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The September 20, 2007 issue of the Brown Daily Herald
16
BY SIMON VAN ZUYLEN-WOOD CONTRIBUTING WRITER In Providence’s own Roger Williams Park, 15 minutes from campus, lies the Museum of Natural History. The museum is three stories tall with a sharply sloping shingled roof, and Corinthian columns flank the doorway and exterior. On the in- side, the dark wood interior lobby and the winding staircase lead to “A New Perspective on Mars.” It’s an unusual place to find an exhibit about Mars. On the left of the Mars exhibit is a display room filled with Polynesian artifacts. On the right is the room of “Natural Se- lections,” featuring models of birds and small minerals. But just over a week after the exhibit opened on Sept. 12, museum director Renee Gamba estimates that roughly 1,000 visitors have seen the exhibit. As “A New Perspective on Mars,” t he exhibit not only dis- plays revolutionary photography technology but also highlights the geological elements of space study. Sponsored by the NASA/ Brown Northeast Planetary Data Center and the NASA Rhode Is- land Space Grant Consortium, the show features photos of Mars taken from 2004 until late 2006 by a high resolution stereo camera during the T HE B ROWN D AILY H ERALD T HURSDAY, S EPTEMBER 20, 2007 Volume CXLII, No. 72 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com 195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island News tips: [email protected] INSIDE: INSIDE POST- post- desperately clings to summer — the mov- ies, the music, the celebrity gossip METRO 3 OPINIONS 15 BIKERS AREN’T BACK Long populated with roar- ing motorcyles, most Thay- er Street parking spots are now off-limits for bikers. SPORTS 16 FATHER OF 1,000 Matt Prewitt ’08 considers the implications of repro- ductive technology and the many kids he could have. POLO PLAYER Mike Gartner ’09 has gar- nered a few awards and now gears up for another water polo season. Kim Perley / Herald Former Time editor Norman Pearlstine spoke yesterday on the Valerie Plame scandal. First-years hail from hometowns in Swaziland, Nebraska BY AMANDA BAUER STAFF WRITER Brown prides itself on its geo- graphically diverse student body, and this year’s class is no excep- tion: The class of 2011 boasts students from 44 states and 126 international students from 51 countries, wrote Dean of Admis- sion James Miller ’73 in an e-mail to The Herald. Though students were admit- ted to the current freshman class from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, no students matriculated from Arkansas, Mississippi, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming, Miller wrote. The most students come from California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Among the countries sending students to College Hill are Swa- ziland, Australia, Turkey, Sweden, India and South Africa. Carlo Coppetti ’11 is from Nafels, Switzerland, a rural town in a valley near the Swiss Alps, and is one of only three Swiss students at Brown. “Everyone’s like, wow, that’s so cool,” Coppetti said. Zachary Smith ’11, from Fre- mont, Neb., said he has encoun- tered surprise and occasional con- fusion about his home, including comments such as, “Whoa, that’s kind of weird,” and “Isn’t there lots of corn there?” Nick Jessee ’11 is amazed at the attention he gets for being from An- chorage, Alaska, especially, he said, at a place boasting students from so many other unusual places. “You get the same reaction everywhere in the world when you say you’re from Alaska. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Seattle three-and-a-half hours away, in Chile, or Brazil or in Europe. … I say ‘Alaska,’ and First online registration period draws to a close BY CHAZ FIRESTONE SENIOR STAFF WRITER After two weeks, over 50,000 class- es added or dropped and countless 5-minute time-outs, the campus has survived its first shopping period us- ing online course registration. “I’m definitely relieved,” said As- sociate Provost Nancy Dunbar, the Banner project owner. “But there is still a lot of work to do.” Banner, the $23-million system implemented to integrate informa- tion from 11 different University of- fices into a single database, brought many new procedures and its own language. Although overrides and course reference numbers, or CRNs, may have been hard to get used to for some, many students and faculty told The Herald they have come to appre- ciate the modernization of Brown’s registration system. “It’s definitely been much more convenient,” said Michael Li ’10, a prospective biology concentrator. “I registered for my classes, and that was it. I had zero problems.” “Banner has gone really smooth- ly,” said Julia Green ’08, who plans to graduate with a degree in cognitive neuroscience. But while Li and Green have had positive experiences with the new system, some students have been disgruntled by Banner’s inability to cater to certain individual needs. Li said his classes — large lectures such as CHEM 0360: “Organic Chemistry” — “aren’t the type people would have problems with.” Michael Morgenstern ’08, who Former Time editor speaks out on Plame and principles of journalism BY IRENE CHEN SENIOR STAFF WRITER Norman Pearlstine, the former editor in chief of Time Inc. who was at the helm of the weekly news magazine during the controversy surround- ing the outing of CIA officer Val- erie Plame, spoke Tuesday at the Watson Institute for International Studies about source confidentiality in the media, including his decision to turn over his reporter’s notes in the Plame case. Pearlstine, now a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group and a member of the Watson Institute’s board of overseers, appeared on campus as part of the Directors Lectures Se- ries on Contemporary International Affairs. Pearlstine’s new book, “Off the Record,” focuses on issues of confi- dentiality in the media and recounts his experience as Time’s editor in chief, when his magazine found itself in the middle of the Plame contro- versy. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenaed Time in 2004 for reporter Matthew Cooper’s notes, which Pearlstine eventually agreed to turn over. Pearlstine said he agreed to comply with the sub- poena because Cooper’s source, then-White House senior adviser Karl Rove, had been inter viewed by Cooper as an anonymous source, but not a confidential one. In the lecture, Pearlstine stressed the need to focus on distinctions in the vocabular y of source confidentiality. “What this book is about is to a large degree what changed my mind. One of the things I learned along the way is that most of us in the business do not have a clear idea what the rules are — or ought to be — regarding dealing with anon- ymous and confidential sources,” Pearlstine said. “Part of that is by design. We’re not a business that is licensed. You don’t go to school to become a journalist.” “We are not as straight and hon- est with our sources about what the rules are or ought to be,” he said, pointing out the need for journalists to communicate better with sources during inter views. Pearlstine detailed the types of confidentiality agreements that journalists can enter into with their BY MARIELLE SEGARRA STAFF WRITER Twelve dormitory bathrooms — three multi-use and nine single-use — have recently been converted to gender-neutral spaces, and Uni- versity officials are continuing to consider policy changes that would make all upper-class housing gen- der-neutral and that would allow “greater choice for first years,” said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, interim vice president for campus life and student services. The converted bathrooms, located in Perkins Hall, Keeney Quadrangle, North Wayland, God- dard, Sears and Diman houses were selected because of their proximity to other male-only or female-only restrooms. With these conversions, over half of the single-use, lockable bathrooms in dormitories are now gender-neutral, Carey said. An online survey conducted by the Division of Campus Life and Student Services last spring — with responses from 1,167 stu- dents — spurred administrators to designate the bathrooms gender- neutral. According to the poll’s results, 26.9 percent of students strongly agreed and 29.8 percent of students favored designating some bath- rooms as gender-neutral where gender-specific bathrooms were also available. 20.6 percent had no opinion, and the remaining 24.3 percent opposed such a change. The University is currently in the process of mapping out on-cam- pus bathrooms and deciding which can be designated gender-neutral, said Kelly Garrett, coordinator of the LGBTQ Resource Center. Currently 20 percent of Brown’s housing inventory is gender-neu- U. expands availability of gender-neutral bathrooms continued on page 4 continued on page 11 continued on page 6 Simon van Zuylen-Wood / Herald Visitors to the museum use special 3D glasses to view the exhibits on Martian surfaces. Mars comes to Providence — in three dimensions FEATURE continued on page 4 continued on page 4
Transcript
Page 1: Thursday, September 20, 2007

By Simon van Zuylen-WoodContributing Writer

In Providence’s own Roger Williams Park, 15 minutes from campus, lies the Museum of Natural History. The museum is three stories tall with a sharply sloping shingled roof, and Corinthian columns flank the doorway and exterior. On the in-side, the dark wood interior lobby and the winding staircase lead to “A New Perspective on Mars.”

It’s an unusual place to find an exhibit about Mars. On the left of the Mars exhibit is a display room filled with Polynesian artifacts. On the right is the room of “Natural Se-lections,” featuring models of birds and small minerals. But just over a week after the exhibit opened on Sept. 12, museum director Renee Gamba estimates that roughly 1,000 visitors have seen the exhibit.

As “A New Perspective on Mars,” t he exhibit not only dis-

plays revolutionary photography technology but also highlights the geological elements of space study. Sponsored by the NASA/Brown Northeast Planetary Data Center and the NASA Rhode Is-

land Space Grant Consortium, the show features photos of Mars taken from 2004 until late 2006 by a high resolution stereo camera during the

The Brown Daily heralDthursday, september 20, 2007Volume CXLII, No. 72 Since 1866, Daily Since 1891

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

INSIDE:

inSide poSt-post- desperately clings to summer — the mov-ies, the music, the celebrity gossip

metRo

3opinionS

15BikeRS aRen’t BackLong populated with roar-ing motorcyles, most Thay-er Street parking spots are now off-limits for bikers.

SpoRtS

16fatheR of 1,000Matt Prewitt ’08 considers the implications of repro-ductive technology and the many kids he could have.

polo playeRMike Gartner ’09 has gar-nered a few awards and now gears up for another water polo season.

Kim Perley / Herald

Former Time editor Norman Pearlstine spoke yesterday on the Valerie Plame scandal.

First-years hail from hometowns in Swaziland, NebraskaBy amanda BaueRstaff Writer

Brown prides itself on its geo-graphically diverse student body, and this year’s class is no excep-tion: The class of 2011 boasts students from 44 states and 126 international students from 51 countries, wrote Dean of Admis-sion James Miller ’73 in an e-mail to The Herald.

Though students were admit-

ted to the current freshman class from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, no students matriculated from Arkansas, Mississippi, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming, Miller wrote. The most students come from California, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Among the countries sending students to College Hill are Swa-ziland, Australia, Turkey, Sweden, India and South Africa.

Carlo Coppetti ’11 is from Nafels, Switzerland, a rural town in a valley near the Swiss Alps, and is one of only three Swiss students at Brown. “Everyone’s like, wow, that’s so cool,” Coppetti said.

Zachary Smith ’11, from Fre-mont, Neb., said he has encoun-tered surprise and occasional con-fusion about his home, including comments such as, “Whoa, that’s kind of weird,” and “Isn’t there lots of corn there?”

Nick Jessee ’11 is amazed at the attention he gets for being from An-chorage, Alaska, especially, he said, at a place boasting students from so many other unusual places. “You get the same reaction everywhere in the world when you say you’re from Alaska. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Seattle three-and-a-half hours away, in Chile, or Brazil or in Europe. … I say ‘Alaska,’ and

First online registration period draws to a closeBy chaZ fiReStonesenior staff Writer

After two weeks, over 50,000 class-es added or dropped and countless 5-minute time-outs, the campus has survived its first shopping period us-ing online course registration.

