B R A N D E I S U N I V E R S I T Y ' S C O M M U N I T Y N E W S P A P E R T H E H O O T . N E TD E C E M B E R 5 , 2 0 0 8

INSIDE: THIS WEEKEND PG 16COMICS PG 16

VOL 5, NO. 13

MOVIE STARS PG 8WOMEN’S BBALL PG 15

SHOPPING FOR TRUTH PG 4SHOOTING RANGE PG 6

Community begins to heal after terror attacks in Mumbai, India

BY JAMIE FLEISHMANAND ARIEL WITTENBERG

Editors

One hundred members of the Brandeis community stood in silence, eyes turned down in the late afternoon sun in front of the Goldfarb Library Wednes-day, commemorating the victims of the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

The wind whipped the faces of the crowd that had come together and braved the cold to combat terror with love.

The moment of silence was bro-ken by students Avram Mlotek ’09 and Adam Ross ’10, whose voices rose toward the heavens in a He-brew melody entitled “Lo Yisa Goy”—a prayer for peace whose words, had they been sung, would read “nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They will not learn war anymore.”

Their humming was joined by the rest of the onlookers, as other students rushing to the library to study for finals slowed their gait and listened.

Words, as Brandeis Protestant Chaplain Alex Levering Kern had said only moments before, were

not enough to express the “gath-ering of hearts in solidarity” that took place yesterday afternoon, but silence and song were.

In the week following the ter-rorist attacks in Mumbai that killed over 180 people and injured at least 300, the Brandeis com-munity united behind a common cause of remembrance and resil-ience, trying to both pay hom-age to those killed in the attacks and help those affected to bounce back.

Naman’s Story

Naman Pugalia ’09, who is from southern Mumbai, was at Logan Airport on Thanksgiving on his way to Las Vegas with four other friends from his hometown when he first heard reports of the at-tack.

Shortly after stepping on his Jet Blue flight, he learned from the in-flight televisions (which he called a “blessing and a curse”) that his “close family friend, mentor and father-figure,” Hemant Karkare, had been killed in the attacks.

“As you can imagine I was dev-astated,” remarked Pugalia. “Un-

fortunately Jet Blue did not have satellite telephones, so I couldn’t call.”

As soon as his plane touched the ground, Pugalia said, he called his family. His parents were safe.

Pugalia’s friends were not as for-tunate – one friend lost a mother, one friend lost a father, and a third lost an uncle.

Pugalia later found out that he had lost at least 10 people he knew in the attacks, including one of his teachers, who founded an NGO that he helped establish in Mumbai.

He was “shattered.” His teacher, he said, “had a heart of gold and worked tirelessly just to provide basic amenities to all those who are not as privileged as we are.”

Pugalia’s vacation, which had started out as a celebration among friends, took a sharp, somber turn.

In the week that followed, Pu-galia said, he struggled to prepare himself for what he will encoun-ter when he flies back to Mumbai for winter break.

“I have to now come to terms

See MUMBAI p. 13

Professor hiring freeze causes concern in affected departments

Academic expenditure cuts focus on faculty costs

University seminars will no longer be mandatory and fewer sections of foreign language classes will be offered next aca-demic year in response to a predicted $5.8 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2010.

The Special Faculty Advisory Commit-tee, formed by Provost Marty Krauss and chaired by Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe, has been charged with con-sidering possible academic expenditure reductions for fiscal year 2010.

Jaffe explained that options for reducing academic expenditures are constrained be-cause “we don’t have the ability to reduce tenured positions.”

“The vast majority of courses are taught by tenured faculty,” Jaffe said, “we can’t re-duce that cost.”

As such, offering fewer sections of large introductory courses taught by ten-ured faculty would have little effect. “[the Committee was] really unable to iden-tify…changes of that sort that would save enough money,” he commented.

For that reason, efforts to reduce ex-penditures in academics have focused on direct and indirect ways of saving faculty costs in required course areas.

“We were looking everywhere we could,” particularly at universal requirements, Jaffe said. “Non-Western doesn’t cost us anything,” he explained. Courses fulfill-ing university distribution requirements are not offered specifically for that pur-

BY ALISON CHANNONEditor

pose, differentiating them from USEMs, which are currently required, and foreign language, which some students take only to fulfill their requirement.

In foreign language, an area that often hires part-time faculty, fewer sections of foreign language classes will be offered, Di-rector of Language Programs Prof. Hollie Harder (FREN) said.

The university will reduce “the number of total sections that would be budgeted,” Jaffe explained. Each language department will decide how to reduce the number of overall classes they offer in a given semester. Fewer sections will reduce the number of non-tenured faculty required to teach language courses.

Foreign language faculty had been pre-sented with the option to reduce the lan-guage requirement from three semesters to two or to offer fewer language sections, Harder explained.

The faculty chose to offer few sections because “a reduced requirement would be something that wouldn’t be reversible,” she said.

In the romance languages, the enrollment cap will rise from 18 students to 25. Chang-ing the enrollment cap “can change from semester to semester,” Harder added. Thus, there is a “way to respond again when [the economic situation] gets better.”

Additionally, Harder commented, “with two semesters [of foreign language instruc-tion], students really don’t have a basis to make progress…it doesn’t make sense for

See ACADEMIC CUTS p. 12

The hiring freeze recently instituted by the university in response to a $10 million budget shortfall for the 2009 fiscal year will impact both the courses and the na-ture of instruction students receive in the immediate future. As part of a package of cutbacks meant to deal with the univer-sity’s deficit for the current fiscal year, 10

BY MATT KIPNISStaff

or 12 of 16 ongoing faculty searches will be suspended.

The departments affected by the hir-ing freeze include Biochemistry, History, Math, Politics, Romance Studies, and Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, ac-cording to an e-mail by Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe. The Hornstein Pro-fessional Jewish Leadership Program was also affected.

See FREEZE p. 12

PHOTO BY Napoleon Lherisson/The Hoot

COMMEMORATION: Chabad Rabbi Peretz Chein encourages community members to commit acts of loving kindness in honor of those killed in the Mumbai terrorist attacks at a gathering Wednesday.

Girl Talk

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

GIRL TALK: DJ Gregg Gillis, AKA ‘Girl Talk,’ performs at Brandeis on Nov. 24, to a full crowd in the Levin Ballroom. Check out The Hoot’s exclusive interview with Gregg Gillis at www.thehoot.net.

2 The Hoot Decmber 5, 2008

E D I T O R I A L

Established 2005"To acquire wisdom, one must observe."

FOUNDED BYLeslie Pazan, Igor Pedan and Daniel Silverman

Sri Kuehnlenz Editor in ChiefKathleen Fischman Editor in Chief

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Kayla Dos Santos Backpage EditorAlex Schneider Layout EditorDanielle Gewurz Copy Editor

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Max Shay Co-Photography EditorNapoleon Lherisson Co-Photography Editor

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The Hoot welcomes letters to the edi-tor on subjects that are of interest to the general community. Preference is given to current or former community members. The Hoot reserves the right to edit any submissions for libel, grammar, punc-tuation, spelling and clarity. The Hoot is under no obligation to print any of the pieces submitted. Letters in print will also appear on-line at www.thehoot.net.

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E-mail: editor@thehoot.net

Senior EditorsJordan Rothman, Zachary Aronow

Letters to the Editor:To the Editor:

I’m very concerned with Eli Sedransk’s ability to review mu-sical theater productions ef-fectively if he knows so little about the art as to reduce Gypsy - the near perfect combination of a mastermind book by Arthur Laurents and some of the most well-known songs in the indus-try thanks to Jule Styne and Ste-phen Sondheim, two of the most accomplished musical theater artists in history - to “a mean-dering, schmaltzy plot,” “half-conceived characters,” and songs which “are contrived at best.”

As a Brandeis Alum, I find it quite troubling that despite the wealth of musical theater talent and knowledge at the univer-sity, this paper is unable to find a writer suitable enough to under-stand how important Gypsy was in the history of musical theater.

Sedransk poses the question, “How did this do well on Broad-way?” I figured I’d offer this writ-er an answer in hopes that he would find a way to become more informed before ever attempting to review a theater production again. Gypsy tells a tragic, heart-felt, and inspiring story of not only a mother who is unable to let go of her children, but also of an American who is unable to let go of Vaudeville theater in a time when history is shifting the

popular tendency in the direc-tion of Burlesque. In fact, the significance of this is brilliantly portrayed in the music as what was the Vaudeville number “Let Me Entertain You,” becomes the much more suggestive Burlesque “Let Me Entertain You.” Appar-ently that glaringly obvious and poignantly smart detail didn’t strike Mr. Sendransk.

It is not simply that “Louise’s talent does not suffice,” as the author speculates in his opening paragraph, but that her talents are the product of the new gen-eration in which she was born. The creators link Mama Rose’s insatiable need for Vaudeville with a mother’s connection to her children, something that most average American’s can un-derstand.

The author also seems to ig-nore that this “meandering plot line” is the true story of the “half-conceived” Gypsy Rose Lee’s life, a fact that was present in the di-rector’s note of the program in case a hypothetical reviewer was incoherent enough to note that in the research he/she completed before seeing the show.

As for the contrived songs, I’m fairly certain that “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Small World,” “You’ll Never Get Away from Me,” “Some People,” and “Let Me Entertain You” did not enter the canon of American

standards because they were contrived. Gypsy’s score happens to be notable, outside of these songs, for its difficult and aston-ishing brass parts, its overture that ranks among the best (if not as the best) ever written, its smart lyrics, and its excitingly paced harmonic rhythm, which is not often paralleled in other musical theater works of the time.

The role of Mama Rose, often considered the most complex role ever written for the Ameri-can Musical Theater, has been a vehicle for numerous stars including Ethel Merman, Tyne Daly, Angela Lansbury, Bette Midler, Bernadette Peters, and Patti LuPone. In terms of the music, there is no other Broad-way score in which one character has so many powerhouse num-bers. In other words, this show cultivates a star in a way that no other show can.

So, Editor, I do hope that in your next musical theater review, you can find some way to assure that your reviewer is capable of aptly reviewing a show, and is in-capable of shooting down some of the best material that the in-dustry has ever seen. That is, after all, what I feel I can expect from my alma mater.

- Matt Stern ‘08

Coping as a communityThe Brandeis community’s reaction to last week’s at-

tacks in Mumbai shows how in a time of crisis, all groups from student organizations to religious leaders to admin-istrators can come together to provide support and help in the mourning and healing process.

As noted in a previous editorial, it seems that some-times Brandeis students adopt a “save the world” men-tality, but the reaction to the attacks in Mumbai was fo-cused more on lending support to members of our own community in a time of crisis. The Brandeis community came together to simultaenously grieve and cope with the tragedy.

The two vigils held to commemorate the victims of the Mumbai attacks drew large crowds of the Brandeis com-munity from different backgrounds, who came together to grieve and stand in solidarity with those affected. The organization of these vigils and their turnout is a symbol of Brandeis’ solidarity in a time of tragedy. In addition to grieving the loss of life, in the following days, various efforts are being put in motion to cope and recover from the attacks.

The idea to establish a scholarship in honor of Mumbai Chabad director Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife, who were killed in the attacks, is a perfect example of Brandeis trying to move on and create something positive with-out forgetting the tragedy. In addition to the emotional healing, Brandeis is also planning a way to help students intellectually interpret the attacks. Next Tuesday, the South Asian Studies program, Student Union, and Office of Communications will be holing a forum to give pro-fessors and students a chance to discuss the social and political implications of the attacks.

