Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 13 | Friday, February 6, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Grad School
optimistic
amid crunch
By Hannah Moser
Senior Staf f Writer
Members of the Graduate School
community are attempting to roll
with the punches in light of the
campus-wide e-mail sent last week
by President Ruth Simmons, an-
nouncing large-scale reductions
to university expenditures.
The e-mail outlined a plan to
postpone “the planned growth
of the Graduate School,” in reac-
tion to the financial crisis and to
“reduce expenditures, constrain
expansion and limit major new
obligations” for the entire Brown
community.
Simmons had made grad school
expansion an important component
of the Plan for Academic Enrich-
ment in 2001. But in her e-mail,
she wrote that she anticipates “es-
sentially no growth in the number
of doctoral students matriculating
each year” and “little or no increase
in the base graduate student sti-
pend for the next few years.”
Sheila Bonde, dean of the
Graduate School, said before the
economic crisis administrators had
hoped for the increase in graduate
students to catch up with faculty
growth under the plan. Now, the
continued on page 2
Panel emphasizes fixing the ‘gap under the door’
By Matthew Scult
Contributing Writer
In the event of an emergency, you
could always make your way to
the exits by feeling for the draft,
said Kurt Teichert, environmental
stewardship initiatives manager
at the Center for Environmental
Studies, pointing to the door in
List 120.
The comment elicited some
snickers from the 50-person audi-
ence, but the statement was in-
tended for more than just comic
effect: It encapsulated one of the
main messages of the three-per-
son panel on Green Energy, that
small-scale energy conser vation
measures may be the most ef-
fective.
In other words, those con-
cerned about renewable energy
should think about fixing that gap
under the door before considering
solar power, Teichert said.
The event, hosted by the stu-
dent environmental advocacy
group emPOWER, brought to-
gether Teichert, Christopher Bull,
inside
News.....1-4
Ar ts.........5
Spor ts...7-8
Editorial..10
Opinion...11
Today........12
www.browndailyherald.com
loo k ing for rede m ption
W. basketball hosts Dartmouth and Harvard this weekend
after two home losses against Ivy rivals. See Sports, page 7
the Department of Engineering’s
senior research engineer and As-
sistant Professor of Economics
Sriniketh Nagavarapu to discuss
environmental issues, including
the benefits of new technologies
and the political and economic
motivations for using more renew-
able energy.
Bull spoke about the inefficien-
cies of converting coal to elec-
tricity, saying “we lose over half
of it along the way” to the wall
socket. Part of this inefficiency
comes from trying to synchronize
use and demand, Bull said. Both
politics and the economy, not just
technology, will affect future en-
ergy use, he added.
Nagavarapu discussed the pos-
sible effects of the federal stimu-
lus package, saying the economy’s
needs in the shor t term don’t
necessarily make sense in the
long term for renewable energy
policy. “It’s not clear (that) we
know what will be more competi-
tive down the road,” Nagavarapu
said. Instead of throwing money at
certain technologies, Nagavarapu
Arts, 5
What’s your Pleasure?
“Pleasure Dome” examines
life inside your television at
T.F. Green Hall.
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Justin Coleman / Herald
said the government must create
disincentives for oil use and fund
basic research, and then allow the
market to decide which new ener-
gies would be successful.
Teichert said ver y little might
be done to overcome structural
and technological barriers to
energy efficiency in the next six
months, but added that it is pos-
sible to create more basic inter-
ventions. Training people to help
weatherize homes could go a long
way toward conser ving energy,
he said.
Teichert said he always tells
people to find ways to conser ve
energy before turning to alterna-
tive sources of energy.
The panel also discussed large-
scale options, such as using more
biofuels and creating a “smar t
grid” that would make energy
use more efficient, but the em-
phasis of the event was on local
solutions. Rather than relying on
fuel produced halfway around the
globe, Bull said, the solution is to
use “local resources to meet local
energy needs.”
SPOTLIGHT
High Jinks, old and
new, back on campus
By Colin Chazen
Senior Staff Writer
An unlikely group of a cappella
singers — decades older than the
average Brown student — gath-
ered in Wilson Hall last night.
Five alums returned to cam-
pus to help usher in a new gen-
eration of one of Brown’s old-
est performance groups. After
years of looking on wistfully at
class reunions as former Jab-
berwocks joined their group’s
current members in song, they
would finally get their chance.
The students auditioning in front
of them would be part of the re-
vival of Brown’s second-oldest
all-male a cappella group — the
High Jinks.
Patrick Gonon ’79, joined the
Some Vitaminwater flavors
contain banned substances
By Mitra Anoushiravani
Senior Staff Writer
The Department of Athletics sent
an e-mail to all student-athletes and
coaches Tuesday informing them
that some flavors of Vitaminwater,
the popular flavored-water label,
contain substances that are banned
or “impermissible” under NCAA
guidelines.
Six of Vitaminwater’s 15 variet-
ies contain common stimulants or
other psychoactive chemicals that
could be problematic for both the
University and the student-athletes,
Problematic Vitaminwater flavors
Flavor Banned
Power-C
caffeine,* guarana
Energy
seed extract
B-relaxed
Rescue caffeine*
Vital-T
Balance
* above 15 micrograms per milliliter
Sports, 7
A weekend at home
Four Brown teams play
at home this weekend,
including 5-1 m. tennis.
eight-person group in 1976, its
second year of existence. For
Gonon and other High Jinks
members, the group became
an essential part of their college
experiences and even their ca-
reers.
And though it fell apart in the
early 1990s after several mem-
bers graduated in the same
year, it lived on in Gonon and
his friends, who saw salvation
in their children.
“I always imagined the prog-
eny of the original group would
pick up the banner,” said Dean
Ziff ’81, whose twin sons were
accepted to Brown early deci-
sion this fall. “They’ve heard a
lot about it over the years.”
continued on page 2
according to Drug Free Sport, an
organization that conducts drug
testing for NCAA schools.
A student who tests positive for
a banned substance above a certain
level, according to the NCAA, loses
a year of eligibility. An “impermis-
sible” substance is one that is not
banned, but is against the rules for
coaches or trainers to provide to
students.
The flavors known as Power-C,
Energy, B-relaxed, Rescue, Vital-T
and Balance were all mentioned in
continued on page 2
impermissible
taurine
l-theanine
ECGC
rooibos tea extract
glucosamine
Opinions, 11
Ruthless?
Ben Bernstein ’09 criticizes
the U.’s lack of transparency in
the current financial crisis.
herald@browndailyherald.com
Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, February 6, 2009

C ampus N EWS “These are the friendships you make forever.”

— Rob Krausz ’79, High Jinks alum

Vitaminwater flavors have Grad school ‘protective’ of students

substances nixed by NCAA
continued from page 1
Associate Athletic Director Rob-
ert Kenneally’s e-mail to students,
though only Energy and Rescue con-
tain compounds that are banned —
caffeine in both cases, and guarana
seed extract for Energy. Caffeine
is banned only above a level of 15
micrograms per milliliter, according
to the NCAA, a mark that can be
avoided with most moderate diets.
Five flavors contain some amount
of impermissible substances, and so
cannot be provided to students. Pow-
er-C, B-relaxed and Rescue contain
the psychoactive compounds taurine
— found in Red Bull — L-theanine
and ECGC, the active ingredient in
green tea extract.
Balance contains traces of glu-
cosamine — sometimes used to
rebuild cartilage or heal joints —
tested for banned substances at a
regional tournament.
However, for student-athletes
that do not anticipate making it to
an NCAA-sponsored event or who
are not on Division I teams, the pres-
sure to avoid banned substances is
not as great. Jamison Kinnane ’12, a
member of the women’s crew team,
said she did not think the banned
substances in two of the Vitaminwa-
ter flavors would affect her.
“I don’t think they usually test
you — there is just the threat of be-
ing tested,” she said. Only the top
eight girls on the team make it to an
NCAA regatta, she said.
Max McFadden ’11, a former
member of the wrestling team,
said he thought there were “a lot of
banned substances being used and
consumed at Brown.”
Testing occurs “on such an infre-
continued from page 1
Grad School will tr y to keep the
number of admitted doctoral
candidates stable. It is in ad-
ministrative areas where Bonde
said “we’re tr ying to tighten our
belts.”
The grad school receives ap-
proximately 7,300 applications a
year, according to Brian Walton,
associate dean of Finance and
Administration. Bonde said the
number of applications is double
what it was seven or eight years
ago, adding that she estimates
that those feeling the impact of
the financial crisis the most are
those applying for admission.
But even with this leveling off
in admissions, a slight growth can
be expected in the humanities,
thanks to a $3-million endowment
grant from the Andrew W. Mel-
lon Foundation. The grant will
support as many as 14 additional
students over the next five years,
according to a university state-
ment released in October. The gift
will also allow for new interdisci-
plinar y seminar offerings.
Though graduate stipends will
not increase, the financial crisis,
which has also hit other universi-
ties, is unlikely to affect Brown’s
ability to attract applicants, Bonde
said.
The Grad School will apply for
grants and seek funding from the
federal stimulus package to miti-
gate the effects of the downturn,
she added.
Elena Daniele GS said she
thinks current graduate students
will be largely unaffected by the
crisis, adding that they are guar-
anteed funding for their first five
years at Brown.
But Daniele, who is in her
second year in the Italian Stud-
ies depar tment, said graduate
students could face difficulty in
securing funding for summer re-
search and could have to look for
other jobs.
Professor of Italian Studies
Massimo Riva, who organizes
summer projects, said he has not
heard that support for research
will decrease under the Univer-
sity’s cost-cutting measures. In
any case, he said he can use his
available research funds to pay
graduate students for Web proj-
ects or other work rather than
to buy a new computer for his
department.
Riva said he has noticed a “pro-
tective attitude” toward graduate
students. “At this time I would like
to reassure them that there is no
reason for alarm.”

