Daily Herald the Brown
vol. cxliv, no. 18 | Friday, February 13, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891
Supporters of same-sex marriage rights gathered at the State House.
Hundreds rally for
same-sex marriage
By Hannah Moser
Senior Staff Writer
Around 200 people gathered last night
in the State House rotunda to rally for
the passage of a gay marriage bill in
the state legislature.
The Open Your Heart to Equality
rally, planned by Marriage Equality
Rhode Island, was part of the orga-
nization’s effort to increase aware-
ness around Valentine’s Day every
year, said Susan MacNeil, director
of development and communications
for MERI.
“We urge the General Assembly to
finally pass this legislation,” said Rich-
ard Corso, who stood with his part-
ner, Don Laliberte, and addressed the
press before the rally began.
“We pay our taxes. Occasionally
we go out to dinner and a movie. Our
lives are a lot like everyone else’s,”
Women the focus of film festival In a slumping economy,
By Anita Mathews
Contributing Writer
The annual French Film Festival, orga-
nized by the French and Modern Cul-
ture and Media Departments, kicks
off Thursday, Feb. 19 at the Cable Car
ARTS & CULTURE
Cinema and Cafe. Composed of 19
films and one program of shorts, this
year’s line-up has a special focus on
female directors and producers.
The women featured in the festi-
val range from cinema newcomers to
established veterans. Celine Sciamma
is making her directorial debut with
continued on page 6
inside
News.....1-4
Arts........5-6
Spor ts...7-8
Editorial..10
Opinion...11
Today........12
www.browndailyherald.com
Kim Perley / Herald
Corso said. “However, we are denied
the recognition that heterosexual
couples can take for granted.”
The bill would remove gender-
specific language from the pro-
visions governing marriages in
Rhode Island.
Among the attendees at the rally
were about 35 Brown students who
walked down together from Faunce
Arch. “I’ve been doing this a while,”
said Daniel Valmas ’11, who is from
Pawtucket.
Valmas, a member of the Queer
Political Action Committee, publi-
cized the rally on Facebook and
through tabling around campus. He
said he wanted students to become
more involved with politics. The leg-
islature “can choose to hear the bill
or dismiss the bill,” he said.
continued on page 3
The Cable Car Cinema and Cafe will host the French Film Festival,
which kicks off Thursday, Feb. 19.
Arts, 5
Grand slam
Andrea Gibson captivated
the Hourglass Cafe with
her slam poetry
195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island
Scrabblers
unite for love
of words
By Emmy Liss
Features Editor
S-E-Q-U-I-N-S
The tiles click against the
board as the players groan.
“So it’s 102 to 0 right now.”
The proclamation draws spec-
tators closer. “That’s ridiculous,”
one comments.
“I know,” Martha laughs. Look-
ing over at her opponent, Jesse,
shaking his head and shuffling
his tiles, she smiles. “You did win
the last time we played, just so
you know.”
Tucked away in the back
corner of Julian’s Restuarant on
Broadway, the Providence Scrab-
ble Club meets weekly for casual
competition. The club’s members
are an unlikely mix of locals. “All
we have in common is that we
give up a Monday night to play
Scrabble,” said Rich Lupo ’70, the
club’s founder and director.
Every Monday around 7 p.m.,
the players drift into Julian’s. New
games start with each new arrival,
and players settle into a row of
two-person games. Once in a
while, some of the players order
food, but more often they stick
to coffee, ginger beer and the oc-
casional glass of wine.
Squeezed in at a long table
under dim lights, each game
proceeds on a slightly different
edition of the Scrabble board. At
least half the players bring their
own equipment, and there is a
house set too, though it may be
Herald File Photo
An eclectic mix of Providence locals gather to play Scrabble.
missing a tile or two.
Both players keep careful
score, constantly checking the
numbers to ensure consistency
and calling out the tallies as they
go along. “159-83.” “326-298.”
“405-366.”
In such close proximity, it’s
hard not to pay attention to the
other games. “I saw you looking
at my tiles,” one player jokes to a
seatmate, before pointing out a
word he had missed himself.
When a game finishes, the
players carefully watch the active
Valentines find a way
By Brigitta Greene
and Hannah Moser
Senior Staff Writers
It’s that time of year again.
With Valentine’s Day falling
on a Saturday this year and warm
weather forecast, many Brown stu-
dents are planning trips to spend
the day with friends or significant
others, even if it means dipping
into their wallets. It may be a little
tougher this year with the countr y
in a deep economic recession, but
Brown students aren’t letting that
put a damper on their plans.
“I’m taking my girlfriend to Bos-
Sports, 7
En garde
The fencing team is taking
a stab at competition
success this year.
Emmy Liss / Herald
boards, looking for their next op-
ponent. Though an odd number
show up on Monday, the players
passed around a recent New York-
er article about Scrabble to keep
the extra person entertained.
Ability levels range, as do the
strategies players employ. “At a
big Scrabble tournament, 10 of
the first 20 are computer program-
mers,” Lupo said. But here, there’s
a lawyer, an urban planner, a news-
paper columnist, a realtor.
continued on page 2
ton to spend a weekend together,”
said Jonathan Liu MD’12. “I can
splurge for one day and save for
the rest of the year.”
Brent Lunghino ’12 even
purchased round-trip plane tick-
ets for his date to fly in for the
weekend.
But after buying a plane ticket,
he’s not looking to spend much
more on gifts or festivities. His
weekend dining plans are more
likely to include the Verney-Wool-
ley Dining Hall — which, as al-
ways, is decorated for the occasion
continued on page 3
Opinions, 11
Stimulate this
Drew Harris ’11 argues the
stimulus bill should help
defray college tuition.
herald@browndailyherald.com
Page 2 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, February 13, 2009

C ampus N EWS “But then he got a girlfriend and lost interest.”

— Rich Lupo ’70, on a young Scrabble enthusiast.

news in brief

Revamped transcript format delayed

An enhancement of Ban-
ner’s internal transcripts
that was scheduled to de-
but Thursday has been de-
layed indefinitely, the Office
of the Registrar said in an
e-mail to students yesterday
afternoon.
Though Computing and In-
formation Services tested the
new interface for “roughly six
weeks” in two testing environ-
ments, the upgrade was un-
successful, Senior Associate
Registrar Robert
Fitzgerald told The Herald.
Fitzgerald said CIS took pro-
gramming for the new tran-
script out of Banner to fix the
problem, allowing students to
once again access Banner’s ex-
isting self-service transcripts.
The registrar’s office “can’t
afford” to inconvenience stu-
dents further, he said. The
attempted changeover meant
students were unable to ac-
cess transcripts for most of
the day Thursday.
The new transcript format
has been “a long time com-
ing on our enhancement list,”
Fitzgerald said. Besides not
being able to print in its en-
tirety on certain Web brows-
ers, the current transcript for-
mat does not include student
sudoku
names and ID numbers and is
not laid out clearly, especially
for students who have both
undergraduate and graduate
records from Brown.
The new system will be
“far more concise” and “print-
ready,” Fitzgerald said. CIS and
the registrar’s office modeled
it on the internal transcripts
that were available before the
school switched to Banner. For
students who were familiar
with that transcript format, the
current online transcripts look
“like we took a step backward
when we went to Banner,” he
said.
The new transcripts are “95
percent comparable” to the
pre-Banner format, Fitzgerald
said. In addition, they now
include student names and
ID numbers, convenient addi-
tions for advisers who are often
looking at a pile of transcripts
at once. The new format also
specifies that marks of “S*”
denote classes that students
are required to take Satisfac-
tory/No Credit.
The registrar’s office hopes
to have the new transcript
program up and running next
week.
— Nicole Friedman
Across the board, Scrabble entertains
continued from page 1
The only common thread among
the Scrabble players is that every-
one has to be a “nerd,” Lupo said,
“somewhere inside.”
Lupo, the owner of Lupo’s Heart-
break Hotel, the famous downtown
concert venue, has a long history
with the game. He used to some-
times drive to three Scrabble clubs
in Boston and played with a regular
group in Providence, first at Coffee
Exchange on Wickenden Street and
then in the Blue Room at Brown.
But the Blue Room group — the
“forefather” of the current club —
petered out over time.
In 2000, the National Scrabble
Championships were held in Provi-
dence, a nod to Pawtucket-based
company Hasbro, which holds the
domestic rights to Scrabble. Lupo,
who played competitive Scrabble for
25 years, decided to enter.
To help Lupo practice, a friend
suggested restarting the club. Lupo
sought out other enthusiasts at a
Providence Journal Scrabble fund-
raiser and placed an ad in the Provi-
dence Phoenix. The small group of
five or six — none of whom knew
each other — started playing at
Julian’s. Emmy Liss / Herald
The restaurant was closed on A Scrabble enthusiast ponders his next move.
Mondays, but Lupo had a key.
Though patrons now fill the room bunch of random people who get graduated from Brown,” she said.
even on Mondays, the owner together,” she said. Stout walked in late on Monday
still lets the group occupy the Comery, who answered Lupo’s night as Martha Barrett, a retired
back no matter how crowded the original ad nine years ago, writes a teacher and one of the last strag-
restaurant is. weekly newsletter to the 150 people glers, was putting on her scarf and
These days, eight to 14 players on the club’s e-mail list. An editor coat. Unable to resist another game,
show up each week. Most new play- and director of sales for the blog she pulled her board, pad of paper
ers who join hear about the group Providence Daily Dose, Comery fills and official Scrabble dictionary back
through word-of-mouth, though the the newsletter with Scrabble-related out of her bag.
club has received some media cover- anecdotes and game recaps. Opening with a “bingo,” a play
age over the years. Lupo attributes Recipients of the newsletter, both that uses all seven tiles, Barrett
a recent influx of younger players to former and current players, are scat- placed SEQUINS across the center
the online Scrabble phenomenon. tered across the world — one lives of the board. The lead alternated
Once in a while, a restaurant in Liberia — and across generations. between the two: Stout played three
patron wanders to the back and The youngest member to ever at- bingos, but was forced to score zero
starts playing. “Lots of people see tend was 14 years old and “had a twice (once for an incorrect chal-
us in Julian’s and tell their friends,” bright Scrabble future,” Lupo said. lenge, once in a pass). Words un-
Lupo said. “But then he got a girlfriend and familiar to anyone but a Scrabble
Jacque Russom, who has been lost interest.” buff — JO, ZIN, IBEX — covered
playing since the club’s inception, The group’s members have be- the board.
used to work doing spell checking come friends after years of playing. By the end of the game, each
for the American Heritage Dic- “Occasionally some hang out outside player knew exactly what was on
tionary and is now an etymology Scrabble,” Lupo said. After a pause, the other’s rack. Expert Scrabble
editor. Her husband Rick, who also he added, “to play Scrabble.” players keep careful mental track of
frequents the meetings, retired last Anytime a movie about Scrabble the tiles in the bag and guard sacred
month from his post as a professor or gaming comes out, the club goes spots on the board, like the triple
of english at Brown. on a group outing. According to word score.
“I’m a word person,” she said, Jacque Russom, the group, “newly As the game drew to a close,
referring to what she said was a infatuated with the game,” attended Barrett and Stout realized they had
Scrabble dichotomy between play- the 2000 tournament. “We were the pulled off an unusual Scrabble feat:
ers like her, who “get by on our giant only spectators,” she said. a tie. With scores of 380 each, the
vocabularies,” and those, especially Some Brown students have at- two started scooping the tiles back
numerous among the newest gen- tended over the years, including into the bag, but not before analyz-
eration of Scrabble players, who a few from Professor Russom’s ing the game.
have strategically memorized the courses. He never advertised the Nearly ever y game ends in a
101 two-letter words and 1,008 three- club explicitly, his wife said, but quiet discussion of turns well-played