“I’m definitely relieved,” said As-sociate Provost Nancy Dunbar, the Banner project owner. “But there is still a lot of work to do.”

Banner, the $23-million system implemented to integrate informa-tion from 11 different University of-fices into a single database, brought many new procedures and its own language. Although overrides and course reference numbers, or CRNs, may have been hard to get used to for some, many students and faculty told The Herald they have come to appre-ciate the modernization of Brown’s registration system.

“It’s definitely been much more convenient,” said Michael Li ’10, a prospective biology concentrator. “I registered for my classes, and that was it. I had zero problems.”

“Banner has gone really smooth-ly,” said Julia Green ’08, who plans to graduate with a degree in cognitive neuroscience.

But while Li and Green have had positive experiences with the new system, some students have been disgruntled by Banner’s inability to cater to certain individual needs. Li said his classes — large lectures such as CHEM 0360: “Organic Chemistry” — “aren’t the type people would have problems with.”

Michael Morgenstern ’08, who

Former Time editor speaks out on Plame and principles of journalismBy iRene chensenior staff Writer

Norman Pearlstine, the former editor in chief of Time Inc. who was at the helm of the weekly news magazine during the controversy surround-ing the outing of CIA officer Val-erie Plame, spoke Tuesday at the Watson Institute for International Studies about source confidentiality in the media, including his decision to turn over his reporter’s notes in the Plame case.

Pearlstine, now a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group and a member of the Watson Institute’s board of overseers, appeared on campus as part of the Directors Lectures Se-ries on Contemporary International Affairs.

Pearlstine’s new book, “Off the Record,” focuses on issues of confi-dentiality in the media and recounts his experience as Time’s editor in chief, when his magazine found itself in the middle of the Plame contro-versy. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenaed Time in 2004 for reporter Matthew Cooper’s notes, which Pearlstine eventually agreed to turn over. Pearlstine said

he agreed to comply with the sub-poena because Cooper’s source, then-White House senior adviser Karl Rove, had been interviewed by Cooper as an anonymous source, but not a confidential one. In the lecture, Pearlstine stressed the need to focus on distinctions in the vocabulary of source confidentiality.

“What this book is about is to a large degree what changed my mind. One of the things I learned along the way is that most of us in the business do not have a clear idea what the rules are — or ought to be — regarding dealing with anon-ymous and confidential sources,” Pearlstine said. “Part of that is by design. We’re not a business that is licensed. You don’t go to school to become a journalist.”

“We are not as straight and hon-est with our sources about what the rules are or ought to be,” he said, pointing out the need for journalists to communicate better with sources during interviews.

Pearlstine detailed the types of confidentiality agreements that journalists can enter into with their

By maRielle SegaRRastaf f Writer

Twelve dormitory bathrooms — three multi-use and nine single-use — have recently been converted to gender-neutral spaces, and Uni-versity officials are continuing to consider policy changes that would make all upper-class housing gen-der-neutral and that would allow “greater choice for first years,” said Russell Carey ’91 MA’06, interim vice president for campus life and student services.

The conver ted bathrooms, located in Perkins Hall, Keeney Quadrangle, North Wayland, God-dard, Sears and Diman houses were selected because of their proximity to other male-only or female-only restrooms.

With these conversions, over half of the single-use, lockable bathrooms in dormitories are now gender-neutral, Carey said.

An online survey conducted by the Division of Campus Life and Student Services last spring — with responses from 1,167 stu-dents — spurred administrators to designate the bathrooms gender-neutral.

According to the poll’s results, 26.9 percent of students strongly agreed and 29.8 percent of students favored designating some bath-rooms as gender-neutral where gender-specific bathrooms were also available. 20.6 percent had no opinion, and the remaining 24.3 percent opposed such a change.

The University is currently in the process of mapping out on-cam-pus bathrooms and deciding which can be designated gender-neutral, said Kelly Garrett, coordinator of the LGBTQ Resource Center.

Currently 20 percent of Brown’s housing inventory is gender-neu-

U. expands availability of gender-neutral bathrooms

continued on page 4

continued on page 11

continued on page 6

Simon van Zuylen-Wood / HeraldVisitors to the museum use special 3D glasses to view the exhibits on Martian surfaces.

Mars comes to Providence — in three dimensions

FEATURE

continued on page 4

continued on page 4

Page 2: Thursday, September 20, 2007

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.

ACROSS 1 Foundation piece5 Indian honorific

10 Shampoo in agreen container

14 Flight-related15 It wouldn’t be

one if it weren’tpublic

16 Der __:Adenauer

17 Reindeer herder18 Journalist on

ice?20 Lip-curling look22 County south of

Donegal23 FDR’s last VP24 Out at the

switch?26 “Peachy!”28 Humorist on the

links?33 Like some socks36 1982 film known

for its computergraphics

37 Sub finder38 Prepare for an

ambush40 Piece of the past43 First commercial

U.S. radiostation, locatedin Pittsburgh

44 Get __ shake46 Comic strip

penguin48 Canine

command49 Ex-military

merchant?53 Birdbrain54 Corners the

market on58 Two-piece piece60 Ornate cases63 “Ugly __”64 Nuclear-powered

poet?67 Ace68 Azerbaijan’s

capital69 Watch handle70 Sacramento

Kings’ __ Arena71 Place for an altar72 Bass-baritone

Simon73 Dramatist

O’Casey

DOWN 1 Latin music

genre2 Isn’t straight3 Adrien of

cosmetics4 Nursery rhyme

loser?5 Lifelong ID6 Frankfurter’s

cries7 Handbasket

rider’sdestination?

8 Being considered9 Member of a

fraternal singinggroup

10 D.C. lobbyingunit

11 Moose hunters’aids

12 AAA suggestions13 Pitched

protection19 Like the Ark21 Col.’s command25 Henry’s last

Catherine27 Sank in29 Bad tidings30 Set to simmer31 Munro pen name32 QED part33 Norway’s patron

34 Keister35 Disadvantages39 New Zealander41 NYSE debut42 Hold in check45 “I am Fortune’s

fool” speaker47 Theatergoer’s

memento50 Dense51 Cads52 Aardwolf

relatives

55 Keep on looking

56 Mohawk Rivercity

57 Utilities tower58 Spiked dessert59 Collect in return61 Tag

acknowledgment62 “For pity’s __!”65 Shade66 Discouraging

words

By Verna Suit(c)2007 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 9/20/07

9/20/07

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, September 20, 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

sunny80 / 60

sunny79 / 61

ShaRpe RefectoRy

lunch — Vegan Tofu Raviolis, Savory Spinach, Sweet Potato Fries, Santa Rosa Calzone, Grilled Ham and Swiss Sand-wich, Turkey & Wild Rice Soup, Vegetar-ian Cream of Pea Soup

dinneR — Roast Turkey, Mashed Sweet & White Potatoes, Stuffing, Vegetarian Gnocchi ala Sorrentina

veRney-Woolley dining hall

lunch — Hot Roast Beef on French Bread, Baked Macaroni & Cheese, Sum-mer Squash, Cheesecake Brownies, Nacho Bar, Vegetarian Six Bean Soup, Minestrone Soup

dinneR — Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce, Stuffed Peppers, Butternut Squash with Sage & Shallots

aibohphobia | Roxanne Palmer and Jonathan Cannon

But Seriously | Charlie Custer and Stephen Barlow

nightmarishly elastic | Adam Robbins

vagina dentata | Soojean Kim

want to draw comics for the herald?

e-mail us

[email protected]

ToDAy T o M o R R o W

ToDayPAGe 2 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD THURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007

Page 3: Thursday, September 20, 2007

By Stu Woosports editor

Before sitting down to talk about his recent decision to leave the Republican Party, Lincoln Chafee ’75 pulls out the program for this February’s Follies, an annual revue put on by the Providence Newspa-per Guild.

Chafee flips through the pages before finding the lyrics to a song sung by an impersonator of Shel-don Whitehouse, the Democrat who spoiled Chafee’s Senate re-election bid in November. In his soft voice, Chafee begins singing to the tune of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

“The night we drove Linc Cha-fee down, all the phones were ring-ing,” he begins, as his assistant at the Watson Institute for Interna-tional Studies, where Chafee is a visiting fellow, joins in. “The night we drove Linc Chafee down, all the people were singing. They went, Linc, you know we think you’re great — it’s the president we re-ally hate!”

As the two finish the song, Cha-fee smiles and chuckles. He doesn’t mind talking or joking about his election-day defeat, he says. After all, after he lost his elected posi-tion the moderate Republican had a chance to cut ties with a party that, he felt, no longer represented his views.

When Chafee drove to the Ex-eter Town Hall in July to drop his party affiliation, signing the neces-sary paperwork felt like a formality,

he says. Mentally, he checked out of the Republican Party when he left Washington in January.

“I drove up I-95 with D.C. in my rearview mirror and, more philo-sophically, the Republican Party in my rearview mirror,” he says.

Chafee says he started to think about leaving the party on election night in November 2004, when it became clear that President Bush would be re-elected. Chafee never agreed with much of the conser-vative rhetoric of Bush and many fellow senators — he sighs as he lists agendas (tax cuts for the rich, banning gay marriage and flag burning) laid out by GOP leaders at the senators’ weekly party meet-ing. But Chafee was considering jumping ship for another reason: He wanted to get re-elected.

By Scott loWenSteinsenior staff Writer

It’s a Wednesday night on Thayer Street, and the sidewalks are packed with students on their way to the library and party-goers getting ready for a night at Fish Co. Everything seems normal, except for the conspic-uous absence of a once-unavoidable Thayer Street institution motor-cycles and their owners.

Months after a law requiring motorcyclists on Thayer Street to park in specially designated spots was passed in city legislature, the presence of bikers on Thayer Street has declined, due in large part to the limited amount of legal motorcycle parking, said Lt. Paul Campbell of the Providence Police Department substation on Brook Street. On a re-cent weekday, only eight motorcycles were parked on Thayer. This past summer, nearly 50 were seen parked on a weeknight.

The law, signed in its final form on July 11 by Providence Mayor David Cicilline ’83, mandates that bikers must park in specific spots for example, near the corner of Thayer and Olive streets, outside of Store 24 between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. or risk receiving a $30 ticket for a parking violation, Campbell said. The desig-nated parking spots on Thayer Street accommodate about 30 motorcycles, but city code doesn’t regulate motor-cycle parking on side streets.

The same fines apply to cars parked in spots reserved for motor-cycles at night. During the two-and-a-half months since the law was passed, Campbell estimates that the PPD has issued around 30 tickets. Officers

have ticketed cars and motorcycles at the same rate, Campbell said.

Motorcyclists “have conformed unbelievably well” to the law, Camp-bell said.

Ward 2 Councilman Cliff Wood, who proposed the law, said that the regulation “is about the noise.”

“As councilman, you deal with is-sues of … quality of life. Thayer Street is a commercial area juxtaposed with

a residential area,” he said, adding that residents have “been complain-ing about (the noise) for years.”

The new law has drastically re-duced the number of calls Wood receives from irate College Hill residents, he said.