The Indian cuisine dinner sponsored by the Revive Mumbai Project also showed how Brandeis is reaching outside the campus to raise money for recovery efforts. Naman Pugalia ‘09, who is from southern Mumbai, has been a driving force behind many of the efforts to cope with the attacks, and the greater Brandeis community has come together to support him and his mission.

As we continue to cope with the devastation of last week’s attack’s, we should acknowledge the university’s efforts to provide emotional and educational support for the Brandeis community as well as reach out beyond the boundaries of the campus.

Water bottles: How a misleading poll got it wrong

A few months ago the student body of Brandeis University was presented a poll for the reduction in the consumption of bottled water. The poll questioned, “Rec-ognizing the social, environmen-tal, and economic implications of bottled water, should Brandeis University reduce the sale and distribution of bottled water on campus?” The response in the affirmative for this poll was as-tounding; according to the stu-dent union 80.3% of respondents voted YES on the poll question. Environmental activists on cam-pus took this as an affirmation that their actions will be support-ed by the majority of the student body. Union President Jason Gray declared, “On a personal level, I’m proud that so many students are in favor of making a reduction to create a culture of conservation on this campus.” Matt Schmidt, President of SEA (Students for Environmental Action) was quot-ed as saying, “The results speak for themselves, and we hope that they translate to some direct policy ac-tion by this administration.” How-ever, is that really what this water bottle poll told us? Was this water bottle poll even legitimate? The answer of course is no, this poll was scientifically and politically illegitimate. This poll amounts to nothing more than a moral blank check for environmental activists on campus to do as they see fit to move their agenda forward while claiming to have the backing of the student body.

Looking at the question posed,

there are two parts, a preceding statement and a question. I will go straight to the problem with the poll, the root question, “Should Brandeis University reduce the sale and distribution of bottled water on campus?” The answer to this question is yes, Brandeis Uni-versity should reduce the sale and distribution of bottled water, and in fact this should be true with the whole nation, even the whole world. Water bottles negatively effect the environment and their sale and distribution should be reduced. While we are at it I think most Americans agree we need to reduce the number of abortions taking place in the United States and the number of illegal immi-grants in the U.S. should be re-duced as well. The problem is that while pro-choice activists want to reduce the number of abortions, their belief of how to do that dif-fers greatly from pro-life activists. The same goes for those who sup-port tougher immigration action

versus those who prefer amnesty for illegals. Going back to the water bottle poll, it is simply too vague to be considered legitimate. Everyone agrees that we need to reduce water bottle sale and dis-tribution on campus, but every-one has their own idea how to do so, just as with all issues. Simply asking people if they believe pol-lution is a problem does not con-stitute a just cause of action in the pursuit of rectifying that problem. It only amounts to a moral blank check for environmental activ-ists such as the members of SEA to push policy on the students of Brandeis that they may have seri-ous contentions with.

A second problem with this poll is that the responses were vol-untary. Student’s voluntary went onto the student union webpage to vote in the poll, which allowed many students to opt out of tak-ing it. This favors representation

BY SCOTT ROTHSTEINColumnist

See WATER p. 4

December 5, 2008 The Hoot 3 December 5, 2008 The Hoot 3

I M P R E S S I O N S

One Saturday evening earlier this semester a group of sopho-mores put on music and cracked open a few beers in a Castle single. At about 12:30 a.m. a CA knocked on their door and asked them to lower the music.

Although the room’s resident happily agreed, the CA called him outside and accused, “I saw beers in there.”

None of the friends inside were of legal drinking age, but none of them were belligerently or danger-ously drunk. The CA nonetheless insisted on entering the room, col-lecting the beer and escorting the resident to a sink where the CA watched him pour it all out.

Afterward, the CA lamented something like, “I hated doing that, but I had to.”

Some other evening, another group stood just beside the court-yard separating the Village from Slosberg sharing a marijuana cigarette when another student approached.

Announcing his position as a CA, this student insisted that the group cease smoking there and demanded that the group throw the spliff aside even after they offered to move out of sight. Al-though confrontations like these are ultimately unnecessary, they are unfortunately common when some of our CAs choose to en-force an ineffective and out-of-touch drug and alcohol policy.

What is a sensible drug policy? While one may argue the legal, medical and social implications of drug use, any policy must ulti-mately be based on responsibility.

Moreover, the policy must take into account the sensibilities and habits of community which is ex-pected to abide by it.

By this we arrive at a basic stan-dard: Any behavior that reflects complete disregard for the needs of one’s neighbors is unaccept-able, regardless of whether or not drugs or alcohol are involved.

A majority of Brandeis students do not endorse, by their behavior, the University’s fundamentally abstinence-based approach to drugs and alcohol.

It seems clear then that the student body would overwhelm-ingly prefer a more tolerant pol-icy that acknowledges alcohol and drug use, discourages abuse and respects people’s choices. A community standard, by its very nature, must be reflexive; it can-not come from on high and must reflect careful deliberation by the community about its wants and needs. Moreover, it ought to en-

courage any behaviors that build community and enhance enjoy-ment therein.

The community has to take back the right to establish its own standards.

What does it mean that Bran-deis calls its student residence life employees community, rather than resident advisors? A true community advisor is not an en-forcer or a guard, but a friendly counselor and an advocate. Their loyalty ought to lie with the stu-dent body, their peers, rather than with the administration.

Regardless of what the rules state, CAs ought to support stu-dents’ recre-ational activities of choice and should never write them up for behavior that violates regula-tions levied by

those outside of the immediate community.

“But it’s illegal!”While it is obvious that under-

age drinking and drug use are illegal, illegality is not a rigorous argument for not doing some-thing--alcohol, after all, was pro-hibited from 1920 to 1933 and in Massachusetts, as in several other states, the consequence for pos-session of marijuana was recently reduced to a civil penalty. Further-more, Brandeis student behavior indicates widespread disbelief about the “inherent wrongness” of drugs and alcohol.

Nullifying, as a community, those policies that prohibit ac-tions that are not inherently wrong would allow CAs to more effectively advise residents on drug and alcohol use and reduce tensions between them and their residents, their peers.

How should the administration act? Ideally, it would condone and foster responsible drug and alco-hol use so that a greater majority of it would happen responsibly and within an informed and co-hesive community.

Since it is unfortunately un-likely that the administration will ever condone illegal activities, it should instead turn a blind eye to them. This requires that students acquire knowledge about these activities and practice them re-sponsibly.

Thankfully, there are numerous CAs who observe a policy more consistent with what we’ve sug-gested here.

Still too many act complacently as an enforcer serving regulations that don’t make sense.

Instead of intensifying students’ fears that their peers might write them up for perfectly reasonable behavior, CAs should side with the student body in observing un-spoken rules of tolerance, ignor-ing the insufficient status quo and nurturing community.

A few weeks ago, I had a splen-did time going to a shooting range with the Brandeis Republicans and several other Brandeis students. That Sunday was only the third time I had ever been shooting and I was a bit nervous. This feel-ing was added to the fact that the worker at the range only gave us a 90 second tutorial on each weap-on we rented and his only safety instruction was to, “keep the gun pointed down range.” Neverthe-less, after I had gotten my gear and fired my first shot, I felt like a kid in a candy store. Improving one's ability to aim and shoot a weapon is an enjoyable affair and makes for a wonderful hobby. Furthermore, the event allowed all who partici-pated to bond with each other and partake in a time-honored Ameri-can tradition. Shooting a firearm for only the third time in my life also reminded me of my views on weapons.

I’d like to get them on the table, as my delightful experience at that shooting range has substantiated my love and admiration for fire-arms.

Holding a gun in your hands is an inspiring feeling. You can feel the power that you then posses, and know that your actions must be thought out carefully.

You can understand the trust that the people around you have in your competence and any ra-tional person discovers that this weapon must be used with cau-tion. I am reminded of the NRA saying, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” which is in fact correct.

Any rational and sane person knows that guns should be used carefully and they should there-fore not be denied a weapon as long as the state deems them to be competent. Sure, accidents will always happen, but for the most part, people are smart and knowl-edgeable about the immense re-sponsibility of owning weapons.

I therefore do not see the right that the government has of lim-iting the use of guns, just as they have little right to limit the use of automobiles to able people. Once an individual proves to the state through a written exam and driv-er’s test that they are competent to drive they are allowed to operate vehicles.

Both cars and guns come with great responsibility as each can take a person’s life. So long as a screening process is in place, guns should also not be denied to a re-sponsible and able American citi-zen.

Furthermore, guns represent a time-honored hallmark of Ameri-can culture.

From the very early days of the colonies, gun-owners assisted in the common protection. Militias and others with guns helped quell rebellions, stop invasions, and af-

forded the community many oth-er benefits.

“Home Guards” and other vol-untary associations were in full force until World War I, and some forms of these groups are still in operation today.

It may seem unlikely to the modern observer that citizens with guns will be needed, but who can tell? One can never know if they will need a weapon to stop someone from burglarizing their house.

One can never tell if this coun-try will be invaded, and regular citizens are charged with the task of defending the nation. Taking away guns and putting up restric-tions on the right to bear arms is therefore not only wrong but somewhat dangerous. It denies citizens their time-honored right to guns and takes away their abil-ity to defend themselves.

I would wager that many peo-ple who oppose guns have never fired a shot before in their life. Though they don’t support other people owning and using arms, these individuals have not experi-enced the awe and responsibility that comes with holding a lethal weapon. This is hypocritical. Be-fore anyone makes a judgment about guns, please go to a range a shoot a couple of shots yourself. The Republicans are even plan-ning on going shooting again next semester and if the F-Board is bet-ter to us than they have been in the past, we might even be able to subsidize the cost. Only then can you make a fully informed deci-sion on the issue free from bias or ignorance.

I would also like to note that it is sickening how some states

have overly-restricted gun laws. Washington D.C. has severely limited one's ability to possess a fully-assembled firearm in one’s house, disallowing its use during an emergency. Other jurisdictions have limited the use of assault weapons, handguns and other forms of arms.

Although some regulation and protection is necessary, most handguns and assault weapons should be legal. If citizens needed to take up arms, they should have the best means possible. If some-one needed a handgun to stop a robber in a quick moment, they should have their chance.

Although background checks, waiting periods, and other pre-cautions are important, some reg-ulations are completely deleteri-ous as they undermine a citizen’s freedom and right to own arms.

I cannot wait to own a gun or two when I get older. I shall use them not only for sport, but for personal protection and service to my community.

Simply holding a weapon allows the user to feel the immense pow-er and responsibility of the fire-arm they are carrying. Bad people will get guns despite any efforts to dissuade them and accidents will always happen.

But good and responsible in-dividuals should be allowed to possess weapons, to do otherwise violates a sacred constitutional right and rescinds a valuable ser-vice to the community.

And if you can’t get firearms, there is another way to posses “guns.” Just go to the weight room next semester, the new additions are sure to allow the opportunity to indeed bear arms.

Reflections on a trip to the shooting range

BY JORDAN ROTHMANEditor

One Tall Voice

BY RYAN MCELHANEY AND AARON TAYLORSpecial to The Hoot

Brandeis student behav-ior indicates widespread disbelief about the “in-herent wrongness” of drugs and alcohol.

Drug and alcohol policy is 'out of touch'

GUNS N' MOSES: Jordan Rothman exercises his right to bear arms with the Brandeis Republicans last Sunday.