Daily Herald
the Brown

Editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | Business Phone: 401.351.3260

letter words.
“It was a shock to us when we
started playing,” Russom said. “I
like to make nice words, but this
Stephen DeLucia, President Jonathan Spector, Treasurer game is about points.” She joked
Michael Bechek, Vice President Alexander Hughes, Secretary that maybe now since her husband
The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv- has retired, he will get around to the
ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday memorization method, too.
through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during The group is not a sanctioned Na-
Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily
Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Provi-
tional Scrabble Association Scrabble
dence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located Club, “which requires rules, and re-
at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail herald@browndailyherald.com. cord-keeping and calculating player
World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. ratings, and dues and such,” said
Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily.
Copyright 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved. Beth Comery, the group’s de-facto
secretary. Instead, “we are just a
word of the club spread through
his classes.
A “clot” of alums come from time
to time, usually as a group, Comery
said.
State Representative David Segal,
D-Dist. 2, is also a regular attendee.
“We had time to discuss the pro-
Scrabble initiatives he will introduce
in the new year,” Comery joked in
an old newsletter.
One of the group’s younger play-
ers is Jesse Stout ’06, who has been
attending for two-and-a-half years
— “basically the entire time since I
and moves that could have been. The
dictionary reappears as the players
look up the possibilities, making
mental notes for the future.
“Oh, but you got that.”
“I should have known you still
had an S.”
“You really went for the H’s.”
Earlier in the night, examining
a game he had played with Max, a
new addition to the club, Lupo went
through the moves he had made.
Remembering one turn specifically,
he just shook his head.
“You know, I saw that word.”
Friday, February 13, 2009
C ampus N EWS
news in brief
Honoring Darwin,
with art and cake
The process of natural
selection may be fueled by
life’s impermanence, but the
legendary naturalist who in-
troduced it to the world left a
legacy that has long outlived
the man himself.
Though Charles Darwin
has been dead now for almost
127 years, his birthday is still
marked by celebration and
respect. At Brown Thursday,
exactly 200 years after Dar-
win’s birth, that homage was
paid with carrot cake and gi-
ant balls of lab tape.
Students and faculty cel-
ebrated Darwin’s bicentennial
yesterday with a small party
in the lobby of Sidney Frank
Hall. Inspired by the prospect
of bringing art and biology to-
gether, the festivities involved
displaying scientific artwork
— everything from images
of chromosomes to a ball of
hundreds of pieces of old lab
tape — on the walls.
“I thought it would be nice
to incorporate science and
art together,” said Braelyn
Weaver, a research assistant
in the Department of Molecu-
lar Biology, Cell Biology and
Biochemistry. She organized
the celebration along with Au-
brey Frank GS.
To publicize the event,
the two women posted flyers
around campus and solicited
artwork submissions from
both graduate and under-
graduate students. Most of
the displays were the work
of graduate students — often
images taken from their labs
— though some undergradu-
ates submitted for the exhibi-
tion, Weaver said.
In perhaps a symbolic
testament to Homo sapien’s
drive for nourishment, Weaver
and Frank’s four home-baked
chocolate, lemon and carrot
cakes were devoured within
the first 15 minutes of the
event.
“We did not expect a lot
of people,” Weaver said.
“But it was nice that a lot
showed up.”
Many attendees, like Ray
Enke GS, creator of the lab-
tape ball, were graduate stu-
dents, taking a well-needed
break to snack and admire
their peers’ creations. Now
in his sixth year of graduate
work, Enke compared the ad-
dition of each small piece of
tape to “ticking off the days
on a deserted island.”
Professor of Biology
Ken Miller ’70 P’02, one of
Brown’s highest-profile evolu-
tion enthusiasts, was unable
to attend the event, as he was
giving a lecture on the teach-
ing of evolution at the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania to coin-
cide with the anniversary.
— Brigitta Greene
Prof.’s South Side story to debut this weekend
By Qian Yin
Contributing Writer
A Brown professor’s documentary
about the transformation of South
Providence will air on the state’s
Public Broadcasting Service this
weekend.
“Southside: The Fall and Rise
of an Inner-City Neighborhood,” a
55-minute documentary created by
Associate Professor of Sociology Hi-
lary Silver, tells the story of the ups
and downs of the neighborhood and
current efforts at its revitalization.
The documentary will air Satur-
day at 7 p.m. on Rhode Island PBS,
which is channel 36 in Providence
and channel 26 on Brown’s cable
lineup.
Funded by the Rhode Island
Council for the Humanities, the film
traces the neighborhood’s history
from an earlier time when it was
occupied predominantly by white
Panel discusses Congo violence
Sara Sunshine
Senior Staff Writer
Increased awareness and a boycott
of companies with ties to the Congo
may help stem violence against
women in the area, a panel conclud-
ed last night in MacMillan 117.
Four experts on the Congo
came together to discuss the cur-
rent crisis in Central Africa and
what students can do to help.
Jimmie Briggs, a journalist and
human rights lecturer, Colin Thom-
as Jensen, a policy advisor for the
anti-genocide group Enough, Dr.
Roger Luhiriri, a women’s rights
activist, and Sarina Virk, Congo
campaign assistant for Enough,
talked about the bloodshed cur-
rently taking place in the Congo
— the aftermath of a devastating
five-year civil war that ended in
2003.
The event — sponsored by the
Darfur Action Network, the Brown
chapter of the national organization
Students Taking Action Now: Dar-
fur — focused on violence against
women in the Congo.
“East Congo today is perhaps
Valentines carry on despite gloomy economy
continued from page 1
— than a night out at Al Forno.
Maybe even a Valentine’s Ratty
sundae — with two spoons.
Alexander Gard-Murray ’09
said he and his date will “prob-
ably go out to dinner,” he said,
adding that they are “tr ying to
figure out a movie to see.”
College students, he said, may
naturally find it easier to enjoy
Valentine’s Day when money is
tight. “It might be easier for col-
lege students, because the line
between fancy and not fancy is
thinner,” he said.
Others have already dipped
into their pockets for a small pre-
THE BROWN DAILY HERALD
“I’m having trouble putting my brain back together.”
— Tasha Pelaez ’10, on spoken-word performer Andrea Gibson
or black residents. Later, in the 70s
and 80s, local organizations were de-
veloped to create new housing and
jobs, and immigrants from places
like Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic started moving in.
The film details the efforts and
successes of the neighborhood resi-
dents who joined hands to revital-
ize the neighborhood after it went
through a period of deterioration,
during which the community suf-
fered from depopulation, abandon-
ment and arson.
“I made (the film) because I
wanted people from the neighbor-
hood to hear the story about how
neighborhoods in general can
turn themselves around,” Silver
said, “how neighborhoods, if they
organize and work with partners,
are able to overcome deteriorated
conditions.”
Silver said the film is special
because it doesn’t have an outside
the worst place on Earth to be a
woman,” said a narrating voice
in an informational film played at
the event. About 500,000 women
and girls have been raped during
the recent Congo conflict, often in
public, in front of their husbands,
children and neighbors, Luhiriri
said.
But, Briggs added, “what hap-
pens in the Congo is more than just
numbers.” Briggs shared a story
about an interview he conducted
with a 22-year-old Congolese wom-
an who was gang-raped by five sol-
diers in the morning and again by
a different group of soldiers that
night. The second group of men
became annoyed by her children’s
cries and, as the mother watched,
shot and killed all of them. It was
the worst day of the woman’s life,
Briggs said, and she wanted him
to give her suffering meaning by
telling the story to others so other
women could avoid that pain.
“We cannot save the Congolese.
... We can bear witness, listen to the
stories and pass them on,” Briggs
said. Despite this, he added, we
have a duty to do what we can.
Valentine’s treat.
Starbucks is brewing its Caffe
Verona — a “seductive blend
of beans” — and the lovers of
Thayer Street are drinking it
right up.
A pair of coffee canoodlers, Joe
Forgione and Amanda Blanchard,
shared a cup at a table for two
last night.
The couple met in March at
a Gore Mountain mogul skiing
competition. Joined by a mutual
love for skiing and cof fee, the
pair hit it off immediately.
Forgione, who confessed to
drinking “hundreds of gallons”
of coffee ever y year, lives in New
Jersey. He drives up to Providence
narrator. “It’s all made by people in
the neighborhood, strung together,
expressing themselves,” she said.
“My goal was to let the community
speak for itself.”
Silver said she chose PBS to
broadcast the documentar y be-
cause public television reaches a
wide audience.
“This is a neighborhood that
has come back,” she said. “It has
come back from the residents them-
selves. People of color are able to
retain their neighborhood and still
develop it.”
But Silver also said she hopes the
film will reach and inspire people
beyond Rhode Island.
“This is a general story that can
be applied in many different cities
and in different neighborhoods,”
she said. “People can learn the les-
sons from South Providence and
apply them to other places.”
Though it took two years to make
“If you know what’s going on and
don’t do anything about it, you’re
culpable,” he said.
Virk said students can help with
their own unique skills. She cited
Lisa Shannon, a runner from Or-
egon who was motivated to start
a run for Congo after watching an
Oprah segment on Central Africa.
Though there has not yet been
as large a popular support move-
ment for the Congo as for Darfur,
Virk said, “you guys can figure
out a way to build this movement
with us.”
One significant way that stu-
dents as consumers can work to
stop the violence in Congo, said
Jensen, is boycotting companies
that use the tin, tungsten and other
minerals that come from the re-
gion. These corporations include
the cell phone companies Nokia
and Erickson, as well as the tech-
nology giant Apple, he said.
The U.S. government could also
help the situation, Jensen added,
by sending “a high-level envoy with
the support of the president” to
engage in rigorous diplomacy with