“People should be able to come and go (to Thayer Street) as they

MeTroTHURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD PAGe 3

With GOP in ‘rearview mirror,’ Chafee ’75 drives on

Alex DePaoli / Herald

Bikers on Thayer Street are going the way of the dinosaur thanks to a city regulation enacted in July.

Two months later, law limits bikers

Proposed Comprehensive Plan draws praise, skepticismBy ZachaRy chapmansenior staff Writer

The University approves of the latest changes in the city’s com-prehensive plan, a document the city is crafting to guide future de-velopment.

Over the summer, the City Plan Commission, an appointed board of citizens that reviews city devel-opment plans, removed a guideline from the plan that would tax the University for properties it owns outside of the city’s institutional zones. Richard Spies, executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president, said the plan — which the City Council began officially consid-ering at a meeting on Monday — does not contain “anything of significant concern” regarding the University’s ability to expand in Providence.

“There was a clear agreement that we should look to the posi-tive aspects of University and in-stitutional growth and harness that rather than look only at the

downsides,” Spies said of the City Plan Commission’s decision.

The plan contains few concrete changes to existing ordinances regulating educational and medi-cal institutions. For example, the

plan states that the city should aim to “strike a balance between institutional growth, taxpayer affordability and neighborhood

Alex DiPaoli / Herald

Changes to Wickenden Street are in store as a part of the Providence Tomorrow plan.

Wickenden Street ramp among structurally deficient RI bridgesBy Simmi aujlametro editor

The U.S. Senate last week approved $15.2 million to improve Rhode Is-land’s bridges in an amendment to a highway bill that would allo-cate an extra $1 billion to bridges across the nation. About half of Rhode Island’s bridges are either structurally deficient or function-ally obsolete according to federal standards — of Rhode Island’s 764 bridges, 175 are deficient and about 220 are obsolete.

All states receive federal funding annually for bridge renovations, but the Aug. 1 collapse of a Min-nesota bridge into the Mississippi River drew national attention to in-frastructure safety and prompted lawmakers to increase bridge fund-ing for fiscal year 2008.

Rhode Island received $68 million to replace and fix bridges in 2007 and $57 million in 2006 through the same legislation.

There are 24 structurally defi-

cient bridges and 53 functionally obsolete bridges in Providence, according to the Rhode Island De-partment of Transportation.

Ten of the deficient bridges will be replaced when the city relocates the I-195 highway to free up valu-able Providence real estate.

One of the city’s 149 bridges is a structurally deficient I-195 ramp on Wickenden Street, just south of Brown’s campus. But the ramp’s de-ficiency doesn’t mean it will buckle under your car the next time you drive to Newport.

So-called structurally deficient and obsolete bridges are not nec-essarily unsafe, said Kazem Far-houmand, deputy chief engineer at the Rhode Island Department of Transportation.

When the department’s en-gineers examine Rhode Island bridges every year, they use federal standards to assess the bridges. A bridge that does not meet federal

continued on page 8

continued on page 6continued on page 13

continued on page 8

Courtesy of brown.eduLincoln Chafee ’75

Page 4: Thursday, September 20, 2007

PAGe 4 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD THURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007

sources, including “on the record,” which allows journalists to use the information and attribute it directly to a source; “on background,” which allows journalists to use the infor-mation without attributing it to the source by name; “deep background” to use the information without any attribution or as background infor-mation; or “off-the-record,” in which case the reporter can’t use the infor-mation from a source.

With anonymous sources, Pearl-stine said, the journalist can’t use the source’s name in the publica-tion, but being a confidential source means that the publication must do everything possible to protect the source’s identity.

“Rove asked to go on deep back-ground. Nonetheless, in Matt’s piece for Time.com, he attributed it to an administration official, which is background, not deep background. Secondly, Matt considered Rove a confidential source, but Rove himself thought he was anonymous,” Pearl-stine said. “Matt had put Rove’s name in a couple of e-mails, which under-mined the notion of confidentiality. One of the things I’ve learned along the way is that the ‘e’ in e-mail might as well stand for evidence.”

“Journalists very rarely agree, if ever, to take information off the record, because I think as a jour-nalist, first of all our obligation is to the public. Secondly, you should be trying to get people on the record. And thirdly, there’s nothing worse than knowing something you can’t write,” Pearlstine said.

When considering his actions for the case, Pearlstine referred to two historical precedents, including that of the Pentagon papers, the New York Times’ controversial publication of leaked documents on the Vietnam

War, and Watergate, which led to the resignation of President Nixon. Pearlstine said Watergate is a great example of “public service journal-ism.” He also considered the long history of journalists protecting their sources by serving jail time, with their publishers paying the fines.

“In the end ... while I definitely believe that reporters and editors can and on occasion should engage in civil disobedience, I think it gets a whole lot more complicated for an institution when dozens of people know the identity of a source,” Pearl-stine said. “Because of the e-mails, we had dozens of people at a time who had access to that information, I thought that would put our institu-tion in a position where it would be far more difficult to resist the court than an individual could.”

Pearlstine said the Plame affair was not beneficial to journalism and that it raised a lot of questions about the integrity of journalists and furthered public distrust. He thinks there is a need for a federal shield law for journalism to protect journalists guarding confidential sources. Cur-rently 49 states in the United States have some sort of shield law pro-tecting journalists — the only state without protection is Wyoming — but Pearlstine said that only about 31 of these states provide a fair amount of protection. There is no protection offered in federal court.

“The public really thinks that people who are on-the-record are the people you should trust, and the people who give information anonymously should be distrusted,” Pearlstine said. “Yet, as journalists, most of us have gotten to the point that when people are talking on the record, they’re spinning us, just giv-ing us PR.”

In terms of his outlook on jour-nalism, Pearlstine said that for the

most part, “we don’t have investiga-tive reporting; we have reporting of investigations.”

Pearlstine said that the role of the media and journalism in public opinion has become somewhat ig-nored. “Think about how Britney Spears is the most searched name on the Internet,” he said. “Most people made up their mind about who they were going to vote for and then tuned out. It’s amazing how impervious we can become.”

Pearlstine also extended his talk during a question and answer session to address issues about the Internet’s role in journalism and for truth and accountability. He believes that there is a lot to be said for “citizen jour-nalism” and that he is an advocate for the First Amendment for online bloggers, but he said he also believes that the shield law would certainly not extend to all bloggers.

“The First Amendment wasn’t written for large multimedia com-panies worried about third quarter earnings. It was written for the lonely pamphleteers, and the functional equivalent of that is a blogger in pajamas,” Pearlstine said.

He thinks there is a need for busi-ness models for online journalism. “Is Wikipedia more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica? I’m not sure, but it’s hell of a lot easier to get information from it, and there’s much more of it,” Pearlstine said.

One audience member ques-tioned Pearlstine’s new appointment at the Carlyle Group, which has been connected in the past to foreign de-fense investments. Pearlstine re-sponded by saying that the Carlyle Group is now a “global enterprise” that has gone beyond the sphere of Washington and that the largest areas that the company invests in are telecommunications, retail and health care.

Pearlstine on principles of journalism and Plamecontinued from page 1

people are like, ‘Oh, really, are you serious?’ ... It’s just amazing to me,” Jessee said.

“But it’s a great conversation starter,” he added.

Students bring unique perspec-tives and talents to the Brown com-munity. “People don’t know that much about Switzerland, but they all are eager to know more, so I tell them about it,” Coppetti said. “I guess what they do know (already) is about Swiss chocolate.”

Smith and Jessee agreed that most students from their areas went to area colleges due to finan-cial incentives from their state or because of fears that the East Coast

would be too different to tolerate. “A lot of people just like to stay local,” Smith said.

Some have been surprised by Rhode Island.

“People would tell me that New Englanders are mean. ... My grand-parents are both Japanese, and they both came to the East Coast for col-lege, and they told me discrimination stories,” said Gan Uyeda ’11, who is from Honolulu, Hawaii. “But so far I haven’t seen any of that — every-body has been nice,” he said.

“Geography does inform experi-ence to some degree, so students from unusual geographical areas for Brown do bring different per-spectives to campus,” Miller wrote. But, he added, “As America becomes

more geographically mobile, geog-raphy is less of an issue than it was even a generation ago. Students to-day are more likely to have lived in a number of places than was common 20 years ago.”

Coppetti, for example, lived in South Carolina for a year during high school, and Jessee has lived in Chile. Uyeda lived in Oregon and California before moving to Hawaii.

“(Hawaii) really isn’t that much different from where everyone else lives, I think it’s just the reputation,” Uyeda said. “People have asked me, ‘Do you canoe to school?’, ‘Do you live in a grass hut?’ or ‘Do you know how to hula (dance)?’ ... I do know how to hula, but I’m bad at it.”

’11ers arrive on College Hill from across the globecontinued from page 1

tral, including all suites and apart-ments, said Richard Bova, senior associate dean of residential life. There are no co-ed doubles.

Of ficials are motivated “to provide choice and options so all students feel comfortable and safe in their living environment,” Carey said.

The objective would be to in-crease choices and “decrease the harassment that some students face,” Garrett said.

Bova said having gender-neutral options available “is designed to allow students to live in an environ-ment that is most comfortable for them,” he said.

Steps have been taken in recent years at Brown towards making more facilities gender-neutral as awareness of transgender issues has increased.

Advocates of gender-neutral facilities are also making waves in Ithaca, N.Y., at Cornell Univer-sity.

There, the university is con-sidering making some on-campus housing options gender-neutral and increasing the number of gen-der-neutral restrooms, said senior Vince Hartman, arts and sciences representative to Cornell’s Student Assembly and senior class coun-cil president. Hartman is one of the students pushing for such a change.

U. expands gender neutral housingcontinued from page 1

thanksfor

reading

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caMpus newsTHURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD PAGe 5

n e W s i n b r i e f

late night fund budget increasesThe Late Night Fund, which finances alcohol-free evening events on campus, has $40,000 to spend this year — $10,000 more than was available last year — but still doesn’t have permanent funding in the University’s budget.

The funding increase is due to what University officials described as a positive response to the program’s efforts over the past three semesters, since the program began in spring 2006.

“In the initial semester of the fund, we received $20,000, which extended into a full-year program for $30,000 last year, and now we’ve reached the goal for the originally proposed amount of $40,000,” said Shelley Adriance, coordinator for student activities, who helps administer the fund.

The fund was intended to support alternative nighttime programming by student groups in the wake of the Queer Alliance’s 2005 Sex Power God party, when dozens of students required emergency medical attention due to excessive alcohol consumption. Funding is awarded to individual events and is separate from the funding student groups receive from the Undergraduate Finance Board.

“It allows newer groups or individual event ideas to show some success when they go in and request budget money,” Shelley said.

Student groups may only use the fund twice per year. “otherwise, I’ll hit my cap with the same groups each year,” Shelley said. “We try to make the best use of the funding to allow the maximal amount of groups to be successful.”

As a pilot program without permanent funding from the University, the Late Night Fund is subject to annual re-evaluation.