4 The Hoot I M P R E S S I O N S December 5, 2008

In the wild, herds of animals race to find their prey--the early bird catches the worm. Herds prepare for battle, strengthening themselves with a pre-battle feast, and a plan of attack is formulat-ed.

In the U n i t e d States, herds of fren-zied shop-pers pack t o g e t h e r to scour shelves for the latest deals--the early bird catches the b a r g a i n . This ritual, like any other, requires intense preparation: an intense study of the previous day’s news-paper and the glossy, beckoning inserts inside, a trip to the ATM and a filling meal for starters.

Like any other avid shopper, I was up before the sun last Friday. I had scoured the ads, searching for that perfect deal; that reason to wake up way earlier than any college student should on their day off. And I did it all in the name of the shopper’s holy day—Black Friday.

As any die-hard shopper knows, Black Friday is the height of the shopping year. This is the day when prices are slashed and bar-gains are had. This is the day you use your recently padded stom-ach to fend off the crowds and hope to burn off all those holiday calories.

Black Friday is traditionally the day that marks the start of the profit making season for retailers as the herds come out from their caves and hunt—for bargains.

It’s not traditionally the day an innocent Wal-Mart employee gets trampled to death. But that’s ex-actly what happened Friday.

As many employees enjoyed a few days off from the 9-5 grind, retailers woke up in the wee hours of the morning (if they even went to sleep) to accommodate

the crowds. Some stores opened at 6 a.m. or later, but those that really meant busi-ness yanked open those doors at 4 a.m. or even midnight.

As I zig-z a g g e d

through the narrow tiled aisles of the first store I visited, clutching to the items I’d checked off on my list before entering the store around 6:45 a.m., I couldn’t help but mar-vel at how tribal it all was.

As someone who goes shopping on a regular basis, I’m used to the crowds. I’m used to rude people bumping into me with their car-riage they can control no better than their car or their whining child. I’m even used to waiting in long lines. And I’ve done Black Friday before, so it wasn’t any-thing new. But I don’t think any-one can ever really come to terms with how tribal it all is.

Somehow, when a retailer men-tions ‘lowest prices of the year,’ people hit their moral lows also. Forget saying excuse me, forget all façade of propriety, just get out of my way and let me buy my $80 camera.

And though shoppers certainly didn’t forget to leave their wallets at home, it seems they forgot their manners, especially in the New York Wal-Mart where the man

was killed. How many heartless shoppers does it take to trample a 6-foot-5, 270 pound man?

2000, approximately. 2000 shoppers in the pursuit

of a bargain. 2000 shoppers who didn’t care that that was a human being they were stepping over.

You have to wonder what was so alluring about Wal-Mart’s sale that it generated so much foot traffic. Was a stupid electronic device or some trite trinket really worth the life of an innocent bystander? Was getting a DVD for $5 really worth losing integrity or manners? Or did these people ever really have them in the first place?

I love a good shopping day as much as the next shopaholic—just look at the title of my column! But doesn’t the whole point of holi-day shopping-finding something special for the ones you love-go against the behavior so many people exhibit at these animalistic exhibitions?

The holidays are supposed to be a season where people put aside their differences for a short time and join in on the ‘season to be jolly.’ But somehow we all get so caught up in the stress to find the perfect gift that we forget about all this.

Perhaps we’re all just in a rush like we are on a daily basis. We’re all trying to find perfection that isn’t out there. We expect our holi-day to be the best and forget about the feelings of others. But what about the holiday of the family of this New York Wal-Mart employ-ee? Something tells me that their holiday will be far from perfect because of the selfish actions of a few frenzied shoppers.

Nothing-not even a dirt cheap digital camera or TV is worth los-ing your morals over. And that lesson is one holiday gift that should be in all our stockings this holiday season.

Before the economic crisis, activists, environmentalists, sci-entists and economists warned climate change could affect the economy. At the end of 2006, the British Government released a re-port warning the failure to “curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression.” The climate change movement shifted from an environmental fringe movement to a concern that ranked highly on the agendas of many governments around the world. The world began to real-ize the measures to curb climate change were needed to do more than protect our ecosystems – to protect our economy.

The global economy is dam-aged. Its official, the US is in a recession. In fact, we have been since last December. The ex-ponential increase in oil prices sparked conversations on reduc-ing our use of oil through driving less, developing new technology that would use energy efficiently, and increasing our clean energy use. Although the oil prices have compounded the economic crisis by increasing the prices of just about everything, especially food, it also was a push for real action to be taken to reduce our car-bon emissions. Fortunately, and unfortunately, the oil prices have gone down. For you and me, this is great news. For the environ-ment – this could be deadly.

Just as Brandeis has “tightened its belt” in terms of spending, so has the rest of the country. In-vestment in clean energy and oth-er sustainable products requires money. In the long run, they will pay off; however, in the short run

they are costly. Costly is not an option right now.

A few days ago, Reuters re-leased an article on the Poznan UN Climate Change Conference titled “Economy Offers Excuse to Avoid Climate Fight.” In two years (and one month), the econ-omy has gone from being the rea-son to promote the climate fight to the scapegoat to not fighting it. However, we cannot afford to stop fighting. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the UN climate panel said rich nations need to be at lev-els 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels to keep temperatures be-low what some countries see as a "dangerous" 2 degree Celsius rise by 2020.

I do not believe the responsibil-ity lies only within the “rich na-tions” to spend the extra money needed to reduce and eventually stop climate change. However, I do believe that we cannot al-low the economy to be used as a scapegoat. If anything, we need to continue to look at what was be-ing said two years ago. The effects of climate change – to the extent it is projected without any action taken now – will still cause huge economic problems. It is our re-sponsibility to tighten our belts in ways that will continue to benefit the environment. Continuing to buy local foods (which are often less expensive), continuing to buy quality goods that last so you can reduce use, continuing to encour-age friends and family (and your-self if your lucky) to buy hybrid vehicles (or diesel), and continu-ing to pay that 10% extra for a good you know was made with clean energy will prevent this re-cession putting a halt on change that is vital to the future of our economy.

Shopping for Truth

In the United States, herds of frenzied shoppers pack togeth-er to scour shelves for the latest deals.

SEA Change

Black Friday: An animalistic exhibition Bad economy no excuse for neglecting environment

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

BY DANIELLE HOLLENBECK-PRINGLE

Special to The Hoot

of environmental activists in the responses because they will be more motivated to vote yes on the poll. However, people who would vote no are less motivated and so they will not vote in the poll at all resulting in their underrepresentation in the poll. As any respected pollster would tell you, letting participants opt out of a poll would skew the results making them inaccurate. Even worse is that only about 40% of students voted in the poll anyway and of those 40%, 20% still voted no. This means that from this poll we can only assess that 32% of the student body is actually in favor of this initiative. When the Justice asked SEA president Matt Schmidt about the poll, he stated about the results, “80 percent said yes; to me, that's a man-date.” However, 32% of students definitively favoring this initiative is no mandate; it is not even a definite approval. These polls results can simply not be taken seriously due to the ability for many students to opt out of it combined with the low turnout. Had President Schmidt stood in Shapiro with this poll and asked twenty random students this question, the results would have been much more accurate and legitimate.

If the Student Union and SEA would like to ask students about specific policy toward water bottle sale and distribution reduction then they can take the time to brainstorm ideas and then present those ideas in a poll. The Student Union and SEA can work to re-duce the sale and distribution of bottled water on campus, however trying to get the students of Brandeis to sign a moral blank check is not a proper means to this end. This poll should not be considered a legitimate reason for any specific policy action to reduce bottled water sale and distribution. Many students do probably want to see a reduction in water bottle sale and distribution, but it is probable that many want to achieve this through consumer choice, not policy mandates.

WATER (from p. 2)

Union’s water bottle poll flawed

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December 5, 2008 I M P R E S S I O N S The Hoot 5 December 5, 2008 I M P R E S S I O N S The Hoot 5

I used to have this toy mon-key. It was highlighter green and made of shiny plastic. At face value it was nothing more than a tchotchke, cluttering my room like all my other pointless nicknacks. A self-avowed pack rat, my desk had spelling quizes from the first grade sitting next to prized jew-elry, which shared a ledge with a defunct cell phone. I never meant to keep them all, but purging my room of possessions felt more like purging my life of memories. If I didn’t have that certificate marking my fifth grade graduation it never happened. Letting go was never my thing.

It's still not my thing. That little toy monkey that I had never both-ered to name became my last link to my grandmother. She died when I was 10, on my baby sister’s first birthday. My memories of her are anecdotes, adding brief flavor to my life. I remember her chocolate bundt cake, used to mark birth-days. I remember her affinity for sunflower seeds, and her Middle Eastern ability to crack them with her teeth. I remember her tanned, capable arms, used to embrace her 11 grandchildren.

But that’s it. I heard stories of course. Of her generosity, her wit, her sensitivity. Her phenomenal skills as a mother. Her cooking. Her ability to keep my grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, on the right track and one with humanity. Re-layed to me time and time again, these have become my distant memories. Almost like my brain knows they happened, but my heart is clueless, and so remains emotionally numb.

I look at the toy monkey and hazy images of our last day togeth-er saunter into my memory. My sister Talya and I had spent Shab-bat at my grandparents' apartment in the Bronx. It was a Sunday and we went to play paddleball with Grandma. She was short and quick, and I remember being impressed by her skills. Afterward we stum-bled upon this huge outdoor car-nival. It was a hodgepodge event, sprawling and disorganized. There were used books for sale, and entire worlds made out of blow up plastic castles, slides, jumping booths. It was a wonderworld of helium and leaving my shoes behind ensured a passport to the land of high jumps and somersaults.

My memory then turns faulty. I remember the loud music that hurt my ears. I remember the non-kosher food that Grandma refused to buy for us, even though we whined so loudly you would have thought we were asking for candy, not hotdogs. I remember a funny African American man trying to sell used white hightops.

And then there was the toy monkey. Did I win it, in a coin toss or ring game? Did I find it on the coarse grass, waddling under a ta-ble with my eyes on the prize? Did Grandma buy it, out of guilt from refusing our request for food? All are equally likely scenarios. My consumer-driven 10 year old self only remembers the shiny toy and not the process by which I pro-cured it.

And then Grandma was gone. Her hair loss because of the chemo, her frail body propping itself up to see her grandchildren, her vomit appointments with the bedpan. All gone. The stuffed monkey we hopeful and naïve grandchildren gave her sat in my grandparents' apartment taunting me. “I’m here and she’s not,” the immobile bas-tard of a monkey sing songed, in a high falsetto.

But life continued. I had oth-er concerns, like navigating the fourth grade with my glasses, re-tainers, and new haircut that made me look like Corey from Boy Meets World.

I often thought of Grandma, but mostly about how her not be-ing around anymore affected me. Now I didn’t have a grandmother to bring in for show and tell on Grandparent’s Day. No one would brush my hair and let me try on her clip-on earrings. No one would sew us fancy dresses for our birth-days. I felt robbed about not hav-ing her in my life.

I didn’t quite know what it meant that she had died. She was in the ground on a far off mountain in Israel. Wasn’t she lonely in the ground with no one to play with and no one to talk to? But she was also up in heaven, playing cards with God on a wispy cloud. God liked to play casino and he and my Grandma were pretty evenly matched. How could she be in two places at once? Was it like magic?

I thought she would come back. I knew her death didn’t mean that I could never see her again. I always imagined that we’d pay 1 million dollars- an exorbitant sum- and she’d have one day to spend with us, her entire family. What would we do for that one day? My mind always went to the zoo. A sun-ny summer day at the zoo. Hot enough to be comfortable in shorts and short sleeves.