the area.
ever y weekend to see Blanchard,
and the pair go north to ski.
But for some Brunonians, the
holiday isn’t just for romance.
Evan Sumor tin ’12 intends
to go up to Boston with a group
of about five friends, with plans
to spend the day shopping and
maybe enjoying dinner at a res-
taurant. And Manuel Lam MD’09
plans to spend tomorrow catching
up with his younger brother.
“I feel the holiday itself is a
special time,” he said. “It should
involve a special relationship.”
­— With additional
reporting by Mitra
Anoushiravani
Page 3
the documentary, Silver said her
knowledge of the neighborhood has
accumulated over nearly 20 years.
In the 80s, she first became in-
terested in the South Side because
of her research interests in social
issues like urban poverty and racial
discrimination. She and her students
conducted fieldwork in the neighbor-
hood, accumulated data and wrote
research papers on the area.
“After about 20 years of this, it
became clear that there is a story
to tell,” she said.
During their time as Brown un-
dergraduates, Stephanie Breakstone
’06, Julia Liu ’06 and former Herald
Editor-in-Chief Robbie Corey-Boulet
’07, assisted in the film’s produc-
tion.
A campus screening of the film
and discussion with Silver will take
place Feb. 23 in the Joukowsky
Forum at the Watson Institute for
International Studies.
Ralliers
push for
same-sex
marriage
continued from page 1
But for Valmas, the goal is to let
the legislature know the importance
of the issue and to give the students
“a venue for their voices to be heard,”
he said.
During the rally, Reverend Eu-
gene Dyszlewski was joined at the
podium by 10 other clergy members
who represented the Religious Co-
alition for Marriage Equality. But
Dyszlewski said he did not expect
the legislature to make their decision
on basis of religion. Rather, he said,
“We ask the legislature to improve
marriage equality because it harms
no one and it’s the right thing.”
MERI also used the rally as an
opportunity to present the results
of a survey of Rhode Island voters.
Patrick Crowley, a MERI Education
Fund board member, presented the
results of the poll, which recorded
49 percent of the electorate in favor
of same-sex marriage, while just 37
percent opposed to it.
Even among Catholic voters,
Crowley said, 45 percent are in favor
of gay marriage and only 37 percent
are opposed.
Crowley said he was speaking to
politicians when he pointed to the
survey’s finding that voters found a
candidate’s stance on gay marriage
relatively unimportant. Same-sex
marriage ranked last, behind factors
such as the economy, government
spending, health care and educa-
tion as issues important to voters,
he said.
During the rally, a representative
from Gay and Lesbian Advocates and
Defenders, Karen Loewy, said MERI’s
goal is to gain marriage equality in all
six New England states by 2012.
Arts & Culture
The Brown Daily Herald
the origin of carrot cake
Students celebrated Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday Thursday in Sidney Frank Hall with Darwin-themed art and refreshments.
Film documents dying languages
By Heeyoung Min
Contributing Writer
About once ever y two weeks, a
language goes extinct, said David
Harrison, a Swarthmore linguistics
professor, before a screening of his
documentary “The Linguists” last
night in Smith-Buonanno 106.
“The Linguists” compellingly ar-
gues that endangered languages —
some spoken by less than 100 people
— deserve scientific documentation
before they vanish.
The film depicts Harrison, in
partnership with linguistic research-
er Gregory Anderson, undertaking
an expedition to track down the last
speakers of Chulym, Sora and Kal-
lawaya, languages spoken in areas
of Siberia, India and Bolivia, respec-
tively. The 64-minute film chronicles
the linguists’ efforts to document
the three languages, a tall order
when surviving speakers are few,
and many among them are old and
hard of hearing.
But the linguistically endowed
duo, who speak a combined 25 lan-
guages between them, embraces
immersive learning, quickly acquir-
Slam poet performs for crowded cafe
By Melissa Shube
Senior Staff Writer
Spoken-word artist Andrea Gibson
held the rapt attention of a crowded
Hourglass Cafe throughout the dura-
tion of her performance there last
night.
Gibson, a four-time Denver
Grand Slam Champion and 2008
winner of the Women of the World
Poetry Slam, said she was happy to
perform at Brown. Brown is, she
said, “one of those schools that I
did not get into, which is really
exciting to come to later in my life,
and be like, you (expletive) didn’t
accept me.”
“It’s good to see you’re all
friendly, welcoming people,” she
added.
ing the basics of each language.
Even from such elementary words
as the vocabulary for body parts,
colors and numbers, they unearth
surprising cultural features. They
find, for instance, that Sora, with
only 300,000 speakers, has one of the
most complicated number systems
in the world.
According to Harrison, marginal-
ized languages are being deserted
because their speakers perceive
them as socially inferior. It’s impor-
tant to document them because lan-
guage contains human knowledge
and histories of entire cultures, he
told the audience of about 50.
Some tribal cultures discourage
or outright forbid children to speak
the indigenous language, Harrison
said. “People are abandoning their
native language because they as-
sume they will gain an economic
advantage.”
It is a common practice in tribal
communities to send children to
boarding schools to learn a mod-
ern language, which is “practical,”
Harrison said. But “abandoning the
native language is not necessary”
because children can easily become
Gibson’s poetr y tackled such
issues as religion, sexuality and
rape. She spoke of sadness and
family, love and sex, and some-
times soundtracked her poetr y
with music from her iPod. Gibson
would follow up her sadder poems
with more uplifting material, joking
that she had to lighten the mood.
“God knows/The holy have
done more damage to the world
then the devil ever could,” per-
formed Gibson, in a satiric poem
about virgin birth.
Gibson periodically took poem
requests from the audience, and
the room erupted into applause
when she announced, “Okay, let’s
do something gay.”
Her poems touched on the
queer experience (“I knew there
Janine Cheng / Herald
bilingual.
The film screening was spon-
sored by the Cognitive and Linguistic
Sciences Department Undergradu-
ate Group.
“In the past, cognitive events
have been narrowly focused,” said
Ana Van Gulick ’09, who heads the
DUG. “Showing this film was an
effort to contribute to a larger au-
dience.”
“The Linguists,” directed by Seth
Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy
S. Newberger and funded by the
National Science Foundation, pre-
miered at the 2008 Sundance Film
Festival and will air on the Public
Broadcasting Service on Feb. 26.
Since their initial trip, Harrison
and Anderson have made multiple
visits back to the tribal communi-
ties, Harrison said. Upon returning,
the two linguists discovered that,
inspired by the existence of aca-
demic interest in their languages,
members of these groups had found
a renewed desire to preserve their
modes of speech.
“People were glad to get their
story to a global population,” Har-
rison said.
were things I should never find
beautiful/like death, and girls,”)
and expressed a fluid and tolerant
appreciation for sexuality.
As she began a poem about a
woman wanting to visit her partner
of fifty years in a hospital, she said,
“This is for California.”
Gibson, whose Web site de-
scribes her as a “queer poet/activ-
ist,” often infuses her poetr y with
contemporar y political issues.
She said, in between poems, that
she felt “queer marriage” should
be tied “together in basic human
rights,” but it seemed hard to jus-
tify putting “a lot of energy into that
when the earth is collapsing.”
The event, hosted by Gender
continued on page 6
Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 5
Festival debuts
in-progress works
By Rosalind Schonwald
Staff Writer
World premieres abound on
campus this week as the Brown
University MFA Playwriting pro-
gram presents the 27th annual
New Plays Festival from Feb. 11
to 15. The festival consists of work
written, directed and performed
by Brown graduate and under-
graduate students in conjunction
with the Brown University/Trinity
Repertory Consortium faculty. The
program also includes a presenta-
tion of works in progress by MFA
candidates and a panel discussion
with faculty.
“Exquisite Corpse,” a play by
Mia Chung MFA ’10 kicked off
the festival Wednesday night.
“Mo’Reece and the Girls,” by
Jackie Sibblies MFA ’10, premiered
last night.
For the two playwrights, the
festival is yet another step in the
development of scripts they began
writing a semester ago.
“The first year of graduate
school, the first semester in writ-
ing workshop, you’re writing the
play that you’ll put up this semes-
ter,” Chung explained. “It’s kind
of designed to put a fire under
your butt and also see what you
can learn and discover in a really
fast process.”
Playwriting program faculty
matched each writer with a gradu-
ate student director, keeping their
reasoning for the specific pairings
opaque.
“It’s a mysterious process,”
said “Exquisite Corpse” director
Michael Perlman MFA ’10. “This
year there are four first-year play-
wrights, two first-year directors
and two second-year directors,” he
said, adding that the heads of the
program were like “puppet mas-
ters” for the production teams.
Though the playwrights and
directors had their own defined
roles, the festival’s structure put
an emphasis on collaboration.
“It’s definitely considered a
workshop production for develop-
ing the play,” Chung said. “I have to
say, it’s a hugely beneficial learning
experience to be able to develop
your play and have rehearsal with
directors and actors who know it’s
your process. I’m definitely not
done with the play.”
She added that throughout
rehearsals and the early part of
production, she “had a draft that
had lots of holes in it,” with notes
reading “scene to come...” scat-
tered throughout the document.
Chung may not have been ex-
aggerating when she said the play
isn’t necessarily “done.” Actors re-
ceived “new lines until 3 o’clock”
in the afternoon before opening
night, she said. But Wednesday’s
performance showed little evi-
dence of last-minute revisions, in-
stead coming across as polished
and professional.
The opening-night atmosphere
fit the festival’s collegiate spirit,
with an audience that included
professor-types with floral, woolen
scarves and graduate students in
tailored canvas jackets, perfectly
suited to the unseasonably warm
night.
The New Plays Festival runs
through Feb. 15, with performances
and events in the McCormack Fam-
ily Theater at 70 Brown Street. A
limited number of tickets are avail-
able for reservation on the Musical
Forum Web site. If a performance
is sold out, e-mail NPF271@gmail.
com to be added to the wait-list.
Page 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, February 13, 2009