The fund has already been used this semester, helping to finance a movie night held on Lincoln Field by the Brown Film Society and the orientation Welcoming Committee during First Weekend. The College Hill Kick-off on Wriston Quadrangle was also financed in part by the fund, Shelley said.

Shelley said the ideas for events this year may include a mini-golf game through a University building, disco rollerblading at the olney-Margolies Athletic Center and a collective comedy exhibition showcasing all campus comedy groups in one setting.

“There are a lot of ideas out there, and I just don’t know what I’ll see in the end,” she said.

— Melissa Dzenis

Leung Gallery transformed into ‘deaf world’By damon mokContributing Writer

Leung Gallery in the mid-afternoon is normally buzzing with the chatter of student groups or lecture pan-els. But Wednesday afternoon, the atmosphere was noticeably more hushed as Brown hosted the Deaf Deaf World event for the second consecutive year.

Over 50 attendees participated in the conference, the first of a two-part program honoring Rhode Island’s Deaf Awareness Week. For nearly two hours, Leung was literally a “deaf world.” Stations were set up to demonstrate the inconveniences and frustrations shared by those in the deaf community, challenging participants to attempt such tasks as ordering a drink from a restau-rant or requesting a prescription from a hospital, all without the aid of speech.

Yakov Kronrod found himself lost when a “travel agent” asked for his driver’s license in American Sign Language.

“I had no idea what she was say-ing,” said Kronrod, who thought the

agent was telling him to leave. She was actually signing three A’s, as in AAA, the American Automobile Association.

“It’s very eye-opening,” said Ja-son Davis ’08, who is taking ASL. “It’s hard to fathom living in a world where you can’t communicate in a language you’re surrounded by.”

The second half of Deaf Deaf World was a panelist discussion in which members of the Rhode Island deaf community talked about aspects of deaf culture. Interpreters and real-time captioning were provided to bridge communication gaps among participants, audience members and volunteer panelists.

Arkady Belozovsky, a lecturer at Brown’s Center for Language Stud-ies who was hired in 2005 after the University cut the ASL concentra-tion, facilitated the discussion. He said he had been planning Deaf Deaf World and the Meet and Greet since April with the help of his teaching assistants and various sponsors, including the Rhode Island Com-mission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Currently, there is no official pro-

gram for American Sign Language at the University.

“I was more than elated by the crowd,” Belozovsky, who is deaf, said through an interpreter, not-ing that the information sheets he printed had all been taken by the end of the event. “I’m happy that people at Brown showed interest.”

This year’s turnout was greater than last year’s, according to Da-vis.

Despite the event being what he described as a “one-man show,” Be-lozovsky said he hopes and expects Deaf Awareness Week at Brown to attract more attendees and more campus attention in the future.

“My goal next year is to get more Brown faculty, staff and administra-tion involved. If I get a larger crowd, I will get a bigger room,” Belozovsky said with a smile.

Meet and Greet, the second part of Rhode Island’s Deaf Awareness Week at Brown, will be held at 6 p.m. tonight in Salomon 101. Victor Palen-ny of Russia, author of two books, and Deborah Meranski-Sonnestrahl will present deaf art, a little-known but long-standing art form.

o N G L o B A L F I N A N C e

Brenda Han / HeraldRawi Abdelal of Harvard Business School presented his view of the history of global fi-nance at the Watson Institute yesterday.

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PAGe 6 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD THURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007

please. This was a way to give mo-torcyclists a place to park without having them be too disruptive,” Wood said, calling the new parking law a success.

East Side residents, as a whole, are also pleased with the new regu-lation.

“The motorcycle situation has got-ten increasingly out of hand because there are so many motorcycles we counted as many as 80 on a sum-mer evening which is too much for such a small area,” said Susan Hardy, who is a member of the Col-lege Hill Neighborhood Association. “The signs are fabulous,” she said, adding that the regulations “are a really good thing.”

Wood said Thayer Street business owners were an important lobby for the passage of the law and are happy with the results.

Employees at Spike’s Junkyard Dogs and Andreas Restaurant said that the number of motorcycles on the street has decreased since the summer and that there is less noise at night.

“It’s been a positive change,” said Jen Chaves who works at Tealuxe. “It has certainly made things quieter.”

Still, not all business owners are pleased with the law.

“I think it is ludicrous that there is a law at all,” said Anne Dusseault, co-owner of Pie in the Sky on Thayer. Dusseault did say that most motor-

cycles come to Thayer after her store closes, but she still feels that motorcy-clists “should be able to park where they want.”

A PPD officer who was ticketing an illegally-parked motorcycle near the corner of Thayer and Cushing streets, said the law seems to reduce the number of motorcycles parked on Thayer. The officer requested ano-nymity because his statements were not approved by a PPD official.

“Some people are angry … es-pecially in the beginning, but I give tickets when I see them,” the officer said. “I am not targeting anyone, just following the law.”

Motorcyclists interviewed by The Herald called the law unfair and dis-criminatory.

“The motorcycles are not both-ering anyone,” said a biker parked outside CVS. “It is purposely dis-criminating against the motorcycles, which have no place to go anymore on Thayer.”

He also said that the law has hurt businesses other than restaurants that have outdoor seating.

“You can fit five bikes in the space that one car fits, and that’s five times the business.”

Some motorcyclists also said that bikers have occasional confrontations with PPD officers over the law’s en-forcement.

“There are cops everywhere, but we don’t really understand what the rules are,” said biker Chez Davies.

continued from page 3

first European mission to Mars, launched in 2003.

The European Space Agency’s expedition — the Mars Express Mission — used camera technolo-gy developed by the German Aero-space Center that allows viewers to see Mars in three dimensions. Professor of Geological Sciences Peter Schultz, who also serves as director of the exhibits’ two spon-soring organizations, explained the camera’s technology.

“(The camera is) scanning as it goes around — it’s taking images looking in front, looking below and looking behind. This is done on a continuous mode. The net effect of what you see in the exhibit is that you’re combining all these things together into a 3D image,” Schultz said.

The museum provides visitors with plastic IMAX-style glasses at the exhibit. Viewing pictures of Mars may be old news by now, but seeing the topography of Mars is not.

Professor of Geological Sci-ences James Head, who helped engineer the Mars Express Mis-sion, attended the pre-opening of the exhibit. “For the professional (scientist), you can’t stop looking at it because it’s so well presented. It’s sort of like looking under a mi-croscope or just being there,” Head said. “At the same time, there was a group of waist-high kids and they were just fantastic — they were running around crashing into it because (the pictures were) 3D.”

Gamba says the sheer won-derment of exploring Mars — in

a museum — is enough to satisfy most visitors. Others pore over the catalogue and written explanations of the Mars Express probe’s work. Of the 1,000 who have seen the exhibit so far, many have been el-ementary school-aged students in school groups.

Hands-on children’s activities are set up in lobby, and Brown graduate student docents come in on Saturdays to lead school groups through the exhibit.

Though not as visually arresting as the 3D photographs or colorful as the children’s activities, one of the exhibit’s more popular features is a set of displays called “Where on Earth is Mars?” The glass cases contain minerals and substances common to both Earth and Mars, opening visitors’ eyes to the geo-logical side of space study.

Head, whose GEOL 0050: “Mars, Moon and the Earth” class will make a field trip to the show in early October, is excited about how “A New Perspective on Mars” can educate the public about the anatomy of other planets.

“If you step back historically for forty years or so, pre-Sputnik, planets were astronomical objects. The advent of the space age has given us the ability to transform astronomical objects to geological objects,” he said.

This transformation makes space study more accessible to the public, and also broadens the scope of geological studies in an academic or research setting. Schultz, who was a member of the renowned 2005 Deep Impact space mission, which studied the comet 9P/Tempel, recounted his own ex-

perience with the geology of the comet. “When you see the comet in space, that’s different from seeing the comet close up. When we got to see the surface, we got to see a body to look at.”

Given the camera’s unique technology, which can take pho-tos in three dimensions, color and high resolution, why are the pho-tographs appearing for only the second time — and in the middle of Roger Williams Park?

Schultz, who strongly believes in promoting the sciences in Rhode Island, wants to garner as much local interest as possible before moving the exhibit around North America.

“The first priority is to let the Rhode Island community look at this,” Schultz said.

Though he said he could have easily taken the exhibition to the Boston Museum of Science, Schultz wanted it to be accessible in his own state.

“(Rhode Island was) established by both explorers and settlers. We have this history of exploration. When I grew up I enjoyed those small museums. You have chances to discover things yourself,” he said.

The photos may not be garner-ing national attention, but students still have until Nov. 12 to take a short RIPTA ride on the Route 20 bus and view this arresting per-spective of Mars.

From any perspective, Gamba said, the exhibition is striking. “Beyond just the science, the im-agery is so massive,” Gamba said. “I underestimated what the exhibit would look like in its final state.”

Residents content, but bikers bitter about new limited parking law

3D Mars photo exhibit a marvelcontinued from page 1

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21 UCS hopefuls vie for 8 at-large positionsBy fRanklin kaninsenior staff Writer

At its first general body meeting of the semester last night, the Un-dergraduate Council of Students elected eight at-large representa-tives, five executive board mem-bers and a representative to the Undergraduate Finance Board.

During the four-and-a-half-hour meeting, the 21 candidates run-ning for the open at-large repre-sentative positions each pled their case to the voting UCS members before elections were held. The eight students elected to the at-large positions were Stefan Smith ’09, Ellen DaSilva ’10, Herald Staff Writer Meha Verghese ’10, Steven Marks ’09, Melea Atkins ’10, Clay Wertheimer ’10, Martin Bell ’10 and Tan Van Nguyen ’10.

After the at-large elections, elec-tions were held for the five open positions on the executive board. Any voting member of the council — including the newly elected at-large representatives — was eligi-ble to run for the vacant slots. Alex Wilpon ’10 was elected secretary, Martin Bell ’10 is the new Corpora-tion liaison, Erik Duhaime ’10 won the appointments chair race, Gabe Kussin ’09 became communica-tions chair and Michael Miller ‘10 was voted alumni liaison.

The final — and most contro-versial — election of the night was for council’s representative to the UFB, which was won by Stefan Smith ’09.

Smith joined the race after Bell implored a UCS member with “in-stitutional memory” to enter the race, which had included only first-year students before that point. Some council members expressed misgivings about Smith’s late de-cision to run and stuggested that he did not want the position but felt compelled to run. Adding to the confusion, some votes were found after the official count and announcement that Smith had won the election. After examining the votes and confirming that they did not affect the results, the council’s executive board determined that Smith was legitimately voted UCS representative to UFB.

In other business, Student Ac-tivities Chair Drew Madden ’10 pre-sented the student groups applying for a change in recognition status. Three student groups — U.S. Cam-paign for Burma, the Brown Con-temporary and Students for Barack Obama — were approved for Cat-egory I status. The Impulse Dance Company was granted Category II status, and the Triple Helix was ap-proved for category III status.