We would stroll around the zoo for a few hours, me and my sib-lings scrambling ahead, picking the flowers we weren’t allowed to touch and shrieking excitedly at the animals. My Grandma and fa-ther would stay behind and talk. Nothing intense, just talk. There were no tears anywhere, no sad-ness. We just played and my dad and Grandma talked and we got to see Grandma smile and laugh again. It was so simple.

Of course this day never hap-pened. I’ve been to the zoo since then, but always with a heavy heart. Unfortunately, my day at the fair remains my final day with Grandma. Fogged by mis-memo-ry, this sad fact makes me pine for the zoo, the memory clearer than my true last day with Grandma. I don’t remember if Grandma re-ally was good at paddle ball, which siblings came with us that day, or if there actually were helium filled activities. I sketched the day with my pen of fantasy, my instrument of illusion.

All I have is vague uncertainty, a curse to a budding writer. The toy monkey magically appeared in my hands and consciousness, with no inkling as to its origin. The name-less monkey is a figment, a connec-tion to a day that is more dream-like than true. Just like Grandma

For Rachel Nadas ’09, the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for So-cial Justice enabled her to pursue her passion to empower the dis-enfranchised.

Rachel spent last summer as an intern at Farmworker Justice in Washington, D.C., helping the non-profit advocacy organization with envi-ronmenta l and occupa-tional health campaigns for migrant workers. Al-though the internship was unpaid, the funding p r o g r a m p r o v i d e d her with a $3,500 stipend to cover travel and living expenses in the nation’s capital.

“Working at Farmworker Jus-tice was a wonderful opportunity that I would not have been able to pursue without the generous stipend,” said Rachel, an Interna-tional and Global Studies major from Raleigh, North Carolina. “I am interested in working at a non-profit organization commit-ted to doing good work, and I had the chance to experience that en-vironment on a day-to-day basis

over the summer. I definitely got a lot out of the internship.”

During her internship, Ra-chel researched the avian flu and learned that migrant workers would be more susceptible to an avian flu pandemic than the gen-eral population. She also exam-ined the health effects of certain pesticides on workers. Rachel wrote summaries that appeared in

Farmwork-er Justice’s newsletter and her r e s e a r c h was used in reports p r e p a r e d by her su-pervisor.

“I felt the work I was doing was important

to the organization and that my contributions were valued by my colleagues,” Rachel said. “I wasn’t just sitting around making copies all day.”

Rachel received her stipend through the new Louis D. Bran-deis Legacy Fund for Social Jus-tice internship program, which provides funding ($3,500 domes-tic, $4,000 international) for stu-dents working at mission-driven organizations committed to social justice. The program, established through a generous gift from a

Brandeis alumnus, has been dou-bled for summer 2009 and will now award up to 20 internship funding grants through the Hiatt Career Center and its World of Work Fellowships.

Placement professionals agree that internships give students an important jump on their post-graduation job search, particu-larly in this challenging economic environment.

“Not only do internships allow students to conduct an in-depth exploration of a specific field or industry, but they provide stu-dents valuable real-world work experience to build their resumes and make themselves more attrac-tive to prospective employers,” said Joseph Du Pont, the director of the Hiatt Career Center. “This program exposes students to ca-reers in social justice – one of the pillars of Brandeis- allowing them to explore careers that have a so-cial impact.”

Application deadlines for sum-mer internship funding programs range from January 20 to April 4. For more information, contact Rusmir Musić (rusmir@brandeis.edu or x63618), the assistant di-rector for experiential programs at Hiatt.

Editor’s Note: Jessica Paquin is the academic internship admin-istrator for the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences/Hiatt Career Center

“Are you Jewish?”It was a simple question, almost

trivial. Let’s face it, here at Bran-deis, everyone gets asked at least once.

“No,” I answered plainly, with-out giving it much thought. But no sooner had the word left my lips did a mental conversation en-sue in my head.

Wait, I am Jewish, aren’t I?Yes, I am.What am I saying, then?Well, either I have a serious

memory problem, or a serious re-ligion problem.

I’m pretty sure my memory’s fine.

I thought about it for a while. A long while, in fact. I reflected upon my life, a life that, whether I like it or not, has been strongly influenced by both Judaism (the religion of my mother) and Chris-tianity (the religion of my father). But in the end, I came to the con-clusion that I didn’t believe any of it.

I did not attend Hebrew School, attend services, celebrate religious holidays, or become a Bar Mitz-vah because I wanted to. All of these took up a lot of time, a great deal of effort, and more often than not bored me out of my mind. If

at any point in my life I had been given the option to ignore these traditions, I would have. I fol-lowed them for the simple fact that my family wanted me too.

But family traditions aside, I’ve become convinced that organized religion is detrimental to human-ity. Think, for a moment, about the hundreds of wars that have been waged over religion, and the millions who have died in the name of some “god”. Is it not ironic that most religions preach peace, but constantly practice war against non-believers?

Think about the promising po-litical careers, especially those of American politicians, that have been cut short, the strong lead-ers who never were, because they did not follow a certain religion. At the time of this writing, I can only think of one openly atheist member of Congress: Congress-man Pete Stark (D-CA), and he is a lucky one, serving in a relatively liberal district. Now that I think about it, unless the nature of poli-tics changes, I am sacrificing the possibility of my own political ca-reer with this publishing.

Think about the scientific prog-ress that has been hindered, from the Catholic Church's suppression of science during the Renaissance to modern government opposi-tion. Stem cell research, which

has the potential to improve or save thousands of lives, has been constantly assaulted because of a few powerful men who feel that their “god” is more important than the rest of us.

I do not believe in a “god,” at least not the “god” that the vari-ous holy books depict. While I acknowledge the possibility of their being elements of our uni-verse that we do not understand, I feel that it is the height of human hubris to take all of this, revere it as a “god,” and put it in a book, to assume that this book is the abso-lute word of "god," and to follow it blindly.

With the holiday season loom-ing ever closer, I cannot decide whether it is appropriate to forgoe my ususal political talk and print this column. But here it is. I’m sure many of my family members will have some questions about my rant when I go home over semes-ter break, so to help answer them, I will end by including a quote by Stephen F. Roberts, often repeated by my good friend Adam:

“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

Perhaps you ought to think about it as well.

Losing my religion: A rant about non-believingBook of Matthew

BY BRET MATTHEWColumnist

The Hoot accepts submissions to the Impressions section on any topic of consequence to any member of the campus community. Our mission is to give every community member a voice. The views expressed in the Impressions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The

Hoot's editorial board.

BY NAOMI BARTHColumnist BY JESSICA PAQUIN

Special to The Hoot

Hiatt Career CornerNaomi Narrative

My last day with grandma

Rachel spent last summer as an in-tern at Farmworker Justice in Washing-ton, D.C.

Grants available for summer internships

6 The Hoot December 5, 2008

F E A T U R E S

Home on the range, not at the ‘DeisOn Nov. 4, a bus and two cars of Brandeis

Democrats and their supporters drove to the small town of Raymond, New Hamp-shire to knock on doors in an effort to re-mind the town’s residents to vote for then-presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

It had been a warm day, about 50 degrees, and the leaves—seemingly foreshadowing the results of the election—had just begun to change.

The efforts of these Brandeis students were well-known around campus, and were written about in both student news-papers and the Brandeis-based blog Inner-mostparts.org.

On Nov. 21, four cars worth of Brandeis Republicans and their friends drove to the town of Manchester, New Hampshire to fire guns at a shooting range in an effort to have some fun exercising their second amendment rights.

It was a brisk day, about 30 degrees, and the leaves—along with Republican hopes of another four years with their chief ex-ecutive in office—had already fallen.

The journey of these Brandeis students, unlike that of their bluer brethren, was not well-known. While the trip was open to the public (eight of the 20 students on the trip were not members of the Brandeis Repub-licans club), the event wasn’t publicized. A small facebook event was created, but those who attended heard about it mostly through word of mouth.

Barack Obama, beloved by many Brande-sians, had polarized the campus—a place where it had already been uncomfortable to be a Republican, or even a moderate.

While the trip to the shooting range was planned long before Sarah Palin was the constant topic of many a Saturday Night Live skit, the students who went shooting that Sunday were afraid that in a post-Obama world, their actions would label them as embittered Republicans—clinging to at least their guns, if not their religion, in the last days of the Bush presidency.

So they kept quiet, a silent minority, hud-dling together in the Shapiro Campus Cen-ter at 8:30 on a Sunday morning to go shoot some guns.

Once in New Hampshire, however, the group exploded with excitement.

Cries of “I love America,” “I love New Hampshire,” and “live free or die” were repeated numerous times in reference to New Hampshire’s gun laws, which allow all citizens over the age of 18 with no criminal record or history of mental illness to shoot guns at a shooting range, as long as they show government issue I.D.

The gun shop located at the front of The Manchester Shooting Range looked the part. The walls were lined with rifles and the cases filled with handguns, all of vari-ous shapes and sizes. The range was being remodeled, but if it weren’t, a stuffed bear would greet customers as they walk in.

The Scarface poster that hung over the door to the shooting range would have seemed out of place if two of the more zeal-ous Brandeis shooters hadn’t decided to rent two MP5 machine guns for the dura-tion of the visit.

The rest of the group, most of whom laughed nervously at the machinegun rent-als, rented less glamorous guns: two Ruger rifles, a magnum, an HK USP .40, a Glock and a double action revolver.

Many members had never shot a gun be-fore, or even seen a real gun in person, but after an hour-long safety lesson, they went to the range.

Cowering against the back wall of the range, Miriam Glicksberg ’12, clad with

protective eye and ear gear, keeled over at the first gunshot. In the stuffy, concrete range, the shot reverberated so loudly that an unaccustomed ear might mistake it for a cannonball being fired.

“I’ve seen a water gun before,” she shout-ed above the machine gun fire that fol-lowed, “but I want to learn to do this. I’m determined to get used to the noise.”

Glicksberg is from L.A. Her mom’s con-servative, her dad isn’t. Neither of her par-ents have ever shot or really seen a gun, but Glicksberg wants to because it’s a Second Amendment right.

She said she’ a Republican because “it’s the right way,” and voted for McCain. Con-sequentially, Nov. 4 was “a sad day” for her.

When most of the Brandeis population was sitting in the Campus Center watching the election returns on a projector, Glicks-berg, together with the rest of the Brandeis Republicans, was watching on a T.V. in someone’s room.

Even though the event held in the Cam-pus Center had been advertised as a “bi-partisan” one, once Obama was announced the winner and the chanting of the “Obama mantra of ‘Yes We Can’” had begun, the atmosphere was not very conservative-friendly.

Not that the campus usually is, according to Brandeis Republican President Naomi Cohn ’11.

Cohn, who had never shot a gun before and who was surprised to learn that ma-chine guns really do spout fire when in ac-tion like in the movies, said she was a liber-al moderate in high school, but coming to Brandeis has pushed her to the right. The campus is “polarizing,” she remarked.

“A lot of my moderate views are attacked here,” she continued. “On the Brandeis campus, you’re seen as either on the far left, far right, or apathetic. You’re not allowed to just be in the middle.”

Watching the election returns at the Sha-piro Campus Center “wasn’t the most com-fortable atmosphere” for the Republicans, she said.

They knew that McCain probably wasn’t going to win, and knew that if he didn’t, or even if he did, they would be faced with even nastier comments than they had re-ceived in the past.

