationally, the number of people applying to med school this year has increased by 8.2 percent from the year before, according to an Oct. 16 press release from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Nearly all applicants begin by filling out a primary application online, which is then sent to the applicant’s designated institutions. Upon receipt of the primary applica-tion, med schools send secondary applications for prospective students to submit — while many schools send secondaries to all applicants, others are more selective. Admis-sion offices then decide whether to invite the applicant to on-campus interviews.

At Brown’s Alpert Medical

School, which enrolls 370 medical students, 2,599 secondary applica-tions were completed last year, but only 93 offers of admission were made, in addition to places reserved for participants in the Program in Liberal Medical Education, accord-ing to the Med School’s Web site. In the past two years, the number of applications has increased by 63 percent, said Kathy Baer, director of admission and financial aid at the Med School.

But Brown is a special case — the “standard” admission route was only implemented in 2004. Previously, admission had been limited to stu-dents from special programs, such as PLME students or participants in an early identification program for Rhode Island students. And as the Med School has expanded in size, more spaces have opened up.

Not only are national applicant pools larger this year, but applicants have stronger qualifications than ever. “MCAT test scores and cu-mulative grade point average were the highest we’ve ever seen,” said AAMC President Darrell Kirch in

Simmons is a Glamour Woman of the Year — againBy Michael BechekSenior StaFF Writer

President Ruth Simmons has been named one of Glamour’s Women of the Year for 2007, according to a press release Thursday from the popular women’s magazine.

Simmons has received the hon-or once before, in 1996, when she was president of Smith College.

Simmons will be featured in the magazine’s December issue, on newsstands Nov. 13, along with the three other female presidents of the Ivy League — Harvard Univer-sity’s Drew Faust, Princeton Uni-versity’s Shirley Tilghman and the University of Pennsylvania’s Amy Gutmann. The magazine notes that, with Faust’s election as Harvard’s president in February, “Half of the Ivy schools are now helmed by women.”

“There is a new order,” Sim-mons is quoted as saying in the magazine.

Actress Jennifer Garner, author Toni Morrison and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are among the 21 women the magazine chose to recognize this year.

Simmons was not available for comment Thursday, said Marisa Quinn, assistant to the president.

A crew from Glamour came in October for a photo shoot, Quinn said, to snap the shot that appears in the magazine along with a short video that will appear at a ceremony to be held on Monday in New York City. The crew tried out a number of locations but settled on 55 Pow-er St., the president’s residence, Quinn said.

Simmons plans to attend the awards ceremony, which will be

held in New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Quinn said. She most recently attended the Glamour Women of the Year ceremony in 2005, when she introduced a tribute to civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who had recently passed away.

The awards ceremony will feature a “star-studded list of pre-senters,” according to the press release, and a special performance by singer Mariah Carey with the

African Children’s Choir.Honorees are nominated by

Glamour’s Women of the Year Ad-visory Board, which is made up of former winners, the magazine said. The annual special issue cel-ebrates “inspirational women who have made unprecedented contri-butions to the worlds of entertain-ment, business, sports, fashion, philanthropy, science/medicine, education and politics.”

Courtesy of GlamourPresident Ruth Simmons has been named one of Glamour’s Women of the Year for 2007.

Panel questions impact of Teach For America

Chris Bennett / HeraldProfessor of Education Kenneth Wong participated in a panel discussion Thursday night on the effectiveness of Teach for America.

Documentary screening kicks off Asian history monthBy Max MankinContributing Writer

Following a screening of her docu-mentary “My America ... or Honk if you Love Buddha,” producer and director Renee Tajima-Pena spoke Thursday night in List 120 about her experiences as a social activist, film-maker and Japanese American to kickoff Asian/Asian-American His-tory Month.

Thirty-seven more film screenings, discussions, speakers, workshops, ceremonies and dances celebrating Asian and Asian-American history will occur almost daily throughout November. The events are also part of a month of themed programming sponsored by the Third World Cen-ter, “Community at Odds: Looking Inward, Reaching Outward.”

Tajima-Pena spoke of the 1990s, when U.S. immigration laws loosened and Asian Americans started emigrat-ing from not-as-traditional countries, which created a more diverse Asian-American population.

“The 1990s was a period of confu-sion, of wondering, ‘Well, who are we and how do we define ourselves?’ So, I decided to travel across the country and answer that question,” Tajima-Pena said.

Now, she makes “social change documentaries about whatever piss-es me off,” Tajima-Pena said with a laugh.

Tajima-Pena became involved in social activism while in elementary school, when she was assigned a report for which she had to use pri-mary sources. Because it was a topic with which her family was familiar,

Tajima-Pena interviewed her mother and grandmother about the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. When Tajima-Pena presented her findings to the class, her teacher yelled, “That’s not true — things like that don’t happen in America.”

“I got angry,” Tajima-Pena said, “because my mother had shown us where they were interred for two and a half to three years. The truth can be dangerous.”

As she got older, Tajima-Pena continued as a social activist for Asian-American causes at Harvard University. She said she had trouble deciding whether to “wield the cam-era or the picket sign. Sometimes, I was wielding both.”

Tajima-Pena was also actively involved in protesting the Vincent Chin case during the 1980s, when Chin — an Asian American — was killed by two white men who were only punished with probation and a fine.

Tajima-Pena pointed out the changing face Asian-American iden-tity. “I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. There was no info on Asian Ameri-cans then,” she told The Herald. “Things started closed off to Asian Americans,” Tajima-Pena said, includ-ing jobs and education opportuni-ties, but “awareness has changed 180 degrees.”

Janine Kwoh ’09, a co-program-mer for the month’s events, said the events are about gaining “a better idea of what it means to be Asian or Asian-American. We have to be self

continued on page 4

continued on page 8continued on page 8

Page 2: Friday, November 2, 2007

ToDay

The Brown Daily heralD

Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372Business Phone: 401.351.3260

Eric Beck, President

Mary-Catherine Lader, Vice President

Mandeep Gill, Treasurer

Dan DeNorch, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serving the Brown

University community since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the aca-

demic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and

once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to

P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are

located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail [email protected]. World Wide

Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one

semester daily. Copyright 2007 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

ACROSS1 Rope6 Supreme Court

justice for 34years

11 Pleasing opener14 NFL Titan, once15 It can pick up a

plane16 Momentous time17 Theatrical vein?19 Sneeze, cough,

etc.20 Gets out21 Center23 He prepared

eggs for theRomanovs

26 Extravagant28 Fall ground

cover29 Sacred place30 Late bloomer31 Offspring32 Is for two?35 “Man Plus”

author Frederik36 Speak derisively,

and a hint to howthis puzzle’s longanswers werecreated

37 Musical ridge38 It starts in Mar.39 “Olé!,” say40 It might be

capped41 Decide to quit43 One of the

Nelsons44 Gary old man,

e.g.46 OshKosh

B’Gosh wearer47 Type of campus

bldg.48 Lofty nest49 Grazing setting50 Counter

criticism?56 Tenn. athlete57 Please no end58 Sour59 Portland-to-

Spokane dir.60 Wake up61 Multitudes

DOWN1 Court strategy

2 Chest filler3 __-mo4 Where many

geographicalmeasurementsbegin

5 Customer6 Pad site7 Popular chips8 Hubbub9 Driving support?

10 Moscowlandmark

11 Lowest kind ofbagel?

12 Notre Damesquad, familiarly

13 Like old sailors18 Quipsters22 Golfer Woosnam23 Avian efforts24 Noted storyteller25 Bass in the tub?26 Clutch

performance?27 College VIP29 Provide recon,

and another hintto this puzzle’slong answers

31 Search high andlow

33 Catch up withagain

34 Passé gas36 Part of a 6-Down37 Bosh39 No-goodnik40 What’s new42 Air setting at the

service sta.43 Passed slowly,

with “on”44 Split

45 Ancient theater46 Munchkin laugh48 Isn’t oneself?51 UN workers’

group52 Letter from

Greece53 Honest guy54 It’s found at the

end of a dogleg

55 Radical ’60s gp.

By Dan Naddor(c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 11/2/07

11/2/07

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, November 2, 2007

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

[email protected]

C r o S S W o r d

S u d o k u

W e a t h e r

m e n u

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

© Puzzles by Pappocom

sunny56 / 38

partly cloudly54 / 38

sharpe refecTOry

lunch — Shepherd’s Pie, Hot Pastrami Sandwich, Apple Dessert Pizza, Vegan Vegetable Couscous, Manhattan Clam Chowder, Vegetarian Cream of Potato Soup

Dinner — Filet of Fish Florentine, Vega Sauteed Veggie with Sunflower Seeds, Rice Pilaf, Baked Acorn Squash

Verney-WOOlley Dining hall

lunch — Chicken Fingers, Baked Vegan Nuggets, Rice Pilaf with Zuc-chini, Corn Cobbets, Raspberry Swirl Cookies

Dinner — Paella with Mussels, Grilled Chicken, Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Spinach Stuffed Tomatoes, Sauted Broccoli with Garlic, Chocolate Cake

ToDAY T o M o R R o W

PAGE 2 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007

But seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

classic Deep-fried kittens| Cara FitzGibbon

Octopus on hallucinogens | Toni Liu and Stephanie Le

classic Deo | Daniel Perez

aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer

Page 3: Friday, November 2, 2007

arTs & CulTureFRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 3

Chris Bennett / Herald

Multimedia group art show “Unpack This!” is on display at List Art through Saturday.

“Vampire” delivers midnight Halloween organ recitalBy rafael chaikenContributing Writer

Emerging out of a coffin dressed as Count Dracula, University Organist and Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Mark Steinbach delivered the annual Halloween Midnight Organ Recital to a full Sayles Hall Wednesday night. Steinbach played a 45-minute program of works by composers ranging from J.S. Bach to Henry Mancini.