A rts & C ulture

Queer poet Gibson recites in Hourglass Local festival to focus on
continued from page 5
Action, a sub-group of the Queer
Alliance, also drew suppor t
from the student poetr y group
WORD!
The captivated audience — full
of both QA and WORD! members
— followed Gibson’s every rhyme,
snapping, stomping and clapping
in appreciation.
Katie Lamb ’10, head chair of
Gender Action and QA secretary,
called Gibson’s poetr y “beauti-
francophone female’s films
ful” and said it meant a lot to her.
“I thought she would be a great
person to bring to Brown, just sort
of what her work encompasses,”
she said.
“She’s not afraid to tackle is-
sues of God, especially from a
queer perspective,” said Devin
Streur ’11. “That’s really power-
ful because a lot of the problems
in queer America and the queer
world today ... are aggravated by
religious forces, and so she ad-
dresses that.”
“Andrea Gibson is a brilliant,
brilliant poet,” said WORD! Event
Coordinator Tasha Pelaez ’10.
“She’s just got really powerful
things to say — it’s not just her
writing style, it’s the message she
delivers,” she added.
After her hour-long per for-
mance, Gibson received a stand-
ing ovation.
“I have a poet crush on her
now, like more then I did before,”
Pelaez said. “I’m having trouble
putting my brain back together.”
continued from page 1
“Naissance des pieuvres” (“Waterlil-
ies”), while 80-year-old director Ag-
nes Varda boasts over five decades
of experience in French cinema. A
popular figure known for grappling
with feminist issues, Varda is the sub-
ject of her own retrospective, “Les
plages d’Agnes” (“The Beaches of
Agnes”).
The festival will include a talk by
Geraldine Michelot, producer of three
of the films showing this year, all of
which were showcased at the Cannes
Film Festival. Her “Versailles” is nomi-
nated for a Cesar award — the French
equivalent of an Oscar — for best first
film of the year.
The event’s other two guests are
French-Canadians Simon-Olivier Fec-
teau and Marc-Andre Lavoie, who col-
laborated on “Bluff,” a dark comedy
showing in the festival.
Richard Manning, film archivist
in the MCM department and one
of the festival coordinators, said the
planning committee chose cinematic
pieces that represent multiple cultures
and experiences.
“We intentionally want to make our
selection of films across genres and
countries,” Manning said.
Shoggy Waryn, a senior lecturer in
French studies, echoed Manning. “We
are talking about French-speaking
cinema, not merely French as in from
France,” Waryn wrote in an e-mail to
The Herald.
Waryn said he expects the coming-
of-age story “Waterlilies” to be “the
sleeper hit of the festival.” “Capitaine
Achab,” on the other hand, is a new
take on “Moby Dick” that focuses
on four nonsequential segments in
the title character’s life. “Les Enfants
de Don Quichotte” is a documentary
that tackles the issue of homeless-
ness in France. “Kinshasa Palace”
is, in Manning’s words, “a real smart
road movie” detailing a man’s journey
through Lisbon, France, Belgium and
Cambodia to find his brother, a Con-
golese war refugee.
The black-and-white film “La fron-
tiere de l’aube” is “in some ways a
romantic melodrama, but has a real
subtle sense of horror that jolts the
audience,” Manning said. “It’s not an
easy film.”
Waryn said he is most interested
in movies that are very different
from American cinema. “Some can
be quite ‘charming’ in a French way,
but more often than not, their nar-
rative structures are quite off-beat
— their subject matter, too,” he said.
“Very often, we are talking about one-
of-a-kind films.”
The opportunity to screen these
movies, some of which are making
their North American premieres, is
a unique one, and though the festival
is open to the Providence community
as a whole, Manning said he hopes
to see more students in the audience
than have attended in years past. He
said that often the last few days of the
festival bring more students, many
of whom attend as part of a course
requirement.
The French Film Festival runs
through Sunday, March 1. Film syn-
opses, trailers and a full schedule
of screening times can be found on
the Cable Car Web site. Tickets for
each film are available on the day
it shows.

French Film Festival Highlights

• “L’age des tenebres” (“Days of Darkness”) Canada,
2007. 104 min. Dir. Denys Arcand. “American Beauty”-esque
exploration of a civil servant’s mid-life crisis.
• “Bluff” Canada, 2007. 88 min. Dir. Simon-Olivier Fecteau
& Marc-Andre Lavoie. Secret lives of apartment-dwellers in a
soon-to-be-demolished building.
• “Capitaine Achab” Sweden/France, 2007. 105 min. Dir.
Philippe Ramos. “Moby-Deconstructed”: Melville’s novel as seen
through the eyes of Captain Ahab.
• “Les enfants de Don Quichotte” (“The Children of
Don Quixote”) France, 2008. 75 min. Dir. Ronan Denece &
Augustin Legrand. Stark documentary chronicling a Paris social
movement raising awareness about homelessness.
• “Entre adultes” (“Among Adults”) France, 2007. 81
min. Dir. Stephane Brize. Low-budget exploration of relationships,
based on Max Ophuls 1950 film “La Ronde.”
• “La frontiere de l’aube” (“Frontier of Dawn”) France,
2008. 106 min. Dir. Philippe Garrel. “Dreamers” (2003) heartthrob
Louis Garrel stars in father Philippe’s black-and-white drama.
Roses are red, • “Il y a longtemps que je t’aime” (“I’ve Loved You So
Long”) France/Germany, 2007. 115 min. Dir. Philippe Claudel.
house ads are blue, English actress Kristin Scott Thomas delivers a wrenching
performance as an ex-convict in this family drama.
Fridays are sweet • “Kinshasa Palace” Democratic Republic of Congo, 2006.
70 min. Dir. Zeka Laplaine. Transnational study of displacement
and so are you! and diaspora.
• “Naissance des pieuvres” (“Waterlilies”) France, 2007.
85 min. Dir. Celine Sciamma. Coming-of-age film about three
teenagers in a Paris suburb.
Will you be The Herald’s Valentine? • “Les plages d’Agnes” (“The Beaches of Agnes”) France,
2008. 110 min. Dir. Agnes Varda. A storied director offers up a
memoiristic self-portrait in film.
• “Versailles” France, 2008. 102 min. Dir. Pierre Scholler. A
recluse living on the grounds of Versailles finds himself responsible
for the life of a young boy.
SportsWeekend
The Brown Daily Herald
Much
ado about
something
“Don’t just do something! Stand
there!”
You might ask, “Ben, why are you
yelling at me?”
The reason
has as much
to do with the
beginning of
spring training
in baseball this
weekend as it Ben Singer
does with Con- High Notes
gress’s new
$789 billion stimulus plan. And no,
Congress isn’t subsidizing the Yan-
kees’ payroll. It’s about how people
perceive the short run versus the
long run.
Major League Baseball teams
play 162 games a season. Try playing
162 games of Rock Paper Scissors.
It takes a long time, and those aren’t
three-and-a-half hours each.
But each of those games can
feel monumental. A five-game los-
ing streak is enough to have people
calling in on talk radio to demand a
team’s manager be fired.
After hitting .182 in his first month
with the Boston Red Sox, it seemed
nearly everybody in New England
thought Dustin Pedroia should have
been sent back to the minor leagues.
“He’s too small. It just doesn’t look
like he has the size and power to
compete with these guys,” I remem-
ber my dad telling me.
What did Terry Francona, the
manager of the Boston Red Sox, do?
He let Pedroia work through it. Was
it a good move? Only if you consider
batting .317 and winning the Ameri-
can League Rookie of the Year Award
that season, then winning Most Valu-
able Player and a Gold Glove the next
year, good enough.
The point is this: people, particu-
larly spectators who aren’t playing
the game, frequently overreact to
short-run events. In other words, we
react as though the long run is going
to be an extended version of what
we’ve seen in the short run.
Congress’s action to pass a mas-
sive stimulus plan isn’t so different.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but
apparently the U.S. economy isn’t
doing so hot right now. People are
concerned about this, and the gen-
eral consensus is to demand an im-
mediate response.
I’m not going to get politically in-
volved in the specifics of Congress’s
plan, partially because I don’t think
anybody fully understands what’s
happening right now. That being
said, it would be ridiculous to say
that Congress’s action wasn’t moti-
vated by the large public outcry for
immediate relief. A prolonged re-
cession, just like a prolonged losing
streak, ignites the “do something!”
mentality.
I’m not suggesting that Congress
or baseball managers should always
ignore short-run losses. There are
many instances in which responding
substantively is appropriate. Long-
continued on page 8
Fencers start season off on the right foot
The men’s and women’s fencing teams practice as a single co-ed team
but compete separately in meets.
Weekend preview
The prodigal teams have returned
to Brown’s campus.
The reeling men’s basketball
team returns to the Pizzitola Center
for the first time since Jan. 16 to play
two Ivy League games, while wom-
en’s hockey makes a long weekend
of its return to Meehan Auditorium,
playing games on Friday, Saturday
and Tuesday evenings.
The men’s hoopsters (6-14, 0-6
Ivy) will take a 5-3 home record
(better than their 1-12 road mark)
into contests with Penn (5-13, 1-3)
on Friday and Princeton (9-8, 4-0)
on Saturday. Both games tip off at
7 p.m.
Since starting 6-8 against a slate
of non-conference foes, the Bears
have lost six straight against Ivy
teams. After losing at home to Yale,
Bruno fell again on the road to the
Bulldogs, then to Cornell and Co-
lumbia. Last weekend, the Bears
took two games to the wire but fell to
Dartmouth, 63-61, in overtime, and
to Harvard, 64-63, at the buzzer.
Matt Mullery ’10 powered Brown
by notching his first double-double
of the season, with 12 points and
13 rebounds, against Dartmouth
Justin Coleman / Herald
before pouring in a career-high 27
points against Harvard on 13-of-16
shooting.
The women’s hockey team (5-
18-1, ECAC Hockey 4-13-0) is a rare
team that has preferred road trips
to the cozy confines of Meehan, go-
ing 4-9-1 on the road but just 1-9 in
Providence. Last weekend, despite
getting 88 total saves in two games
from Nicole Stock ’09, a Herald
sports staff writer, the Bears were
blanked by No. 8 Dartmouth, 1-0,
and Harvard, 4-0.
But Bruno will face a much easier
task this weekend, taking on three of
the bottom five teams in the ECAC.
The Bears will host conference door-
mat Union (2-25-3, 0-17-1) on Friday
at 7 p.m., Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute (13-13-3, 8-8-2) on Saturday
at 4 p.m. and Yale (9-15-0, 5-12-0) on
Tuesday at 7 p.m.
This weekend will also mark
the conclusion of Breast Cancer
Awareness Week, during which
many Brown teams have sported
pink and raised money for cancer
research.
— Sports Staff Reports
Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 7
By Dan Alexander
Sports Staff Writer
No, their swords aren’t lethal. No,
they don’t do backflips in the middle
of their bouts. And no, they don’t
wear masks or carve Z’s into their
opponents.
But yes, Brown fencers do claim
that they could beat Zorro. They say
it with a smile, of course.
“Well Zorro seems to be com-
pletely invincible and he has real
swords and a better mask,” captain
Nick Bender ’09 said. “But I have
better protection, so I think that I
have the edge.”
Head Coach Atilio Tass has first-
hand experience fighting Zorro.
Tass fought the actor who played the
television version of the franchise
character in a choreographed bout
when Tass was the South American
fencing champion in the ’80s. Zorro
actor Guy Williams was on a travel-
ling tour doing shows for audiences
in Argentina.
“They stopped in Buenos Aires
and I was asked to do a presentation
for big audiences,” Tass said.
Tass “died” in the choreo-
graphed fight after Zorro sent his
sword sailing out of his hands, but
he was resurrected backstage and
is now the head coach of Brown’s
fencing team.
His office is lined with trophies,
and his team is off to another suc-
cessful season this year. They fin-
ished first in their first tournament
of the year — The Big One at Smith
College — and were undefeated at
the Northeast Fencing Conference
No. 1.
The Bears hadn’t finished a tour-
nament with a losing record all sea-
son, until the Ivy Championships No.
1 at Columbia last weekend, where
the men went 1-2 and the women
went 0-4.
“The whole athletic department
is really behind — to give all of the
facilities,” Tass said of the depart-
ment hosting the NFC No. 2 at the
Olney-Margolies Athletic Center.
The budget is tight for the fenc-
ing team, Tass said. They have only
one full-time coach for a team of 31
fencers. Tass has one volunteer
coach and another part-time assis-
tant, who give one-on-one lessons.
But with a limited budget, Tass can’t
hire any full-time assistants.
The program has no fencing
room or facilities. They practice and
compete on the OMAC floor. Yet
Tass said he remains appreciative
for what they do have.
“We do have more now than ever
before,” he said, but added, “We can
get better results if I have a little
bit more.”
Tass, an Olympian from Ar-
gentina, said he doesn’t think that
an Olympic-caliber fencer would
want to come to a school with such
a limited fencing budget. He also
said that he doesn’t think anyone
on the team right now has Olympic
aspirations.
“If you are at Brown, you are at
the Olympics of academics,” Tass
said. A student would have to take
a year off of school in order to go
through the training and qualifica-
tion process, he added.
Having “Olympic goals is a full-
time dedication,” he said.
The team holds practices with
both men and women. They prac-
tice with each other but compete
separately during the meets.
Captain Deborah Gorth ’09.5 said
it helps “getting to fence against men
continued on page 8
Page 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD Friday, February 13, 2009