Three students — Jake Hei-mark ’10, Whit Schroder ’09 and Ben Struhl ’09 — ran failed bids for at-large positions on a platform of drastically reforming student government at Brown. Struhl and Schroder were associated with the controversial UCS presidential campaign of Eric Mukherjee ’09 last spring. Mukherjee told The Herald days before the election that friends had drafted him into the race advocating the council’s abolition, and he said he was ini-tially unaware that he was running. Mukherjee was disqualified by the UCS elections board for failing to attend a mandatory information session and candidates’ meeting.

Morriss, off-campus parties get bustedThe following summary includes

all major incidents reported to the Department of Public Safety between Aug. 31 and Sept. 6. It does not in-clude general service and alarm calls. The Providence Police Department also responds to incidents occurring of f campus. DPS does not divulge information on open cases that are currently under investigation by the department, the PPD or the Office of Student Life. DPS maintains a daily log of all shift activity and general ser-vice calls which can be viewed during business hours at its headquarters, located at 75 Charlesfield St.

friday, aug. 31:11:25 a.m. Complainant reported

that as his son was moving into a dorm room, they signed out a hand truck from the Office of Residential Life. Around 11:00 a.m., the hand truck was left unattended at Way-land Arch. At approximately 11:10 a.m., they returned to Wayland Arch and discovered the hand truck was missing. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time.

Saturday, Sept. 1:12:55 p.m. Complainant reported

that sometime between 9 p.m. on Aug. 29 and 10:30 a.m on Aug. 30, unknown person(s) took the em-blem off the front grill of his rental car parked in Lot 64.

Sunday, Sept. 2: 9:47 p.m. Officers responded to

a complaint of underage drinking in Morriss Hall. All students were asked for their Brown ID’s and complied by presenting their ID’s. Three con-sumed bottles of vodka were present. Two students admitted to asking two subjects who were of legal age out-side a liquor store to purchase them alcoholic beverages. The Residential Peer Leader on the hall arrived on the scene and was informed of the situ-ation. The administrator on call was also notified. All students involved were dispersed.

monday, Sept. 3:12:18 p.m. Complainant reported

that on May 7 he locked his bike in the basement of Young Orchard 10. When he returned on Sept. 3, his bike was missing. Facilities Management stated that they didn’t take any bikes from the building.

Complainant reported that he left his room in Vartan Gregorian Quad-rangle A at 12:30 a.m. to go across the hall. When he returned 10 minutes later he noticed his laptop and iPod were missing. The door had been left unlocked. There are no suspects or witnesses at this time.

11:48 p.m. A DPS officer respond-ed to an off-campus residence on Ives Street at the request of Providence Police for a house party. The resi-dents, Brown students, were cited by the Providence Police.

11:58 p.m. A DPS officer was dis-patched to an off-campus residence on Brown Street for a noise com-plaint. Providence Police were on scene upon arrival. The residents, Brown students, were cited by the Providence Police.

tuesday, Sept. 4:12:18 a.m. DPS officers were

dispatched for a possible party at an off-campus residence on Benevo-lent Street. Upon arrival the officers observed over 100 people inside and outside the residence. All were dis-persed. Providence Police officers ar-rived on the scene and the residents, who were Brown students, were cited by the Providence Police.

2:36 a.m. Complainant reported that she left her room in Poland House at 12:30 a.m. and went across the hall to a friend’s room. When she returned to her room at 2:30 a.m. she found two laptops missing from

her desk, one belonging to her and the other to a friend. The door to the room was not closed or locked. Neither computer was registered with Operation ID, nor are there any suspects or witnesses at this time.

11:05 a.m. Two students reported that on Sept. 3 around 8:30 p.m. they had friends over and then left the room in Olney House. When they returned around 10:30 p.m. their laptops were missing. There was damage to the door and the door frame.

Wednesday, Sept. 5: 11:51p.m. An officer was dis-

patched to Jameson House for a re-port of a broken exit sign. A student approached the officer and gave a description of a possible suspect. The area was checked but no one was found fitting the description. Facili-ties Management was notified.

thursday, Sept. 6:8:25 a.m. Complainant reported

that between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. unknown person(s) damaged the right front bumper of her van parked in Lot 2.

11:00 a.m. Library personnel re-ported a hole found in a ground level window of the Rockefeller Library. The hole that was discovered ap-peared to be a bullet hole. There is no time frame for when this dam-age was done. Upon investigation, a detective made a sweep of the im-mediate area in an attempt to locate a possible bullet casing; however, none was found. There was no damage to anything in the library and Facilities Management was notified to repair the window.

6:41 p.m. Complainant reported damage to the back window of the driver’s side of his vehicle, parked in Lot 77. It appeared that a rock might have punctured the window, which subsequently cracked.

caMpus newsTHURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD PAGe 7

no turnout at police chief’s open hoursMark Porter, chief of police and director of public safety, held his second session of open hours this semester last night at the Third World Center. Porter’s Wednesday evening open hours started on Sept. 12 and will continue throughout the semester, both at the TWC and other locations throughout campus, such as dining halls and at student group meetings.

The Department of Public Safety is trying to take a “more proactive approach” to students’ safety and concerns, Porter said, adding that similar open hours had been held during the second semester of last year. “We want to engage students,” Porter told The Herald. “Like last year, students came to ask about specific policies.” No students — only a Herald reporter — attended this week’s open hours at the TWC, but “last week (there were) a couple of people,” Porter said.

— Kristina Kelleher

n e W s i n b r i e f

www.browndailyherald.com

cRimE Log

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preservation.”The plan also states that the

city’s development strategy should “require institutions to use their land more efficiently and expand on their existing campus footprint, while ensuring compatibility with the surrounding neighborhood.”

Spies said he feels the City Plan Commission’s approved draft reflects willingness on the city’s part to work with Brown and other educational institutions in Provi-dence.

“All in all I think the plan is a pretty balanced and pretty good proposal,” Spies said. “Providence Tomorrow” — the city initiative to update the city’s decade-old com-prehensive plan — was initiated in 2006 after an unsuccessful attempt by Mayor David Cicilline ’83 to over-haul the zoning code without first updating the comprehensive plan.

State law requires each city in Rhode Island to submit a compre-hensive plan. The last comprehen-sive plan was adopted by the City Council in 1994 but not ratified by the state until 2002. In May, with the old plan set to expire, the city reap-proved the old plan to create more time for the process of creating an updated version to proceed.

The City Plan Commission ap-proved an interim draft of the plan in August, and the City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing to solicit input on the document on Oct. 1. But many steps remain before the plan will become final-ized.

The comprehensive plan will still undergo a two-year long neighbor-hood charrette process in which city residents will meet with Providence planners to discuss how the plans will affect their neighborhoods. How the plan will actually affect the city’s development will depend on how city officials interpret the plan when they start to amend the city’s zoning ordinances — the laws that govern how property in the city can be used.

Ward 1 City Councilman Seth Yurdin, whose ward includes most of Brown’s campus, said he dis-agreed with the sentiment that resi-dents wouldn’t have any impact on the city’s plans. “The idea is not to even talk about specific neighbor-hoods but to talk about general plan-ning concepts and processes for the city,” Yurdin said. “The proposed land-use map does not contain any changes other than a specific area along the waterfront on Allens Av-enue. In some ways it is not really disturbing the status quo.”

Spies said the University had multiple opportunities to weigh in on the plan, both through formal hearings and open discussions as well as a section on the city’s Web site where residents and organiza-tions could comment on the interim plan.

“The overwhelming weight of the whole plan is constructive, and balanced,” he said. “Obviously one of the city’s needs is to grow the tax base, but there is an acknowledge-ment in the plan that institutional growth can be a catalyst for growth in other parts of the economy and

the community,” Spies said. But William Touret, president

of the College Hill Neighborhood Association, said the plan was a “lost opportunity.” Touret, who said he was speaking only for himself be-cause the association has yet to fully consider the plan, is concerned that the city did not fully take into ac-count the suggestions and concerns neighborhoods made during the city’s initial charrette process that began in 2006.

“I think they are backing off the emphasis that they said they were going to give to the neighborhoods,” he said. “None of the major issues on which we disagree with the insti-tutions are directly addressed here. I think that the fact that you don’t see any major changes in this plan works to the benefit of institutions such as Brown,” he said.

Touret also expressed frustra-tion with what he said was the plan’s excessive emphasis on fostering commercial development in the city at the expense of open and public space, especially along the city’s waterfront.

But not everyone feels that way. Ward 2 Councilman Cliff Wood, whose district includes the College Hill and Wayland Square neighbor-hoods, said the drafts “really update the old plan from ’94.” He cited re-visions focusing on environmental sustainability, mass transportation and arts and culture.

“Providence is an entirely differ-ent place than in 1994, and I think this plan takes that into account,” he said. “I don’t think there is a fight to be had over this.”

City plan won’t get in the way of U.

standards because of “excessive deterioration” is then deemed structurally deficient.

“That by no means means the bridge is unsafe,” Farhoumand said. “But you have to keep an eye on it.” When engineers make their rounds, they review previous problems with a bridge and then ask themselves, “Did it get a lot worse or did it get a little worse?” before making decisions about repairing the bridge, he said.

Similarly, functionally obsolete bridges aren’t necessarily unsafe. “People see functionally obsolete and they think you have to knock the bridge down,” Farhoumand said. Some of the bridges that pass over Route 95 in the Providence area are only 14 feet above the highway, though federal inspec-tion codes mandate a 15-foot clear-ance. But driving under the bridge is safe.

“In a perfect world (the 15-foot clearance is) what you want to

have, but unfortunately we don’t have a perfect world,” Farhou-mand said.

He compared obsolete bridges to less-prized apartments. “Every-one desires to have a two bedroom apartment, but one bedroom may work for most people.”

The Senate’s measure is part of an amendment to a transporta-tion, housing and urban devel-opment appropriations spending bill. The bill must be approved and then reconciled with similar legislation from the U.S. House of Representatives before being signed into law.

“We have hundreds of bridges across Rhode Island and we need to make sure they are structur-ally safe and in good condition,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a mem-ber of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a press re-lease. “The funding in this bill will help state and local governments maintain our bridges, build roads, reduce congestion and improve air quality.”

continued from page 3

continued from page 3

RI bridges get $15 million for repairs

arts & culturein tomorrow’s herald

Page 9: Thursday, September 20, 2007

Acoustical renovations in the Sharpe Refectory designed to al-leviate last year’s complaints of am-plified noise problems — which arose after renovations to the build-ing the year before — are now in place, and final testing is slated for completion by october.

“There’s a definitely perceived improvement that I’ve noticed as well as the staff has noticed,” said William Gaudet, project manager for Facilities Management, explain-ing that the material covering the ceiling was replaced with Sono-crete. He declined to comment on the cost of the project.

Some students told The Herald they still prefer to grab seats in one of the Ratty’s two “caves,” adding that it is still difficult to hear above the din of cafeteria sound in the main hall.

“I think it’s been generally not an improvement because when I’m eating in the Ratty, you can always hear all the clinking of the forks and spoons and knives,” said Lisa Gomi ’10. “For convenience, those (caves) are usually taken pretty quickly.”