The evening began with pall-bearers carrying a coffin into the hall. Wearing a black velvet cape, Steinbach climbed out of the cof-fin, ascended to the organ loft and started the concert.

The first piece of the night was “The World Awaiting a Savior” from “Symphonie-Passion” by Marcel Dupre, a French composer known for his organ works. Characterized by staccato chords, the piece began mysteriously, had a serene middle section and concluded with three wrenching blasts before achieving resolution.

Another French piece on the program was Leon Boellmann’s “Suite Gothique.” The four-move-ment work started with resounding chords that exploited the organ’s tonal capabilities. After a minuet and a flowing pastoral section, a ghoulish toccata — a type of piece that showcases the organist’s tech-nique — highlighted the piece’s Gothic nature.

Steinbach shifted gears to play Mancini’s catchy “Pink Panther Theme.” Concert-goers spontane-ously snapped along as Steinbach

played the popular saxophone melody on alternating reed stops. The piece was somewhat brief, however, as Steinbach did not play the theme’s second section.

A highlight of the concert was “Pari Intervallo” by Estonian com-poser Arvo Part. Introduced by Steinbach in a mock-Transylvanian accent, the hauntingly beautiful piece made good use of the organ’s flutes, and its delicacy contrasted with the rest of the program.

Steinbach concluded the concert with Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,” almost certainly the best-known work in the organ repertoire

and a Halloween classic. Steinbach played the toccata

at a fast tempo that seemed a bit rushed at times. His lively pace was better suited to the fugue — a type of piece that focuses around one or a few musical themes — with its intricate counterpoint, keyboard runs and pedal solos. The deafen-ing finale was a fitting end to the enjoyable recital.

Installed in 1903, Sayles Hall’s pipe organ is the world’s largest remaining instrument made by Hutchings-Votey. The Halloween concert was the second of the se-mester, following the traditional ori-entation week recital on Sept. 4.

In addition to his duties at Brown, Steinbach serves as organ-ist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s Church in Wickford. Educated at the University of Kansas, the East-man School of Music and Vienna’s University of Music and Perform-ing Arts, he has given concerts across the United States and in Europe.

“Unpack this!” with Kidder ’08By Ben hyMan Contributing Writer

“Unpack This!” — an exhibition of works by Brown undergraduate art-ists in a variety of media — opened last night on the second floor of the List Art Building. The exhibition was organized by Ann Kidder ’08

as an independent study project in curatorship. It features not only painting and sculpture, but also pho-tography, video, installation and music. “Unpack This!” will be on display until Saturday.

The show’s title, Kidder said, began as a reference to one of her visual arts professors who used the word “unpacking” to describe the parsing of abstract theoretical con-cepts. At first, Kidder envisioned the show as a collection of works that “unpacked” their respective media in a reflective, experimental way. “I wanted it to be artists who are engaging in their process,” Kid-der said.

Jay-Gould Stuckey ’90, a visit-ing professor in the department of visual arts, was Kidder’s adviser on the project. Though Kidder had gained experience in the field by working in a contemporary arts gallery, she had never curated a show of her own before “Unpack This!”

Kidder said she assembled the show over the course of a month,

Dali, Verge make for varied PW fall lineupBy anDrea saVDieContributing Writer

From the outside, Theodore Fran-cis Green Hall is a small building on Young Orchard Avenue with no outward display of creative activ-ity except for its proximity to the Orwig Music Library and a simple sign outside that reads “Production Workshop est. 1960.”

On any given day, the two per-formance spaces that Production Workshop occupies in the T.F. Green appear to be nothing more than rag-tag black boxes with dusty floors and random props lying around. Yet according to Emily Silverman ’09, who acted in one of the five short plays that comprise the an-nual festival “3 Chairs, 2 Cubes,” once someone becomes involved in PW, they realize “there’s like this whole factory of fantasy” bustling inside year-round.

Founded by a group of students in 1960, PW is the only completely student-run theater on campus. Stu-dents do essentially everything — they act, direct, build sets, design costumes, coordinate lighting, ob-tain equipment, maintain the build-ing and often even write plays.

PW produces three major plays in the fall, four in the spring and one special project or festival each semester in its downstairs space. The upstairs stage is smaller and can be reserved for any type of perfor-mance, including theater and music installations and fashion and magic shows.

The group has no formal mem-bership except for its official board, which currently has 14 members. As the PW Web site states, “If you hear people talking about ‘PW people,’ they’re just referring to people they often see working on or attending PW shows.”

“Many people see the theater world as being cliquey, but it’s not like that at all,” said Alex Rosenthal ’08, a board member.

Because PW runs on a lower bud-get than mainstage productions on official University stages, Rosenthal said, their shows are often more ex-perimental.

“When we are choosing a show for PW, we are not looking for the same things (as mainstage),” said Charly Simpson ’08, who serves on the PW board and is also the chair of the Department of Theater, Speech and Dance’s Sock and Buskin board, which selects and runs mainstage productions.

The theater department has different criteria, she said, taking into account factors like the male-to-female ratio of the cast and the educational value of the play.

PW is funded almost entirely by the student activities fee, because admission to all shows is free. These funds are supplemented by audi-ence donations placed in the “instant karma” box set up at shows, which is meant to instantly shoot out good karma when a donation is made, Simpson explained.

“Mainstage audiences attract more of Providence as a whole,”

Rosenthal said. “PW is more com-prised of the Brown community.”

The PW board selects the plays for the downstairs space from a pool of student proposals. Any student wishing to direct a play can submit a proposal that includes their reason for selecting the piece, a synopsis of the story and a staff to participate in the show’s production. All cho-sen plays are required to run open auditions.

“They cast the theater people, but also the random junior like me who’s never been in anything or the freshman who’s never shown his face,” Silverman, who recently acted in “3 Chairs, 2 Cubes” said.

With its versatility, the black box performance space mirrors PW’s flexible and experimental character. “It’s so amorphous and you can re-ally transform it into anything that you want,” said Andrew Evans ’09, who is on the PW board. “It’s very indicative of what we do in Produc-tion Workshop.”

So far this semester, Production Workshop has presented two of the three plays selected for this semes-ter — “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot” from Sept. 14 to 17 and “The Verge” from Oct. 12 to 15 — as well as its annual festival, “3 Chairs, 2 Cubes,” which took place Oct. 19 to 22. The third and last com-plete play of the semester, “Stone Cold Dead Serious,” will run from Nov. 16 to 19.

With its poetic language and Ga-

continued on page 4

continued on page 4

REVIEW

REVIEW

Page 4: Friday, November 2, 2007

reflective and also reach out to other people within our community and also outside of our community.”

To set this year’s events apart, the programmers are encouraging activ-ity and action in addition to thought and discussion — part of the “Reach-ing Outward” of the month’s title.

“The looking inward is something that we’ve done for many years now. There’s been a lot of reflection, but there hasn’t been that much of a follow-up in terms of practical ‘let’s do something,’ ” said Herald Photo Editor Rahul Keerthi ’09, the other co-programmer for the month’s events. “What we wanted to do this year was actually just try things.”

The programmers emphasized the collaboration between numer-ous student groups involved in the month’s events. Keerthi told the Her-ald he was most excited about the spoken word workshop this Saturday which will be a joint event with the Black Heritage Series’ programmers. “We talk a lot about Asian activism and black activism but not the simi-larities and interactions between the two,” said Kwoh.

Kwoh, Keerthi and Tajima-Pena all independently pointed out the fact that the Asian-American activists are not fighting solely for social equality. “Justice is not just us,” Tajima-Pena said. “There is a whole history of Asian Americans demanding justice but not just for us.”

“(This month) is not just for our community (of Asian Americans) but our community in the sense of the

greater campus,” Keerthi said.Students received Tajima-Pena

well. “She was really interesting,” said Amy Tan ’09 after hearing Tajima-Pena’s speech.

“A lot of the stuff she showed made me really angry. She talked about how she was pissed off and I think a lot of the community activism and organizing we do here is because we’re pissed off, not because we want credit. I wish the whole campus was pissed off,” Tan said.

Emma Tai ’07.5 asked, “Where can we learn more about documen-taries like this?”

Tajima-Pena’s newest project is a film about latinos and Mexican Americans.

“The TWC has been reaching out to the main campus. A lot of efforts (have been made) but we need to keep that up,” said Keerthi.

All events of Asian/Asian-Ameri-can History Month are free and open to the public.

PAGE 4 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007

briel Garcia Marquez-style magic realism, “Dali,” written by Jose Ri-vera, instantly caught Simpson’s at-tention the first time she read it.

“I immediately knew that I wanted to direct it,” she said.

In “Dali,” Gabriela, played by Elena Lobo ’08, awaits her husband Benito’s return from war, uncertain whether they will still understand each other. During her husband’s absence, she escapes reality by becoming immersed in what board member Tara Schuster ’08 calls a “weird, supernatural, lusty world” represented by the moon, a cat and a coyote played by former Herald Opinions Editor Patrick Harrison ’08, Hollis Mickey ’10 and Aubie Merrylees ’10, respectively. Fol-lowing Benito’s return, the play juxtaposes the married couple’s relationship with Gabriela’s surre-alist interactions, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.

“Rivera uses surrealism or mag-ic realism,” Simpson said. “You can debate which one.”

The set for “Dali” was abstractly composed of typical household items suspended in midair and played with inside-outside space, said Adria Katz ’10, who has worked on several PW sets.

“They had sand and gravel lead-ing into the house space, which meshed the lines between the in-side and the outside,” she said.

Directed by post- magazine Managing Editor Hillary Dixler ’08, “The Verge” was written by Susan Glaspell one year after the 19th Amendment to the Constitu-tion, which gave women the vote, was ratified. It tells the story of a woman in 1921 New England who works in a greenhouse and her ef-forts to escape society’s patriarchal constraints.

“The set was great,” Schuster

said. “You were under an imposing steel roof and there were big green plants everywhere. It messed with the idea of an industrial space.”