S ports W eekend “To be a co-ed team is very exciting.”

— Atilio Tass, fencing head coach.

Singer ’09: Managers, Congress must act

continued from page 7
run losses don’t occur without short-
run losses, and often losses are a sign
that something is wrong in the first
place. Inaction can be just as costly.
Just ask former Red Sox manager
Grady Little why he didn’t pull Pe-
dro Martinez out of Game 7 of the
2003 ALCS when he had just given
up back-to-back hits in the eighth
inning.
What I am suggesting is that
those capable of reacting, whether
they are baseball managers, general
managers or Congressmen, take into
account that people disproportionate-
ly value the short run over the long
run. If you’re under pressure to do
something and there’s no reasonable
solution out there, you don’t need
to go blow $20 million on Kei Igawa
(see Yankees, New York). Short-run
responses aren’t free, and they can
end up causing you more long-run
strife.
Baseball managers and Congress
also share an attitude of perceived
control over their respective games.
In the NBA, coaches can make a big
difference, as they draw up plays and
frequently make substitutions. In the
NFL, coaches have undeniable value,
because strategy and designing plays
have a huge role in determining the
outcome of games.
In MLB, managers have rela-
tively little power compared to its
two main competitor sports in the
U.S. Sure, they can switch in players
and signal infield shifts and bunts,
but the players go in knowing how
they have to hit the ball, catch the
ball or throw the ball to get the guy
out. The manager’s greatest asset is
managing the egos in the clubhouse
away from the field.
Despite this, countless manag-
ers are sacked each year when their
clubs go into a funk. As David Fabi-
anic found in his study on managerial
replacement in the Journal of Sports
Behavior (2004), teams play better
after the replacement. If you didn’t
look closely at the results, you might
think that firing the old manager got
the players to play harder or that
the new manager knew how to do
something the old manager didn’t.
What closer examination reveals is
that teams with the same players
play no differently than they did prior
to entering a losing stretch. Essen-
tially, if a team starts playing poorly,
even if nothing changes, they tend
to bounce back.
Congress’s legislative power cer-
tainly has a substantial impact on our
economy. However, just because the
economy recovers after a stimulus
bill is passed does not mean that the
stimulus bill is fully responsible for
the recovery. It may have worked, or
maybe the economy bounced back
for some other reason. The problem
is that the “do something!” mentality
generally likes to assign causality
of short-run reactions to the con-
sequences that follow. But this only
reinforces the bad ideas that happen
to work out all right and inhibits criti-
cal thinking.
That being said, I don’t see this
general short-sighted approach
changing. Regardless of whether
anything is getting accomplished,
people feel a little better when those
in power “do something!” If you’re Justin Coleman / Herald
The fencing team holds co-ed practices but competes as separate
unsure about the situation you’re in
men’s and women’s teams.
control of, sometimes making people
feel better is the best thing you can
do, short- or long-term.
Fencing practice leads
to success, marriages
Ben Singer ’09 won’t stop play-
ing rock, paper, scissors until
the economy recovers.

continued from page 7 ons on the men’s team, according

(in practice), and then having to face
women in competition. Men are gen-
erally faster, so it’s good practice.”
She added that women tend to be
more technical fighters, so it ben-
efits both teams.
More than just good practice con-
ditions have come out of the mixed-
gender teams. Two couples Tass
used to coach are now married.
“To be a co-ed team is very excit-
ing,” Tass said.
Most Brown fencers join the
team with previous fencing experi-
ence. There are fewer than five walk-
to captain Elias Jaffa ’09, himself a
walk-on. Jaffa didn’t start fencing
until six months before he came to
Brown.
“I had done track and field and
cross country” in high school, Jaffa
said, “so I was somewhat athletic.”
But Jaffa didn’t know much about
fencing. His exposure to sword fight-
ing was limited to seeing it “mostly
in the movies,” Jaffa said.
Jaffa’s idea of the sport has since
changed. “I watch a movie now and
they’re fencing and I’m like, I could
have gotten him four or five times
in the space of that action.”