One senior republican shooter wished to remain anonymous because his friends were under the impression that he had vot-ed for Obama. Though they knew he was a Republican, once Obama had won the Democratic nomination, this senior said, he stopped discussing the election because he was met with such animosity. Many in-terpreted his silence as an indicator that he voted for Obama.

While he maintains that he has not lied to anyone about whom he voted for, he has made no effort to correct his friends’ im-pressions.

“It’s a lot easier this way,” he said. “Re-publicans at Brandeis have had a rough time this month, worse than the rest of our Party.”

This sense of misunderstanding is at the core of why the Republicans did not widely publicize their event. They were afraid that the stigma that guns have at Brandeis, one that has intensified this past year with the arming of campus police, would label them as “stereotypical republicans.”

Andrew Brooks ’09 didn’t even tell his Republican parents that he was going to the shooting range for fear of what they might say, let alone his Brandeisian friends.

One junior at the range wished to remain anonymous precisely because of the stigma that comes with shooting guns.

“I’m well versed in guns, but that doesn’t

BY ARIEL WITTENBERGEditor

stereotypically line up with my political be-liefs,” said the liberal who voted for Obama but also grew up shooting guns in rural New Jersey. “I don’t want people to think I’m a gun toting loon.”

While the junior said that at the range he felt he was “among friends” who would not judge his actions as incongruous with his political beliefs, he feared that the rest of the Brandeis population would not see it that way.

He did, however, point out that the mem-bers of the group who had the most expe-rience with firearms were Democrats or moderates—not Republicans.

Haley Baron ’11, from Colorado is one such moderate. Baron, who defines her-self as a moderate liberal, had shot a rifle a few times before coming to the range with the Republicans. She said that the junior’s concerns were valid, even though she her-self didn’t think it was necessary to remain anonymous.

“No one here thinks that all people should own all sorts of guns,” she said. “No one wants machine guns and firearms out on the streets, but Brandeis students won’t understand that.”

“It all depends on how Brandeis students interpret this trip,” Baron continued. “If they see it as a just a bunch of kids who went shooting, they’ll just be like, okay, sounds like fun, and let it go. But if they hear that the kids went with the Brandeis Republicans, they won’t think it’s about fun, they’ll think it was just to make a point about Second Amendment rights.”

Baron also noted that the club’s trip will get even more of a negative reaction once students find out that the trip was, in part paid for by the Student Union F-Board, which reimbursed drivers for gas money and paid the $300 fee for renting the range. Participating students had to pay and aver-age of $20 out of their own pockets to cover the costs of bullets and the rental of protec-tive eye and ear gear.

The feeling that Republicans are misun-derstood at Brandeis is not a new one. The members of the shooting trip, both liberal and conservative, said they have seen the misunderstanding for a while now.

What is new, however, is the animosity. When he came to campus this fall, Jor-

dan Rothman ’09 put two “McCain for President” stickers on his door. Within two months, both were vandalized. On one, the words “for President” were crossed out, and replaced with “sucks.”

On the second, the entire message was

overwritten with the words “douche-bag homophobe.”

Other Republicans present said that the issue of same sex marriage has been a par-ticular area where their views are not toler-ated.

“We’re not gay bashers,” one student said, “but believing in civil unions instead of same-sex marriage just isn’t seen as accept-able on this campus.”

A few years ago, the Brandeis Repub-licans tried to hold a “conservative com-ing-out day” and were met with reactions seething with indigence that they would compare their struggle within the Brandeis community to that of homosexuals around the globe.

While some Republicans admitted that the “coming out day” might have been tak-ing it too far, the intolerance on a campus that prides itself on liberalism and accept-ing others renders them disappointed.

But they are not quite discouraged. As the shooting came to an end, plans to

start a Brandeis Shooting Club were dis-cussed. The club, which would be open to anyone, would be called AFY—an acronym that would officially stand for “Arms For Youth” but that would unofficially stand for “America, Fuck Yeah;” the theme song of the 2004 film “Team America—World Police.”

As Cohn, the President of the Republi-cans, put it the campus conservatives “are trying to be proud on a campus that ex-pects stereotypes.”

So when the shooting range fell quiet, both bullets and dollars spent, the only sound to be heard was the whir of the fish-ing line, pulling in Republican Arthur Ser-er’s ’11 target.

The target, which featured a human sil-houette, swayed back and forth as it whis-pered its way to the front of the range through the stuffy, gun-smoke ridden air that tasted sweet and chalky and smelled burnt from an hour of barraging bullets.

When the target arrived, Serer starred at it for a moment, surveying the myriad of holes he had pierced through the thick pa-per.

One bullet had hit the fist-sized red area at the center of the target’s chest.

Bull’s eye.Serer unclipped his prize, and began to

walk out of the now silent range. “Dude,” he said, “I’m definitely hanging

this up in my room when I get back.Editor’s Note: Jordan Rothman is an editor

for The Hoot.

THE RANGE: Republican Arthur Serer ‘11 shoots a Glock pistol at the Manchester Shooting Range in New Hampshire. Though Serer has never shot a gun before, he hopes to one day own one.

PHOTO BY Ariel Wittenberg/The Hoot

December 5, 2008 F E AT U R E S The Hoot 7

Write for FeaturesContact chriscal@brandeis.edu

or bensacks@brandeis.edu

A group of economics students huddle around a table, analyzing last night’s problem set, throw-ing around terms like “consumer surplus” and “law of diminishing returns.” Two sophomores fran-tically try to finish up that after-noon’s biology lab. A group of psychology students continue the perpetual, unending, eternal, in-terminable nature vs. nurture de-bate. Does this sound like a typi-cal tour of the Brandeis library?

According to research conduct-ed by Brandeis’ Office of Admis-sions, the most popular majors during the 2007-2008 term were Economics, Biology, Psychology, History, and International and Global Studies.

There are over 320 undergradu-ates majoring in Economics (10% of Brandeis students), while just under 300 leave Brandeis with a major in Biology (9%). Psychol-ogy and History boast about 260 students each (8%), which, on a more practical scale, means that far from just witnessing these sce-narios, many of you have been a participant in one such scene.

For Akiva Landsman ‘12, these numbers are not surprising, gauging the palpable tension that seems to run through the school prior to any economics or chem-istry test: “Whenever there’s an econ or chem test you can see it in the freshman class—they’re all worried.”

Netanela Faratci, a first-year on the pre-med track and planning on majoring in Biology, guessed the stats from her own “insider” viewpoint: “There are about 900 students in the freshman class and about 200, maybe more than

A major popularity contestthat, in [General] chemistry. And a lot of them want to major in Bio—maybe the majority. I would even expect there to be a higher Bio percentage.”

Either way, anyone who has been at Brandeis long enough to overhear a conversation about popular professors such as Coin-er, the popular Introduction to Economics professor, can almost assuredly guess that at Brandeis, Econ and Bio reign.

The popularity of these majors has led many students to reflect on why this is the case. Jeremy Elkins ’12, sees it from the per-spective of college students being “a self-selecting group of people.” Prospective students choose a school that advertises the depart-ments that they themselves are most interested in pursuing, fur-thering the popularity of certain majors at Brandeis. For example, in recent years about one third of the first-year class has entered with an interest in pre-health, possibly lured in by Brandeis’ oft-touted 75 percent acceptance rate to medical school. Many of these first-years become sophomores who choose to major in either Biology or number seven on the popular majors list, HSSP. With Brandeis’ link to the business school on campus, economics is similarly a likely choice.

Others see the high concentra-tion of students in these areas as a result of students’ familiarity with the subjects before they encounter college level classes. Jennifer Kim, advisor for the sophomore class, regularly helps students with the process of choosing potential ma-jors. “I think that people come in with those types of interests be-cause most of their high school classes are in those types of sub-

jects.” Subjects like psychology and history are often offered by high schools, possibly even as core classes. History of Ideas and Lin-guistics are rarely offered as elec-tives, if at all.

With statistics such as the ones listed above, it seems likely that Brandeis students often choose a major that seems to have the most linear link to a highly-paid profes-sion in the long run and, eventu-ally, help pay off that college loan. Undergraduate Advising Head of the Economics department, Pro-fessor Michael Coiner, explained, “With college costing more and more, students and parents are, to some extent, looking for ma-jors that they perceive as more ‘career-oriented’ or ‘practical.’ The perception among students is that economics (along with some other majors) will pay off in terms of ac-cess to a future career.”

Economics Undergraduate De-partment Representative Mohit Gourisaria ’09 echoed that per-ception: “An economics major has the best prospects as far as getting a job right out of college is con-cerned. Finance and Consulting (both of which look favorably upon econ majors) are some of the best paid jobs in the market, even in the current economy.”

According to Dean of Admis-sions Kim Godsoe, this reflects an underlying attitude demonstrated by Brandeis students when choos-ing their majors. “Why are majors in the social sciences more rep-resented than majors in another school [of study]? I think that it goes back to the idea of people thinking of social sciences as be-ing a very applied area of study and being very linear with ca-reers,” said Godsoe.

Andrea Dine, a career counselor

at the Hiatt Career Center, often deals with students’ concerns about ways to incorporate their passions and majors into a le-gitimate career. Though she con-cedes that majors like Economics and Biology do have very ap-parent career links from an out-sider’s perspective, she disagrees with the commonly-held percep-tion that students who major in these fields will have an easier time finding a career than an Art History major, for example. Dine does agree, however, that eco-nomics students will most likely have an easier time finding jobs in the international arena, citing the fact that “economics is often a popular major of international students because it is widely rec-ognized globally.”

In fact, a study recently done by CNN entitled “10 Most Popu-lar Majors and What They Pay” compared the typical beginning salaries of college graduates with various popular degrees. They found that though an Econom-ics major’s typical salary is an impressive $57,132, Marketing tops them all, with a beginning salary of around $59,471. Also fairly lucrative is Computer Sci-ence (which has yet to make the top 10 majors list at Brandeis) with average earnings per year of $46,849.

Earnings aside, most students agree that being in a “popular major” has both advantages and disadvantages. Landsman, a po-tential philosophy and IMES ma-jor, points to the support system that popular majors offer. For instance, general chemistry, a pre-requisite of the Biology ma-jor, offers help with chemistry six days a week. “In my philosophy class the teacher can organize

study sessions but there’s nothing supplemented like chemistry.”

In Elkins’ opinion, popular majors are “well-established, well-grounded in Brandeis cur-riculum… It’s a safe bet. It’s like investing in government bonds as opposed to investing in the stock market.”

There are downsides to popular majors, however. For Faratci, a pre-med first-year, the sheer size of some of her classes can seem “intimidating” and “overly com-petitive.”

Proponents of some of Brandeis’ less popular majors citetheir own advantages, such as increased in-eraction with faculty. Dan Weisz ‘09 is the UDR for the Chemis-try department, which histori-cally has attracted only about 10 students per year. For Weisz, the small size has a definite positive side: “Upper-level class sizes are small, usually between seven and 15, allowing for good interaction between students and professors. Most undergrads who want to work in a professor’s lab have the opportunity to do so, and benefit from substantial access to the pro-fessor, due to the relatively small size of the labs.” However, this also means that “there are fewer options to choose from when de-ciding on a lab to join, and certain interest areas might not be repre-sented in the department.”

So, at Brandeis, is choosing one’s major, as an oft-quoted line from the Broadway play Wicked implies, “all about popular?” The consensus at Brandeis is yes, stu-dents’ academic interests do over-lap, but with that comes advantag-es and disadvantages. Everyone agrees however, that making the choice is a major decision.