The annual “3 Chairs, 2 Cubes” festival is composed of five short plays written and directed by stu-dents. By limiting the set to three chairs and two cubes, the festival emphasizes the script and the dy-namic between the writer and di-rector. This year’s festival included two dramas and three comedies, Silverman said.

“The plays weren’t really the-matically related, but came togeth-er very successfully,” Rosenthal said.

“Stone Cold Dead Serious,” di-rected by Adam Mazer ’08, will be presented in the downstairs space this month. The play is about a boy who tries to save his disintegrat-ing family by competing in video games, Schuster said.

When there isn’t a show going on downstairs, there is usually some kind of performance in the upstairs space, including a play or poetry readings or local elemen-tary school shows.

“The upstairs space is smaller and more intimate,” said J.D. Na-saw ’08.5, who recently directed a show there titled “Three.” Nasaw wrote the play throughout the three-week period during which it was produced and the people he cast inspired much of the script, he said. “I thought it led to a much more spontaneous, collaborative process.”

It is that laid-back attitude that attracts students like Silverman who might not otherwise become involved in theater at Brown.

“I had never done anything with PW before,” Silverman said. “I sort of tried out on a whim and was exposed to a whole new world of Brown that I never knew ex-isted.”

continued from page 3

Dali and greenhouses feature in PW’s fall lineup

contacting individual artists and putting out a formal call for submis-sions. From there, she winnowed the show down to 14 artists.

As she proceeded to build the show, however, she discovered that, apart from “unpacking,” another unifying theme had emerged: Many of the works seemed to relate to the ideas of industry and machin-ery. Kidder said this seemed like a natural extension of her original theme — the process of creating art in varied media. The show’s title, then, plays with “unpacking” in the context of both artistic theory and physical manufacture.

Trying to stay close to these themes while narrowing the show down to its current size wasn’t an easy task for Kidder. “I had some works that were submitted that were absolutely beautiful, but they didn’t fit the theme of the show,”

Kidder said. “I really wanted the works to go together as a group.”

What is remarkable about “Un-pack This!” is the extent to which it achieves this cohesiveness in spite of its breadth, though it might have benefited from an even narrower scope — as it is, the sheer volume of work can be overwhelming at times. The most successful works exemplify the concept of “unpack-ing” by refusing to be boxed in or compartmentalized by genre.

Standouts include David Wat-son Sobel’s ’08 breathtaking pho-tographs, drawings by Alex Rosen-baum ’08 and Talia Rozensher ’09, Herald Opinions Editor’s Jacob Schuman’s ’08 “Red, Green, Blue,” which manipulates clips from Fox News into mirrored images that are balanced, but not fair and Samantha Cornwell’s ’07.5 squirm-inducing video “Pluck,” which documents, in shocking close-up, the artist tweez-ing her own eyebrows.

“Every time I see it, I feel it’s more engaging,” Kidder said of “Pluck.” She described how she had found the video almost impos-sible to watch at first, but contin-ued, “It’s become one of my favorite pieces.”

The opening also featured live music by Metropolis, a group that produces thrilling, experimental jazz and rock. Expansive sound works by Joshua Marshall ’08, a member of Metropolis, are part of the show, installed amid the photo-graphs and paintings.

“Unpack This!” isn’t the last show that Kidder, a visual art and international relations double con-centrator, is planning. She hopes to mount an off-campus exhibition of Brown student work and is work-ing to put together an international exchange show featuring pieces by students in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo as well as Brown students.

All in all, “Unpack This!” is an incredible first draft for Kidder’s po-tential future as a curator. Stuckey, who praised Kidder’s “commitment and dedication,” put it perfectly: “This is really just the beginning of this force of curating shows that is Ann Kidder.”

continued from page 3

Plucking up close in Kidder ’08’s show

continued from page 1

Asian-American history month kicks off

Chris Bennett / HeraldRenee Tajima-Pena, a filmmaker and professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz, discussed her career path during the opening convocation for Asian/Asian-American History Month.

enjoythe

weekend

Page 5: Friday, November 2, 2007

Campus newsFRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 5

Physics prof settles in as an associate dean of the CollegeBy anna MillManStaFF Writer

Professor of Physics James Valles, who holds the newly created posi-tion of associate dean of the Col-lege for curriculum, is particularly busy this fall. In addition to his regular teaching responsibilities, part of his new job includes help-ing to review the University’s cur-riculum. The position was created this semester to “bring together some of the groups that work on the same things to provide greater focus,” said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron.

Though Valles’ title is new, the Office of the Dean of the College still has the same number of deans. The only change this year is the specificity of the position. Previ-ously, every dean in the Office was considered an associate dean, with-out tags specifying their particular responsibilities. In an effort to help students understand the different deans’ responsibilities, the office has been assigning specific titles to each dean, Bergeron said.

Last year, Bergeron sent out a letter to the faculty asking for recom-mendations for the position of dean of curriculum. “There were many qualified people, but (Valles) came highly recommended,” Bergeron said.

In addition to his responsibili-ties as a dean, Valles will continue to teach and conduct research as a faculty member. Because of this, he will be able to provide special in-sight into the curriculum, Bergeron said. “The (dean of the College’s) office has always had the presence of a faculty member. It was kind of a regular, rotating position. With that structure in mind, I wanted to preserve that,” Bergeron said.

Bergeron said Valles is especially qualified for this three-year position because of his strong relationships with students. “He’s a highly com-petent teacher and a really devoted undergraduate mentor and a highly accomplished scholar,” she said.

Valles said he will help expand the first-year seminar program, as-sist students with group and individ-ual independent study projects and work with the College Curriculum Council’s screening committee. “I’m adjusting to the job, still,” Valles said. “I’m still fitting it into my schedule. In some ways it is a positive impact on everything, but on some days there are a few too many e-mails that come in.”

For the past 15 years, Valles has taught and researched on College Hill. He took the dean position be-cause he said he liked the idea of the faculty interacting directly with the deans. “This way, the deans can know real-time faculty points of view, and it gives faculty a direct alternative to contact the deans,” Valles said.

Michael Stewart GS, who has worked with Valles for about six years, said he was not surprised Valles was offered the position. “I knew that he was passionate about helping students get the most out of their classes,” Stewart said.

Though the deans in the office of dean of the College have always had many diverse responsibilities, most curricular aspects of the office

were not always clearly associated with a single dean, Bergeron said. “None of the roles are new,” she said, “but what is new, for example, is to have the first-year seminar pro-gram separated from the first-year dean’s office.”

Valles will oversee some deans who work with research and tutor-ing programs, sitting ex-officio on the College Curriculum Council screening committee. Valles said he enjoys the work, especially because he believes he can offer insight into the process of improving the cur-riculum.

In addition to this position, Valles is continuing to do research in low-temperature condensed matter physics on superconductors as well as biological physics on levitation using very strong magnets in order to study the effects of gravity on biological systems.

Although the position brings with it many obligations, Valles said, “Honestly, priorities always clash for a professor at Brown, but now it’s no more so than before.”

Valles said the position has been an “interesting challenge.”

“I’ve always believed that the fac-ulty really are compassionate and have not had any reason to think otherwise about the deans... the deans do really care about helping the students,” Valles said.

Hiding candles “pathetic,” ResLife official saysBy Max MankinContributing Writer

Although the Office of Residential Life says it’s taking yearly health and safety inspections of residence halls as seriously as ever, students are questioning their effectiveness.

Residence hall inspections are conducted by two ResLife employ-ees who knock on doors, enter each room in a residence hall and “look for violations per a checklist” in or-der to “seek out and correct poten-tially dangerous situations before they cause injury or damage,” ac-cording to ResLife notices posted in dorms. If residents are not present, the inspectors enter the room with their own master keys.

Inspections, which began Oct. 16, are conducted from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ultimately, every dorm room on campus will be inspected.

The notices posted in dorms also include a sample of the check-list used by inspectors. Violations include the presence of halogen lamps, evidence of smoking, tam-pering with fire safety equipment and possession of pets or unauthor-ized appliances. According to Senior Associate Dean of Residential Life Richard Bova, the inspections use the same standards regardless of residence hall or the class of the residents.

Some students, however, still doubt the point of the inspections. “(My roommate and I) failed, and we have no idea why,” said Tristan De Rond ’10. According to De Rond, his inspection report indicated that

his power strips did not comply with regulations. He was puzzled, how-ever, because he bought his power strips at the University Bookstore when he moved into his room in September.

“Just now we received an e-mail from Reslife. We have a disciplinary hearing scheduled now, because we failed to remedy the violation. We still have no idea what we’re actually doing wrong though. It’s ridiculous,” De Rond wrote in a follow-up e-mail to the Herald. “Also, the hearing is with the community director, so I won’t even get to talk to someone from ResLife and ask what it is that we’re doing wrong.”

De Rond isn’t alone in question-ing the effectiveness of the inspec-tions. Because ResLife officials can only cite students for violations in plain sight, it’s easy for students to hide illegal items. “You can throw whatever you want in a drawer,” said Morgan Wedgworth ’11.

The first round of inspections ran from Oct. 16 to 26 and covered 14 residence halls, where officials found numerous violations.

Inspectors uncovered 78 power strips without a circuit breaker, 63 wall decorations larger than 1600 square inches, 32 cases of tampering with fire safety equipment such as smoke detectors and sprinklers, 22 hazardous situations created by ex-cessive debris or trash, 21 prohibited appliances (usually for cooking), 16 obstructions of egress, 15 instances of evidence of indoor smoking, 14 halogen lamps, 10 homemade bed lofts, five candles, five cases of

evidence of pets, two instances of excessive paper on doors, one occur-rence of a flammable material and one piece of lounge furniture taken and not returned. These statistics are “pretty standard,” Bova said.

To the dismay of ResLife, the $100 per candle fine has made pos-session of candles a widespread joke among students interviewed by The Herald. One junior, who preferred to remain anonymous, joked, “Room inspectors are coming — hide your alcohol bottles under your candles.”