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World & Nation
The Brown Daily Herald
Federal court rules link
between vaccine, autism
By Jia-Rui Chong
Los Angeles T imes
In a major setback for the fight to
link autism to vaccines, a special
federal court ruled Thursday that
the measles-mumps-rubella vac-
cine and vaccines that contained a
mercury-based preservative were
not connected to autism that devel-
oped in three children.
The cases of the Cedillo, Hazle-
hurst and Snyder families could po-
tentially sink the claims of several
hundred other families who believe
the MMR vaccine alone or in com-
bination with vaccines containing
the preservative thimerosal caused
their children’s autism, said Curtis
Webb, a lawyer for the Hazlehurst
family.
The outlook appeared par-
ticularly grim, he said, because
these three cases were considered
among the strongest.
“We’re extremely disappoint-
ed,” Webb said. “It wasn’t even a
close case.”
The families’ attorneys are
considering appealing, the law-
yer said. Vaccine supporters and
public health experts applauded
the decision by the U.S. Court of
Federal Claims, hoping it would
reassure parents that the shots
recommended by federal scientists
are safe.
“It’s a great day for science and
I’d like to think it’s also a great
day for children with autism,” said
Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious
diseases at Children’s Hospital of
Philadelphia and co-inventor of the
rotavirus vaccine (a standard child-
hood immunization that does not
contain thimerosal).
Offit said he understands that
many parents have been scared by
the controversy but believes those
who refused to vaccinate their chil-
dren contributed to a 12-year high
in measles cases last year and a
recent outbreak of bacterial menin-
gitis. Both of these outbreaks could
have been prevented by standard
childhood vaccinations, he said.
“It’s time to put the vaccine hy-
pothesis aside and focus on the
real causes of autism and not be
diverted by a dead end,” said Offit,
who was not involved in the case.
Congress set up the special
vaccine court in 1986 when phar-
maceutical companies faced a li-
ability crisis. Vaccines were being
blamed for catastrophic injuries to
children, and some vaccine manu-
facturers threatened to quit the
business.
The court shields vaccine mak-
ers from paying damages, drawing
money from a surcharge levied on
every vaccine. Parents who believe
their children have been injured by
vaccines can file petitions at this
court and receive compensation
from a pool funded by a surcharge
on the vaccines.
Roughly 5,000 families have
filed claims involving autism, a
spectrum of developmental disor-
ders whose hallmarks are impaired
social interaction and communica-
tion. The appointed judicial offi-
cers in this case, known as special
masters, decided to hear test cases
on different causation theories to
develop general principles that
they could apply to the flood of
claims.
Three special masters heard
the cases of the Cedillo, Hazlehurst
and Snyder families in 2007. Law-
yers for the families argued that
vaccines containing thimerosal
weakened the children’s immune
systems, allowing the viruses in
the MMR vaccine to take hold and
lead to autism. In the Hazlehurst
case, lawyers for the family came
to argue that the MMR vaccine
was the primary culprit.
Thimerosal was used to keep
bacteria from growing in multi-
dose containers. The MMR vac-
cine never contained thimerosal,
but some other routinely recom-
mended vaccines such as the hepa-
titis B vaccine did. Thimerosal was
phased out of most shots around
2000. Trace or small amounts of
thimerosal remain in a few vac-
cines recommended for children,
including the flu shot.
The special masters rejected
practically all of the families’ ar-
guments.
“I concluded the evidence was
overwhelmingly contrary to the
petitioners’ contentions,” George
L. Hastings Jr. wrote in the Cedillo
opinion, which was similar to the
others. “The expert witnesses pre-
sented by the respondent were far
better qualifed, far more experi-
enced and far more persuasive
than the petitioners’ experts.”
Several parent-advocates were
frustrated by the decisions.
“I’m sure the decision was based
on some of the current science that
is out there and the scientific com-
munity hasn’t invested in the types
of independent research necessary
to get to the bottom of the issue,”
said Rick Rollens, the parent of
an autistic son and co-founder of
the University of California, Davis
M.I.N.D. Institute.
Rollens and others said these
verdicts won’t make parents stop
questioning the safety of vaccines,
especially when parents witness
changes in their children right
after vaccination.
“There’s no denying what hap-
pens to your child when you see
it first-hand,” said Rollens, a Sac-
ramento, Calif., resident. “Maybe
we haven’t asked all the right ques-
tions yet.”
The special masters are still
working on another group of test
cases alleging that the thimerosal
itself causes autism. Final briefs
on those cases are still being filed,
with decisions expected sometime
after this summer.
Thursday’s decisions “won’t re-
solve the thimerosal cases,” said
Webb. “There are more people
that focus on thimerosal than fo-
cus on MMR. ... Those cases are
still viable.”
Yum Brands is China’s largest restaurant chain, with nearly 2,500 KFCs and 416 Pizza Huts. But sales of Western
fast food are slowing. Here, a KFC in Wuwei, Anhui province. Street vendors also sell food in front of the store.
Asian fast food not cheapest game in town
By Don Lee
Los Angeles T imes
SHANGHAI, China — Down an al-
ley from a KFC, McDonald’s and
Pizza Hut here, Li Hong sat inside
a dingy little storefront that serves
full-course dinners for a dollar.
Her tray was filled with cabbage,
carrots, potatoes, a chicken leg and
rice, plus soup. A Western fast-food
meal would have cost three times
that much, said the young woman,
who works as a sales clerk. “Why
should I go there?” she said.
In the U.S., fast-food chains often
thrive in tough times. But not so in
China, where Western quick-service
food isn’t the cheapest stuff in town
and, in target markets like Shanghai,
there’s too much competition. Plus,
a growing number of consumers see
it as unhealthful.
“Western fast food is still not
cheap enough,” said Yee Mei Chan,
a group-account director at Millward
Brown’s office in Beijing.
In a recent survey, the market-
ing research company found that 78
percent of Chinese consumers were
feeling some effect from the global
financial crisis. About half said they
were likely to cut down on eating at
Western fast-food restaurants.
That might help explain why
Yum Brands Inc., China’s largest
restaurant chain with nearly 2,500
KFCs and 416 Pizza Huts, said same-
store sales in the country were up
just 1 percent in the fourth quarter
compared with year-earlier growth
of 17 percent.
In the U.S., Yum’s same-store
sales, an industr y measure of
branches open at least a year, rose
2 percent in the latest quarter, ended
Dec. 27.
McDonald’s Corp. doesn’t re-
port such figures for China, where
it has about 1,050 stores. But Jeff
Schwartz, head of China operations,
said, “We had some softening at the
latter part of 2008.”
Like many retailers in China, in-
cluding Wal-Mart, McDonald’s cut
prices recently, saying it wanted to
Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 9
Cao Jun / Los Angeles Times
do its part to keep China’s economy plenty of students had only books
growing. Its new “value meals” cost and papers spread out on the ta-
$2.42, a saving of up to one-third for bles.
combos such as a double cheese- Wu said she and her husband,
burger, medium-size French fries both architectural designers, saw a
(or cup of corn) and a drink. 20 percent cut in pay between them
Schwartz said he remained “very in the past year because of a lack
bullish” on China. McDonald’s is of work.
on its way to opening 175 stores in “I might come more if it’s cheap-
China this year, he said. er,” she said, adding that she takes
Yum is also planning for another her son to McDonald’s and KFC
year of high growth in China, which each once a week. On this evening
has been increasingly driving the the total tab was about $5.
corporation’s profits. And other food Other customers at this branch
and beverage retailers, including and several others said lower prices
Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts, Star- wouldn’t change their eating-out
bucks and Cold Stone Creamery, are routine.
bulking up in China as well. “It’s fast food; it’s not good for
With rising affluence and chang- you,” said a 30-year-old tech worker
es in lifestyle, the pace of China’s who identified himself by his Eng-
spending on eating out has been lish name, Alex Lu.
growing by double digits year after KFC in particular met with early
year. The China Cuisine Association success in China in part because
estimates that sales surged 24 per- consumers viewed it as cleaner and
cent last year to $225 billion at the offering more-hygienic foods. In re-
nation’s 4 million eating and drink- cent ads and promotional materi-
ing establishments. als, KFC and McDonald’s have been
If Western fast-food diners are stressing good value, high quality
slipping a bit, it could be that they’ve and healthful lifestyles.
“lost some of their freshness,” said
Xu Yunfei, the association’s industry
development director.
KFC, which opened its first store
in China in 1987 and since has pen-
etrated deep into the nation’s heart-
land, still has a lot of cachet in rural
areas, where its restaurants are often
packed. But most foreign retailers in
China have yet to enter such smaller
markets inland, tending to focus on
young consumers and the middle
class in China’s urban centers.
Yet once-booming coastal cities
such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen
are now reeling from a falloff in
exports and industrial production.
Even in Shanghai, with its large ser-
vice economy, it isn’t hard to find
people who are battening down the
hatches.
On a recent Friday evening, Wu
Lei, 40, and her 11-year-old son were
having dinner at a McDonald’s in a
northeast Shanghai neighborhood.
Most of the seats in this two-story
restaurant were taken, although
Commentary & Letters
The Brown Daily Herald

Page 10 | Friday, February 13, 2009

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

Women deserve respect,

not objectification
To the Editor:
In his recent column (The myth
of the ‘Brown student,’ Feb. 11),
Sean Quigley ’10 comments that
he is “not a feminist,” and wonders
if this means he is “not welcome
here.”
While each feminist has his or
her own conception about exactly
what the word means, most of us
would agree at a minimum that
feminism is a conviction that wom-
en should have the same rights
that men do in the political, eco-
nomic, social and sexual spheres.  culine camaraderie.” But this ca-
If Quigley cannot agree at least to
this basic idea that women should
be full citizens and be treated as
human beings worthy of respect,
then no, he is not “welcome” in
the culture of social justice that
most Brown students, faculty and
staff are tr ying to create.  And if
he does, in fact, agree with most
of us on this point, then why not
identify as a feminist?
citizenship rights and made into
sexual objects for men’s pleasure
does not mean that these injustices
are the way things ought to be. And
just because our bodies are not
identical to men’s does not mean
that all broad biological sterotypes
(women’s sexual responses are
different from men’s, women are
physically weaker than men, etc.)
apply to all women, or that they can
be used to deny women the rights
and respect we all deser ve.
I do agree with Quigley that
there is nothing wrong with “mas-
maraderie must not come at the
expense of women’s dignity. A
lingerie show including members
of any gender in the cast and the
audience (as the Class of ’11 Board
claims that theirs was) should be pete fallon
welcome at Brown; a show mar-
keted only toward men and treat-
ing only women’s bodies as sexual
objects should not. opinions extra
Finally, I encourage Quigley to

