BY ALISSA CERNYSTAFF WRITER

The College Ceremony, which has tra-ditionally occurred inside the Meet-ing House of the First Baptist Church in America on the Sunday of Commence-ment Weekend, will this year take place on the grounds in front of the building due to the large size of the class of 2006.

Following discussion among students, administrators and Brown Corporation members that included a WebCT poll in which 48 percent of the senior class partici-pated, Russell Carey ’91, vice president and secretary of the University, reported the de-cision to seniors in an April 4 e-mail.

After proceeding through the Van Wickle Gates and down College Hill, se-niors will gather facing a small stage in front of the church, Carey wrote in the e-mail. During the ceremony a group of students will move the Manning Chair, the ceremonial seat used by the presi-dent, from the Meeting House onto the stage.

The events that traditionally occur at

the College Ceremony — including the singing of the national anthem, the invo-cation by the chaplain and the conferral of the baccalaureate degrees — will pro-ceed as usual, with one exception, Carey said. The senior orations will be given when the class returns to the Main Green rather than at the Meeting House. Carey told The Herald this change was made to allow all students, family, parents and faculty to hear the speeches in person. He estimated the entire ceremony at the Meeting House will last 10 minutes.

Because of time constraints, the senior class will not proceed through the build-ing before returning to the Main Green, Carey said.

“We had to balance the logistical as-pect of things including the timing of the ceremony, and we felt that this solution offered a more meaningful connection to the tradition than walking through the Meeting House,” Carey said.

The University’s decision differs from the two solutions initially proposed be-fore spring break. One proposal called for seniors to proceed through the Meeting House and return to the Main Green to perform the College Ceremony, while an-other involved the use of an overflow tent outside the church.

The initial deadline for a decision was tentatively set for the end of March, but the final decision was announced April 4. Carey said he did not view this as a sub-stantial delay.

“We felt that it was very important to take our time to proceed thoughtfully because there were no obvious perfect choices,” Carey said.

The ultimate solution “came from the input of seniors and other community members who felt very strongly about the importance of staying together and maintaining the tradition,” Carey said.

The WebCT poll asked seniors to rate the importance of the Meeting House tradition versus the preservation of class unity. Seniors were also asked if they pre-ferred the use of a walk-through proces-sion or an overflow tent and whether they would volunteer to sit in the tent if one

THE BROWN DAILY HERALDVolume CXLI, No. 44 An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006

mostly sunny

53 / 36

showers

53 / 42

195 Angell Street, Providence, Rhode Island

TOMORROWTODAY

Editorial: 401.351.3372 Business: 401.351.3260

www.brown.eduA group of PLME students poses in front of Faunce House. Those interviewed by The Herald said they do not experience much resentment from their pre-medical counterparts.

PITCHING FOR PEACE

Jean Yves Chainon / HeraldSuchi Mathur ’08 (sitting, left) and Tara Gonsalves ’08, both of Brown’s Darfur Action Network, collected signatures as part of a campout on the Main Green Wednesday night. The event, intended to symbolize refugee camps in Sudan’s Darfur region, promoted an upcoming rally in Washington, D.C., for which DAN is organizing transportation.

College Ceremony to be held in front of Baptist churchFinal solution to space constraint aims to preserve class unity and Meeting House tradition

Brown takes sixth in Princeton Review survey of ‘dream colleges’BY KRISTINA KELLEHERSTAFF WRITER

Brown came in at number six on students’ list of “dream colleges” and number eight on parents’ corresponding list, according to the Princeton Review’s 2006 “College Hopes and Worries” survey, which was re-leased March 21.

The Princeton Review surveyed 3,890 college applicants regarding the “dream college” they most wish they could at-tend. In addition, the organization asked 1,012 parents what school they wished their children could attend. Students and parents were asked to respond without considering an institution’s cost or their likelihood of being accepted.

For the second year in a row, New York University topped students’ list of “dream colleges,” followed by Harvard and Princeton universities. Parents’ top choice for “dream college” was Prince-ton University, followed by Stanford and Harvard universities.

Last year, Brown came in ninth among students and was not on the top 10 for parents. Though he said Brown’s high placement on both students’ and par-ents’ lists is “wonderful,” Dean of Admis-sion Jim Miller ’73 added that he wor-ries about “these rating things.” He said “people should look at them all with some skepticism” and analyze “trends and patterns” in rankings of colleges and universities as opposed to numbers from just one year.