In response, Bova said,“It’s pa-thetic that students think that hiding candles is a fun thing to do.”

Bova defended the steep fines. “The number one cause of fires in residence halls is from open flames. So why are the fines so high? Be-cause that’s where most residence hall fires come from — candles that are knocked over,” he said.

The resolve behind the prohibi-tion of candles was strengthened by the Boland Hall Fire in 2000 at Seton Hall University in South Or-ange, N.J. Three students died and 58 more were injured as a result of a blaze started by an open flame in the residence hall’s lounge. “It’s im-portant to realize that we do health and safety inspections for the protec-tion of the community. And when students in any one particular room choose to disregard proper safety and fire instructions, they’re putting their entire hallway and potentially the entire building at risk. Fire and health and safety inspections are just no laughing matter,” Bova said.

www.browndailyherald.com

Page 6: Friday, November 2, 2007

PAGE 6 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007

Clinton’s connections to Jolie and Madonna revealedBy aMy argeTsinger anD rOxanne rOBerTsthe WaShington PoSt

WASHINGTON — Startling new information suggests a secret con-nection between Hillary Rodham Clinton and our era’s most con-troversial, charismatic and polar-izing women: Madonna, Angelina Jolie and Camilla Parker-Bowles — they’re all her cousins.

Not that they’ve hung out at many reunions together. Clinton and Madonna are 10th cousins, who share the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, according to research by Washington genealo-gist William Addams Reitwiesner. The Democratic front-runner is ninth cousin once removed to Prince Charles’ wife, while Jolie is

her ninth cousin twice removed.Reitwiesner is the Library of

Congress employee whose re-search formed the basis for our blockbuster story on how Fred Thompson and Elvis Presley are eighth cousins once removed (ex-plains a lot) and made headlines with the discovery that Barack Obama is descended from slave owners. He declined to comment about the Hillary kin, but made his work available on his Web site (www.wargs.com).

Clinton’s connection to all three women comes via 17th cen-tury French ancestors who made their way to Quebec before drift-ing south. Speaking of Canadians: Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette — Clinton’s tenth cousins once re-moved. Though when you go back that far, we probably all are.

Two sisters, lost and foundBy Denise flaiMneWSday

NEW YORK —— The waitress at Le Gamin, a grungily hip bistro in rap-idly gentrifying Prospect Heights, lights a single candle stuck in a chestnut-creme-filled crepe.

The two women, celebrating the first day of their 39th year, lean past the bottles of mineral water and empty cups of cafe au lait, sing “Happy birthday to us” a bit self-consciously, then blow out the soli-tary taper.

A birthday crepe is not exactly a conventional idea, but when it comes to each other, Elyse Schein and Pau-la Bernstein can never reasonably expect the commonplace. Separated soon after birth by a Manhattan adoption agency that was helping researchers study the influence of nature and nurture, the identical twin girls, born to a patient at a men-tal hospital, went to metropolitan area families — Schein’s in Suffolk County, Bernstein’s in Westchester. Though they were dropped from the study because there was a lag between their adoptions, the fami-lies were never informed that their babies had an identical sibling.

It is impossible to mourn that which you don’t know you have lost. So, unaware of their mirror selves, Schein and Bernstein grew into young women who had their challenges — both struggled with depression, something they now know was a biological legacy — as well as their passions — both love film and were drawn to careers in and around that industry.

For Schein, though, something was missing. Her family left Long Is-land for Oklahoma after her adoptive

mother’s death from spinal cancer when she was 6, but she returned to attend Stony Brook University. In her early adult years after film school in California, whenever she felt adrift, “I used to say, I feel like I am missing my twin,”’ recalls the writer and filmmaker. “I thought it was a common metaphor.”

In 2004, Schein, who was living in Paris (which explains her fondness for any eatery that serves creme fraiche), wrote to Louise Wise Ser-vices, the adoption agency that had placed her and was just about to close. Eventually, the correspon-dence led her back to New York, where she learned from an agency staffer, with all the casualness that one orders a Happy Meal, that she had an identical twin.

“There was no question we were twins, but I was not sure we were sisters,” says Bernstein, who com-pares getting the news with a slab of cement falling on her chest. At first glance, her red hair and round glasses mute her obvious similarity to Schein, sitting across from her with dark hair and square frames. “There was an immediate intimacy that was misleading,” she continues. “But we still had to figure out the boundaries of our relationship.”

The vehicle for that is their new book, “Identical Strangers: A Mem-oir of Twins Separated and Reunit-ed” (Random House, $25.95).

Underscoring their individual voices within their shared identity, the book is first—person squared: The sisters take turns describing how their story unfolded.

Along the way are uncomfortable questions, mourning for the shared childhood they were denied, bitter-ness over having their lives — and

reality — uprooted.Schein says she struggled over

fundamental questions of self, and how she might have turned out in a “hypothetical life”: “Would I be who I am if I was Paula Bernstein?” she wonders aloud, imagining that she was the twin who headed to the northern suburbs instead of east to Mount Sinai. She thinks back to those moments in her life when friends said, “You look just like my friend” — were those just coinci-dences, or did she fail to see she had brushed up against her sister’s life, missing the chance for a reunion decades earlier?

As the “found” twin, Bernstein bridled at the intrusion on her neatly ordered life as a wife, mother and freelance writer. “We both led lives we loved and didn’t want to leave that. I felt very possessive of the life I’ve led.”

Writing the book, she says

with a laugh, “saved us a fortune in therapy.” They began writing it six months after they met and com-pleted it in two years. When they sent the outline to the publisher, the last chapters were simply question marks. Bernstein’s central question was whether she truly wanted her instant sibling to be an integrated part of her life.

“There were definitely moments where I feared hurting Elyse,” she admits.

“And I knew from the beginning she was ambivalent,” Schein inter-jects. “But from the beginning I was confident the book would bring us together.

Schein’s belief in process paid off. Together, the two sisters hunted down the researcher whose project caused them so much belated pain; when he finally granted an inter-view, they found an unapologetic nonagenarian bereft of remorse and tight—lipped about the details of his findings. Piecing together the fragments of the study, which never was published, they developed a strong hunch that the study was also examining the hereditary effects of mental illness such as schizophre-nia, with which their mother had been diagnosed.

Finally, they discovered the fate of their birth mother (suffice it to say it was not a happy ending, and their father’s identity is unknown), and remnants of her family, however unenthusiastic the reception. But most important, they found each other, and ways to incorporate a not-so-perfect stranger into their hearts.

Today, Schein and Bernstein live in nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods,

meeting every couple of weeks for a tuna melt or a cup of tea. Voracious readers, they swap books and com-pare notes on favorite films. Sharing the same petite frame and wasp-waist, they have started shopping together, and though they gravitate toward the same kinds of clothes — wrap—around dresses are a favor-ite — in the end they make subtly different selections.

While it seems from the book’s research that nature has the up-per hand in determining who we are — from our mannerisms to our preferences in soda and footwear — nurture can hardly be discount-ed. Though Schein and Bernstein started out with identical DNA, they have evolved individual strengths and outlooks. “I’m more the dancer,” Schein volunteers. “And I’m better at math.”

Since meeting her twin, Bern-stein has had a second daughter, and Schein, who is single, delights in watching the two.

“I think of them as a part of me, because I have the same genetics as their mother,” she says. “But I don’t have to pay for summer camp,” she ad-libs.

Beneath the jokes remains a daunting task: how to continue to bridge a gulf of time and experi-ence that neither wanted, but both now have to deal with, at an age when they planned to be settling into their final adult identity, not rethinking it.

“There’s no handbook on how to be a twin,” Schein muses, much less an identical one miraculously re-united after three and a half decades. To that end, “Identical Strangers” is as close as they come.

Courtesy of Newsday

Twin sisters Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein share memories of growing up apart before discovering each other in 2004.

Page 7: Friday, November 2, 2007

By achrene sicakyuz anD Tracy WilkinsOnLoS angeLeS timeS

PARIS — Are they a group of French do-gooders who believed bending the rules was justified in the interest of saving African children?

Or are they a gang of oppor-tunists with dark motivations who planned to use the children, or their bodies, for profit?

The African nation of Chad on Thursday was holding 16 Europe-ans in connection with what Chad-ian authorities say was an attempt to kidnap 103 boys and girls under the age of six and transport them to Europe.

Six French citizens who are members of a charity calling itself Zoe’s Arc have been charged by Chadian authorities with attempted kidnap and fraud, along with three French journalists who accompa-nied them on what the French team said was a rescue airlift.

A seven-member Spanish flight crew from the aircraft that Zoe’s Arc chartered for the mission has also been charged as accomplices.

They could all face long prison sentences at hard labor if con-victed.

The incident is fast evolving into a test of international diplomacy. The prime ministers and foreign ministers of France and Spain have intervened, gingerly condemning any effort to remove children from Chad illegally but also seeking the release of their nationals.

Television pictures beamed

back to Europe show the French and Spanish detainees sitting on a floor, looking dejected and di-sheveled. The Spanish airline at-tendants, still in their uniforms of white blouses and navy skirts, look especially bewildered and fright-ened; some are weeping.

Representatives of Zoe’s Arc defended it as a legitimate charity that was attempting to transport or-phans from the conflicted region of Darfur to homes in France where they would be given refuge, but not adopted.

Families in France each report-edly paid thousands of dollars to be able to take in one of the or-phans.

But Chad police stopped the Zoe’s Arc workers Oct. 25 as they attempted to board a flight in Abeche with 103 children, stating that no paperwork had been filed that would allow removal of the children.

Chadian officials say they be-lieve the children were being traf-ficked into networks that would supply them to pedophiles or black-market adoptions.

The story became stranger as it was revealed that Zoe’s Arc had not followed the standard protocols for the adopting or international transportation of children, and had been warned by French govern-ment officials months ago of the steps it should take to comply with the law.