BY LEEYAT SLYPERStaff

A funeral for Tate Lucas

I had just returned from the Decem-ber holiday. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I lived in a village in the northern region of Namibia, known as Ovamboland. I was sitting under a tree trying to ignore the desert heat when one of the children on the homestead came to me and said, “Tate Ismael is waiting for you in the truck.”

“Am I going somewhere?” I asked. I re-ceived a short nod in the affirmative. After three months, I had learned to stop asking questions. I had accepted a status quo that included a general lack of understanding, which could be attributed to the language barrier—my limited Kwanyama and the villagers limited English. So, I grabbed my water bottle and some sunscreen and took off across the yard.

Sure enough, my host brother, Ismael, was waiting behind the wheel with his wife and mother beside him. A truck bed of extended family members filled the back. I jumped in, and it was not until we were bouncing across the African bush that I thought to ask where we were going. The answer was unexpected. “The funeral for Tate Lucas,” said one of the men.

I was heartbroken. Tate Lucas was an in-credibly sweet, older man who worked on the homestead. He spoiled me with gifts

of papaya and homebrew, and through a translator, he told me harrowing stories about treks to Botswana to work in the mines and Namibia’s struggle for indepen-dence. I had made a promise to myself to become fluent in Kwanyama so that we could communicate freely with each other.

And now I was on my way to his funeral. One of my host sisters in the capital had confided in me that Tate Lucas was HIV-posit ive but that he had kept it a secret to avoid being stigma-tized. I had not seen him on the homestead since my return a couple of days earlier, but I thought maybe he was away receiv-ing treatment for tuberculosis, an HIV related opportunistic infection. Namibia has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infec-tion rates in the world, estimated at 15.3% among adults, with close to 180,000 people living with HIV/AIDS , acccording to the

UNAIDS 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. Although I knew the statistics and had heard the funeral guns going off in the village, I personally had not lost anyone

to the disease.As it turned out, Tate

Lucas was not lost at all. As the truck

pulled up to another small

homestead some sad k i l o m e -ters later, Tate Lucas came for-ward in his Sunday best to wel-

come us. I was shocked.

I turned to the man beside me

and in utter confu-sion I said, “I thought we

were going to the funeral for Tate Lucas.”

“We are,” he said. “Tate Lucas’s brother has died and we must support him.”

I stayed close by Tate Lucas’s side for the rest of the day, and for the first time, I ful-ly absorbed the reality of his disease. By the time we got home that evening, I had

changed my promise to speak Kwanyama fluently—I have always been terrible with languages—to a promise to do everything in my power to assist the fight against HIV/AIDS.

I started with HIV/AIDS activities in the classroom where I taught English and Ge-ography, then expanded to regional youth events with other volunteers. Finally, I helped produce an HIV/AIDS awareness CD that was distributed to 5,000 taxi driv-ers throughout the country. After return-ing to the United States two years later, I co-founded Humanitarian Notes with an-other returned Peace Corps volunteer to continue making HIV/AIDS awareness music in Africa. I am now in West Africa working to produce a Liberian HIV/AIDS awareness CD that will be played in even the most remote corners of Liberia through a network of community radio stations.

Tate Lucas is still alive and well, but more than 1.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS, and another 22 million are living with the diseas. I am more convinced than ever that we cannot afford to wait until the next fu-neral to take action.

Note: Humanitarian Notes is a registered non-profit organization. Donations are tax deductible and can be made online at www.humanitariannotes.org.

In Africa, HIV/AIDS is percieved as just another aspect of daily life

BY AMY TAYLORSpecial to The Hoot

Humanitarian Notes - Humanitarian Notes works with local African artists to produce music promoting HIV/ AIDS awareness --The organization employs a participatory approach and an understanding of the culture to raise awareness of AIDS --NamibiAlive, Humanitarian Notes’ first compilation CD featuring HIV/AIDS awareness by popular Namibian artists was released on Dec. 1 2006 --More than 15 million Africans have died from AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic --Humanitarian Notes is currently working with Liberian artists to raise awareness about AIDS through the Liberia Music Project

12 The Hoot December 5, 2008

N E W S

Brandeis to do that given its em-phasis on global education.”

Unlike reducing the number of foreign language sections offered, eliminating the USEM require-ment offers indirect savings “be-cause USEMs are taught by fac-ulty,” Jaffe said.

“The main purpose of this change is to then deploy those teachers who are no longer teach-ing USEMs to other courses and save Brandeis some money so that we can help balance the budget in these hard economic times,” Prof. Malcolm Watson (PSYC), chair of the USEM committee wrote in an e-mail.

The Brandeis Brief

On Tuesday, students discussed anonymous free speech during the first meeting of Students Against JuicyCampus.

A website founded last year, the mission of JuicyCampus is to “enabl[e] online anonymous free speech on college campuses…[and create] a forum where college stu-dents discuss what interests them most, and in the manner that they deem most appropriate.”

About eight members of Stu-dents Against JuicyCampus, which has a facebook group with 400 members, met in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium for an in-formal meeting to decide on what actions to take against the web-site.

The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the negative and positive effects of anonymous free speech. Erica Lubitz ’12 stated, “the purpose of anonymity is to make [people] comfortable to speak, but then it is used as a weapon.”

Damien Lehfeldt ’09, the cre-ator of the group, stated that his main problem with the website is that hurtful statements are posted anonymously. “[The anonymity] leaves people feeling helpless be-cause they can’t argue against the posters,” Lehfeldt said.

Lehfeldt suggested that the fo-rums would be improved if post-ers had to sign their names, which was met with approval from other members of the group. Later on during the meeting, Omoefe Ob-geide ’12 said, in regards to reduc-ing the anonymity of the site, “at least that way we can engage in dialogues instead of just sitting and getting attacked.”

Dean of Student Life Rick Saw-

Students discuss anonymous free speech on gossip site

BY KAYLA DOS SANTOSEditor

yer explained in an e-mail that many Brandeis students have been detrimentally impacted by the website. On the issue of the anony-mous posters he wrote, “[they] are negatively impacted through the practice of anonymously posting disrespectful and hurtful things about other students…I worry about their motivation and the lack of self confidence and values exhibited”

A lot of the discussion focused on how JuicyCampus is not par-allel with Brandeis values. Dur-ing the meeting, Lehfeldt said, “the site is against everything the university stands for, it’s not used for free speech, but to target stu-dents.”

Ogbeide commented that she was surprised by some of the fo-rum’s racist content, “it’s so surreal to me that this is happening under Brandeis’ name.” Another student, who wishes to remain anonymous out of fear of being posted about on the website, said, “I don’t trust people anymore.”

The group considered attempt-ing to get the website banned from the campus, which means block-ing the site from the university’s network, and discussed the ten-sions between freedom of speech and protecting students’ reputa-tions.

Sawyer wrote in an e-mail about his own views on blocking the website. “[It] would be an act of principle, and we are certainly willing to act with that motivation. But such an act would not actually keep students or anyone from ac-cessing the site via other means. And once done, what will be the next site brought forward for us to consider because of offensive ma-terial?”

An examination of three of the departments Jaffe named revealed numerous courses cur-rently being taught by lecturers, not full professors.

The History and Politics de-partments both have three class-es now taught by lecturers, while the Mathematics department has 14 such courses. Politics and Mathematics currently have three professors on leave each, while the History department has four professors on leave.

Asked about the impact of the hiring freeze, History De-partment Chair Jane Kamensky explained that the department was had been looking for two tenure-track positions this year, but that she has had to suspend the search.

At the time the searches were suspended, the department had received over 300 applications.

Before the freeze, Kemensky said, the department hired Ste-phen Platt, an expert in Mod-ern Chinese History. Platt will replace Prof. John Schrecker (HIST), who retired at the end of last semester.

Politics Department Chair Ste-

Union Senate passes food sustainability resolution

The Coalition for Food Ser-vices Reform has written a list of recommendations that they will bring to Aramark and the university administration on ways to improve infrastruc-ture sustainability, food sus-tainability, financial transpar-ency and labor conditions.

For infrastructure sustain-ability, the committee recom-mended that Dining Services use only reusable or recyclable utensils and that Dining Ser-vices reduce its packaging waste by buying in bulk when-ever possible.

The committee also recom-mended that Dining Services increase its fair trade pur-chases, especially in the case of coffee and green tea.

For food sustainability, the committee acknowledged that it would be fiscally irre-sponsible for Dining Services to change which products it buys without an assurance that students will purchase it. Therefore, the committee rec-ommended that students be conscious consumers and at-tempt to purchase local prod-ucts as much as possible.

In financial transparency,

the committee recommended that a meal plan should not cost more than 110% of the price one would pay if they paid for every meal in cash. Also, the committee asked that multiple meals be allowed to be used in a given meal time, allowing students to use one meal at 11:30 a.m. and again at 3:00 p.m.

For labor conditions, the committee asked that dining services workers be given se-niority when choosing hours.

--Ariel Wittenberg

Money for CA hall programs unfrozen

Funding for hall programs from the Department of Resi-dential Life was frozen only to be reinstated before the Thanksgiving holiday break. The freeze, which came at a time when many departments are revaluating priorities, will now be replaced by more stringent rules for Commu-nity Advisors (CAs) to obtain funding.

“We will need to more clear-ly review funding requests this year to ensure we are making

the best use of our money while operating in a reduced budgetary environment,” In-terim Co-Director of Resi-dence Life Jeremy Leiferman explained. “We need to use our money smartly.”

As part of the new process for receiving funding for hall programs, CAs must plan events and submit proposals for funding earlier, accord-ing to Interim Co-Director of Residence Life Dean Gendron. “The funds that CAs have available to them … will be subject to an increased vol-ume of consideration prior to approval,” Gendron said.

Indeed, CA Mina Kim ’11 acknowledged that the addi-tional rules pose “a little more work for us.” Nevertheless, she feels that the temporary freeze was a good way to reevaluate spending.

Gendron also made clear that no funding proposals had been rejected due to either the freeze or the increased plan-ning required for events. “We will continue to honor the spirit of our department’s mis-sion while also honoring our responsibility to the Univer-sity’s need for fiscal balance.”

--Alex Schneider

To reduce cuts, USEMs to be made optional, fewer language courses to be offeredACADEMIC CUTS (from p. 1) Jaffe explained that reducing the

number of USEMs offered will limit the number of adjunct fac-ulty the university would need to hire.

The university writing seminar, taught by graduate students, will remain a requirement because of writing’s important in a liberal arts education, Jaffe said.

According to Jaffe, the faculty committee and the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, which he also chairs, believed it worthwhile to continue to offer USEMs as an option for first-years.

Also, “in some cases, there isn’t another course we need a profes-sor to teach, and secondly some

faculty like teaching USEMs,” he said.

While Jaffe felt “we are losing something,” by eliminating the USEM requirement, he believed that the university seminar expe-rience might be “more universally positive” if students and faculty both want to be involved.

In meetings with the faculty, President Jehuda Reinharz em-phasized that the administration would focus on reversal expen-diture reducing changes. “The [USEM] degree requirement will be eliminated,” but in keeping with Reinharz’s promise, “we will continue this and see how it goes.”

Has your semester been meaningless?

Missing adventure in your life?