The case for universal gender neutrality

Quigley also remarks that some read Emma Goldman’s essay on
gender stereotypes are “biologi- “The Hypocrisy of Puritanism.” He
cally, historically and experien- may find that he has more in com-
tially reasonable.”  I don’t know mon with this feminist anarchist
what stereotypes he refers to, but than he would have thought! maintain a one-to-one ratio of males to females. While
I would caution him that just be- all-male football teams have traditionally been the norm,
cause histor y and experience tell Lily Axelrod ’09 ANISH MITRA especially in the Ivy League, we must abandon outmoded
us that women are often denied Feb. 11 Opinions Columnist practices when they conflict with our moral values.
Lastly, we should apply similar policies to every team,
so that they can all benefit from equal representation.
The University’s statues should be held to the same
t h e b r o w n d a i ly h e r a l d After reading a recent editorial (“To the 2011 Class standards. Brown should eliminate all notable statues
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editors Associate Editors Senior Editors Board,” Feb. 3) I was taken aback. To recap, the editorial on campus to eradicate the edifice of sexism altogether.
Steve DeLucia Michael Bechek Nandini Jayakrishna Rachel Arndt page board took issue (and rightly so) with the 2011 These beautiful figures only deserve a place on cam-
Chaz Firestone Franklin Kanin Catherine Cullen
Michael Skocpol Scott Lowenstein Class Board’s sexist decision to host a lingerie fashion pus if they’re matched with female and transgender
editorial Business show during the Super Bowl’s halftime. After reading counterparts, preferably sculpted in marble. Statues of
Ben Hyman Arts & Culture Editor General Managers Office Manager the editorial, I fell into a bittersweet mood. While I was different genders should be juxtaposed so that students
Hannah Levintova Arts & Culture Editor Alexander Hughes Shawn Reilly
Sophia Li Features Editor Jonathan Spector glad the editorial page board exposed this instance of have to digest the simultaneous female, male and other
Emmy Liss Features Editor Directors misogyny for what it really was, I was disappointed presences.
Gaurie Tilak Higher Ed Editor Ellen DaSilva Sales Director
Matthew Varley Higher Ed Editor Claire Kiely Sales Director
that clear logical transitions were not made to take the Brown students will one day graduate and permeate
George Miller Metro Editor Phil Maynard Sales Director case even further. the world’s higher circles. They will inevitably bring
Joanna Wohlmuth Metro Editor Katie Koh Finance Director Blatant sexism pervades our campus (along with the lessons they’ve learned in the classroom into their
Chaz Kelsh News Editor Jilyn Chao Asst. Finance Director
Jenna Stark News Editor the rest of the world, and possibly the universe). After professional lives. Although academic biases are more
Benjy Asher Sports Editor Managers
excessive thinking, I developed a list of ways to achieve difficult to combat, the University should do its part to
Andrew Braca Sports Editor Kelly Wess Local Sales
Alex Mazerov Asst. Sports Editor Kathy Bui National Sales the preferable ideal — a homogenous, gender neutral problematize patriarchal assumptions. Every assigned
Katie Wood Asst. Sports Editor Alex Carrere University Sales society where Brunonians can coexist without succumb- reading by a male author should be paired with one
Christiana Stephenson Recruiter Sales
Graphics & Photos
Matt Burrows Credit and Collections
ing to their inner (albeit, natural) sexist tendencies. by a female author. If there aren’t enough prominent
Chris Jesu Lee Graphics Editor
Stephen Lichenstein Graphics Editor Opinions
First, all bathrooms on campus ought to be gender- female figures to fill half a syllabus, the course should
Eunice Hong Photo Editor Sarah Rosenthal Opinions Editor neutral. All Brown students are humans and all humans be promptly removed from the Course Announcement
Kim Perley Photo Editor Editorial Page Board require bathrooms. Why should men and women be Bulletin. Any dropped classes can be replaced with
Justin Coleman Sports Photo Editor James Shapiro Editorial Page Editor
Nick Bakshi Board member barred from using each others’ facilities when the bath- offerings from the prestigious Gender and Sexuality
production
Kathryn Delaney Copy Desk Chief
Zack Beauchamp Board member room is a modern-day necessity for all genders? On a Studies program.
Sara Molinaro Board member
Seth Motel Copy Desk Chief more detailed note, the female stick-figure on public Ubiquitous sexism aside, Brown is a bastion of ac-
Marlee Bruning Design Editor
Jessica Calihan Design Editor Post- magazine bathroom signs should not have a dress. The suggestion ceptance. I hope we can implement these changes as
Anna Migliaccio Asst. Design Editor Arthur Matuszewski Editor-in-Chief that all females wear dresses is offensive and inaccurate soon as possible in order to ensure a better, bolder
Julien Ouellet Asst. Design Editor Kelly McKowen Editor-in-Chief and stigmatizes dress-wearing men. Brown.
Neal Poole Web Editor
The editorial also noted that football is a “hyper-
Marlee Bruning, Designer
masculine institution.” This assessment was spot-on,
Jordan Mainzer, Kathryn Delaney, Copy Editors
and as gender-normative Brown students we ought to Anish Mitra ’10 is an economics concentrator
Nicole Friedman, Britta Greene, Sophia Li, Hannah Moser, Night Editors
do everything in our power to de-hyper-masculinize it. from New York City. He can be contacted at
Senior Staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, Colin Chazen, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember,
I propose that the “men’s” football team should have to anish_mitra@brown.edu
Lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Britta Greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah
Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Caroline Sedano, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine
Staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Chris Duffy, Nicole Dungca, Juliana Friend, Cameron
Lee, Kelly Mallahan, Christian Martell, Seth Motel, Jyotsna Mullur, Lauren Pischel, Leslie
Primack, Alexandra Ulmer, Kyla Wilkes C O R R E C T I O N S P olicy
Sports Staff Writers Nicole Stock The Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible. Correc-
Senior Business Associates Max Barrows, Jackie Goldman, Margaret Watson, Ben Xiong tions may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.
Business Associates Stassia Chyzhykova, Misha Desai, Bonnie Kim, Maura Lynch, Cathy Li, C ommentary P O L I C Y
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The editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial page board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily
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reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.
Design Staff Jessica Kirschner, Joanna Lee, Maxwell Rosero
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Copy Editors Rafael Chaiken, Ellen Cushing, Sydney Ember, Lauren Fedor, Anna Jouravleva, Send letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters for
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Jordan Mainzer, Kelly Mallahan, Madeleine Rosenberg, Riva Shah, Luis Solis, Rachel Starr, request anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.
Jason Yum advertising P olicy
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Opinions
The Brown Daily Herald
A plan for (nationwide) academic enrichment
DREW HARRIS
Opinions Columnist
By now, there is little doubt that Congress
will end up passing the president’s Ameri-
can Recover y and Reinvestment Act. The
consensus on Capitol Hill seems to be that a
massive shot in the arm is just what the doc-
tor ordered. (I sure hope that the proverbial
doc holds a Ph.D. in economics.)
While Congress bickers endlessly over
the details of the largest stimulus package
of all time, the majority of Brown’s student
population is resting at ease. Rhode Island
can expect a deficit to the tune of $357 mil-
lion this year, but you wouldn’t know it if you
stayed on College Hill. Brown’s $1.4-billion
fundraising drive and projected $2-billion
endowment have provided the University
with the financial backbone to stick out this
mega-recession with surprisingly little sac-
rifice required.
While President Ruth Simmons’ e-mail to
the Brown community outlined planned cuts
in administrative spending, the rest of the
“bad news” was mainly that the size of the
faculty and graduate programs will remain
the same (for now) and capital projects will
proceed more slowly than before.
Other schools’ financial predicaments
help put Brown’s recent losses in perspec-
tive. Brandeis has been forced to consider
selling roughly 6,000 pieces of art and shut-
What we’re really thankful for on Valentine’s Day
ANTHONY
STAEHLIN
Opinions Columnist
Ahhh, Valentine’s Day! It’s one of the most
commercial and seemingly ubiquitous holi-
days of the year, with every store from Whole
Foods to CVS decorating its shelves with
pink and red hearts. It’s also a remarkable
day because it affects almost ever yone —
some people will spend a romantic evening
with their significant other, others will stay
home with a tub of ice cream and a pile of
DVDs and still others will spend the evening
in a totally normal way, apparently unaware
of the holiday… at least until they wake
up the next day to an angr y boyfriend or
girlfriend!
Personally, I am very happy because this
is the first year I actually have a girlfriend to
celebrate with. Well, that’s not entirely true
since I did have a girlfriend when I was in
kindergarten. But since my mom recently
confessed that it was not out of love that
little Abby followed me around, but simply
because I always had a bag of candy, I feel
used and I’m not counting that year.
Anyway, as this is my first real Valentine’s
Day, I want to make sure I do ever ything
right. (Plus, I’ve been getting subtle hints
that I better not “mess up.”) So I recently
went to a store to find the perfect Valentine’s
Day card to give to my girlfriend with her
present.
As I perused the shelves of cards, I real-
ting down its Rose Art Museum to raise
money.
Of course, if Brown were a public univer-
sity, it would likely rely on state funds for
much of its operational budget. The Univer-
sity of Rhode Island, for example, took the
drastic step of increasing tuition mid-year
because of a massive state-induced budget
shortfall. In the face of significant budget
cuts, Rutgers, the State University of New
Jersey, increased its tuition by a stagger-
ing 8.5 percent last year to make up for
decreased funding from the state.
Without broad support from the stimulus bill,
public colleges and universities will find a new
financial equilibrium, but it won’t be as painless
as the one President Simmons described in her
e-mail to the Brown community.
Brown raised tuition by a comparatively
minor 3.9 percent last year. Accounting
for inflation, tuition went up by only 1.1
percent, and Simmons indicated that this
year’s increase will be less than originally
planned. Given the current financial climate,
Brown’s stated commitment to a modest
tuition increase is impressive (SDS, please
don’t hurt me).
ized that all of them seemed to say the same
things: “you’re always there for me,” “you
make me laugh,” “you know how to make
me feel better,” etc. And sure, all of those
things are true, but there are so many things
that are great about being in a relationship,
so why is it that only a few of them ever get
mentioned in greeting cards, and that they
are always the same ones?
Yes, “having a shoulder to cr y on” or
“someone to cuddle with” are great perks
of being in a relationship, but they are the
obvious ones. What about all the other, less
Three things that you would never see in a
card, but that are truly the great elements of a
relationship!
Hallmark-y aspects about relationships?
They too deser ve a commercial shout-out
once in a while!
Therefore, with the goal of bringing
something new to the world of greeting
cards, I’ve compiled a list of just a few of the
things I think are great about relationships
that you will never see in a Hallmark card:
1) You can eat all the onion and garlic
you want.
Oh how I missed garlic-roasted calamari
At other universities, large tuition hikes
aren’t the only disappointing new trend.
Many public schools are also reducing the
size of their student bodies. For instance,
the University of California system is cutting
enrollment of in-state first-year students
by 2,300. By contrast, the University has
reaf firmed its commitment to providing
adequate financial aid by letting students
fall further behind than usual on tuition
payments and pledging to continue its need-
blind admissions program.
Without broad support from the stimulus
bill, public colleges and universities will find
a new financial equilibrium, but it won’t be
as painless as the one Simmons described
in her e-mail.
With America’s troubled public univer-
sities in mind, I appreciate the generosity
of those who have provided so well for us
Brunonians. The University’s ability to raise
money from private donors who are willing
and spaghetti alio e olio while I was single
and tr ying to meet women. You know how
it is — in the war for love, sacrifices need
to be made. In my case, this was giving up
onion and garlic. Although I loved both of
these, I did not want my breath to be the
reason the girls noticed me. And as you can
never really be sure who you will run into
on a college campus, I simply couldn’t take
the risk of ever eating those ingredients. But
now that I’m in a steady relationship and I
know that my girlfriend will love me even if
I smell like garlic, a world of possibilities is
opening up: garlic bread, onion dip, roasted
garlic, onion casserole…
2) It’s okay to have a bad hair day.
When you’re single and tr ying to meet
women, you kind of always have to be careful
of how you look. Although we should still try
and look nice when we’re in a relationship,
we don’t need to try as hard all the time. It’s
okay to sleep a little longer and not look so
great in 9 a.m. class.
And yes, how long you sleep is directly
Friday, February 13, 2009 | Page 11
and able to give, offsetting the burden on
students, has been a godsend to many. Shane
Reil ’09’s moving speech, which is available
on the Boldly Brown Web site, highlights
the importance of financial aid and was a
great way to put off writing this column for
10 minutes.
If we want to see more stories like Reil’s,
we need to make sure that states have
enough money to fund their schools. And
since we’ve long since passed the era of
squabbling over a few billion dollars, why
not throw in a few billion more for higher
education? Given that House Republicans
have made it perfectly clear that they will
be opposing the bill anyway, accommodating
them ser ves no purpose. The United States
has slipped to 12th in college attainment
among major industrialized countries, and
as Brown students, we should be particularly
sympathetic to those who are ranked lower
than they probably should be.
We should appreciate the fact that Brown
will be able to weather the financial storm
without reducing financial aid. But most
American universities haven’t had a Boldly
Brown campaign and aren’t as fortunate.
It’s imperative that this stimulus is to other
schools what the Campaign was to Brown.
Right now it just isn’t enough.
Drew Harris ’11 is a political science
concentrator from Montvale, NJ. He
can be reached at
drew_harris@brown.edu.
connected to how good you look in class.
We’ve all pushed that snooze button, sacrific-
ing different parts of our morning routine.
We think: I’ll sleep five minutes longer and
I won’t comb my hair, five more and I won’t
brush my teeth, five more and I won’t pee!
All this extra sleep is due to being in a rela-
tionship and knowing that that person will
love you regardless of how you look.
3) It’s easier to kill spiders with two
people.
This is one of the best things about a
relationship. This has nothing to do with
me not being man enough, it’s just that...
well... there are some seriously big spiders
out there! And the great thing about having a
girlfriend is she can hold the flashlight and/
or ladder depending on where the spider is
as I slam my six-pack of cola (my preferred
weapon) on the spider.
And there you have it. Three things that
you would never see in a card, but that are
truly the great elements of a relationship!
So this Valentine’s Day, be thankful for that
special someone, because they love you
regardless of whether your breath smells,
your hair is combed or your socks match,
and in the direst of moments (such as facing
spiders), they will be there for you. 
Anthony Staehelin ’10 is a political
science concentrator from Geneva,
Switzerland. He can be reached at
Anthony_Staehelin@brown.edu
 Today 5
to day to m o r r o w
Film tells of near-extinct languages
The Brown Daily Herald