And then, once the children were rounded up and questioned, it emerged that they were not from

Darfur nor, in many cases, were they orphans.

After interviewing the children, the International Committee of the Red Cross, UNICEF and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a joint statement that 91 of the children spoke of having come from family environments “with at least one adult in a parental role.”

Camps along Chad’s border with Sudan are a blighted world of fuzzy borders and landless refu-gees. Zoe’s Arc officials insist they were acting in good faith when they attempted what they call a rescue of the children.

Especially hapless in all this is the Spanish flight crew, who work for the Barcelona-based Girjet charter company. They say they were merely hired to fly from Chad to France and had no knowledge of what the passengers may or may not have been up to.

One of the Spanish pilots, still in his gold-brocaded uniform, can be seen in television footage tell-ing the president of Chad, Idriss Deby Itno, that he and his crew were innocent. “We are Spaniards!” he says.

But the president responds: “You are part of a pedophile ring!”

Spanish officials scrambled to the defense of the flight crew. “If this was a matter of child traffick-ing, Spain fully condemns it,” said Bernardino Leon, Spanish secre-tary of state for foreign affairs. “But there is no evidence that the Spaniards were involved.”

worlD & naTionFRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

Conflict with Turkey squeezes Iraqi KurdsBy BOrzOu DaragahiLoS angeLeS timeS

ZURKAN, Iraq — The two Kurdish guards at a checkpoint near the base of northern Iraq’s forbidding mountains were assigned to block-ade movements by rebel Kurds from across the Turkish border.

They said they’d gladly give their blood to defend their home-land, fight al-Qaida and even pro-tect American forces.

But both paused when asked Thursday if they would fight the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK guerrillas.

“If the leadership orders it, I guess I would fight them,” said Bakhtiar Khedeir, a member of the Iraqi Kurdish security force.

But his friend minced no words.

“I wouldn’t,” said Kayfee Kar-eem. “They’re Kurds.”

As U.S. Secretary of State Con-doleezza Rice gathers with her regional counterparts in Istanbul on Friday, the disparate views of Kurdish border guards illustrate the intractability of the bloody con-flict between the PKK and Turkish government, and the difficult task ahead for diplomats searching for a peaceful solution.

Iraqi Kurds have been unable or unwilling to fight their own, and many resent what they see as Turkey’s continued suppression of Kurdish civil rights and cultur-al identity in that country, where Kurds make up about a third of the population.

“The Kurds are not ready at all to fight other Kurds,” said Kendal Nezan, a president of the Kurd-

ish Institute of Paris, a think tank. “Even if there were orders from the Kurdish leaders, the peshmerga wouldn’t do it.”

The prospect of outside inter-vention is unlikely. U.S. troops al-ready are overstretched in Iraq and remain hard-pressed to maintain security in Baghdad and the Anbar province.

Dispatching Iraqi soldiers to broker peace also is politically un-feasible. The last time the regular Iraqi Army was here was 1996 un-der Sadam Hussein, when it opened fire on insurrectionist Kurds. In 1991, Saddam’s helicopters mowed down fleeing Kurdish refugees.

Without intervention by the Iraqi Kurds, the Turks may feel forced to take action, say analysts.

On Thursday, Turkey moved to impose economic sanctions on groups who support the PKK, and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan heads to Washington this weekend for more talks.

The PKK’s cross-border attacks on Turkish forces have left scores of soldiers dead and sparked do-mestic demands for tougher action by the Ankara government against the rebel group, which both the U.S. and Turkey regard as a ter-rorist organization.

Many see the Iraqi Kurds them-selves as the main reason for the PKK’s resilience. The Iraqi Kurds oversee security and matters of state in the mountainous border region in northern Iraq that has become a safe haven for the Turk-ish rebels, and the Iraqis have been unable or unwilling to quash the separatist group.

Turkey’s turbulent domestic

politics, which has pitted a surging Islamist government led by Erdo-gan against a secular opposition eager to depict him as flawed, has inflamed Ankara’s long-standing worries about the regional ambi-tions of Kurdistan leaders in north-ern Iraq.

But Kurdish officials in Iraq point out that Turkey has tried for more than two decades to stamp out the PKK without success. Iraqi Kurds have in the past joined forces with Turkey against the group, again without being able to deliver more than a momentary blow.

They say Ankara must forge a political compromise with the group, beginning with granting that country’s Kurds more cultural and political rights.

“The reason for this conflict is the Turkish government, which doesn’t want to solve the Kurdish issue in Turkey by peaceful and democratic means,” said Zerak Ka-mal, an Iraqi Kurdish politician.

Kurds, mostly inhabiting a mountainous and watery region that traverses Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, have struggled for de-cades for national recognition and civil rights against their stronger Arab, Persian and Turkish neigh-bors. Iraq’s three-province Kurdish region, with its own parliament, ministries and foreign policy, is the first sustained experiment in Kurd-ish self-rule in centuries.

Militarily, the PKK is a notori-ously difficult target. Its ranks in-clude seasoned fighters, men and women, who move in groups of no more than 15, ferrying AK-47s

Use of munitions by Iraqi insurgents is down, U.S. saysBy Julian e. Barnes anD peTer spiegelLoS angeLeS timeS

WASHINGTON — U.S. Defense officials said Thursday that Iraqi insurgents have sharply curtailed the use of their most powerful roadside bombs, weapons American officials repeatedly have charged are being smuggled into the war zone from Iran.

But Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it was too soon to tell if the decline in the use of the muni-tions resulted from an Iranian pledge to stem the flow of weaponry be-tween the two countries. Tehran has denied it is providing munitions to Iraqi insurgents.

The bombs, known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, are a favored weapon of Shiite militias and can pierce the toughest armor the U.S. Army has fielded in Iraq.

Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the day-to-day military commander in Iraq, said 53 EFPs were found planted on Iraqi roads in October -- 30 that detonated and 23 that were found before they exploded. That is down from 99 in July and 78 in August. In September, 52 either ex-ploded or were found before they detonated.

The decline in EFP attacks, Odi-erno said, coincided with a drop in the number of military casualties, civilian killings and overall deaths.

“I believe we have achieved some momentum,” he said. “Although it is not yet irreversible momentum, this positive momentum has set the conditions for political accommo-

dation, economic development and basic services to progress.”

Gates, in a news conference later, refused to say that the developments indicated the U.S. now is winning in Iraq.

The Los Angeles Times reported in September that Iraqi Minister Nouri al-Maliki has secured a pledge from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to help cut off weap-ons, funding and other support to militants in Iraq.

“It is my understanding that they have provided such assurances,” Gates said, confirming the deal. “I don’t know whether to believe them. I’ll wait and see.”

State Department officials have blamed the Iranian government for allowing weapons to be shipped into Iraq. Gates said again Thursday that he had no direct evidence that top Iranian officials have knowledge of the smuggling, although he suspects they do.

“My guess is the highest levels are aware,” he said.

The military said EFPs have been used by a range of sects but are most closely associated with Iraqi militias that have ties to Iran, such as ele-ments of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Madhi Army.

Odierno credited the overall de-cline in violence in Shiite areas to the U.S. military’s success in cap-turing or killing leaders of militia groups, as well as a cease-fire that al-Sadr declared in August, halting attacks by his militia against Ameri-

Chad accuses French volunteers of kidnappingClinton group, Wal-Mart join in green technology effort in citiesBy aBigail gOlDManLoS angeLeS timeS

An environmental group led by former President Clinton gave a nod to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Thurs-day, announcing that it will work with the world’s largest retailer to help cities around the world spend less for green technologies such as energy-efficient street lamps.

The Clinton Climate Initiative also said it will extend its programs and purchasing consortium to 1,100 cities represented by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“Climate change is a global issue that we must address im-mediately if we are to reverse its catastrophic effects,” Clinton said in a statement to the mayors group, which was meeting in Se-attle. “Together, I hope that we can have a measurable impact on greenhouse gas emissions around the world.”

Wal-Mart said the new part-nership will examine technolo-gies such as energy-saving LED lights for street lamps and parking lots and more ef ficient building and heating and air conditioning systems.

The combination of the cit-ies and the giant retailer means lower costs and more incentive for manufacturers to produce en-vironmentally friendly products and systems, said Wal-Mart’s Andy Ruben, who helped develop the partnership.

“Whether you’re talking about

better design or putting volume together to create more scale, it drives the technology we’re look-ing at, which means savings for the planet and savings for our busi-ness,” Ruben said.

The Arkansas-based retailer, which has ties to Clinton dating back to his days as governor of the state, pledged in 2005 to spend $500 million annually to reach spe-cific environmental goals including doubling the efficiency of its truck fleet by 2015 and cutting green-house gas emissions 20 percent by 2012.

Since then, Wal-Mart also has worked to bring a green mes-sage to the 130 million custom-ers worldwide who visit its stores every week, touting the cost and energy savings of Compact Fluo-rescent Lamp lightbulbs and ex-panding offerings of organic cotton apparel.

Clinton’s group since 2006 has worked with a group of 40 of the world’s largest cities that pledged to reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiencies.

“This shows what can be achieved when business, govern-ment and the nonprofit sector work together on some of the big-gest challenges facing the world today,” Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott said in a statement. “By combining our resources, we can help drive innovation, create new technology markets and ultimately reduce this country’s dependence on foreign oil.”

continued on page 9continued on page 9

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PAGE 8 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007

a recorded press teleconference posted on the AAMC Web site. The percentage of applicants who have experience in research labs and community service in the medical field has also increased over the past five years, according to the AAMC Web site.

But Brown students applying to med school don’t seem particularly concerned about the growing com-petition for admission.

“I didn’t even know the numbers had jumped up,” said Kevin Hug ’08, a current applicant. “There’s really nothing I can do about that. I’m try-ing to play my own game.”