Alums reconvene for a cappella revival

and Vital-T has chemicals found in
rooibos tea extract.
Some athletic coaches have told
their teams not to drink the banned
flavors of Vitaminwater. But Sarah
Fraser, assistant athletic director
for compliance, said it was “more
the responsibility of the individual
student-athlete to know what they’re
putting into their body.”
“You really have to read the in-
gredients on what you eat and drink
as a student-athlete,” she said.
Andrew Bakowski ’11, a mem-
ber of the baseball team, said he
understood the rules. “We all know
it’s our own responsibility that any-
thing we’re taking is cleared and is
allowed by the NCAA,” he said, “and
we know that we do get tested.”
He added that two years ago
some members of the team were
sudoku
quent basis that NCAA rules never
really applied to the wrestlers,” he
said.
Vitaminwater is a subsidiar y
of Coca Cola Co., a major NCAA
sponsor, which maintains “a sideline
presence at NCAA championships,”
Kenneally wrote in his e-mail.
Lindsey Raivich, a Vitaminwater
spokeswoman, confirmed in an e-
mail to the Herald that two Vitamin-
water flavors contained caffeine, and
added that “we respect the NCAA’s
rule to not offer these varieties to its
student-athletes.” The NCAA has ap-
proved nine flavors of Vitaminwater
for student-athlete consumption, she
continued.
A representative from the NCAA
could not be reached for comment
after multiple phone calls to the or-
ganization’s headquarters.
continued from page 1
Years of listening to grown men
tell college stories about their musi-
cal exploits left a strong impression
on Daniel Gonon ’12. During last
Thanksgiving break, Daniel began
contacting High Jinks alums and
exploring the possibility of restart-
ing the group.
The alums he contacted were
incredibly supportive. “They love
the group so much they would do
anything to have it revived again,”
Daniel said.
Sean Altman ’84, one of three
High Jinks members who went on
to start the professional singing
group Rockapella, told him to think
about the types of voices he wanted
to include in the group and to start
planning for auditions. Other al-
ums offered to fund the group and
support it in any way they could,
Daniel said.
“It’s nice to see the group is com-
ing back to campus, because we
had a lot of fun,” said Rob Krausz
’79, who drove up from New York
to join four other former High Jinks
members — Altman, Ziff, Gonon
and Charlie Evett ’84, another Rock-
apella member — at the Thursday
night callbacks.“These are the
friendships you make forever.”
Krausz works as a TV writer and
producer, but music remains an
essential part of his life. He wrote
a musical that was performed off-
Broadway in 2001 and continues to
get together and sing with former
High Jinks members, although they
no longer don their signature bow
ties.
“It’s almost like a musical fra-
ternity,” he said. “You don’t forget
this stuff.”
For Altman, the High Jinks were
the beginning of his career. For sev-
eral years he sang with Rockapella,
an a cappella group that regularly
performed on “Where in the World
is Carmen San Diego?” and record-
ed the show’s theme song. He still
sports his complimentary jacket
from the children’s TV show.
“I was really sad that the group
went out of existence,” said Altman,
who continues to sing profession-
ally and regularly returns to Brown
for class reunions. “It’s just poetic
that it’s a son of one of the original
High Jinks (who is reviving the
group).”
Though demand for a cappella
groups continues to outstrip the
number of slots, not everyone will
be happy about the High Jinks re-
vival, said Alex Bachorik ’10, the a
cappella czar and leader of Inter-
galactic, the governing body that
arranges concerts and organizes
member selection. Intergalactic will
vote next week to decide whether to
admit the High Jinks, Daniel said.
“The boys’ groups in particular
will have to make room,” she said.
“There’s a very good-natured com-
petition for members.”
Over 15 students auditioned for
the High Jinks, though the group
is seeking only five new members,
Daniel said.
Joe Bobvoskie ’10 said he
doesn’t like a cappella groups
and previously was not interested
in joining one. But Daniel, who
sings with him in the Brown Cho-
rus, piqued his interest with talk
of reviving a group whose music
centered on barbershop tunes and
strong voices.
“I had never heard of the High
Jinks before,” Bobvoskie said. “It’s
a part of the school, it’s just a for-
gotten part.”