Nick Allen ’09 expressed surprise that NYU claimed the top spot among sur-veyed students, particularly consider-ing the school’s lack of a unified campus. When looking at schools, he said he was

PLMEs versus pre-meds?Despite supposed rivalry, Brown’s aspiring doctors coexist peacefullyBY STEPHANIE BERNHARDSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Contrary to the campus-wide assumption that pre-medical students harbor deep-

seated resentment toward students in the Program for Liberal Medical Education,

the two groups tend to coexist peacefully — for the most part.

Because PLME students are accepted into Brown Medical School straight out of high school provided they maintain a 3.0 GPA throughout their undergraduate

see PLME, page 9

see CEREMONY, page 4

see RANKINGS, page 8

FEATURE

Late Night Fund provides drinkers, non-drinkers weekend alternativesBY JOSH TOBIASCONTRIBUTING WRITER

A typical weekend party at Brown might involve cramming students into a small lounge area, playing loud club music and filling hundreds of plastic cups with cheap beer and vodka. However, stu-dents and faculty on the board that ad-ministers the newly created Late Night Fund are working to change this image.

Begun as a pilot program this semes-ter, the Late Night Fund provides money for student groups to hold weekend so-cial events that do not serve alcohol. Ac-cording to the University’s Web site, the Late Night Fund has a budget of $20,000 that the board can distribute to any cam-pus group interested in holding a dry event.

This semester the fund has sponsored

events including a party thrown by the Persian Club, a Grey’s Anatomy mara-thon and a Zoot Suit Ball. This weekend will feature two events which received money from the Late Night Fund: the “Relay for Life,” which is co-sponsored by the American Cancer Society, and “Games Night for Religious Freedom,” which is being sponsored by Amnesty International and Interfaith House.

Members of the board said the idea for the Late Night Fund originated from a string of incidents last semester in-volving alcohol that prompted the Uni-versity to create the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Social Events Policy and Pro-cedures. One of the committee’s recom-mendations was to start a fund for non-alcoholic events on campus.

see LATE NIGHT, page 7

DUG LIFEThe role of Departmental Undergraduate Groups varies across departments and largely depends on student leadership CAMPUS NEWS 5

IN DEFENSE OF BARROIDSStu Woo ’08 explains why he will al-ways be a devoted fan of the much- maligned Barry Bonds SPORTS 16

REDUCE, REUSE... RECYCLE?The lowest-ranked Ivy in RecycleMania once again: compost- investigates why Brown isn’t as green as you think INSIDE

C R O S S W O R D

THIS MORNINGTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 2

Jero Matt Vascellaro

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

Deo Daniel Perez

Homebodies Mirele Davis

Freeze Dried Puppies Cara Fitzgibbons

Silentpenny Soundbite Brian Elig

THE BROWN DAILY HERALDEditorial Phone: 401.351.3372

Business Phone: 401.351.3260

Robbie Corey-Boulet, President

Justin Elliott, Vice President

Ryan Shewcraft, Treasurer

David Ranken, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is published Monday through Friday dur-

ing the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once

during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. POSTMASTER

please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage

paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail

herald@browndailyherald.com. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com.

Subscription prices: $179 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2006 by