Andrew Simmons, associate dean of the College for health and law careers, said he doesn’t see the increasing applicant pool size as a “big problem right now.” He said there is “always a level of anxiety, always a sense of worry about how competitive and difficult” the pro-cess is.

That anxiety, Simmons added, “is as old as the hills.”

“It’s hard to get into medical school regardless,” said Eve Hoff-man ‘09, a PLME student. “I have not been aware of any increasing concern about getting into medical school because of larger applicant pools, per se. But, I think that, in the future, this may add to the stress of the process.”

The national trend of increasing med school applications seems to hold true at Brown. Simmons said

applicants from Brown — including both seniors and recent graduates — have increased from the low 160s when he arrived in 2005, to 172 appli-cants this year, including applicants to dental and nursing schools. That number doesn’t include PLME stu-dents who choose to attend Alpert Medical School instead of applying to other institutions.

Some Brown students applying to med school are dealing with the competition by applying to a greater number of schools. Although Sim-mons recommends students apply to 10 to 15 schools, some apply to many more. The Health Careers Office sends a maximum of 25 committee packets per student.

Samuel Kim ‘08 applied to 19 schools. “I thought I would have more options if I applied to more schools,” he said. He said his list of potential schools “definitely ex-

panded” when he considered the difficulty of the process.

The increase in the number of applicants happens at the same time that concerns about future physician shortages are mounting. Baer said she thinks the increase in population nationally is leading to “a greater appreciation for the need to have physicians.”

Media reports about the growing and aging U.S. population have “sent a very clear message to prospec-tive students that there is a need for physicians,” Baer said.

But Simmons warned that pre-meds — and their advisers — shouldn’t focus too much on national trends.

“If you spend too much time wor-rying about trends, you are making yourself crazy,” he said. “You may not be taking advantage of what Brown has to offer.”

number of Brown students yet, she added.

At the event Thursday evening, the panel was asked to comment on the effectiveness of TFA and whether it significantly improves the educational experiences of stu-dents in underprivileged schools or just serves as a temporary solution to a complex problem.

The discussion — held the day before TFA’s second application deadline, which is today — began with Wong, chair of the Department of Education, acting as the discus-sion’s moderator and giving a brief overview of the history and evolu-tion of TFA and its context within the larger movement of education reform.

He asked the panel members to describe their backgrounds and opinions on TFA’s effects on public education. Panel members Sigler, Campbell, Boak and Nelson all served as educators at some points in their careers, and both Sigler and Boak are TFA alums.

Sigler and Campbell emphasized that TFA is a short-term solution. “It represents a Band-Aid which we put onto serious structural problem in our society,” Campbell said.

Boak emphasized that 65 per-cent of TFA corps members stay in education. She added that TFA alums working in the business, law and policy-making communities continue to address the education reform problem and contribute to

long-term solutions. “This is not an ideal solution,

(but) it is effective,” she said.Both Boak and Nelson empha-

sized that solutions to America’s failed education system needed to come from the within the class-room. They cited the enthusiasm of new teachers as a powerful force in solving the education problems in America.

“TFA is not the panacea for teach-ing in urban and rural settings,” Nelson said, adding that the trouble in school systems needs to be ad-dressed by people who are “fired up” about teaching.

After 45 minutes of discussion about the panel members’ various perspectives on TFA, Wong opened up the discussion to audience ques-tions. Audience members primar-ily asked the panel to discuss the long-term effects of TFA on schools and its ability to address the need for structural reform in America’s educational system called for by the panelists.

Alice Nystrom ’08 asked a ques-tion about sustainable enthusiasm as a solution to problems in the educa-tion system, prompting perhaps the most telling comment of the night on the problem of TFA’s effective-ness.

Campbell, in response to her question, described how he decid-ed when he was working as a high school teacher that “I’m working way too hard” and chose instead to go to graduate school and become a college professor.

continued from page 1

Number of students applying to med school is on the rise

Panel tackles question of TFA’s effectiveness

continued from page 1

Don’t forget to savorthat daylight-savings hour

Page 9: Friday, November 2, 2007

FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

keeper?I’ve been playing goalkeeper

probably since I was 10. ... Our coach at the beginning of practice used to say, “Who wants to be goalkeeper, who wants to be goalkeeper?” And everyone used to raise their hands because everyone wanted to play goalkeeper. I guess I was decent at it, so they kept me in there.

for a goalkeeper, you’re not es-pecially tall. has that ever been a hindrance?

I don’t consider it a hindrance to myself. A lot of people do, but I kind of use it as motivation — the people who think I can’t do it.

i suppose, then, that you have what they call “mad hops.”

(Laughs) I don’t know if I have mad hops, but I can definitely touch the crossbar, which isn’t that high, so it’s not too difficult. I guess I can jump an okay amount.

What’s your favorite thing about playing goalie?

I like the pressure. Most people say, “I could never be goalie be-cause of the pressure,” but I like the pressure.

how does it feel to win these player of the Week awards?

I guess it feels good. I don’t quite understand why it keeps happening.

It feels good to be recognized, but it’s weird because the games are such a team effort, so you never want to be singled out. But I think because we’re winning big games, and because the goalkeeper position is the one that’s often spotlighted — that’s why I’m getting the recogni-tion the team should be receiving. But it’s just a reflection of how well our team is playing.

This player of the Week award is your second of the season. Does it feel any less special the second time around?

I don’t think so. To be honest, I don’t take any of it too seriously. It’s the same.

What’s your favorite part about playing with the team?

I think just the camaraderie in general. My best friends are on the team; we always hang out together. I probably spend 15 hours out of the 24 with girls on the soccer team.

What made you decide to come to Brown?

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to come here. I came to camp here my junior year. I thought it was a longshot for me to come to Brown — I was mostly looking at (Division) III schools. But I came to camp and met (Head) Coach Phil (Pincince) and we started talking. I really liked Brown, I liked the soc-cer team and I liked the program. I decided it was a good fit.

Athlete of the Week: W. soccer’s Yellin ’10

continued from page 12

and rocket launchers in and out of hidden caves and snow-covered crevices in mountains towering two miles high.

“In places not even a goat can pass, the PKK can pass,” said Khe-deir.

But even Iraqi Kurds themselves acknowledge they could do more to hurt the PKK’s supply lines, reduce their mobility and single them out for arrest. Kurdish villagers say the PKK militants, easily identified by their Turkish accents, often visit towns to buy food and gear.

To many, Turkish Kurds fight only for what the Iraqi Kurds have already attained in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq. “The PKK has a wide public base and makes a good case, and also has strong financial capabilities,” said Sherko Abdallah, a Kurdish lawmaker.

Even those Kurdish villagers here most affected by the fighting

and shelling, including barrages of Iranian rockets that have displaced scores of families in the middle of this year’s harvest, say they feel sympathy for the PKK.

“As long as they have been here they have been nothing but trou-ble,” said Musa Ibrahim, a broad-shouldered Kurdish farmer in his 30s. “Otherwise, their concerns are valid. To be honest, we believe in their cause.”

The allegiance of the Kurdish people, both culturally and politi-cally, make it even more difficult for Kurdish leaders to oppose their rebel brethren to the north.

For decades Abdullah Oca-lan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, was a bitter rival of Mas-soud Barzani, the president of the three-province Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and scion of a Kurdish nationalist family.

Both men have ambitions of leading the world’s 25 to 40 million Kurds, believed to be the world’s largest ethnic group without a

country.“Barzani will only damage him-

self politically to take action against the PKK at this time,” said a former U.S. diplomat based in the Middle East for 30 years, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “per-haps not so much inside Iraq, but in terms of his broader objective, to become the Kurdistan-wide Kurd-ish el Supremo.”

Iraqi Kurds say they have worked hard to convince the Turks and Iran that they pose no threat, even enticing them with pieces of northern Iraq’s growing financial riches.

But turning their guns on the PKK is one compromise they say they’re unwilling to make.

“The PKK doesn’t threaten the security of the (Kurdistan) region,” said Jabbar Yawir, a spokesman for Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, which handles social and other ser-vices to former Kurdish warriors who fought against Saddam. “This struggle is none of our business.

continued from page 7

Conflict with Turkey squeezes Iraqi kurds

can forces .U.S. military leaders have de-

bated the reasons behind the de-cline in violence by Shiite militias, and a senior Defense official said the Pentagon leadership has yet to determine whether Iran is behind the reduction.

The official said that in addition to possible Iranian moves, the Pen-tagon has been looking closely at the Mahdi Army for signs of change or a shift in tactics. The U.S. mili-tary has announced the discovery of bomb-making factories inside Iraq. But American officers have maintained that the most danger-ous and largest EFPs have been smuggled in from Iran.

The military has presented only limited evidence publicly of the smuggling, and some critics have questioned whether very many ex-

plosives are brought from Iran. A senior Pentagon official said Thurs-day that providing more detailed evidence could inadvertently help smugglers elude capture or better disguise weapons.

In addition to the explosives found planted on roads, Odierno said his forces in recent weeks uncovered “staggering” caches of EFPs that had yet to be put in place. Over the past two weeks, Odierno said U.S. forces have found 136 fully assembled EFPs and materials to make another 359 of the armor-penetrating roadside bombs.

But he added that such findings did not necessarily mean Iran was continuing to ship weaponry across the border. He said there was evi-dence that the recently discovered cache was originally delivered in January, before Iran is said to have made its commitment to curtail such shipments.

Growing tension between Americans and Iranians over Iraq, coupled with hostile rhetoric from the Bush administration over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, has heightened fears about a possible military clash. Sen. James Webb, D-Va. , sent a let-ter to the White House, co-signed by 29 other senators, condemning recent administration statements and reminding President Bush that “no congressional authority exists for unilateral military action against Iran.”

But Gates reiterated Thursday that he favors non-military solu-tions.

“Everybody is agreed that the United States’ approach to deal-ing with the Iranian problem now is to focus on economic sanctions and on diplomacy, and I don’t think there is any difference within the government on that principle,” Gates said.