Daily Herald
the Brown

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Friday, February 6, 2009
C ampus N EWS
Classrooms
get revamp
over break
By Matthew Varley
Higher Ed Editor
Classes meeting in Wilson Hall
102 this semester have brand-new
seats and a cutting-edge audio-visual
system, thanks to a major renova-
tion over winter break. This, and
more subtle improvements were
conducted across campus prior to
the start of spring semester.
A “classroom task force” imple-
mented the first stage of a $4.5-mil-
lion renovation initiative this win-
ter, Vice President for Facilities
Management Stephen Maiorisi
wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
The budget includes $1.8 million
for lecture halls, $900,000 for new
furniture and $1.5 million for “new
or upgraded instructional technol-
ogy,” he wrote.
The budget also includes
$300,000 for “enhanced technology
pilot projects,” a category that en-
compasses “intelligent white boards,
lecture capture, video conferencing
and podium computers,” Maiorisi
wrote.
Wilson 102 is the poster child for
the recent renovations. In addition
Singers gain footing
in shaky economy
By Lauren Fedor
Senior Staf f Writer
As the economy continues to suf-
fer, Brown’s a cappella groups have
faced challenges and new opportu-
nities. Though one group has be-
gun to rely on fundraising instead
of paid gigs, another is capitalizing
on the economic downturn and
expanding its clientele.
Because the Brown’sTones,
founded in 1992, are one of the
newer groups on campus, they
do not have the same kind of fi-
nancial support from alums that
other campus organizations have,
Danielle Crumley ’12, one of the
Brown’sTones’ business manag-
ers, wrote in an e-mail to The
Herald.
To earn money, some members
of the group have taken on shifts
at campus eateries like the Gate,
Crumley wrote. The funds will go
toward group activities, includ-
ing their upcoming tour of several
East Coast colleges.
As a result, “it’s not up in the
air” whether they can afford to go
on tour, said Taylor Gobar ’11, the
group’s other business manager.
Proactive measures like work-
ing for Brown Dining Ser vices
are not the only thing ensuring
the Brown’sTones’ financial se-
curity.
As a result of the economic
climate, Gobar said clients are
planning events “way more in
advance.”
Renovations to Wilson 102 include new carpeting, seat upholstery and a projector system.
to new carpeting, window coverings
and upholstered seats, the lecture
hall was outfitted with an EIKI Wi-
descreen Powerhouse Projector. An
oversized screen installed for the
projector retracts into the ceiling,
allowing the room to be transformed
from a classroom to a movie theater
and back again.
“That projector is a monster,”
said Melissa Diaz ’10, a student in
POLS 1450: “Political Economy of
Development,” which meets in the
classroom.
Aaron Wee ’10, who is taking
the same class, said he was also
impressed by the upgrades to
Wilson 102. “It sure beats the old
In the past, the girls would be
contacted to sing at the last minute
for off-campus gigs, Gobar said.
But now, she said, most clients
are planning their events months
ahead of time.
Gobar said clients — especially
those in the Brown community —
used to ask up-front how much the
group charged for performances.
Now, fewer clients inquire about
the fee and the girls have to men-
tion it to ensure they are paid, she
said.
But though the group may
have fewer off-campus perfor-
mances in the future, no one has
yet cancelled an event for financial
reasons, Gobar said.
Though the economy may
be making things tight for the
Brown’sTones, the Brown Derbies
say they are benefitting from the
changing economic climate.
Amos Budde ’10, the Brown
Derbies’ business manager, said
clients who would otherwise book
a professional musician are now
turning to the Derbies, who are a
less costly option.
In fact, the demand for the
Derbies is now so great that the
group has turned away some per-
formance requests, Budde said.
“We’re not really that expen-
sive to have,” he said, adding that
word-of-mouth has “really kept
us going.”
But the group still faces
continued on page 4
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
— Melissa Diaz ’10, on Wilson 102’s renovations
one,” he said.
Assistant Professor of Political
Science Melani Cammett, who teach-
es the class, said she was pleasantly
surprised by the improvements.
“It’s beautiful,” Cammett said,
adding that the new technology,
which includes a touch-screen re-
mote, is “very user-friendly.”
Three other classrooms in Wil-
son — 106, 206 and 306 — were up-
graded with 63-inch plasma screen
televisions.
Other classrooms in Wilson and
Barus and Holley got a fresh coat
of paint over break, while carpets
in Hunter Laboratory and Orwig
Music Library were steam-cleaned,
Roughly same number of
students studying abroad
by Andrew Sia
Contributing Writer
The number of students studying
abroad this semester is consistent
with previous years, despite the
economic downturn and a new
policy requiring students to pay
full Brown tuition.
Though this semester’s enroll-
ment of 254 students is down from
last spring’s record 315, overall
participation has gone unchanged,
said Kendall Brostuen, director of
International Programs and an as-
sociate dean of the College.
During the fall of 2007, 213 stu-
“That projector is a monster.”
Qidong Chen / Herald
according to Maiorisi. Two base-
ment classrooms in Sayles Hall were
both painted and steam-cleaned, and
a number of rooms around cam-
pus had room-darkening shades
installed, he added.
A “lack of comfortable flexible
seating with adequate work space”
and inadequate audio-visual equip-
ment are among the priorities for
the classroom task force, accord-
ing to Maiorisi, adding that 191
classrooms on campus were pho-
tographed, evaluated and rated for
upgrade priority.
Technology upgrades will con-
tinue through this semester and into
the summer, Maiorisi wrote.
Janine Cheng / Herald
dents studied abroad, while 212
studied abroad last fall, Brostuen
said.
Previously, students wishing to
study abroad were required to pay
full tuition if they were attending
Brown-sponsored programs. Oth-
er wise, they paid only the costs
of their study abroad institution.
Now, students must pay full Brown
tuition for all programs, including
Brown-approved alternative pro-
grams and petitioned alternative
studies. The new policy was ap-
proved in 2005, and the class of
continued on page 4
Page 3
news in brief
SDS holds
Corporation
‘teach-in’
Students for a Demo-
cratic Society held a
“teach-in” last night in
Petteruti Lounge, breaking
down recent developments
in University governance
in an attempt to increase
awareness among group
members and the general
student body.
Various presentations
profiled five members of
the Corporation, discussed
details of Brown’s finan-
cial aid policy, highlighted
points from President Ruth
Simmons’ Jan. 27 e-mail
to the community about
the University’s financial
situation and gave a his-
tory of the Corporation
and student protests at
Brown.
“The point was to show
what we’ve been figuring
out about who the Corpora-
tion is, what interests they
represent and what that
means for how students
have control over the de-
cisions that affect them,”
said SDS member Nathan
Bergmann-Dean ’12.
About 30 students at-
tended the meeting and the
discussion that followed,
many of whom expressed
discontent with the per-
ceived lack of student ac-
cessibility to higher level
decision-making. Multiple
presenters criticized spe-
cifics of proposed budget
cuts and spending plans,
suggesting that money
could be better used.
“There are 200-plus
years of tradition of stu-
dent protest at Brown,”
said SDS member Wil-
liam Lambek ’09. “We are
not alone, this is nothing
new.”
A significant number
of students who were not
SDS members were in at-
tendance, and the group
encouraged those students
to attend the next meeting,
according to Bergmann-
Dean.
SDS has not begun dis-
cussions of whether it will
protest at the next meeting
of the Corporation, Feb.
19 through 21, Bergmann-
Dean said.
— Brigitta Greene
Page 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, February 6, 2009

C ampus N EWS “We’re not really that expensive to have.”

— Amos Budde ’10, Brown Derbies business manager

A cappella groups get news in brief

‘creative’ during downturn Morning Mail to reform policy in response to criticism