In 2006, Facilities Management placed microphones inside the build-ing to assess the noise problem. Gaudet said a test of the renovation’s effectiveness should take place this month or next.

The installation of a new sprinkler system and redesign of the Ratty’s lighting during the summer of 2006 necessitated the removal of the din-ing hall’s old ceiling tiles. However, students and staff said they noticed a cacophonous increase in noise inside the building when they arrived on campus that fall.

Gaudet told The Herald in November 2006 that the lighting redesign director had wanted to turn the project “into her canvas.” She “was ada-mant about having a hard, rigid smooth surface,” he said at the time.

Facilities Management originally scheduled the acoustical revamp to take place during winter break of last year, but by November, delays had already set back the project, Gaudet told The Herald in November.

— Eric Johnson

n e W s i n b r i e f

Ratty renovation aims to cut din

Min Wu / Herald

Material in the ceiling of the Sharpe Refec-tory was replaced over the summer in an effort to reduce noise in the dining hall.

New office eases campus room schedulingBy jamal hillContributing Writer

The University has created a way to make scheduling an event on cam-pus much more convenient than in the past. A new scheduling office is responsible for scheduling space for lectures, conferences and special events. Now, students, faculty or staff interested in reserving space can fill out a standardized form.

“It’s made a big difference. Things are getting done ahead of time,” said Laura Assara, scheduling coordinator in the Office of summer and continu-

ing studies.Students, faculty and staff can

request rooms on campus from the scheduling office’s Web site. Users need to choose from a list of events, ranging from a banquet or a film ses-sion to a protest or rally. Users can also request to hold a function on University green space.

The form also asks for the sponsor-ing organization — with an extensive list of organizations on campus — the expected number in attendance and the user’s preference for space if any.

“The Web site is very minimal, but

we’re tweaking it with suggestions. There are still some glitches, but we’re getting there,” Assara said. Many stu-dent groups, such as heritage groups, a capella groups, belly-dancing groups, the Brown Debate Union, Triple Helix and the Brown Brunettes have already utilized the new scheduling system, according to Assara.

Graham Browne ’08, a member of the Jabberwocks, said, “The new office has been beneficial.” But he also alluded to glitches that have oc-curred between the Jabberwocks and other groups over conflicting space and meeting times.

U.’s construction projects captured on the WebBy joanne WangContributing Writer

The Department of Facilities Man-agement, which is overseeing a number of construction projects across campus, has begun to post online videos and slide shows of the construction sites. The department has received positive feedback on the documentation of campus construc-tion, officials say.

This summer, Peter Green House, which housed part of the history department, was moved from its old location at 142 Angell Street to the corner of Brown and Angell streets. Facilities Manage-ment documented the move by post-ing both pictures and a video of the relocation on its Web site.

“The reason we put this informa-tion online is because we feel it is informative and interesting, and (we feel) the Brown community would be interested in seeing this work,” wrote Vice President for Facilities Management Stephen Maiorisi in an e-mail to The Herald.

Similarly, a slide show of pictures detailing the summer construction behind the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center was posted on the Depart-ment of Athletics’ Web site. “We put those (pictures) up over the sum-mer so that students could follow it, the parents could follow it and the donors could follow it,” said Assis-tant Athletic Director of Marketing Richard Merriam.

These are not the first campus construction projects to be filmed.

Facilities Management also had a Web cam capturing the construction of the Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sci-ences, which opened in 2006.

“That was the first time, to my knowledge, that Facilities Manage-ment used this technology,” Maiorisi wrote.

According to Merriam, the pace of future construction projects — such as the new swim center, tennis courts and the Jonathan Nelson Fit-ness Center — will also be captured online with slide shows. Though a decision has yet to be made, Facili-ties Management may also install Web cams near these construction projects in order to keep Brown students, parents and donors in-formed about campus construction progress.

caMpus newsTUeSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD PAGe 9

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spent last semester studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic, was tech-nically considered a second semester junior and lost the preference given to seniors during registration.

“It was an alternate program, so the transcript hasn’t arrived yet,” Morgenstern said. “I needed four overrides this semester.”

Morgenstern said he is having particular difficulty resolving a time conflict between two of his classes. Professors don’t have the authority to override those conflicts, so Morgen-stern has had to go higher up.

“I’m in two classes that overlap by 20 minutes,” Morgenstern said. “The teacher said it was okay, the registrar said it was okay, but Banner is still angry at me.”

Kaitlin Love ’08, who recently re-turned from studying in Egypt, said she was worried her fate would be similar to Morgenstern’s but that she was pleasantly surprised.

“They wouldn’t let me register at the same time as all the other seniors, so I only pre-registered for one class,” Love said. “Somehow I managed to get into all the classes I wanted.”

Still, Love said she missed the old paper-based system and the sense of community surrounding it.

“I just feel like it’s not fun any-more,” she said. “I liked lining up to hand in my slip with a bunch of people who all hate the registrar. It’s like this big community thing.”

“That’s what makes Brown cool,” Love continued. “We’re weird like that.”

Not everyone has joined Love in pining for the old system. Lisa Mather, associate registrar for registration services, has welcomed Banner and the reduced traffic in University Hall. “We only have 25 undergraduates who are not registered,” Mather told The Herald Tuesday, the last day of shopping period. “Normally we would have hundreds, even thousands of students in our office doing every-thing at the last minute.”

Mather said “registration has gone very well from our perspective” but has created a few unexpected problems, including the time conflicts Morgenstern is facing.

“I don’t think we anticipated how much of an issue time conflicts would be,” Mather said. “But it’s been most-ly questions, not complaints.”

Banner has also driven profes-sors to take more action in manag-ing their course requirements and enrollment.

“I feel like I’m the registrar, in terms of adding the names of 30 cho-rus members and 40 voice students individually,” said Louis Frederick Jodry, senior lecturer in music.

Jodry, who also directs the Brown Chorus and is coordinator of the Ap-plied Music Program for Voice, said his courses in the two programs require auditions and so must be

designated as “written permission required.”

“Each person requires eight steps,” he said. “Eight separate clicks of ‘submit.’ ”

Professor of Cognitive and Lin-guistic Sciences Sheila Blumstein, a former dean of the College and in-terim president, said she sees good features and “not-so-great” features in Banner.

“As a faculty member, it’s easy to know how many students you have and who they are,” she said. “You can keep track of enrollment, and you can also find your advisees easily.”

But, Blumstein said, the pressure of online registration may have af-fected her freshmen advisees’ atti-tudes toward shopping.

“There was some pressure on the students to run back to their room and register right away — it caused a lot of angst,” Blumstein said. “I’m not a big fan of shopping a million courses, but I found my students were set on four courses from the beginning, instead of being interested in seven or eight.”

Blumstein, who said she tries hard to put faces to her class list, suggested having pictures beside the names of students in Banner.

“It would really be nice to have pictures,” she said. “I used to buy the freshman book and try to learn their names that way, rather than just learning the names of the ones who volunteer in class.”

“It’s a change, but we have to go with the flow of it,” Blumstein said. “There are so many changes this year — what with Orientation — we can’t put it all on Banner.”

Dunbar, who leads the Banner project, said she has compiled a list of student and faculty suggestions that she and the Banner project team will try to address this semester.

The list includes rather substantial changes — like distributing more printed information to complement online materials — and smaller ones, such as lengthening the five-minute time-out and adding pictures and se-mester levels to faculty lists of student names.

“It’s slower than many people would like it to be, but nothing on the list is too big a job,” Dunbar said.

Dunbar said there is one more “project milestone” before Banner will be considered fully operational, which is the conversion of 25 years of student records from the old SIS system into Banner.

“It should be complete by the end of this semester,” Dunbar said, adding that once the milestone is reached, Banner will be able to draw upon students’ transcripts to enforce prerequisites, which hadn’t been automatically enforced this reg-istration period. “Right now, it is the all-consuming task of the registrar’s office.”

— With additional reporting by Amanda Bauer

continued from page 1

First Banner shopping period draws to a close

it was only natural that water polo was added to his list. It wasn’t until high school, though, that he got re-ally serious.

“I went to one of the biggest water polo high schools in California,” the San Jose, Calif., native said. “My life was half water polo, half school.”

Gartner said he appreciated the commitment in high school and that he respected the coach but also real-

ized that it’s nice to come to some-where like Brown where he can have a life outside of water polo.

Even with the extra time to re-lax, he is still thoroughly commit-ted to his sport. When asked if he’s considered playing at the national level after college, Gartner said he’s thought about it a lot, but he’s un-sure about it and just wants to focus now on his Brown career.

“I’d love to be a part of Brown winning a championship,” he said.

continued from page 16

Gartner ’09 starts strong

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THURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD PAGe 13

they’ve been in years.New England’s defense held

Tomlinson to only 43 yards on 18 carries and intercepted quarterback Phillip Rivers twice. The Chargers managed only 201 total yards, fall-ing behind 24-0. More importantly, the Patriots offense, even without cheating, was fantastic. In his typi-cal fashion, Tom Brady hit seven different receivers, the last one a completion, under heavy pressure … to five years in the future, to his unborn son. Amazing. Laurence Maroney had no idea what defen-sive scheme his opponents would

be running, but somehow averaged five yards a carry, as did his good friend Sammy Morris.

In Week 1, the Patriots cheated and beat the New York Jets 38-14. In week 2, the Patriots stopped cheat-ing and beat the San Diego Chargers 38-14. I am going to be bold here, and also daring. The Patriots will end the season undefeated, having won all their games 38-14. Bill Belichick will bring the remaining portion of his 2007 salary to the post-Super Bowl festivities, in one-dollar bills.

You get the idea.

Shane Reil ’09: 38. World: 14.

continued from page 16

Reil: Pats will prevail

He reasoned it would be tough to run as a Republican in 2006. Chafee, the only Republican senator to vote against authorizing the war in Iraq in 2003, says he predicted then that as the war dragged on, support for it — and the Republican Party — would erode.

But on the other hand, Chafee knew two important bills — the fed-eral highway bill and the military base realignment and closure bill — were coming up in a year. With Republicans in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, Chafee could deliver money and jobs to the state. Rhode Island would suf-fer if he left the party, and he didn’t want to anger constituents.

“I was in a great position to look out for Rhode Island,” he says. “In the end, Rhode Island did really well in the highway bill ... and Rhode Island gained 500 jobs!” At the last remark, Chafee smiles and punches his fists in the air.

Still, Chafee needed advice about his political future, so he shared his dilemma with his younger brother.

“ ‘You’re screwed,’” Chafee recalls his brother saying, albeit in stronger words.

Though staying Republican likely cost him the Senate seat his father, John Chafee, held for two decades before him, Chafee says he has no regrets about staying in the party.

After the election, Chafee hoped party leaders would view the Demo-cratic landslide as a referendum to adopt a more moderate approach. He finally gave up and, with little fanfare, dropped his affiliation in July to become an independent. He says no one asked him about it until Saturday, when a Providence Journal reporter called him.