Iraqi insurgents using fewer munitionscontinued from page 7

thanks for readingtoday’s herald

Page 10: Friday, November 2, 2007

S t a F F e d i t o r i a L

P E T E F A L L O N

Diamonds and coalA diamond to the Sustainable Food Initiative’s new calendar, Ripe 2008.

We’re fully supportive of any student-led effort that involves nudity and fresh fruits and vegetables and doesn’t end with a night in a Providence Police Department cell.

A coal to the thieves who recently stole President Simmons’ purse and unsuccessfully tried to make purchases on Thayer Street with her credit card. Simmons joked that Brown students are smarter than that, and it’s true — we would have funded that new swim center, or at least hit up our favorite Wickenden Street shop, before blowing that popsicle stand.

A bewildered cubic zirconium to Brad Levy ’81, founding chef of the upscale San Francisco restaurant Firefly. We’re confused how Ratty dishes — in your case, the fish sandwich with coleslaw and cheese — could inspire anyone to greatness. Hot ham and bulky roll doesn’t make our hearts swell with rhapsody. But, hey, whatever works.

Coal to lights out in the Ratty in honor of Halloween and one employee’s spooky warning that students should enter at their own risk. What, were you serving hot ham and bulky roll?

Coal to the dead air on BTV, which has yet to broadcast anything this semester. “Unlike Spice Girls, BTV is committed to making a successful comeback,” one of the student leaders, told The Herald. Last we checked, the Spice Girls have a Greatest Hits album coming out this month and are planning a worldwide reunion tour for December, but we have yet to see our longtime BTV favorites — like that completely silent version of “Mean Girls” — on the air anytime soon.

A diamond to comedians-turned-politicians. Al Franken stopped by Blue State Coffee this week, and if Stephen Colbert had targeted Thayer’s Starbucks crowd he might just have made it on the ballot. As far as we know, Franken’s running for real.

Coal to the inflation that seems to hit campus when parents descend en masse. A whopping $8 for a cappella concerts that we could see under an arch for free any other time? You don’t need any of our diamonds.

A skeptical cubic zirconium to the upcoming test of the new campus siren system. Anything that loud, disruptive and terrifying is sure to win over skeptical neighbors, though it does promise to be at least mildly amusing. Great plan to get the city’s approval, folks.

A good luck diamond to the 0-16 field hockey team, which faces Yale this weekend in its final game. It’s the effort that counts. And Yalies are ugly. Yeah, we went there.

senior staff Writers Rachel Arndt, Michael Bechek, Irene Chen, Chaz Firestone, Isabel Gottlieb, Nandini Jayakrishna, Franklin Kanin, Kristina Kelleher, Debbie Lehmann, Scott Lowenstein, Michael Skocpol, Nick Werlestaff Writers Stefanie Angstadt, Amanda Bauer, Brianna Barzola, Evan Boggs, Caitlin Browne, Zachary Chapman, Joy Chua, Patrick Corey, Catherine Goldberg, olivia Hoffman, Chaz Kelsh, Jessica Kerry, Cameron Lee, Sophia Li, Abe Lubetkin, Christian Martell, Taryn Martinez, George Miller, Anna Millman, Sonia Saraiya, Andrea Savdie, Marielle Segarra, Gaurie Tilak, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Matt Varley, Meha Verghese, Joanna Wohlmuthsports staff Writers Andrew Braca, Whitney Clarke, Han Cui, Evan Kantor, Christina StubbeBusiness staff Diogo Alves, Emilie Aries, Beth Berger, Steven Butschi, Timothy Carey, Jilyn Chao, Ellen DaSilva, Pete Drinan, Dana Feuchtbaum, Patrick Free, Sarah Glick, Alexander Hughes, Claire Kiely, Soobin Kim, Katelyn Koh, Darren Kong, Christie Liu, Philip Maynard, Ingrid Pangandoyon, Mariya Perelyubskaya, Viseth San, Paolo Servado, Kaustubh Shah, Saira Shervani, Yelena Shteynberg, Jon Spector, Robert Stefani, Lily Tran, Hari Tyagi, Lindsay Walls, Benjamin XiongDesign staff Brianna Barzola, Chaz Kelsh,Ting Lawrence, Philip Maynard, Alex Unger, Aditya Voleti, Wudan Yanphoto staff Stuart Duncan-Smith, Austin Freeman, Emmy Liss, Tai Ho Shincopy editors Ayelet Brinn, Rafael Chaiken, Erin Cummings, Katie Delaney, Jake Frank, Jennifer Grayson, Ted Lamm, Max Mankin, Alex Mazerov, Ben Mercer, Ezra Miller, Seth Motel, Alexander Rosenberg, Emily Sanford, Sara Slama, Jenna Stark, Laura Straub, Meha Verghese, Elena Weissman

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eDiTorial & leTTersPAGE 10 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007

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Page 11: Friday, November 2, 2007

Guatemalans face a tough decision as the upcoming Nov. 4 presidential election nears. Electing a leader is not easy, as people put their hopes and future in one person — especially in an economically very unequal country, where 56 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Guatemalans are presented with two options: Former General Otto Pérez Mo-lina of the Patriotic Party and Álvaro Colom, current leader of the centre-left National Union of Hope).

Pérez Molina, a School of the Americas graduate, is offering a “mano dura” (firm hand) on crime if elected president. Given his military background and accusations of exter-minating several villages during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, many are concerned about a return of extrajudicial killings. Guatemalan-American novelist Francisco Goldman, in his nonfiction book, “The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop,” directly accuses Mo-lina of masterminding the murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi — the impetus behind the proj-ect for the Recovery of Historical Memory, which documented many of the atrocities committed during the armed conflict. The bishop was murdered on the night of April 26, 1998. Two days earlier he had participated in the report’s final presentation, “Guatemala: Never Again.”

Interestingly, Molina’s official biography

does not mention the fact that he attended the School of the Americas. It may be that Molina suffers from amnesia and cannot remember this period of his life, but it is probably because some of Guatemala’s worse human rights violators attended this school as well.

Álvaro Colom is not a saint either. He has been accused of having drug lords finance his campaign, including El Cartel de Zacapa. Many members of UNE, the party which Co-lom heads, have also been linked to corrup-

tion. This summer, I went to Guatemala and drove by La Reforma, Huite, the town where this cartel is located, and witnessed the power they exercise on this town and the lifestyle they live. They own palace-like mansions, have their own army and countless numbers of cars and move around the country by air. There were Colom’s campaign pamphlets in al-most every corner of this impoverished town.

One former UNE member and Congressman, Manuel Castillo, is being investigated for the murder of three Salvadoran congressmen to the Central American Parliament and their pilot. Castillo is also thought to have links with organized crime. On Oct. 11, José Carlos Marroquín stepped down from his position as UNE’s political strategist. He and his family have received threats since his father accused César Fajardo (UNE’s reelected congress-man), of ties to organized crime, as well as

being the person behind the attack on Mar-roquin early last year.

Marroquin’s father’s statement came af-ter Fajardo voted against the creation of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. The commission’s purpose is to support the institutions in charge of the investigation and persecution of crimes com-mitted by illegal bodies and clandestine secu-

rity apparatuses. The CICIG is meant to be an independent institution whose commissioner will be appointed by the UN Secretary General, and it will employ international and national personnel, and the International Community will fund it.

The Guatemalan recognized that the coun-try has a high fever of corruption and impunity and asked the United Nations for help since there is not a doctor in the country that can cure such a disease.

On Nov. 4, Guatemalans have two options: to choose an alleged human rights violator, Pérez Molina, or the friend of drug traffick-ers, Álvaro Colom. They must choose the lesser evil. Moreover, neither candidate has presented voters with a real government plan. So far, instead, they have focused on denigrat-ing each other. Voters are waiting to hear their proposals, and as a result about 30 percent of Guatemalans are still undecided on how to vote only days before the run-off presidential election. Whoever manages to capture the trust of the Guatemalans must put aside his personal interests. Substantial changes are necessary in the country to allow its citizens to achieve their hopes and aspirations. Given that no party has managed to win more than one term in the presidency during the country’s 21-year old democracy, a leader that works for the welfare of the people is necessary to restore their confidence in politicians.

Jeffry Esquivel ’09 is looking for campaign

donations for the 2024 Guatemalan presidential campaign.

BY JEFFRY ESQUIVELgueSt CoLumniSt

Guatemala: ¿Pais de la Eterna Corrupcion?

This Nov. 4, Guatemalans have

two options: to choose an alleged

human rights violator or the friend

of drug traffickers.

opinionsFRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 11

What do you think of off-campus living on College Hill?

Overheard on College HillBy Spencer Amdur and Jacob Izenberg

My experience living off campus has been going well. It’s a different environment.

I feel quasi-adult-like cooking four nights a week with a bunch of guys. People seem to be really impressed when we show up to Sam’s Club and buy fruits and stuff like that. Since it’s Brown off-campus housing—it’s very convenient. They kind of take care of everything.

This is my first year off campus. I would recommend it to seniors—it gives you a different perspective.

I like living off campus a lot. I feel there’s a lot more independence, although you sometimes do miss living in a dorm room.

I live in a Brown-owned apartment on the corner of Thayer and Bowen. Brown has been pretty responsive with all the repairs. A stove exploded and they cleaned up the place pretty quickly. The exception is heating, but a lot of buildings around campus are having heating problems, so we’re in the queue.

Compared to most of my friends, off cam-pus the maintenance is much better (in Brown -owned apartments) from what I’ve experi-enced. But the rent is a lot higher, so it’s kind of a trade-off. We kind of got the apartment as a spur of the moment thing. I’m happy to be living off campus. The apartment itself is much bigger than, say, a normal suite in Young O.

I’ve lived at Preston Street, and currently I live on John Street. It’s been the perfect experi-ence in both cases. It’s an opportunity to feel, at least fractionally, more like a real person. It feels good to be responsible and not have some faceless janitor cleaning your bathroom. You have some sort of responsibility for yourself that the dorms don’t give you.