continued from page 3
occasional challenges, Budde said,
explaining that the Derbies have
“had to be a little more creative
when it comes to looking” for some
paid gigs.
In the past, the group has relied
heavily on regional alumni events,
performing at functions held at
Brown Clubs around the country.
But this year, alumni groups
have had to cancel their events
with the Derbies “pretty frequently,”
Budde said.
Jennifer Ketay, assistant direc-
tor for Clubs and Associations for
Alumni Relations, wrote in an e-mail
to The Herald that clubs are con-
tinuing to have the same number
of musical groups perform at their
events as in the past.
“We are not aware of cancella-
tions or of any diminished interest
in having the groups perform,” she
wrote.
Weeks after a new policy
rejecting event listings in ven-
ues that hold less than 300
people drew harsh campus
criticism, Morning Mail will
“make internal changes” to
make the service more inclu-
sive, according to this morn-
ing’s edition.
“We regret the challenges
that the change in policy pre-
Students undeterred by study abroad costs
continued from page 3
2010 is the first affected.
“It feels like being robbed,”
said Leticia Marquez ’10, whose
finances have been affected by
the recession. But Marquez said
she still plans to study abroad in
Costa Rica next year.
The University has begun to
institute more opportunities for
students to study abroad over the
summer, which may partly explain
the lower enrollment this spring,
Brostuen said.
The number of students opting
sented to members of the
community,” read a note at
the top of today’s Morning
Mail listing. “Clearly, Morn-
ing Mail’s evolution to include
events has served a large por-
tion of the community well.”
The letter briefly outlined
plans to make “subtle” chang-
es to the system over the next
week “that will respond to
to spend an entire year abroad
has also been declining for the
past ten years, he said, hesitat-
ing to attribute this decrease to
the economic crisis. The reason
could be that more semester-long
programs are offered than year-
long ones, he said.
Regardless of destination or
length of time spent abroad, stu-
dents can use their financial aid
awards toward studying abroad,
Brostuen said, adding that he
would like all students to be able
to study abroad with programs
that best fit them.
readers who found Morning
Mail too long and too clut-
tered, and still allow campus
groups to distribute notices
of events.”
In the meantime, the let-
ter stated, Morning Mail “will
begin immediately accepting
event notices.”
— Herald staff reports
“Cost should not be a primary
factor,” he said.
Student attitudes appeared to
be consistent with this philosophy.
Ivayla Ivanova ’11 said she feels
it is important to study abroad
regardless of cost in order to ex-
perience other cultures firsthand
and to see how foreign communi-
ties are dealing with the financial
meltdown.
Ivanova, who plans to study
in Denmark next year, said her
program will cost the same as it
would have before the new tuition
policy took effect.
Arts & Culture
The Brown Daily Herald
Spivak (re)envisions
‘global humanities’
By Stephanie Pottinger
Contributing Writer
In the course of a wide-ranging
speech Wednesday, eminent liter-
ary theorist Gayatri Spivak decried
the “thousands of years of cognitive
oppression” imposed on marginalized
populations and urged the humanities
towards a heightened awareness of
these issues. Spivak’s talk to a packed
Pembroke Hall inaugurated the new
Global Humanities Initiative’s lecture
series, “Towards a Global Humani-
ties.”
Author of the seminal essay “Can
The Subaltern Speak?” Spivak has
contributed to the intellectual fields of
feminism, Marxism and deconstruc-
tionism. She currently holds the post
of university professor and director
of the Center for Comparative Litera-
ture and Society at Columbia.
Introducing Spivak, Chair of Af-
ricana Studies Barrymore Bogues
described her dedication to “not only
new knowledge, but acting within the
world.” He told the crowd that the
Initiative had unanimously chosen
Spivak “without any sort of discus-
sion at all” as the scholar most fit to
kick off the series.
Spivak’s extensive and ground-
breaking work in postcolonial and
feminist studies and her dedication
PW’s ‘Pleasure Dome’ a trip by TV
By Caroline Sedano
Senior Staff Writer
Most people have sat down on the
couch, turned on the television and
flipped through as many channels
as the TV has to offer in an endless
cycle of entertainment options. What
awaits the viewer is anything imagin-
able — front-row seats at a sports
game, outer space, sharks or the lat-
est celebrity scandal. When channel
surfing, really anything is possible.
That is the same feeling one gets
while watching “Pleasure Dome,” a
play “devised and written” by Hillary
Dixler ’08, David Harrington ’08.5 and
Andrew Starner GS, and directed by
Harrington and Starner. The play,
or “paratheatrical production” as
the creators call it, is presented by
what they call System of a Meaning,
a group developed by Starner and
Harrington, and produced through
Production Workshop.
With no narrative continuity and
no consistent characters, the produc-
tion, running around ninety minutes,
is composed of many short scenes
set both inside and outside a giant
television screen. The show includes
a quirky mix of performance art and
soap opera-style scenes, like pseudo-
advertisements for a beach vacation
and a newscast about the Vietnam
War to someone pretending to eat a
pile of video tape.
Abby Schreiber ’11, who acts in
the play, said the show is meant to
evoke the strangeness of the TV-
watching experience.
to unyielding critique made her “the
perfect voice” for the series, Cogut
Center for the Humanities Director
Michael Steinberg told The Herald.
Steinberg said the Global Human-
ties Initiative does not aim to “export
our knowledge to other places in the
world.” Rather, the Initiative — which
has thus far developed exchanges
between Brown students and schol-
ars in Havana and Nanjing, China,
along with an Africana lecture se-
ries — recognizes that knowledge
takes different forms and resides
everywhere.
“One of the functions of humani-
ties is critical,” Steinberg said, add-
ing that the nascent field of global
humanities, which seeks to make
the field more interdisciplinary and
transnational, must criticize itself in
order to avoid the colonialist mis-
takes of the past.
Entitled “The Stakes of World Lit-
erature,” Spivak’s talk, which drew
heavily on the writings of Marx,
Goethe, Antonio Gramsci and Paul
de Man, explored the possibility
of a world literature and what that
literature might encompass, while
addressing issues of knowledge
production, gendering, globalism
and the humanities’ role in each of
these areas.
After a spirited beginning, engag-
“You never know what you are
going to get,” Schreiber said. “It can
be kitschy or really bizarre, but re-
gardless of what you are watching,
even if it seems monotonous, you
are transfixed.”
The play begins with all of the
female characters sitting in fold-
ing chairs in a semi-circle around a
blank TV. One of the actresses gets
up and begins pounding on the TV,
proclaiming it to be broken, and all
of them scoot their chairs in until
their noses are almost touching the
screen. Ultimately, they throw the
REVIEW
TV to the ground and loudly drag
it offstage. The scene changes and,
with a flurry of movement, one of the
actresses becomes a talk show host
interviewing a celebrity who cannot
identify herself.
“I’ve changed who I am at least
three times since I woke up this
morning,” she says with a high-
pitched giggle.
Throughout, the play questions
issues of reality and identity, with
the actors continuously taking on the
roles of recognizable television types.
The directors are positioned on stage
in a sort of editing table and give the
actors direction and accolades. The
play’s real-life stage manager jumps
out of her seat to help oversee what
is happening on stage during the
production.
Harrington said he sees television
as a place where “meaning and non-
Friday, February 6, 2009 | Page 5
Kim Perley / Herald
Literary theorist Gayatri Spivak delivered the inaugural talk for the Global Humanities Initiative’s lecture series.
ing the crowd and referencing the as uncritical products of their own project. The question that emerges
trajectory and transformation of her cultures. from modeling a curriculum, Stein-
own approach, Spivak was quick to Spivak closed the lecture by em- berg said, should be, “How do you
assert that an adequate definition of phasizing that, despite the failings increase knowledge but also take
world literature has yet to be formu- of the humanities, the field remains responsibility for the way knowledge
lated. World literature, as such, will integral to the resuscitation of the is organized?”
be more of a dynamic process than a arts. She argued that the only hope of Spivak’s lecture certainly ges-
concrete body of work, she said. reclaiming the arts “from the invest- tured toward this same question, and
Throughout her lecture, Spivak ment circuit” lies in the painstaking reminded students that, as Steinberg
parsed and synthesized the works work of criticism and support that put it, “the decision is conscious, not
of many theorists, complicating their the humanities undertakes. an ivory tower situation.”
views and offering several caveats to Addressing the lecture’s relevance Hopeful for the continued rel-
the global humanities project. Im- to Brown students, Steinberg stressed evance of the field, Steinberg sug-
portantly, she warned that the West that, like the decision-making that gested that the humanities, with the
has a tendency to conceive “creation goes into the construction of a dis- importance they place on critique,
and innovation as its own cultural cipline, the fashioning of one’s own may serve as “the key to the univer-
secret” while treating other groups curriculum is an inherently political sity, as its conscience.”
meaning become fused.”
According to the production team,
the play was inspired by the works
of Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Sydney Lumet and David
Cronenberg, as well as the upcoming
digitization of television broadcast or,
as Starner called it, the “approaching
apocalypse.”
After “Pleasure Dome” was cast in
December, Harrington and Starner
sent each cast member home for
break with a 50-page reader com-
posed of a variety of texts that inspired
the play. Upon returning to Brown,
the actors and directors spent the
next three weeks working together
to generate the final production, all
the while “training our bodies and
minds to inhabit a television,” Starner
said.
While the show itself is quite
odd, what is most striking are the
costumes. All twelve members of
the ensemble cast were decked out
in 1970s style bright colors, high-
waisted pants, gold neck chains,
ascots, loud prints, velvet pants and
knee socks.
The most reasonable attitude for
a viewer of “Pleasure Dome” is not
to worry so much about what it all
means, but instead to sit back, relax
and enjoy what Starner calls “the
playfulness and the joyful banality
of turning on the TV.”
“Pleasure Dome” runs Fri. through
Mon. in T.F. Green Hall, with perfor-
mances at 8 p.m. and midnight Fri.
and Sat., and 8 p.m. Sun. and Mon.
SportsWeekend
The Brown Daily Herald

Friday, February 6, 2009 | Page 7

s p o rt s i n b r i e f
Ski teams head
back to N.H.
this weekend
The Bears had a busy
weekend on the slopes of
New Hampshire.
On Saturday Kia Mo-
senthal ’12 won the MIT
Carnival Giant Slalom,
held at Loon, topping the
field with a two-run com-
bined time of 1:46.67.
Emily Simmons ’12 fol-
lowed in ninth place with
a total time of 1:50.62,
Anna Bengtson’s ’09
time of 1:51.64 earned
her a tie for 15th place,
Elisa Handbury ’10 fin-
ished her runs in 1:54.30
to take 31st and former
Herald Staff Writer Susan
Kovar ’09 finished in 68th
place in a total time of
2:59.91.
Mosenthal followed up
with a second-place fin-
ish in the UMass Carni-
val Slalom, held at Pat’s
Peak, in a two-run time
of 1:44.69. Simmons fol-
lowed in 31st place with
a total time of 1:55.41,
Handbury posted a time
of 1:58.81 to finish 38th,
Bengtson struggled on
her second run to finish
63rd in a time of 2:36.69
and Kovar placed 69th in
a total time of 3:14.34.
The Bears will be back
in action today and to-
morrow at the Boston
College Carnival at Wild-
cat Mountain, N.H.
4 teams to
play host
on weekend
By Andrew Braca
Sports Editor
Four Bruno teams will host home
games this weekend to kick off the
Athletic Department’s Second An-
nual Breast Cancer Awareness Week.
Proceeds from the games will go to
the Gloria Gemma Breast Cancer
Resource Foundation.
The men’s tennis team (5-1) will
begin a busy Friday at the Erickson
Athletic Complex when it hosts
Marist at 5 p.m. in the Pizzitola Cen-
ter. Two weekends ago, the Bears
swept four opponents at home, includ-
ing a 5-0 win over Boston University
in the first-ever Rock ‘n’ Roll Tennis
match.
Women’s basketball (3-15, 1-3 Ivy
League) will continue the action at
Pizzitola with two games in two days.
The Bears will host Dartmouth on
Friday and Harvard on Saturday, with
both games at 7 p.m. Bruno will look
to bounce back from a pair of losses
to Cornell and Columbia last week-
end as they complete a five-game
homestand.
Men’s hockey (2-15-4, 2-10-3
continued on page 8
NBA’s
unsung
heroes
By Benjy Asher
Spor ts Editor
With the NBA All-Star game com-
ing up next weekend, I present
my list of less-than-obvious game
changers, players who have been
under the radar this season but
have shown themselves to be
among the best competitors in
the NBA.
Jose Calderon, guard, Toron-
to: With his team at 19-32, second
worst in the Eastern Conference,
it is easy to overlook Calderon’s
accomplishments this season, but
he has quietly established himself
as one of the league’s top point
guards.
As of Feb. 5, Calderon is fourth
in the league with 8.5 assists per
game and boasts a 4.18 assist/turn-
over ratio, leading all starting point
guards in that categor y (second
is Chris Paul, at 3.56.). Though
his scoring average is a modest
13.0 points per game, Calderon is
Justin Coleman / Herald clearly one of the most efficient pe-
The women’s basketball team is hoping to rebound from two losses last
weekend with games against Dartmouth and Harvard this weekend. continued on page 8