Write for The Hoot

E-mail achannon@brandeis.edu

Hiring freeze hurts Politics dept.FREEZE (from p. 1) ven Burg also regretted the sus-

pension. In particular, the failure to replace Prof. Jeffrey Abramson, who took a position at the Univer-sity of Texas law school, “creates a major hole in the curriculum, in an area of great importance to our undergraduates and to the historical character of the univer-sity,” Berg said in an e-mail.

“The teaching of constitutional law and civil liberties,” Berg con-tinued, “is reflective of the insti-tution’s historical commitments to inclusion and equality, and to teaching generations of students to be sensitive to these concerns.”

With Abramson gone and the department’s other political the-ory instructor Bernard Yack, on leave, both Political Theory offer-ings for the 08-09 year are being taught by Timothy McCarty, a Politics Department graduate stu-dent. McCarty did not respond to requests for comment.

Berg also lamented the termi-nation of the Arts and Sciences Faculty Travel Policy. One of the programs eliminated due to the budget shortfall, Berg said.

In the meantime, both Berg and Kamensky hoped the search process would be reopened next year.

December 5, 2008 N E W S The Hoot 13

with the fact that the home I will go back to, is not the home I left,” Pugalia said. “You just don’t want to believe that.”

SASA Responds

Only one week before the terrorist at-tacks in Mumbai, the South Asian Student Association (SASA) had brought the Bran-deis community together for Mela—SASA’s annual celebration of South Asian culture. The week-long celebration included dance and musical performances, had unified the cultures of eight different countries, includ-ing those of India and Pakistan.

Ten days after the celebration, SASA was bringing the community together again, if only for a more somber cause.

As Brandeis students returned to campus after Thanksgiving, SASA co-presidents Juhi Chadha ’09 and Richa Sahay ’09 de-cided to organize a vigil at the peace circle.

The group ordered 40 candles, not know-ing what type of a turnout to expect, and about 100 members of the Brandeis com-munity came to commemorate those who died in the attacks Monday night.

“The support that we’ve gotten has been overwhelming. I hadn’t even expected this support. It’s so nice to see that everyone is on the same page,” said Sahay.

The Brandeis Family

The support of those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai last week expands far beyond SASA.

Sidak Pannu ’12, who is from Mumbai and lost many friends in the terrorist at-tacks, said that the Brandeis community has been crucial to helping him through this difficult time.

Pannu said he was struck by the support he received after the attacks from not only the three e-mails he received from the In-ternational Students and Scholars Office, and two from SASA, but also from Resi-dence Life.

“Can you believe it that in the span of six days, I’m been contacted by three differ-ent [Community Development Coordina-tors]?” asked Pannu.

“That’s remarkable in itself, that so many people would care about me, especially the CDCs. I’m a stranger to them, but they still reached out,” he said.

Pannu also had the support of friends who constantly visited him after the attacks. One of those friends, Michelle Kawas ’12, said that “it’s hard to deal with something like this – we were all just there trying to make [Pannu] smile, trying to lead a nor-mal conversation. Everyone cared.”

“It’s very heartwarming because here we would think that we are away from home,” Pannu said. “But here we see that it’s family in itself, the Brandeis family who wants to stand up against things that are done wrong against its community.”

Pugalia was also overwhelmed by the re-sponse. “I’m so touched,” he said, “ I’m so proud to be on this campus. I can’t express how much pride I’m filled with.”

Student Union president Jason Gray ’10, who also attended both vigils and has taken an active role in the student reaction to the tragedies, said, “It’s powerful when you see so many different people rallying together, mourning together, crying together.”

The vigils, Gray said not only “reaffirm the common bond that we all as Brandeis students have and members of this commu-nity, but also it’s powerful in that it reminds us that we’re all a part of the same people, and what impacts you, impacts me.”

A Proposal

The attacks in Mumbai have also affected Brandeis’ Jewish community.

One of the places the terrorists attacked was the Mumbai Chabad, where they mur-dered the Chabad director, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah.

“Gavriel and Rivkah left behind a son, Moishe, who was saved by his Christian nanny, and cared for by his Muslim cook,” Pugalia said. “That is the story of Mumbai. But it is also the story of Brandeis, a place that I came to because of its diversity and acceptance.”

“Moishe,” he continued, “is looking to us to build for him a better future.”

As part of that better future, Pugalia wants to raise funds to assist in the rebuild-ing of the Chabad house and other affected monuments in Mumbai.

“I don’t want this to be one of the efforts Brandeis makes, I want this to be a joint initiative of the global Chabad community and Brandeis University because Brandeis is known for its activism,” Pugalia said.

Pugalia has also begun working with Gray and Hillel Executive Director Larry Stern-berg in order to establish a new scholarship in honor of Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife.

Pugalia called the scholarship a “very positive step both for Brandeis and I think as a global response.”

Sternberg, decided to help with the proj-ect when he heard Pugalia speak. He said, “the energy of this [project] is something I wanted to nurture.”

Since Pugalia first initiated his proposals, he formed the Revive Mumbai Project and set up a blog.

Already the Revive Mumbai group teamed up with students at NYU to have a “Dine for Mumbai” dinner.

Brandeis’ dinner was held in the Shapiro atrium, and served Indian cuisine for $10. The group made a net profit of $1,115.

Also planned for next Tuesday is a forum sponsored by the South Asian Studies pro-gram, Student Union, and Office of Com-munications that will feature professors and students to give an opportunity to talk more about the “social and political” implications, according to Prof. Harleen Singh (WMGS), who is helping to organize the event.

Moving On

Back at the memorial on Wednesday, Waltham Chabad Director Rabbi Peretz Chein urged those gathered to “do one ex-treme act of goodness this week in memo-rial to all those who can never do an act of kindness again.”

“We were attacked on Friday by the fun-damentalists of hate and the extremists of darkness,” he said. “We must respond back with the fundamentalism of good.”

Pannu agreed. While he is shaken by his losses in the terrorist attacks, he is deter-mined that he will move on—refusing to allow the terrorists to disrupt his life as they disrupted those of so many others.

As the students who were gathered dis-persed, Pannu urged the community to carry on with their lives—to remember the tragedy, but to not let it stop them.

“The best way to combat terrorism is to continue living lives in which we love more than we have ever loved before,” he said. “I look forward to returning to my home in Mumbai over winter break and telling my friends about how the Brandeis community is united with us in our cause.”

He added, “the only thing we have going for us right now is each other.”

You can follow Namun and the Revive Mumbai Project at: http://revivemumbai.blogspot.com/

Community response to attacks inspires studentsMUMBAI (from p. 1)

VIGIL: Naman Pugalia ‘09, speaks to a solemn crowd outside Usdan, on Monday night. Pugalia spoke about the attacks in Mumbai, India, and how the attacks have had a strong personal affect on him.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

DINE FOR MUMBAI: Brandeis students gather, Thursday night, in the Shapiro Campus Center atrium, to attend a fundraising dinner. The dinner was organized by Revive Mumbai. The funds will go towards rebuilding the Chabad house in Mumbai.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

S P O R T S14 The Hoot December 5, 2008

S P O R T S

formance: 24 points on 11-15 shooting, 8 rebounds – both team highs along with 5 assists and 2 steals. Roberson was a perfect 10-10 from the free throw line, overcom-ing a rocky 2-9 shooting from the field to finish with 15 points and a team leading 7 assists. Kevin Olson and Terrell Hollins ’10 each had 10 points on the night. Ladson led Babson with 19 points on 5-7 shooting from beyond the three-point arc. Teammate Zach Etten also converted 5 three pointers to finish with 17. Brandeis shot the lights out, converting 56.5 percent of their shot at-tempts in the game including a scintillating 61.9 percent in the first half. The Judges also made their second chances count, outscor-ing the Beavers 17-2 in second half points.

The budding streak comes after dropping their November 25 home opener to Mass-Dartmouth 62-68 thanks in large part to 23 Judges turnovers and converting a paltry four three throws out 13 first half attempts. However the Judges emerged a team anew against Tufts at home on November 30 as the duo of Hollins and DeLuca both had dominating performances in the 80-56 rout.

The Jumbos came out tough in the open-ing minutes, but after a jumper from Matt Galvin put Tufts up by one with around 13 minutes left in the first half, the Judges promptly took the lead back on two free throws from Andre Roberson ’10 and never looked back. Up by 10 after the first half, Brandeis locked down on Tufts, holding them to 22.6 percent in field goal attempts (7-31) in the second half while keeping up the scoring needed to earn their first win of the season.

Terrell Hollins had his sixth double-dou-ble with 19 points and 10 rebounds while Steve DeLuca matched Hollins’ 19 points but was two rebounds shy of having his own double-double. DeLuca was also deadly from long range, converting 3 of 4 attempts from the three-point line. Kenny Small ’10 provided 11 points off the bench. Jon Pierce and Aaron Gallant led the losing ef-fort for Tufts with 13 points each. Brandeis dominated the paint throughout the game, out-rebounding Tufts 42-32 and doubled them up on points in the paint 42-32. The Judges also made the Jumbos pay for their mistakes, converting 12 turnovers into 13 points while only surrendering 3 points off their own 10 giveaways.

“It’s good” Hollins said about the chem-istry he has with DeLuca. “We compliment each other really well. I just remember my third or fourth game against Tufts one day in my freshman year. We both had 21 points and that’s like when we found out we could both play together. At first they wouldn’t play us usually together then we found our way. And then we found certain plays we can run where both of us can get the ball where we like it and also feed other play-ers off the team. Having him out there, you can’t double team him because that leaves somebody open and we have tremendous shooters, especially if Kenny’s in the game or Kev’s (Olson) in the corner, I mean you can’t really leave our shooters and Andre is such a good penetrater and Christian’s a pretty good passer too so I feel like you have to play us single or one on one.”

The victory against Rhode Island College gives the Judges a chance to have their first winning record of the season they take to the road December 6 for a 1 pm date at Em-erson before returning home to wrap up the 2008 year hosting Clark on December 9 at 7 pm and Framingham State on December 13 at 1 pm.

A start to forget indeed but as the phoe-nix is born anew from the ashes of its own pyre, so too could the Judges re-emerge as the force that people took them to be.

Brandeis men’s basketball experienced as disastrous start to the season, dropping their first three games and plummeted out of the d3hoops Top 25 poll after opening in the top ten. With that in mind however, the Judges regained their grasp of the sea-son with a victory over 25th ranked Rhode Island College 75-61 to bring them back to .500. After quickly trading leads early in the game, Brandeis went on a 12-2 run to build up a nine point lead. The Anchor-man however rallied to cut the deficit to one thanks to a three pointer from Kaseem Johnson. The Judges though embarked on a 15-3 scoring break and through out the rest of the game, never saw their lead fall below double-digits in their season equal-izing win.

Terrell Hollins ’10 led the scoring with 18 points along with a career high 16 re-bounds – 10 in the second half alone and seven assists. Steve DeLuca GRAD fol-lowed up with 17 points and nine rebounds and Andre Roberson ’10 had 14 points and six assists. Christian Yemga ’11 chipped in with eight points and ten rebounds. Tir-rell Hill led the scoring for Rhode Island College with 11 while teammates Mason Choice and Kaseem Johnson each had 10.

Brandeis’ defense held the Anchormen to 31 percent shooting on the day and out-muscled them for the rebounds by a 44-33 margin.

“We lost our two scrimmages in the be-ginning of the year, things weren’t going well.” Terrell Hollins said after the game. “We didn’t know – they thought they want-ed to bring me off the bench. That changed, we went to a bigger line up, now we’re clicking. We’re going inside more with me and DeLuca more inside and opening up the shooters for the second half and then – just getting DeLuca back is key, he’s a tremendous inside and outside player. Just getting him back in shape and just ready to play I mean he sat out a whole year so that’s tough and the transition of him com-ing back to the team is definitely helping us now and as the season goes on, we’ll be a lot more tough – tougher.”