Fencing starts season on point

7
Friday, February 13, 2009
35 / 19 40 / 22
Page 12

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

A diamond to the University’s annual employee awards day for handing out feel-good honors
like the “Excellence Award for Managing for Excellence.” No, it doesn’t make sense, but it does
sound positive. Just like “hiring pause.”

Coal to Vitaminwater, which Brown students were recently notified contains substances banned
by the NCAA. You’re going to need some major image rehabilitation to regain our trust. Maybe
a high-profile celebrity endorsement will do the trick? We hear Alex Rodriguez may be in need of
some new sponsors soon.

A diamond and a hearty welcome to former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi for accepting

7
an appointment at the Watson Institute. When you get here, can you get the Ratty to bring back
the Trattoria line?

Coal to Ruckus, the free music service the University subscribed to, which shut down this
week without notice. Your exit, leaving just a few black-and-white cartoons of headphones and
c a l e n da r a turntable on your Web site, was almost as cloyingly emo as the music selection the Indy once
used you to play.
February 13, 2008 February 14, 2008
A diamond to activism, which valiantly overthrew an undemocratic, elitist Brown Morning
7 p.m. — Men’s basketball vs. Penn, 3 P.M. — “Palestine in Context: The Mail policy without aid of ladders. Next up, a grassroots movement for meal credit transparency
Pizzitola Center Occupation, the Siege, and What Lies on Banner? ¡Si, se puede!
Ahead,” MacMillan 117
8 p.m. & 11 p.m. — “Exquisite Corpse” A diamond to participants in last weekend’s “Ivy Summit,” a gathering of ambitious “student
(8 p.m.) and “Smoke and Mirrors” (11 5 p.m. & 8 p.m. — “First Look: Plays- leaders” from around the Ancient Eight. Consider this a stepping stone to the next grand stage at
p.m.), McCormack Family Theater in-Progress” and “Mo’Reece and the which you future leaders of the world will assemble. (Next year’s Ivy Summit.)
Girls,” McCormack Family Theater
A diamond to the men’s tennis team, which beat up on its opponent last weekend while wearing
menu pink to raise awareness for breast cancer. Maybe you’re on to something — every team wearing
brown this week got crushed.
Sharpe Refectory Verney-Woolley Dining Hall
A cubic zirconium to University of the People, an upstart new online school with big plans to
Lunch — Cavatini, Broccoli Au Gratin, Lunch — Chicken Fingers, Vegan revolutionize higher education. We like that you’re aiming high, but we’re pretty sure Brown stu-
Zucchini Burgers, Cheese Quesadillas Brown Rice Pilaf with Mushrooms, dents, at least, won’t go for it. We’re more likely to attend class to surf the Web than vice-versa.
Corn Cobbets
Dinner — Saturday Night Jambalaya, Coal to Brown’s P.R. unit, which has started using Twitter to announce University news. Is
ATTENTION, EDITORS:
Fresh Vegetable
The extra Melange,
two sentences Okra
after the Feb.and Dinner
13 puzzle — Friedto Clams,
clues are necessary help solversStuffed
fully “desperately misguided attempt at relevance” under 140 characters?
understand the previous day's solution. If you have any trouble fitting them in the allotted
Tomato,
space, itSpanish Rice
is OK to drop Shells,
the second sentence. However, Oriental
please make everyStireffort
Fry,toBananas
include the first sentence. Thank you. Foster with Ice Cream And finally a totally not-spiteful diamond to campus couples preparing to enjoy a long-weekend
RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 13, 2009 Saturday Valentine’s Day together, free of homework, stress and responsibilities. It’ll make a nice gift, and
we need the coal to keep our lonely Grad Center single warm tomorrow night. The heat is broken.
c r o sDaily
Los Angeles Times swo rd
Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
ACROSS 2 Tiny 37 Decorator’s 55 16th century
1 Stradivari’s
teacher
3 Has __ of
confidence
concern
38 Resort feature
painter
Veronese
comics
6 Wickiup dweller, 4 Blush 42 Continuously 56 Colossus
perhaps 5 60-yr.-old state 43 Colombian coin 57 Portmanteau
12 Like some 6 Extra 46 Asian legend 58 Knight stick Cabernet Voltaire| Abe Pressman
tempers 7 Attach, in a way 49 Evened 59 Put in
15 Cranial cavity 8 Clownish 51 1996 Costner 60 Celebrity
16 Elton John hit 9 XVII x VI golf movie 61 Plan
17 Husband of 10 Publishing icon, 52 Hungarian-born 66 Word with day or
Fatima familiarly architect way
18 Tightwad with 11 “The Simpsons Goldfinger 67 ATM maker
emotional Theme” 54 High styles 68 Sweater letter
problems? composer
20 Malarkey Danny ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
21 “Out __?” 12 Support for ballet
22 “An Iceland practice?
Fisherman” 13 Plenty
author Pierre 14 Airhead
23 Sitcom landlord 19 Allure competitor
25 Rodeo bling? 24 ER tests
29 Jargon ending 26 “Dilbert” intern
30 Summoned 27 Jazz singer
33 1960s-’70s Diana
“Jeopardy!” 28 “Symphonie
announcer espagnole”
36 Primary composer
Enigma Twist | Dustin Foley
39 Flight training 31 Merrie __
milestone England
40 Massage target 32 Big noise
41 Sound of 33 Bombard
Deborah falling? 34 Arizona’s __ Fria
44 Concubine’s River
room 35 Stun a Beatle?
45 Girl in a Beatles 36 Pipe type xwordeditor@aol.com 02/13/09
title
47 Imperative
48 Butyl acetate,
e.g.
50 Break, in Bristol
52 Shingle abbr.
53 Saddle defect?
60 Belong
62 Analgesic’s
target
63 “The Great
Bridge Scandal”
author Truscott The One About Zombies | Kevin Grubb
64 “Cold Mountain”
heroine
65 Flood in an
owned
apartment?
69 Nice view
70 Coke alternative,
in old ads
71 Conclusion
opener
72 Hoop holder
73 Live, after “in”
74 Stranger

DOWN
By Dan Naddor
1 Pt. of NASCAR (c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
02/13/09
VDB in yesterday’s puzzle was Victor David Brenner, who designed the Lincoln Head Cent.
His initials (circled in the grid) were removed from the 1909 coin as a result of controversy
and then restored in 1918.