Squash teams
take it to Yale
and Cornell
The women’s and men’s
squash teams both lost to
Williams on Wednesday in
Williamstown, Mass.
The No. 10 women’s
team dropped a close
match to the No. 8 Ephs,
6-3. Nikoo Fadaifard ’12
at No. 5, Kali Schellenberg
’10 at No. 6 and Char-
lotte MacMillan ’09 at No.
8 each won lengthy 3-2
matches.
The No. 14 men’s team
had less luck against the

Don’t be
No. 10 Ephs, falling 8-1.
Patrick Davis ’10 picked up
Bruno’s only win, sweep-
ing his opponent, 3-0. Alex
Heitzmann ’10 pushed
blue.
his opponent to the brink,
taking the match to a fifth
game, which he narrowly
lost, 10-8.
Read
Both teams will hit the
road this weekend to face The Herald!
Yale on Saturday and Cor-
nell on Sunday.

— Sports staff reports

Page 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, February 6, 2009

S ports W eekend
Some ‘game-changers’ go overlooked
continued from page 7
rimeter players in the NBA, with a
.499 field goal percentage, a .446
three-point field goal percentage
and an astounding .988 mark from
the free-throw line.
Jason Kidd, guard, Dallas:
With his scoring average at a mere
8.9 points per game, a career low,
it is understandable that Kidd, a
nine-time All-Star, did not receive
a tenth selection this year. His as-
sists average, at 8.3 per game, is
down from his career average of
9.2, but by many other measures,
Kidd is as good as ever.
Second in the league with 2.2
steals per game, trailing only Paul,
Kidd will make a strong case for a
tenth career selection to the NBA
All-Defensive team, and with 6.4
rebounds per game, Kidd con-
tinues to solidify his standing as
one of the best rebounding point
guards in NBA histor y. His field
goal percentage is at a career-high
of .417, and he is matching his
career-low with just 2.4 turnovers
per game. For a point of compari-
son, in the 2001-02 season, when
Kidd finished second in MVP vot-
ing, his assist/turnover ratio was
2.83, compared to 3.40 this season,
and he shot just 39.1 percent from
the field. While Kidd, who will
turn 36 in March, is not as dynam-
ic a playmaker as he used to be,
on a team with explosive scorers
like Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard
and Jason Terr y, Kidd provides
exactly what such a team needs to
win: smart, facilitative play on the
offensive end, tough rebounding
and relentless defense.
Stephen Jackson, guard-
for ward, Golden State: Fol-
lowing the depar ture of point
guard Baron Davis at the end of
last season and an injury to shoot-
ing guard Monta Ellis, who has
missed all but seven games this
season, Jackson has become the
primar y playmaker for the War-
riors, and he currently leads the
team in scoring, assists and steals.
Jackson is one of the more dura-
ble players in the NBA, averaging
39.9 minutes per game, second
in the league. Though his team
has struggled to a 16-34 record,
Jackson has made the most of his
minutes, matching his career high
with 20.1 points and 4.9 rebounds
per game, while setting new ca-
reer highs with 6.2 assists and 1.5
steals per game.
David Lee, center, New
York: At 21-27, the Knicks are
just two wins shy of their victor y
total from last season, and Lee
has been a major part of their im-
provement. After mostly coming
off the bench for his first three
seasons, Lee has become a consis-
tent force in the Knicks’ starting
lineup. He has established himself
as a legitimate scoring threat, av-
eraging 15.9 points per game (up
five points from his average last
season), including two 30-point
games.
Lee has continued to build his
reputation as one of the tough-
est players in the league on the
boards, as he is currently fourth
in the NBA with 11.7 rebounds
per game. His consistency is virtu-
ally unmatched — his 37 double-
doubles rank second in the NBA,
behind only Dwight Howard, who
has 38.
Marcus Camby, center, Los
Angeles Clippers: Yes, he plays
for L.A.’s “B” team, but by the
numbers, Camby is one of the
best big men in the league. With
averages of 13.0 rebounds and
2.48 blocks per game, both sec-
ond in the NBA behind Howard,
Camby actually makes a strong
case for the All-Star team but was
passed over for players on more
Justin Coleman / Herald
competitive teams, like the Suns’
Men’s hockey will host Dartmouth on Friday before leaving for
Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers’ Andover, Mass., on Saturday to play Merrimack.
Pau Gasol. Though his team looks
weak, Camby is doing his part and
will once again be a contender Charitable, busy
weekend for Bruno
for the Defensive Player of the
Year award, which he won two
years ago.

continued from page 7 on Sunday at 1 p.m. in the Pizzitola

ECAC Hockey) will also face Dart-
mouth on Friday at 7 p.m. in Meehan
Auditorium before travelling to North
Andover, Mass., to face Merrimack
on Saturday. The Bears will attempt
to right the ship after enduring a pair
of 5-1 losses to Quinnipiac and No. 9
Princeton last weekend.
The gymnastics team will close out
the weekend by hosting Bridgeport
Center. The meet comes after Bruno
defeated West Chester but suffered
losses against Southern Connecticut,
Towson and Penn, and Lilly Siems
’12 was named the ECAC Rookie of
the Week.
Breast Cancer Awareness Week
will continue when squash hosts Tufts
on Tuesday and wrap up with four
women’s hockey and men’s basketball
games next Friday and Saturday.

Join The Herald!