Four issues stood between Chafee and the GOP, he says: the environ-ment, foreign relations, economics and personal liberty. But he says he wouldn’t join the Democratic Party today, either, because he believes it lacks strong leadership and blew its chance to stop the 2003 vote that authorized the war in Iraq.

Chafee’s move wasn’t unexpected — few politicians were surprised by his disaffiliation.

“The former senator is person-ally well-liked, well-regarded, and he always will be, but it is no sur-prise that having had a long, difficult struggle as a moderate with the more conservative wing of the party in Washington, he felt estranged from the party,” said Giovanni Cicione, the state Republican chairman, in a statement Monday. “But in light of his family’s long, well-respected history and affiliation with the Rhode

Island Republican Party, this is an unfortunate outcome.”

Ethan Wingfield ’07, the chairman of the College Republican Federation of Rhode Island last year and the former executive director of Students for Chafee, also said it was “unfortu-nate” that Chafee had left the party, though he understood why.

“Over the last few years, the GOP has begun to stray from its conserva-tive principles of fiscal responsibil-ity, moral leadership and reducing the role that government plays in the lives of Americans,” Wingfield wrote in an e-mail to The Herald. “Americans are generally conserva-tive people, and to regain its appeal to Senator Chafee and the millions of other Americans, the party needs to get back to its roots.”

With the Senate and the Repub-lican party now behind him, Chafee says he is enjoying his private life. Working at the Watson Institute, he is publishing articles and writing a book about his time in the Senate, which he hopes to publish as early as next spring. The time he used to spend at ceremonies and dedications as mayor of Warwick and senator he now shares with his family.

Chafee’s fellowship at Brown ends after this semester, and he’d like the University to ask him to return for another term, as they did after the spring semester.

Chafee’s name has also been tossed around as a possible candidate for a 2010 election, in the gubernato-rial race or the mayoral race in Provi-dence, where he recently moved. But Chafee, who says he loved being mayor of Warwick, declines to say whether he’s even considering run-ning for those positions.

“It’s years away,” he says. “I have the luxury of enjoying my time away from politics.”

Professor of Political Science Darrell West says that if Chafee did decide to run, he’d be a popular candidate.

“People like him very much and respect him, so if he wants to run, I think he would have a future,” West says. He adds that if Chafee runs as an independent, “a three-way race would be advantageous for him be-cause people think he did a generally good job, (but) got blamed for Bush’s shortcomings.”

Current Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian, a liberal Republican who worked closely with Chafee when Avedisian was a city councilman and Chafee was mayor, says he believes Chafee would make an excellent candidate in the near future.

“He has a lot of offer to the state,” Avedisian says. “I think it would be shame to not take advantage of his great ability.”

continued from page 3

Chafee on life after GOP

Page 14: Thursday, September 20, 2007

eDiTorial & leTTersPAGe 14 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD THURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007

s t a f f e d i t o r i a l

F R A N C E S C H O I

A banner implementationIt’s been over six months since Brown Against Banner — the Facebook group that quickly gained over 750 members and represented the first flood of student criticism of the new online registration system — was created, and we can now all breathe a sigh of relief.

Like the turn of the 21st century, Brown’s move to Banner was a tale of doom-sayers predicting technological collapse. And like the skeptics of nearly a decade ago, shopping period has come and gone — like Y2K — mostly snag-free, mostly peacefully.

When the clock struck 5 p.m. on Tuesday and the first online registration period in Brown’s history drew to a close, University Hall was still standing. Brown was still here and the New Cur-riculum was still around, though PS11 wasn’t — oh wait. It’s now called POLS 0110.

To be sure, Banner isn’t perfect. The user interface is unfath-omably frustrating. Confusion among students and professors is rampant. Faculty training may have been insufficient, and we’re still not sure what exactly our Banner numbers are.

The many convoluted snags — including five minute time-outs or the necessary demands on professors for lengthy override processes — are certainly annoying and seemingly avoidable. It’s unclear whether some students — especially freshmen — were unfairly shut out of capped courses, and how these caps will be determined in the future is uncertain.

But let’s face it. In 2007, it’s about time Brown has online registration. As then-Provost Robert Zimmer said two years ago, “It is not appropriate that an institution like Brown doesn’t have online registration in 2005.” When you can apply to college, buy stock, pay your cell phone bill, get a date and become an ordained minister with the click of a button, registering for classes shouldn’t require pen, paper and lots of stairs in University Hall.

The Banner project was undeniably flawed. It was marred by rigidity, unnecessary nitpicking and those in charge of its implementation hardly listened to students’ voices. We often scratched our heads at the contradictory statements emanating from University Hall. It’s puzzling that $23 million was spent on a program that seems more out-of-the-box than Microsoft Office 1997. That the Banner search function is hardly usable — and almost universally replaced by the student-sponsored Mocha — is embarrassing for a project of this scope.

Despite significant concern among anti-Banner conspiracy theorists that Banner might be the death knell for the New Curriculum, it seems as though shopping period has remained mostly intact, even if the ones and zeros of override codes have replaced professors’ ink on add/drop forms. Brown has forever replaced an antiquated system of carbon copy forms, whose old-world charm was certainly out-weighed by its inefficiency.

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As disappointing as it may seem to Brunonian idealists exasperated by unre-lenting intellectual discourse concerning race, I must be blunt in affirming that the concept-turned-reality is at the crux of societal relations — and that I will have little shame in discussing it.

How can one not be fascinated by the evolution of race — the aberration that now authenticates identity in our enigmatic social structure? Once a simple category, it has become a way of life, a conversation starter, a profiler, a superficial explanation of one’s apparent culture, a prognosis for one’s eco-nomic status and even health history.

Race is manifested in all realms of exis-tence. We can all share a story about how we have been defined by race. However, its development into a biological determinant is an especially pertinent issue. Yes, my friends, race has become increasingly present in medi-cine in the form of “ethnic diseases.”

It is this perverse commingling of social and biological traits that explains why blacks are deemed the natural target of sickle-cell anemia, or why Southeast Asians are more susceptible to hemoglobin E syndrome and Northern Europeans vulnerable to thalas-semias. All affected by blood disorders of some sort, these groups are strikingly differ-ent due to two types of environment: physical (that is, the resources that are available in areas that they reside) and social (that is, the socioeconomic level at which they exist).

In other words, such disorders are not inherently biological, having been recognized since the beginning of humanity — these disorders have become biological due to so-cial environment — situations in which such ethnicities must adapt.

The problem here lies in the fact that race has been reified. It is no longer a concept. It is existence. The introduction of the “ethnic disease” demonstrates the extent to which bunk about race as biological is growing to

embody science, the most research-oriented facet of society.

It hurts me to see that scientists, consid-erably the most sound-minded observers and researchers in academia, have become vulnerable to discourse asserting that race is biological. Shame. Historically, the construc-tion of race has existed as an intricate system that perpetuates cultural misinterpretations, dichotomizes identities, marginalizes popu-lations and reassembles social strata. It is

the expansion of this infection — an inevi-table product of social self-affliction — that confirms its everlasting presence within the psyche after having been culturally embed-ded. Now the infection has spread to science. How archaic.

Racism asserts a white-versus-black binary that came to fruition during European settle-ment in America. This binary fulfilled the need for a stable social hierarchy in which Europeans, Indians and Africans could coex-

ist in the Americas and facilitated European economic endeavors. Now it exists as the basis for social stratification, implying one’s socioeconomic status, behavior, belief system and, more recently, likelihood of disease.

Blacks in mainly urban areas remain the underprivileged class forced to live within a framework that has been placed upon them. Low-income black communities lack the re-sources necessary to sustain adequate health. Corner stores selling artificial snacks dripping

with carbohydrates, cigarettes and alcohol are what the community is exposed to — and therefore must cope with. While genetic fac-tors may stem from an inescapable social cycle blending race and class, genetics are not the cause. Subjugated to certain standards, ethnic-ities like African-Americans begin internalize their environments — mentally, emotionally and physically. The community evolves and develops certain phenotypical characteristics as a result of their environments. If resources are scarce or too expensive for a low-income community, the community is expected to deal with what is presented. If it is in the form of cheap and unhealthy fast food restaurants and corner stores, it is valid to assume that maladies such as hypertension shall become prevalent. Is this an ethnic disease? No. Not at all. If any “race” were placed in this position, the effects of socioeconomic implications would be the same.

It is not difficult to acknowledge the exis-tence of race as a conceptual force that implies socioeconomic standards. If this is not done, scientists are given freedom to mislabel any effects of societal issues as the result of ge-netic factors or ambiguous environmental factors. Adopting race as the basis of empirical inquiry disturbs the objectivity of science. It poses recreating science, in itself. In fail-ing to pinpoint political and social effects on “ethnic” health issues, race in science does not address agency — rather, it asserts that somehow health implications among “races” stem from “human genetic diversity.” I would prefer to label it “sociopolitical oppression geneticized.”

Renata Sago ’10 has a clean bill of health.

Technology is constantly altering our way of life, but occasionally it breaks into pristine new pastures and undermines the natural rules. In the past century, this happened in transportation and communication, and I think we’re beginning to see similar sea changes in human reproduction.

For illustrative purposes, let’s take a look at Ghenghis Khan, who is often cited as his-tory’s most successful progenitor. A 2003 study in “The American Journal of Human Genetics” suggested that about 8 percent of men in the region stretching from China to Uzbekistan are patrilineally descended from Ghengis himself. That represents 0.5 percent of the world’s male population. The scale of Ghenghis’s fecundity is something of a historical singularity. His line’s success was aided by the fact that his descendants enjoyed enormous power and prestige in the centuries after his death. Also, he often slaughtered conquered populations, which helped his kids’ chances.

But old Ghenghis had only the technology of a roving Mongol horde. For the contem-porary man, it may be possible get within sniffing distance of Ghenghis’s achievement without any pillaging or coercion — just a lot of money. I’ve run some numbers: Using a little elbow grease (but no actual sex), it would cost around $35 million to father 1,000 children — and place them all in adoptive homes.

Here’s my logic. For roughly $15,000, it is possible to obtain an egg from an American egg-donation clinic. And, according to a 2006 article in the Asia Times, many women in India accept $2,500 to $5,000 to act as sur-rogate mothers for infertile couples around the world. This fee includes agency costs, embryo implantation, and delivery. (India has already established itself as an attractive place to conduct this sort of business because the

hospitals are good and the costs are low. In America, by contrast, a complete surrogacy process would cost closer to $50,000.)

Let’s review. It costs $15,000 for an egg and $5,000 to implant an embryo in a surro-gate womb in India. That’s $20,000 for each baby, which gives us a cost of $20 million to produce 1,000 offspring. However, most of these surrogacy agencies have some moral fiber and would not willingly abet the perverse

scheme of a madman trying to become the next Ghenghis Khan. They say that they only accept business from couples who require womb rental for medical reasons. So, we’ll add another $5 million for palm-greasing and another $10 million for the administrative and travel costs associated with ensuring that each baby ends up in a caring adoptive home. These figures are arbitrary, but probably too generous. That’s it. It would cost a paltry

$35 million to become the father of 1,000 people — using conservative estimates. A lot of people can afford that. Those willing to pay more could even conceive all those children with eggs featuring height, athleticism and a 1400 SAT.