There haven’t been any negative aspects that I wouldn’t have had in any living situation. The mice — I react like a little girl to the mice. I scream and I go under the covers and it’s pretty shameful.

Our landlords have been altogether acces-sible. Our landlord on Preston was actually a sound engineer who claims to have worked with the Jackson 5, but Google search hasn’t turned up anything. He also promised us that our band would have one of its songs played as instrumental music during the FX show “The Field,” which never seemed to turn into reality.

I think by far the biggest challenge is the summer sublet situation. Most leases start in June, so if you’re not here in the summer it can be an unwanted to challenge to have to find a subletter. We sort of had an impulse buy with our apartment, which we later realized doesn’t have one 90 degree angle in the entire two floors. You walk uphill to the living room. You have to scale the heights.

I wanted to live off campus because I lived in a house over the summer with a couple friends, and it was an awesome experience. I was so ready to be out of the dorms and off campus.

My experience this far has been pretty mixed. It’s been kind of hard finding a place. We have a couple of leads right now that we’re looking into but as of now I don’t have a definite place.

I’ve met a couple landlords who just seemed really mean and didn’t want to deal with students, so I don’t know why they’re trying to rent to students. I’ve had a couple that have been fantastic. They’re like “We know we’re dealing with students renters, we’ll do everything we can to work with you if you have any problems.”

nathaniel sloan ’08.5

serena Dollive ’08

sejal Jhaveri ’09

John Molina ’08

Page 12: Friday, November 2, 2007

After scoring a goal in sudden-death overtime to give the men’s water polo team an 8-7 win over Harvard last Thursday, Corey Schwartz ’11 has won the College Water Polo Association Player of the Week Award. off a pass from Hank Weintraub ’09, Schwartz’s score ended the game, which had already lasted two overtime sessions. The goal gave Brown a win over rival Harvard, even as the Bears played with defender Bran-don Yoshimura ’11 as goalkeeper due to last week’s suspension of goalie Kent Holland ’10.

Schwartz, a Los Angeles, Calif., native, also led the team with two goals in a 10-7 victory over Mercy-hurst College the next day. For the season, Schwartz has scored 22 goals in 25 games, good for sixth on the team. Schwartz will look to increase this total when Brown plays in the Northern Division Championships this weekend.

— Peter Cipparone

By JasOn harrisaSSiStant SPortS editor

Even though the men’s soccer team went outside its rigorous Ivy League schedule in Wednesday night’s matchup against Rutgers University, the result was more of the same. The No. 6-ranked Bears defeated the Scarlet Knights 2-0 in Piscataway, N.J., to improve their overall record to 12-1-1 (4-0-0 in the Ivy League). The win was Bruno’s sixth in a row — the second time this season Brown has won six straight.

Though the game began with promise for the Bears, the first half turned out to be a stalemate. In the opening minutes, forward Kevin Da-vies ’08 had an excellent chance to score, but Rutgers goalkeeper Matt VanOekel made a strong save.

After the first few minutes, neither team was able to generate significant scoring chances in the first half.

“The backline played very well,” said Head Coach Mike Noonan. “But the midfield and forwards couldn’t find their footing. We would put two or three passes together, but the fourth pass was just off.”

The pitch was dry, but many players were slipping for some reason that the team could not fig-ure out.

“I don’t know if it was the sprin-klers or what,” said co-captain Matt Britner ’07.5. “Lots of players lost their footing, and the ball was skip-ping pretty well.”

The strange field conditions led to many turnovers, which made for a fast-paced first half. Neither team could sustain an attack long enough to create a scoring opportunity, so most of the play was battled out in the midfield.

Going into halftime, Bruno knew it had to step up its play. Despite Rutgers’ mediocre record, it has historically been a good team, so the Bears expected a challenge.

“They are a Big East team from a power conference with a good tradi-tion in the program,” Britner said.

Coming out of halftime, Brown picked up its intensity and finally

broke through in the 53rd minute. After the defense pulled Rutgers offside deep in the Brown zone, co-captain Stephen Sawyer ’09 played a quick restart to Britner, who had space in front of him. He carried the ball until he spotted Davies mak-ing a run toward the net and laid the ball right in his path. Davies beat VanOekel to the ball and one-timed it by the goalie to put Brown

up 1-0.“I saw some space in the front

line and saw Kevin put his hand up,” Britner said. “All the rest was Kevin.”

The goal was Davies’ ninth of the season — leading the team, just one ahead of fellow forward Dylan Sheehan ’09.

Brown carried the 1-0 lead late into the match, when Rutgers turned up the pressure. The Scarlet Knights had a few opportunities to score late in the game, but goalie Jarrett Leech ’09 and the rest of Brown’s defense prevented the equalizer.

“We had a good game plan and did what we wanted to do,” Britner said. “We didn’t give them many quality chances. When we did, guys made plays when they had to. We had a ‘bend but don’t break’ men-tality.”

Brown scored an insurance goal in the final minute on a counterat-tack. When Davies beat his man in

the right corner, he was left with a three-on-three situation because Rutgers pushed most of its team forward to try to equalize. Davies at-tacked the net and slid a pass across for David Walls ’11, who netted his first goal of his collegiate career to put the game out of reach.

Though the win was not Brown’s prettiest, it was a testament to the team’s attitude.

“The team has a winning mental-ity,” Noonan said. “In a tight game away from home, you find a way to win.”

Britner was also happy with Brown’s ability to pull it out in the end.

“I think it was a scrappy perfor-mance,” he said. “We were missing a little sharpness, but I was proud that we were able to compete.”

The Bears will be back in ac-tion tomorrow, resuming their Ivy League schedule at Yale at 4:30 p.m.

FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2

M. ice hockey at Union CollegeVolleyball at Cornell

SATURDAY, NoVEMBER 3

football at YaleM. soccer at YaleW. soccer at Yalefield hockey at YaleM. Water polo: Northern Division Championship (at MIT)

W. ice hockey vs. Yale, 2 p.m., Mee-han AuditoriumM. ice hockey at RensselaerVolleyball at Columbiafencing at Big one (at Mt. Holyoke)M. Tennis at Big Green Invitational (Hanover, N.H.)

SUNDAY, NoVEMBER 4

W. ice hockey at UConnM. Water polo at Northern Division Championship (at MIT)M. Tennis at Big Green Invitational

S P o R T S S C H E D U L E

sporTs weekenDPAGE 12 THE BRoWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, NoVEMBER 2, 2007

M. soccer turns Scarlet Knights blue with 2-0 victory

Ashley Hess / Herald File PhotoKevin Davies ’08 is leading the men’s soccer team in scoring.

Yellin ’10 stands strong in net for w. soccerBy sTu WOOSPortS editor

At 5 feet 4 inches, Steffi Yellin ’10 is probably one of the shortest goal-keepers in the country, but that hasn’t stopped her from being one of the best. After the Bears’ dismal 0-5-1 start to the season, Yellin’s terrific play in the net has helped the women’s soccer team’s remark-able comeback, which leaves Bruno with a 6-8-1 record and a shot at the league title.

After shutting out first-place Uni-versity of Pennsylvania last week, Yellin was named the Ivy League’s Player of the Week for the second time this season. But now, Yellin has earned a far more prestigious distinction for her efforts: She is The Herald’s Athlete of the Week.

herald: your team had a rough start to the season, going winless in your first six games. But since then, you’ve gone 6-3. how does it feel to turn the season around?

Yellin: It feels really good. In the beginning of the season, we were playing a lot of really, really good teams. Playing those teams, it’s hard to get into a winning rhythm, but once we started to get some goals in and get some wins, it be-comes easier. After you win one, it becomes a lot easier to win the second one. It feels very good.

Did the team ever get down be-cause it wasn’t winning?

No, we never got down. We just tried to stay focused and keep doing what we were doing. There was never a negative attitude on the team. We just keep chugging, and if we keep working hard, we’ll get the results.how long have you been a goal-

Football looks to get physical against undefeated YaleBy sTu WOOSPortS editor

Jimmy Tull ’08 has heard the talk. He knows Ivy League football fans are already looking forward to the season-ending Harvard-Yale game as the match-up of the year, as the battle of the undefeateds that will decide the league title.

Tull doesn’t like that talk — es-pecially since Yale first must beat the Bears on Saturday to keep that record unblemished.

“A lot of people may be look-ing past us,” the offensive lineman

said. “We’re kind of using that as motivation.”

The Brown football team (3-4 overall, 2-2 Ivy) will travel to Yale (7-0, 4-0) tomorrow to face a very physical Bulldog team. Yale has run to the top of the Ivy League be-hind the strength of its star running back, Mike McLeod, who leads all of Division I-AA with 182.4 yards per game.

If the Bears are to keep their championship hopes alive, they’ll have to stop McLeod and a Yale offense that averages 34.9 points a game — tops in the league.

“Their strength is definitely the run game,” Tull said. “They haven’t done much from their passing game from what I’ve seen.”

Brown will have a great chance to win, Tull said, if the defense plays like it did last week against the University of Pennsylvania, when it made several big hits on Quaker ballcarriers.

But as the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense, and the Bears will counter Yale’s with an almost equally potent one. Brown, which averages 31.3 points per game, will rely on the arm of Mi-

chael Dougherty ’09, who leads the nation with 326.1 passing yards per game.

At the Yale Bowl, Dougherty said he expects the Bulldogs to play mostly in a zone defense that might neutralize the speed of wide receivers Paul Raymond ’08 and Buddy Farnham ’10. As a result, he said he will try to pick apart the de-fense with short- to medium-range passes.

“They don’t really get beat deep, but there’s a lot of opportunities,” Dougherty said. “We’re just going to take what they give.”

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

continued on page 9

S P o r t S i n b r i e F

corey schwartz ’11 named player of the Week