Come to our final info session of the semester
Sunday, February 8 at 8 p.m. 195 Angell Street
World & Nation
The Brown Daily Herald
Senators seek to cut
stimulus by $100 billion
By Paul Kane
and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan co-
alition of senators withheld support
Thursday for President Obama’s
economic recovery package, leaving
the scope and timing of his first ma-
jor initiative in doubt as they sought
to cut more than $100 billion from
the legislation.
Despite growing concerns from
Republicans and Democrats about
the cost of the plan, senators did
not reach agreement on which
programs to trim. Instead, as the
chamber has debated the bill this
week, its cost has grown by almost
$40 billion, with the tab now at more
than $920 billion.
Senate leaders had hoped to vote
on the measure Thursday, but after
a series of meetings among nearly
20 senators did not yield a deal, the
negotiators agreed to continue talk-
ing.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-
Nev., said that he would allow the
centrist, bipartisan group to con-
tinue working and that, if it reaches
consensus, he will schedule a vote
for Friday on final legislation. If that
fails, he will call for a rare Sunday
session for a key procedural vote
that would require 60 votes for pas-
sage.
Senate approval would lead to a
House-Senate conference next week,
when congressional leaders would
try to work out differences, with the
goal of sending a compromise bill to
Obama’s desk before Presidents’
Day, Feb. 16.
But the fate of Obama’s stimulus
plan, designed to stem the nation’s
recession by saving more than 3 mil-
lion jobs, remains unclear. Despite
the president’s personal lobbying
campaign, the number of Republi-
cans committed to working in the
bipartisan group appeared to be
shrinking as the day went on, leav-
ing congressional Democrats a few
votes shy of the 60 they need.
“It’s very difficult, because ev-
eryone has certain pet programs
in this bill,” said Sen. Susan Collins
of Maine, the leader of the Republi-
can faction in the bipartisan group.
“We’re trying to focus it on spend-
ing that truly helps stimulate the
economy. People have different
views on whether or not a program
meets that test.”
Collins is one of three Senate
Republicans whom Obama hosted
at the White House this week for
one-on-one sessions in an attempt to
win their support. She told report-
ers Thursday that he agreed to her
effort to reduce the overall cost of
the package to $800 billion. That
would require dramatic reductions
in funding for popular items such
as school construction and special
education.
“Our original figure was roughly
in the 800 range,” Obama told report-
ers aboard Air Force One Thursday.
“There have been some changes to
our framework both in the House
and in the Senate, but that’s, I think,
the scale that we need to deliver for
the American people.”
Obama made the case for the
stimulus plan at a meeting with
Energy Department employees,
then flew to Williamsburg to try
to shore up support among House
Democrats gathered there for their
annual retreat.
Some House Democrats have
become concerned with efforts in
the Senate to remove as much as
$100 billion from the legislation they
approved last week. But a critical
group of fiscally conservative House
Democrats announced their sup-
port for the push, led by Collins and
Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., to pare
the measure.
The House approved an $819
billion package last week, but the
Senate has added more than $100
billion in tax cuts to its version of the
legislation, which started at about
the same figure as the House mea-
sure. Efforts to reduce the cost of
the Senate bill are not focused on
those tax cuts, but on parts of the
more than $550 billion in spending
that House and Senate Democratic
leaders originally sought.
When the centrist negotiations
started Wednesday, Republican mod-
erates hoped to lower the bill’s total
to $650 billion. But as the Senate cost
climbed, that quickly appeared unat-
tainable. By mid-morning Thursday,
the goal for many in the group had
settled at about $800 billion.
Two sticking points for Repub-
licans were funding for school
construction and Head Start, both
viewed as worthy programs but not
ones that would provide a sufficient
boost to the economy.
“I love schools. I love children,”
said Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, a
GOP participant in the negotiations.
But the measures “don’t belong in
this bill,” he said.
Senate Republicans such as Mar-
tinez, George Voinovich of Ohio and
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska appeared
to dig in against a final figure as high
as $800 billion. “Time is running
short,” Martinez said.
Nelson and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-
Ind., another participant in the meet-
ings, are among several Democrats
who have not endorsed the original
legislation because, they said, some
of the programs would do little to
create jobs. Still, top Democrats say
that, ultimately, they are likely to
support Obama.
Even if Reid were to get all 58
votes from his Democratic caucus,
he acknowledged Thursday that he
needs the votes of “two Republicans
of goodwill.”
The legislation could rest in
the hands of Obama securing the
votes of the two Maine senators —
Republicans Collins and Olympia
Snowe — and every Democratic
vote, including that of Sen. Edward
Kennedy, D-Mass. Kennedy, who
has brain cancer, has not returned to
the chamber since having a seizure
during Obama’s inaugural ceremo-
nies more than two weeks ago.
Rwandan militiamen, with women and children in tow, surrender en masse in the Congo.
Rwandan militiamen surrender, head home
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post
GOMA, Congo — With their wives
and children, the Rwandan militia-
men are arriving from the bush here
in eastern Congo by the truckload.
Skinny and tired, they have volun-
tarily surrendered their weapons and
say they are ready to go home.
“The international community
has set plans to help us surrender, so
we decided to go back to Rwanda,”
said Antoine Uwumukiza, who fled
across the border to Congo 15 years
ago along with hundreds of thou-
sands of other Rwandan Hutus and
was waiting here the other day in a
dirty white tent to be repatriated.
“We’ve heard people say, ‘In Rwanda,
there is a good government,’ and we
have decided to go see if it’s propa-
ganda.”
A potentially brutal joint Con-
golese-Rwandan military operation
underway across these lush hills
is aimed at forcibly disarming the
estimated 6,500 Rwandan Hutu mi-
litiamen who organized in Congo
after the genocide in their country in
1994, when Hutu extremists killed an
estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moder-
ate Hutus.
At the same time, growing num-
bers of the fighters — many of whom
were only boys when they fled Rwan-
da — are choosing to lay down their
weapons and volunteer for repatria-
tion as part of a long-standing U.N.
operation to peacefully entice the
militiamen and their families out of
the bush. But as the numbers swell
for the first time in years, the United
Nations is struggling to keep up.
“We have responsibility without
the means — we need transport,
more tents, more helicopters, more
food,” said one U.N. official with the
program, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because of the sensitiv-
ity of the issue. “It’s not happening
fast enough.”
Human rights groups have ex-
pressed alarm about the joint mili-
tary operation, saying that more em-
phasis should be placed on peaceful
alternatives to disarming the Hutu
Friday, February 6, 2009 | Page 9
militia known as the Democratic
Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or
FDLR, as well as on protecting the
tens of thousands of civilians who
live among the militiamen in camps
and villages.
But the arrival of an estimated
7,000 Rwandan troops to hunt the
FDLR fighters in eastern Congo
came as a surprise to the U.N. peace-
keeping mission here, the largest in
the world. The mission has drawn
sharp criticism in the past for fail-
ing to protect civilians during rebel
advances and military operations,
such as a separate one now under-
way in northeastern Congo targeting
Ugandan rebels known as the Lord’s
Resistance Army, or LRA.
In that instance, the rebels re-
taliated with the slaughter in late
December of more than 600 civilians
in three villages. U.N. peacekeep-
ers were caught flatfooted by the
operation and the deadly response
to it, not reaching the villages until
several days after the killings.
With Rwandan troops now ap-
proaching FDLR positions, some of
the militia’s leaders have threatened
to “do an LRA.”
Meanwhile, Rwandan and Con-
golese military officials are only just
beginning to share vital information
with aid groups and U.N. agencies
dealing with displaced villagers so
that they can prepare humanitarian
corridors and other means to allow
trapped civilians to escape.
“Let’s be honest: We are not
there in the field,” said a U.N. of-
ficial who did not want to be named
criticizing his own agency, the of-
fice of the U.N. high commissioner
for refugees. “There is very little
cooperation right now. How can we
create humanitarian corridors when
we don’t know where the operations
are taking place? We are preparing,
but blindly.”
There is slightly more coopera-
tion between the joint military op-
eration and the U.N. demobilization
teams, whose members work almost
like spies deep in the bush to orches-
trate the secret exit of fighters who
are ready to leave but feel intimidated
Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post
into staying by commanders.
For now, the teams are doing
what they can with limited resources,
setting up two additional “welcome
centers” in areas where the military
operations are taking place, dropping
leaflets — “You still have a choice!”
one reads — and broadcasting radio
messages in FDLR areas encourag-
ing fighters to leave.
About 25 militia leaders, now en-
trenched in eastern Congo’s lucra-
tive mining industry, are wanted by
Rwandan authorities for participating
in the 1994 genocide. But many of
the militiamen were teen-agers then
and would qualify for amnesty in
Rwanda.
A small military team from the
United States is in the region and is
expected to assist with psychological
operations aimed at FDLR fighters.
U.N. officials say the U.S. govern-
ment could also help by arresting
Rwandan militia leaders who, accord-
ing to Rwandan and U.S. officials,
are now living and working in the
United States. Other top leaders live
in Germany and France, Rwandan
officials say.
“One of the keys to getting these
fighters to surrender peacefully is to
break the leadership,” said Bruno
Donat, who heads the demobilization
program. “We have to separate the
leaders from the rank and file.”
Rwandan authorities have asked
the United States to arrest Jean-
Marie Vianney Higiro, a professor
at Western New England College
in Springfield, Mass., and Felicien
Kanyamibwa, who was recently
working for Hoffmann-La Roche, a
pharmaceutical company based in
Nutley, N.J., according to an October
2008 letter from the Rwandan gov-
ernment to U.S. officials. Higiro and
Kanyamibwa are accused of financ-
ing the militias and being “politically
responsible” for war crimes commit-
ted in eastern Congo. The letter also
names five Rwandans wanted for
participating in the genocide.
“Instead of being apprehended,”
the letter states, “the FDLR leaders
are walking scot-free, employed in
the U.S.”
Commentary & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Friday, February 6, 2009

l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r s

Blue State is something all

Brown students can enjoy
To the Editor:
In response to last week’s editori-
al (“Blue State Blunder,” Jan. 27): We
at Blue State Coffee always appreci-
ate the thoughtful coverage provided
by The Brown Daily Herald, and
we welcome and take seriously the
criticisms of last week’s editorial
“Blue State Blunder.” The slogan on
our next batch of cups has a more
politically-neutral message.
At the College Hill Cafe, we will
expand upon our commitment to
environmental sustainability, phi-
lanthropy and contributing to the
local community in a positive way.
Thanks to our customers in the
Brown and Providence communi-
ties, we’ve given away $78,000 to
important local and national causes.
These are socially responsible prac-
tices that both sides of the aisle can
support.
Alex Payson
Blue State Coffee
Feb. 5