Of course, it might not work. Numerous government agencies would probably block the scheme if they caught on quickly. But I believe it lies somewhere in the realm of

possibility. This exercise is intended to demonstrate

the extent to which things have already changed. As time goes on, it will only get easier for individuals to perform fantastically weird feats of reproduction, aided by tech-nology and the global economy. In a July 23 New York Times column, Nicholas Kristof highlighted the possibility of using womb-outsourcing in concert with a technique called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD. This means performing genetic tests on embryos before implanting them. Today, this expensive procedure is often used as an alternative to prenatal testing, because it precludes abortions in situations involving genetic disorders, such as Down syndrome. It also allows people to choose their baby’s sex, and as our understanding of the genome balloons, parents will inevitably try to use PGD for more eugenic purposes, a la Gat-taca. People of means could use it to ensure that their kids are smart and good-looking. Although first-world governments will likely outlaw such practices, what’s going to stop wealthy parents from seeking reproductive services in the Caymans?

Until now, reproduction has been consid-ered a quasi-spiritual activity. People view it as a sort of “black box” — a semi-miraculous natural process that doesn’t lend itself to med-dling or rational manipulation. Everything like that eventually ends. When we bring reproduction, and the genetic makeup of our offspring, under scientific control, the course of humanity could veer wildly.

Matt Prewitt ’08 would never do this.

opinionsTHURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD PAGe 15

By ReNATA SAGoopinions Columnist

A hypothetical investigation of weird possibilities in reproduction

Scientists: The new racial profilers

Using a little elbow grease (but no

actual sex), it would cost around $35

million to father 1,000 children.

The introduction of the “ethnic disease” demonstrates the extent to

which bunk about race as biological is growing to embody science, the most

research-oriented facet of society.

By MATT PReWITTopinions Columnist

Page 16: Thursday, September 20, 2007

By andReW BRacasports staff Writer

The field hockey team picked an opportune time to score its first first-half goal of the season on Wednes-day, with the tally tying the Univer-sity of Rhode Island at 1-1, but that goal was the lone bright spot for Brown. The Rams eventually pulled away and won 4-1 on the strength of Jill Powers’ hat trick.

The loss on Warner Roof dropped Brown’s record to 0-6 heading into a key showdown at Harvard on Satur-day, but co-captain Ani Kazarian ’08 remained positive.

“I think that, overall, we played well,” Kazarian said. “We have a lot of things to work on, which is fine. We’re still in the beginning of our season. We’re still taking those im-provements and trying to implement them in our games. Hopefully we’ll be ready for Harvard.”

URI came out strong and scored an early goal. Powers scored her first goal at 8:20 when she pounced on a rebound after a penalty corner and put the ball in the back of the cage.

Then Brown struck back to tie the game. Entering the game, the Bears had been outscored 9-0 in first half play overall this season, but Brown created two quick pen-alty corners. On the second one, Victoria Sacco ’09 was able to slip

the ball past Rams goaltender M.J. Britt at 12:07 for her first goal of the season.

“Whitney Knowlton (’10) took a shot at the top of the circle, (but) the goalie saved it,” Sacco said. “She pushed it out, and I happened to just be in the right place at the right time to squeeze it in the goal.”

For the Bears, the goal demon-strated great progress, fulfilling one of their goals for the game.

“It definitely got us right back in the game,” Sacco said. “We were able to pick it up and tie the game up. It was definitely a step forward.”

That was as good as it got for Brown. URI scored again 13:09 later, when goalie Kristen Hodavance ’08 laid out to stop a shot, allowing Jean-nie Records to secure the rebound and fire a shot over her legs. The Rams did not waste their 10-3 shot advantage in the first half, taking a 2-1 lead into halftime.

URI’s defense stiffened in the second half, leaving Brown few chances at the outset of the second half. Powers struck again at 47:27 when she tipped in a shot by Records to give the Rams a 3-1 lead.

The Bears fought back and mounted strong offensive pressure from the 57th minute up until URI called a timeout with 9:34 left, but were not able to score. Powers iced the game with 2:43 left when she came down the right side of the field

and beat Hodavance, who finished with 8 saves, with a shot to the far corner of the cage.

Kazarian said one positive ele-ment of the game was that Brown took advantage of its depth. She not-ed that sophomores Abby Hein ’10 and Nora Malgieri ’10 both started at forward.

“A lot of dif ferent people (played),” she said. “It’s nice that we have depth on our team so that we can push a lot of people up and (have them) play a lot of different

positions.”Now the Bears must focus on

Harvard, whom they face on Satur-day in Cambridge. The Bears have suffered one loss to an Ivy League opponent, to Dartmouth two weeks ago. “Right now, all our focus is on the Harvard game,” Sacco said. “It’s our second Ivy League game. We re-ally want to turn the season around. We can still win the league. We can still make this happen. We’re putting all of our focus and all of our energy on the Harvard game.”

sporTs ThursDayPAGe 16 THe BRoWN DAILy HeRALD THURSDAy, SePTeMBeR 20, 2007

Cheaters never win, unless they’re the PatsNew England Patriots coach Bill Belichick was hit with a $500,000

fine late last week for videotaping the New York Jets’ defensive signals in their season opener. The team was also fined an a d d i t i o n a l $250,000 and

will lose its first round draft pick next year if (or better, when) they make the playoffs.

Unreil.As a Patriots fan I am shocked

and terrified. I did some serious soul-searching when I heard the news, trying to piece together what this would mean for my cherished Pats. My conclusions were pretty dire.

First I came to the horrible real-ization that Bill Belichick will have slightly less money. Just as I imag-ined it, a downtrodden Belichick arrived at Sunday’s game against the San Diego Chargers in a ratty old sweatshirt and a dirty pair of warm-up pants. Clearly distracted, Belichick was unable to even smile in the third quarter after wide re-ceiver Randy Moss scored his sec-ond touchdown of the game, giving the Pats a meager 31-7 lead. With all of his financial hardships weigh-ing heavy on his mind, Belichick figures to be half the coach he has been in the past.

Next, I thought of the $250,000 the team would be losing. Commis-sioner Roger Goodell may have gone a bit too far here. Tedy Br-uschi, Randall Gay, Mike Vrabel and many other key players are

entering free agency in 2008. This massive fine will clearly affect the Patriots tradition of rewarding im-portant, veteran players with lucra-tive contracts. How are the Patriots supposed to compete when they cannot hold onto their players?

Lastly, New England will forfeit one of their two first-round draft choices (the second they received from San Francisco in a draft day deal) if they reach the playoffs. New England needs all the help it can get in this department, as the Pats are notoriously bad draft-ers. With only one first-round draft pick in 2008, the future of the fran-chise is in jeopardy. I mean, a lot of diehard Patriots fans may point to Tom Brady (sixth round), Deion Branch (second round), Asante Samuel (fourth round) and Randall Gay (undrafted free agent) and say this isn’t a huge deal. Those people are wrong.

All this brings us to Sunday. The Patriots hit the field to take on AFC rival San Diego and, unable to cheat, figure to be stomped. I’m freaking out of course, because this very game could signal the end of a great run of football here in New England. San Diego is home to LaDanian Tomlinson, the consensus number-one pick in everyone’s fantasy draft, and the prolific Charger offense. On the other side of the ball, the Pa-triots would be forced to deal with Shawne “Lights Out” Merriman, a fellow cheater and standout linebacker. Imagine my surprise then, when the Patriots, instead of struggling, looked as solid as

Shane ReilAre you For Reil?

Healthy and hungry, Gartner ’09 is off to a quick startBy Whitney claRkContributing Writer

At the end of last fall, Mike Gartner ’09 had won a bevy of postseason awards. He was named an Honor-able Mention All-American and se-lected to the First Team All-North Team by the Collegiate Water Polo Association.

Now, less than a month into the new season, Gartner has already earned another honor. Last Tues-day, the center forward was named CWPA Northern Division Player of the Week.

It’s no surprise. Gartner is off to quick start. After scoring a dozen goals at the Massachusetts Insti-tute of Technology Invitational two weeks ago, he followed that up by scoring six goals in two games last weekend.

But this season’s quick start is a bit of an anomaly for Gartner. At the beginning of last season, he suffered a serious wrist injury that he thought might cost him the season.

“I didn’t know how I was going to handle that. But I tried to stay in shape by biking and rehabbing. I watched the team play and it made me hungry to be in the water,” he said.

But Gartner recovered quickly, and he was back for the Bears’ trip to California at the beginning of Oc-tober. There, he stood out as one of the top players, scoring eight goals in his first two games at the Clare-mont Convergence. By Oct. 19, he had been named CWPA Northern Division Player of the Week.

“I felt so much energy,” he said of his return. “I was like, ‘Wow, I really love this sport.’ It was a period when I realized that water polo wasn’t something I wanted to give up.”

Even with the late start, Gartner finished the season leading the team with a 2.4 goal-per-game average and 48 ejections drawn. He was also fourth on the team with 41 goals and second with a .547 shooting average.

Putting things in perspective seems to be a theme in Gartner’s Brown career. Recent obstacles keep popping up for him and his team — this season, the team is playing with a new head coach and without a home pool. At first, Gartner ques-tioned how the team was going to adjust to the new conditions.

But “it’s possible,” he said. “We’ve gone through a lot with the pool and (adapting to) a new coach. Things are changing so fast, but here we are, and we’re still looking to be the best on the East Coast.”

The Bears have come a long way and so has Gartner. He began his water polo career a bit late, starting in the seventh grade when he went to a water polo introduction camp with one of his friends. Before then he played baseball, soccer and bas-ketball, but after catching on quickly,

knight ’08 named ivy league offensive player of WeekAfter a dominating performance in the football team’s win over Duquesne University on Saturday, running back Dereck Knight ’08 was named the Ivy League offen-sive Player of the Week. Knight en-tered the Brown record books with the 10th best single-game rushing performance. Knight racked up 208 rushing yards on 33 carries, as the Bears defeated Duquesne 28-17.

It was the first time in Knight’s collegiate career that he rushed for more than 100 yards in a single game, and it was also the first time since Nov. 19, 2005 — the final game in the storied career of Nick Hartigan ’06 — that a Bears run-ning back surpassed 100 rushing yards. In fact, the 208 yards Knight gained against the Dukes were only five yards shy of his 2006 season total.

on Saturday, Knight proved that he was ready for action right from the start. on the second play of the Bears’ season opener, Knight broke to the outside on a handoff from quarterback Michael Dough-erty ’09 and ran 61 yards down the sideline for a touchdown.

— Erin Frauenhofer

Rams finish off field hockey in second half of 4-1 loss

dspics.comMike Gartner’s ’09 recent hot streak earned him the honor of CWPA Northern Divi-sion’s Player of the Week.

Ashley Hess / Herald File PhotoVictoria Sacco ’09 scored the Bears’ sole goal in Wednesday’s 4-1 loss to URI.

s p o r t s i n b r i e f

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