“Our team is clicking,” DeLuca explained in an email Wednesday, “and we are getting what we need to do offensively and defen-sively. It took us a little longer to get things going than years past and with our difficult schedule, it resulted in some bad losses.”

The Judges picked up their second straight win at Babson Tuesday night as four start-ers, led by DeLuca reached double digits in scoring to cement the 70-60 win. Both squads traded leads early in the first half until a three pointer by Babson’s Matt Flo-rlo gave the Beavers a four-point lead. The Judges responded with an 11-0 run fueled by DeLuca and Kevin Olson ’09 to go up by seven. Babson however clawed their way back to cut the deficit to three at the half. Babson gained the momentum early in the second half, tying the score with 17:28 left in the game and then took the lead after a three pointer from Shelton Ladson two minutes later. Brandeis though promptly took away the momentum, going on a 16-0 run over the next four and a half minutes to take the 48-35 lead. Babson would come as close as six points but Andre Roberson ’10 made six consecutive free throws and Brandeis left with the “W”.

‘The victories over Tufts and Babson are definitely signs of the season turning around.” Steve DeLuca explained, “We are playing much differently than our first 3 games. Our offense is much crisper and the defense is stepping up as well.

DeLuca led the way with a complete per-

By ZACHARY ARONOWEditor

Men’s b-ball climbs out of hole

Brandeis men’s fencing were unable to repeat last year’s success at the second annual Boston Beanpot Fencing championships, opening up with a 15-12 victory over MIT be-fore bowing to Boston College 12-15 and Harvard 11-16. Will Friedman ’09 had a good performance in the losing effort, the All-American foilist finished with a 7-2 record for the evening.

The women’s squad had a better run in the championship, knocking out Boston College 17-10 and MIT 19-8 but had to settle for second place once again as defending champions Harvard once again proved too strong, falling 7-20 to the Crimson. Caitlin Kozel ’09 fin-ished with a 6-2 record in the epee while saber fencer Anna Henley ’11 finished 8-1.

The men’s squad is now 6-2 for the season, the women are 8-1. The Judges fencers re-turn to action on December 7 as they host the Brandeis Invitational. Brandeis will take on Brown, Cornell, St. John’s, and Yale starting at 9 am.

By ZACHARY ARONOWEditor

Women’s fencing takes second place at the beanpot

PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot

PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot

B-BALL: Brandeis Forward Terrell Hollins ‘10 (No. 33, center) wrestles the ball away from Rhode Island College’s Kaseem Johnson (No. 2, right) ‘09, during the first half of their game thursday night.

Men’s B-Ball: Brandeis Guard Andre Roberson ‘10 (No. 1, left) goes up for a layup in the second half of Brandeis’ win, thursday night. Roberson ended the game with 14 points.year.

December 5, 2008 S P O R T S The Hoot 15

TEAM LATEST SCORES NEXT GAMEMBasketball November 22 at WPI - L, 78-64 December 6 at Emerson 1:00 PM

November 25 UMass.-Dartmouth - L, 68-62 December 9 Clark (Mass.) 7:00 PM November 30 Tufts - W, 80-56 December 13 Framingham St. 1:00 PM December 2 at Babson - W, 70-60 January 5 Curry 7:00 PMDecember 4 Rhode Island College - W 75-61 January 9 Rochester (N.Y.) * 8:00 PM

WBasketball November 22 Widener - W, 67-48 December 6 Babson 1:00 PM November 23 Bowdoin - W, 71-44 December 31 Regis (Mass.) 1:00 PM November 25 Wellesley - W, 76-44 January 6 at Rhode Island College 6:00 PMNovember 30 at Tufts - W, 81-76 December 2 Emmanuel (Mass.) - W, 94-52 December 4 at Wheaton (Mass.) - W, 69-54

Fencing New England Fall Collegiate Championships @ Smith College MFencing Epee gold & silver WFencing Saber, Epee golds

December 7 Brandeis Invitational 9:00 AM vs. Brown, Cornell, St. John’s, Yale

November 22 Northeast Conference Meet @ UNH MFencing W5-L0 WFencing W6-L0December 3 at Boston Beanpot Fencing Championship Brandeis 15, MIT 12 Boston College 15, Brandeis 12 Harvard 16, Brandeis 11WFencing W2-L1 Brandeis 17, Boston College 10 Brandeis 19, MIT 8 Harvard 20, Brandeis 7

Swimming November 23 at Tufts MSwimming L 82-205 WSwimming L 114.5-169.5

December 5-7 at MIT Invitational

Track and Field December 6 Husky Invitational @ Northeastern 12:00 p.m.December 13 at Harvard Invitational 12:00 p.m.

MXCountry November 22 NCAA Championships @ Hanover, Ind. 20th of 32 teams

The Deis Board

You may not have noticed but there’s a basketball team here that has been shooting up the d3hoops top 25 rank-ings, vanquishing their foes left and right as they aim for another NCAA post season appearance.

I am of course talking about the currently 12th ranked Brandeis Judges women’s basketball squad.

Their blazing start to the season continued with their sixth straight win, taming the Wheaton College Lyons 69-54. Lauren Orlando ‘09 and Jessica Chapin ‘10 each had 15 points while Cassidy Dadaos ‘09 had 11 points, eight rebounds. Krystin Hickey led Wheaton’s offense with 17 points. The Judges outrebounded Wheaton 40-27 and out-shot them 48 percent to 34 percent.

The road win follows a 94-52 annihilation of Emmanuel College as Coach Carol Simon got to play all of her avail-able players in front of a rousing handful of family mem-bers and friends Tuesday night.

A three pointer by the Saints’ Kristen LeBel tied the game at three, ninety seconds into the first half. It also was the only time Emmanuel didn’t trial as Brandeis ran wild, scor-ing 14 unanswered points and took advantage of 7 turn-overs over the next five minutes. After ending the first half up 45-26 the Judges offered Emmanuel no opportunity of salvation, shooting a season high 55 percent in the game (33-60) including an astonishing 65 percent clip in the sec-ond half alone.

“Every game is a big game for us” Coach Simon ex-plained. “We have to win all our non-conference games, we understand the importance of that. We understand how good Emmanuel is, they’re a very good team. I just thought we did a very good job defensively on ‘em, we really went according to our game plan, we followed it well, you know we shot very well so that doesn’t hurt either.”

Brandeis had four players reach double digits in points, lead by forward Lauren Orlando ’09 with a game high 22 points. Lauren Rashford ’10 had 10 points to go along with 7 assists, most of any team while Jessica Chapin picked up 13 points thanks to three three-pointers along with 6 rebounds. Amber Strodthoff ’11 celebrated her birthday

with a career high 14 points in 15 minutes of action. Kris-tin LeBel and Iman Davis accounted for over 65 percent of Emmanuel’s 52 points, LeBel leading the team with 21 points thanks to a sharp 5-7 from three point land while Davis converted seven free throws in 12 trips to account for the bulk of her 13 points.

Not only did the Judges outgun the Saints but completely dominated the interior, racking up 43 rebounds to Em-manuel’s 26 including a decisive 32-15 edge on the defen-sive end. Cassidy Dadaos ’09 lead the interior game with 8 rebounds.

The 94 points was the most Brandeis scored in a game since 2002-03 when they racked up 95 against Gallaudet.

The victory over Emmanuel comes two days after Bran-deis pulled off a stunning upset on the road over then 16th ranked Tufts 81-76. Tufts tied the game up at 63 apiece with 5:18 left in the game but Brandeis pulled ahead for good after Amanda Wells ’09 pulled down a critical offensive rebound on the next possession and assisted it to Dadaos who picked up the basket and the foul to put the Judges up by three. Clutch free throw shooting; particularly Lauren Orlando’s 8 straight conversions in the final minutes pre-served the lead and the upset.

Orlando led with 20 points and Chapin was close behind with 19. Diana Cincotta ’11 and rookie Morgan Kendrew ’12 each had 10.

With victories over Tufts and then 15th ranked Bowdoin, Brandeis was rewarded with a meteoric rise through the d3hoops Top 25 poll to number 12 overall. Still, Coach Si-mon isn’t getting caught up with the early success.

“You know, again I don’t get caught up in the rankings this early, you know to me it’s what happens at the end. I mean I think it’s a nice honor, you know we beat some very good teams that were ranked, I figured we were going to get ranked somewhere.”

Co-captain Jessica Chapin raised another point about the new ranking, “Right now, it puts a bulls-eye on our back and right now we got to continue to keep playing.”

The Judges continue their season with a December 6 1 p.m. home match against Babson and wrap up 2008 with Regis coming in Dec. 31 at 1 p.m..

By ZACHARY ARONOWEditor

Women’s Basketball wins six straight

PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot

Women’s B-Ball: Above: Brandeis’ Lauren Rashford ‘10 (No. 22, right) rushes up-court, past Emmanuel guard Iman Davis ‘10 (No. 32, left) on tuesday. Below: Brandeis Forward Amber Strodthoff ‘11 (No. 44) lines up for a free-throw.

Are you tired of hitting the books and want to have a good time? If you're 21+ party the night away at the city's longest running dance night, the Pill. Lights Out, a band which blends rock and indie, will perform. $5/person. Not 21? You can see stand-up comedy at the Great Scott on Saturday.

E N D O F S E M E S T E R F U N

Friday, Dec. 5, 2008, 9 p.m.1222 Commonwealth Ave., Allston

Insert Comic Here By Anthony Scibelli

Cloud 9: Saturday to Sunday, Dec. 6-7, 8 p.m. Schwartz Auditorium

Need a laugh? Check out Free Play Theatre Cooperative's pro-duction of Caryl Churchill's "Cloud 9." It's a surrealistic co-medic play which deals with gen-der and sexuality during the Vic-torian era.

Great Scott:

http://www.greatscottboston.com/

Floppsie By Grace Alloy-Relihan

Nutcracker:Friday to Sunday Dec. 5-7, 7:30 p.m. Spingold Theatre

In the mood for a more traditional ver-sion of the Nutcracker? Jose Mateo's Ballet Theatre tells this winter tale through an emphasis on dancing. Tickets start at $10 with Brandeis I.D.

By Ian Price

COMICStrips

laughingwarlock

Sleazy By Matt Kupfer

Urban Nutcracker:Friday to Sunday, Dec. 5-7, 11 a.m. 284 Amory St., Jamaica PlainWant to get into the holiday spirit? Go see Tony William's contemporary take on the classic ballet. Interweav-ing modern music with Tchaikovsky, ballet wih hip hop, this is a perfor-mance you won't want to miss.http://www.balletrox.org

Fair Trade: Friday, Dec. 5, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.Sherman Function HallWant to do some holiday shopping? Need to get gifts for friends or family members? The Brandeis Labor Coalition is sponsoring a Free Trade Fair. All merchandaise has been made under fair circum-stances.

Midnight Buffet:Tuesday, Dec. 9, 10 p.m. Levin Ballroom, Usdan

Take a break from studying and celebrate the last day of classes! Dance, grab free food, and snag free goodies. Don't miss out on this chance to de-stress.Photo courtesy of Eleni Shouftas.

16 The Hoot December 5, 2008

Spotlight on Boston

What's going on at Brandeis?