Join The Herald! chris jesu lee

l e t t e r to t h e e d i to r s
Info session at 195 Angell St.
(between Brook and Thayer):
Post- article misrepresents WBRU
To the Editor:
Sunday, February 8 @ 8 p.m. 1.6 million). Nationwide, weekly radio listenership is actually
There seems to be some misunderstanding, misinforma- higher than ever, at 235 million. Our listeners are a strong,
tion and a few blatant lies about 95.5 WBRU in an article vocal community of people from Rhode Island and Southern
Reporting, photography, business, in yesterday’s issue of Post- (“State of the Radio,” Feb. 5). Massachusetts who have been with us since 1969.
Let’s clear it up — WBRU is a commercial radio station run WBRU has an outstanding reputation in the radio and
design, opinions and more! by Brown students. It is a not-for-profit educational student music industry. We are simultaneously a bunch of kids
workshop that broadcasts and caters to all of southern New who love music and radio professionals who compete with
England. We sell advertising time to pay for our FM license, enormous corporate conglomerates like Clear Channel
our rent and our independence from the University. and Citadel. WBRU offers students incredible experiences
Our student membership is responsible for all of our from covering Bonnaroo to interviewing Barack Obama.
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d major decisions. Several students meet once a week to de- And Max, you can keep our Flogging Molly CD. You’re
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editors Associate Editors Senior Editors cide the playlist based on actual market research, opinions welcome.
Steve DeLucia Michael Bechek Nandini Jayakrishna Rachel Arndt from professionals in the industry and their gut instincts.
Chaz Firestone Franklin Kanin Catherine Cullen
Michael Skocpol Scott Lowenstein
Our promotions department builds massive concerts from Scott Middleton ’10
editorial Business the ground up with bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Patricia Capuano ’11
Ben Hyman Arts & Culture Editor Guster. Students record and produce advertisements and Gabrielle Quintana Greenfield ’10
Hannah Levintova Arts & Culture Editor General Managers Office Manager
Sophia Li Features Editor Alexander Hughes Shawn Reilly interviews for our 200,000 listeners. Bart Galvin ’09
Emmy Liss Features Editor Jonathan Spector We agree that radio is in decline among tech savvy Brown James Chin ’10
Gaurie Tilak Higher Ed Editor Directors
Matthew Varley Higher Ed Editor Ellen DaSilva Sales Director
students, most of whom don’t own radios and spend little Marianna Faircloth ’10
George Miller Metro Editor Claire Kiely, Sales Director time in cars. But as a reminder, Brown University (under- Gabriella Ra’anan ’11
Joanna Wohlmuth Metro Editor Phil Maynard Sales Director grad population: 5,821) is not our target demographic. Our Celina Pedrosa ’11
Chaz Kelsh News Editor Katie Koh Finance Director
Jenna Stark News Editor Managers demographic is southern New England (Metro Providence: Feb. 5
Benjy Asher Sports Editor Kelly Wess Local Sales
Andrew Braca Sports Editor Kathy Bui National Sales
Alex Mazerov
Katie Wood
Asst. Sports
Asst. Sports
Editor
Editor
Alex Carrere
Christiana Stephenson
University Sales
Recruiter Sales
c l a r i f i c at i o n
Graphics & Photos Opinions Due to an editing error, an article about married students (“Married, with homework,” Feb. 5) appeared to at-
Chris Jesu Lee Graphics Editor Sarah Rosenthal Opinions Editor
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor
tribute the following quotation to Alicia Adams ’11: “I don’t think it’s fair that they still need your parents’ info,
Editorial Page Board even if they’re no longer supporting you. Once I got married, my mom stopped supporting me financially.” The
Eunice Hong Photo Editor
Kim Perley Photo Editor James Shapiro Editorial Page Editor quotation belongs to Lanna Leite, the other married undergraduate student profiled in the article.
Justin Coleman Sports Photo Editor Nick Bakshi Board member
Zack Beauchamp Board member
production
Kathryn Delaney
Seth Motel
Copy Desk Chief
Copy Desk Chief
Sara Molinaro
Meha Verghese
Board member
Board member corrections
Marlee Bruning Design Editor Post- magazine
Jessica Calihan Design Editor
Due to an editing error, a front-page article about donations to the Brown Annual Fund (“Shaky economy casts
Arthur Matuszewski Editor-in-Chief
Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor Kelly McKowen Editor-in-Chief
doubt on giving,” Feb. 5) contained the assertion that employees in the Office of Advancement have seen their
Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor bonuses cut. The assertion was attributed to Senior Vice President for University Advancement Ronald Vanden
Neal Poole Web Editor
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Jessica Calihan, Anna Migliaccio, Sara Chimene-Weiss, Designers
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An article about undergraduate research awards (“No increase in number of UTRAs offered this summer,” Feb.
Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember,
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
Of depression and diversions
BEN BERNSTEIN
Opinions Columnist
Publicly, it seems that President Ruth Sim-
mons has two personas. There is her charis-
matic, “please call me Ruth” side, which earns
student approval to the tune of an 80 percent
approval rating. However, in her recent e-mail
to the Brown community, President Simmons
showed off her other side — shrewd corporate
leader.
Describing cutbacks in administrative costs
amounting to $4.5 million, Simmons writes,
“This will require … reductions in the number
of positions in most units… Considerable work
has been done with the leaders of those units
to identify the most effective way to achieve
these savings, and we expect that work to be
completed no later than the end of the spring
semester.”
There is certainly an undercurrent in the e-
mail, seen in this type of language, that Brown
(read: the Corporation) knows best and the
community should trust that it is doing the
right thing. The Corporation will worry about
the specifics.
All we students need to know is that they
will “act in accord with our values as a commu-
nity… focus on preserving the quality of our
academic life and… continue to protect our ca-
pacity to support our financial aid program.”
Except for the part about “financial aid,” this
could mean anything.
In light of this vague language, the Brown
community should be concerned that the eco-
BY ANDREA MATTHEWS
Guest Columnist
Our society doesn’t like talking about money
when people die. It’s perceived as a nosy, un-
comfortable thing to do, particularly when a
child loses a parent. The emotional loss is al-
ready incalculable. Next to that unapproach-
able subject, money matters don’t seem like
something anyone should talk about.
But the fact is, we have to talk about it. Of
course there is a healing process that must
occur emotionally when a person has lost
anyone, especially a parent. But people can’t
mourn with dignity when they don’t have the
capacity to think about the emotional loss be-
cause the financial burden is so great.
What happens at Brown when a student
loses a parent? Emotionally, the student may
get the support he or she deserves. Brown’s
psychological services are generous, and the
student may choose to contact a dean of stu-
dent life to receive some academic leniency
and support from professors. There is even a
bereavement group on campus. So long as the
student knows how to ask for help (which can
be difficult enough), he or she will receive it.
What happens to the student financially?
Assuming that the parent was custodial, the
student has lost a source of income that was
likely utilized in order to cover the costs of a
Brown education. But not completely lost:
chances are that the parent left his or her child
an inheritance.
Thus, just like everyone else, the student
should submit any pertinent information to the
office of Financial Aid regarding the assets of
nomic crisis will be used as a sort of smoke
screen to shield the Corporation, or anyone
else with power, from deserved criticism.
When something goes wrong, blame the econ-
omy instead of say, incompetent individuals or
defective planning.
To find a specific case of such a diversion,
simply look to the OMAC athletic facility — or
rather, just south of it. There you’ll find the still
empty lot, where at convocation in 2004, Presi-
dent Simmons announced we would construct
a new $30 million athletic facility called the Nel-
son Fitness Center, to be completed by 2008
and primarily financed by billionaire Corpora-
The Brown community should be concerned
that the economic crisis will be used as sort of
a smoke screen to shield the Corporation, or
anyone else with power, from deserved criticism.
tion member Jonathan Nelson ’77 P’07 ’09.
For a past column, (“Building a Mystery,”
Oct. 10, 2007) Richard Spies, executive vice
president for Planning and Senior Adviser to
the President, recounted to me how the orig-
inal designs by the SHoP architectural firm
were scrapped after some hundred thousand
dollars were spent and how another firm, Rob-
ert A.M. Stern, was chosen to complete the
project by 2010, two years later than initially
planned. The price tag was increased from $30
million to $50 million.
Now, according to Associate Provost Pame-
la O’Neil, the new firm, Stern, is “not actively
working on it.” The firm did not respond to my
request for information or for an interview.
In 2007, regarding the wasted money from
The discomfort of death
the remaining parent and those gained in his
or her inheritance. Those assets are tabulated,
the expected family contribution calculated
and perhaps the financial aid package is ad-
justed. It seems like a fair deal.
But let’s pause a moment. Even bracketing
questions about the University’s assumption
that an heir should be compelled to use his
or her inheritance toward tuition, and then be
evaluated for aid the same way as a financially
independent adult, there is something amiss.
A little Inheritance 101: When a person dies
People can’t mourn with dignity when they don’t
have the capacity to think about the emotional
loss because the financial burden is so great.
and leaves a will or a trust, the deceased’s prop-
erty does not simply pass to the people desig-
nated in that document. The assets are frozen
upon notice of death, gathered and tallied for
estate tax purposes and disbursed.
So what really happens when a parent dies
and leaves assets to his or her child? The child
waits. Not days, not weeks, but months. The
banks take time to close accounts and send
statements. The lawyer or relative awaits a
court date to be appointed representative or
executor of the estate. Funds are liquidated
to cover any of the deceased’s debts. In the
meantime, the child, or in our consideration,
the SHoP project, I wrote that mistakes can be
educational, but that “when the mistake costs
that much money, you must really get it right
the next time.”
With what looks like another architect
change, or at best severe lethargy, it doesn’t
appear as though those in power have learned
from the past. Instead, more money was prob-
ably wasted with the new plan for the fitness
center, which O’Neil conceded was “strug-
gling before the economic crisis.”
Today, the response to suggestions of fi-
nancial or managerial problems is to reference
the rotten economic situation. Those whom
I spoke to in the administration echoed Sim-
mons’ e-mail, with Spies telling me that “some
projects go ahead, some will be put aside, but a
number will be in the category of hold until —
fill in the blank.”
As students, our worry should not be about
the fitness center — we can leave that for Mr.
Nelson, whose $10 million gift has been taken
for granted over the last five years with the
University’s inaction. (A representative of Mr.
Nelson declined to comment.)
Instead, we should worry more generally
about how our University leaders are manag-
ing Brown’s money. And we shouldn’t accept
the disastrous economic situation as an expla-
nation for every decision.
The Undergraduate Council of Students
the Brown student, receives his or her tuition
bill in the mail.
But wait! That bill should be adjusted in ac-
cordance with the student’s new financial sit-
uation. The rules governing financial aid are
fair and just. The student will be treated like
all others.
However, the student cannot be evaluated
based on assets that he or she does not have.
In the time between the parent’s death and the
disbursement of the estate, he or she has nei-
ther the income of the parent nor the assets to
be inherited, but is responsible for thousands
of dollars in tuition bills.
In an interview, Director of Financial Aid
James Tilton assured me that changes in in-
come can be appealed to the Financial Aid of-
fice immediately, but acknowledged that in
cases where the majority of the family assets
are in property, there might be lag time. “In
the situation where the amount of the contri-
bution was not based on income, but on family
assets, we would really need to know what hap-
pened to those assets before we could make a
change.”
From Financial Aid’s standpoint, this makes
Friday, February 6, 2009 | Page 11
should prove its relevance by completing or
commissioning a study of exactly how the Uni-
versity incurred its financial losses. As the “re-
ductions” go into effect this semester, we, as
students, should be vigilant in following which
people and programs get dropped and not
simply let the Corporation and administrators
evade scrutiny the way they have with their
capital projects.
“I fully understand that the pain must begin
at the top and we in the senior administration
are making major cuts in our own budgets in
order to meet this challenge,” wrote Simmons
in her e-mail, and it appears she has literally
put her money where her mouth is.
While her salary rose by a disturbing 79.2
percent in the last 5 years — from $432,900
in 2001-2002 to $775,715 in 2006-2007, in an e-
mail to me, Simmons wrote that she has “over
the past two years asked for a reduction in pay
and the Corporation has agreed. It has been
effected each year.” This is the first confirma-
tion to my knowledge, by Simmons, of an ac-
tual pay cut and should be applauded — a wel-
come contrast to the impersonal campus-wide
e-mail.
As this crisis deepens, our enormous, pow-
erful institution will face serious challenges.
Students must hold leaders accountable for
their decisions and push for the same kind of
justice in Brown’s budgetary decisions that we
regularly push for on the national and interna-
tional level. Failure to do so might mean that
the next project swept under the rug won’t be
a new fitness center — it’ll be our education.
Ben Bernstein ’09 is a history
concentrator and former Herald Opinions
Editor from St. Louis, Missouri.
sense. But promises of future re-evaluation for
aid may not sound so comforting to a student
saddled with an unadjusted tuition bill caused
by frozen assets.
The student is in financial purgatory.
In the past two years, I’ve had three friends
lose parents and two come very close. Ei-
ther I’m some conduit for parental tragedy,
or something is happening. Our parents are
reaching an age when they are significantly
more likely to die.
The National Vital Statistics Report issued
by the CDC in April of 2008 tells us that the
death rate per 100,000 people in the US jumps
from 520.8 for 50-54 year olds to 734.6 for 55-59
year olds to 1,136.9 for 60-64 year olds.
You might think there aren’t too many stu-
dents at Brown in this situation. But ask your-
self a couple of questions. First, would you like
to be stuck with a (say) $23,000 bill without
the funds to pay it? (Bye bye, Brown.) Second,
if there are so few people in this financial fix,
would it be so hard for the University to hold
the bill until the student’s inheritance was dis-
bursed?
Given the low prevalence and the sheer
gravity of this situation, I would hope not.
Can Brown refuse grace to students who
are unable to cover tuition due to circum-
stances completely beyond their control? That
seems like the truly uncomfortable question.
Andrea Matthews ’11, a public policy and
economics concentrator from Santa
Barbara, California, is an amortization
calculating machine.
 Today 5
to day to m o r r o w
Speaker decries ‘cognitive oppression’
The Brown Daily Herald