The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

ACROSS1 Trattoria treats7 Chin-wag

11 __ Ranch14 Where it all

started15 LAX postings16 Broad foot17 Fails, finally20 “It’s no __

know”21 “Uh-uh”22 Lao-tzu

adherent23 Stowe, for one26 Fails,

completely30 High degree31 Usenet

messages32 Baker34 Father’s Day

gift36 Hospital signs38 Con39 WWII torpedo

craft42 Crow cousin43 Fails, suddenly47 Rolled the dice,

as while playingMonopoly

48 Dogpatchcartoonist

51 Neckline style52 Place of honor56 Fails,

spectacularly59 Pillage60 Provided first

aid for, in a way61 Exhibit principal62 Rock’s Brian63 Bakeware

brand64 Features of

some affairs

DOWN1 Energetic2 Hibernia3 “C’mon, __ a

little!”4 AARP concern5 “__ a pity”6 As one7 Invest emotion

in, to apsychoanalyst

8 Regal letters9 Response to

“Am not!”10 Jenny Fields’s

son, in a JohnIrving novel

11 First of 13popes

12 Eleanor’ssuccessor

13 Singer Joanwith TheBlackhearts

18 Legal aides19 Communal

Asian dish24 French military

cap25 SAT takers26 “Cha-__!”27 Keats’ “__

Autumn”28 Dodge29 Pass on30 Class-

conscious gp.?33 Its cap. is

Sydney35 Michelangelo

masterpieces36 Worth

37 “Like __ not ...”39 Comics cry40 Fanfaronade41 A lot44 1982 Oscar-

winning role forMeryl

45 Cent : dollar ::__ : ruble

46 Working asscheduled

48 Real estate unit

49 “Mission Earth”series authorHubbard

50 __ San Lucas:Baja resort

53 Fleischer andOnassis

54 Part of MIT:Abbr.

55 Concordes57 “Just a __!”58 Winter outburst

By Karen M. Tracey(c)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

4/6/06

4/6/06

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Thursday, April 6, 2006

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

xwordeditor@aol.com

T O D A Y ’ S E V E N T S

M E N U

“IRAQ AND VIETNAM: SOME LESSONS FOR AMERICANS”8 p.m. , (Wilson 102) —Jerry Elmer, an ACLU attorney and author of “Felon for Peace: The Memoir of a Vietnam-era Draft Evader,” will speak.

HAL NIEDZVIECKI: AUTHOR READING AND SIGNING4 p.m., (Brown Bookstore) — Hal Niedzviecki’s writings on culture have appeared in newspapers and magazines across North America.

PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING SPORTS COLUMNIST AT HILLEL7:30 p.m., (80 Brown St.) — Pultizer Prize-winning sports columnist Ira Berkow will be speaking about his new autobiography, titled “Full Swing: Hits, Runs and Errors in a Writer’s Life.”

“TAKE THE LEAD”7 p.m. , (Avon Cinema) — The Ivy Film Festival presents an advance screening ($1 for students) of the movie starring Antonio Banderas and Yaya Johnson ‘04.

SHARPE REFECTORY

LUNCH — Chicken Pot Pie, Herb Rice, Mandarin Blend Vegetables, Kielbasa, Pepperoni Spinach Feta Calzone, Sweet Potato Fries, Chicken Soup with Tortellini, Vegetarian Eggplant Vegetable Soup, Cajun Fettuccini, Vegan Tofu Pups, Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll, Fudge Bars

DINNER — Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce, Parslied Potatoes, Whole Kernel Corn, Fresh Green Beans, Anadama Bread, Chicken Breast Florentine, Mexican Cornbread Casserole, Baked Potatoes, Brazilian Chocolate Cake

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Vegetarian Escarole & Bean Soup, Beef Vegetable Soup, Chicken Caesar Salad in Pita, Eggplant Parmesan, Zucchini & Summer Squash,Fudge Bars

DINNER — Vegetarian Escarole & Bean Soup, Beef Vegetable Soup, Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Sauce, Jamaican Jerk Tempeh, Mashed Red Potatoes with Garlic, Spinach with Lemon, Wax Beans, Anadama Bread, Brazilian Chocolate Cake

METROTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THUSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 3

BY BEN LEUBSDORFMETRO EDITOR

Matt Jerzyk ’99 and other bloggers want to shake up Rhode Island politics.

“I have a very, very profound belief that the Internet is a very explosive tool for democracy if everyone uses it,” said Jerzyk, the founder of Rhode Island’s Future, one of the state’s top blogs.

“Political blogs have the potential to rebuild the town hall,” he said.

National blogs such as Wonkette, Daily Kos and Insta-pundit have established themselves as key players on the political scene, bringing attention to overlooked news and minutiae and offering constant commentary on the news. The Rhode Island blogosphere is still in its infancy, with just a few prominent blogs focusing on local news and politics.

But if the town hall has not yet been rebuilt, its foun-dations have certainly been repaired. Local blogs — lib-eral and conservative, well-connected and outsider — gain readers and participants with each passing month.