Teams kick off week of cancer awareness

7
Friday, February 6, 2009
33 / 17 43 / 32
Page 12

the news in images d i a m o n d s a n d c oa l

A diamond to BTV, whose members plan to throw themselves a party this weekend
to celebrate the station’s first broadcast in nearly two years. We hope your memories of
the night are as fuzzy as your original programming.

Coal to MSex for distributing those racy tableslips at the dining halls. Sex and Poly-
nesian Pork Piglets don’t mix.

But then again, we’ll award a diamond for your fair-minded effort to use the adver-
tisements to dispel the idea that the workshop is only for gay men. Not only have you
made women and straight guys feel welcome, but three-headed monsters and carwash

2
fetishists too.

A diamond to the cognitive scientist who discovered that men tend to have reddish
skin and women greenish skin. We have a punch-line forthcoming — we’re just waiting
for that reverend from the inauguration to get back to us with a slightly inappropriate
c a l e n da r rhyming line about people’s skin colors.

february 6, 2008
7 P.M. — Men’s Hockey vs. Dartmouth
and Brown Band Ice Show, Meehan
Auditorium
8 P.M. — “Dancing with the Profs,”
Alumnae Hall
menu
Sharpe Refectory
Lunch — Hot Pastrami Sandwich,
French Green Beans with Tomatoes,
Strawberry Desert Pizza
Dinner — Filet of Fish Florentine,
Asparagus Cuts with Lemon, Baked
Acorn Squash, Green Thai Curry
crossword
February 7, 2008
3 P.M. — “How to Get a Job in Foreign
Policy,” MacMillan 117
8 p.m. — “Pleasure Dome,”
Production Workshop
Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Baked
Vegan Nuggets, Rice Pilaf with Zuc-
chini, Raspberry Swirl Cookies
Dinner — Italian Meatloaf, Risotto
Primavera, Pineapple Carrot Cake
A cubic zirconium to tedious minutiae, like the official faculty motion this week to
rename the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics to the William R.
Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance. We’re glad to see attention
being paid to the WRRCFIEAF, but we’re pretty sure that’s not what Ruth means when
she says to focus on finance.
A diamond to Brandeis University for responding to cash shortfalls by selling its
beloved art museum along with its 6,000 works. That’s exactly the kind of bold move
this economy requires. Then again, maybe the alcoholic, paranoid-schizophrenic owl
mascot has been running the financials long enough.
Coal to the anonymous pranksters who sent out an e-mail telling students that their
next-day MCATs had been rescheduled. You didn’t by any chance send out another one
from “Ruth_5immons@brown.edu” about the endowment, did you?
A cubic zirconium to the gymnastics team, which is apparently tearing up the
competition with generous scores like 9.600, 9.575 and 9.525. We not saying you don’t
deserve those high marks, but how did you manage to stack the judging panel with
Brown professors?
A diamond to the source who suggested putting equal rights activists and other
prominent figures on U.S. currency. Lincoln doesn’t need a bill and a coin, so how about
putting Obama on the penny? Now that would be change we can believe in.

comics
Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley

Cabernet Voltaire | Abe Pressman

The One About Zombies | Kevin Grubb