One blog, two blog, red blog, blue blogThe state’s leading blog — one with a strong liberal tilt —

is Rhode Island’s Future, founded by Jerzyk in March 2005.Currently a law student at Roger Williams University,

Jerzyk started out by e-mailing a list of events and news to his friends while he worked at the Swearer Center for Pub-lic Service after graduating from Brown. Jerzyk became ac-tive in local politics — including four years as executive director of Rhode Island Jobs for Justice and running the 2002 campaign of Ward 9 Councilman Miguel Luna and District 11 Rep. Grace Diaz’s 2004 campaign. He said the need for a liberal news source became obvious.

“After five years of working in the non-profit world in Rhode Island and running political campaigns and lob-bying at the State House, I just saw a real clear need for a more liberal, progressive media,” he said. “We’re a very liberal state but our news media, both the Providence Journal and the Channel 10 TV news, have significant coverage in the state … and there’s nothing significantly liberal or progressive in those institutions,” he added.

So Jerzyk founded Rhode Island’s Future, posting news and commentary on national issues such as immi-gration reform as well as local issues and political cam-

paigns. The site has become one of the state’s most popu-lar, with four million hits in its 13-month life and 700,000 last month alone.

“I decided to focus on local politics because Rhode Is-land’s political life is extremely exciting, and no one really knows how exciting it is. I just had to start writing about it,” Jerzyk said. “I think it’s reached a critical mass and be-come a force and people know what it is. Everyone in the chattering class of Rhode Island political life reads it.”

But Jerzyk has more ambitious goals for the blog than just readership.

“My goal for the blog is not just to be a place where people read stories … but to actively engage people and challenge people’s views and change the discourse in Rhode Island,” he said. “Step one, people are engaged. Step two, let’s use that to make social change.”

Though Jerzyk has found fertile soil for his progressive message in Rhode Island — where President George W. Bush garnered just 39 percent of the vote in 2004 — his conservative counterparts have faced more of a struggle.

A little over a year ago, around the same time Rhode Island’s Future began, carpenter Justin Katz founded An-chor Rising, which has emerged as the state’s leading conservative blog.

Katz said “no one’s really aware of what’s going on” in Rhode Island’s conservative movement. “So I decided to find a point in the middle of this uncoordinated mass of interest and tie it all together.”

The result was Anchor Rising, aimed at “introducing con-servatism to Rhode Island and Rhode Island to conserva-tism,” Katz said. The site boasts readership in the “high hun-dreds” of unique visitors each day, and offers news and opin-ions from a cast of six conservative bloggers.

Katz said it can be difficult to offer conservative com-mentary in Rhode Island’s liberal environment.

“It’s such a foreign attitude to be conservative in this state,” he said. “I found that particularly with the issue of same-sex marriage. … It’s a very heated issue, and so to take a contrary position for intellectual reasons, it doesn’t carry over well into cocktail discussions.”

“But,” he added, “by the same token, the limited na-ture of the conservative movement in Rhode Island means it’s easier to get into the center of it all.”

Jerzyk said he believes the Rhode Island blogosphere is growing and maturing.

“It’s limitless what could happen. I think from a year ago when I started, when it was just me and Anchor Ris-ing and the Brown Democrats, we’ve seen the cultivation of a couple more,” he said. “I think a year from now we’ll see 10 or 20 more.”

One of those rising blogs is Kmareka, run by Crans-ton social worker Kiersten Marek. Launched in January, Kmareka started off with about a 100 visitors a day and has grown to five times that number.

“I guess for me it’s very important to balance the mi-cro level of doing social work with a more macro level en-deavor that raises consciousness and helps people think about things from a different perspective,” she said. “It’s a citizen journalism thing. I try to be a government watch-dog and certainly do so locally.”

Marek’s blog is small but growing. Last month, she in-terviewed Democratic Secretary of State candidate Guil-

Political blogs a rising force in the Ocean StatePolitical blogs a rising force in the Ocean State

see BLOGS, page 11

BY JONATHAN HERMANSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Why might the U.S. Department of Defense be spy-ing on a small peace protest in Providence?

The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to answer that question and find out why the depart-ment may have gathered intelligence on Rhode Is-land anti-war groups. After filing the request at the beginning of February, the ACLU has yet to get a concrete answer, said Steven Brown, executive di-rector of R.I. ACLU.

The ACLU began its investigation after NBC News revealed that the Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace was referred to in the defense department’s Threat and Local Observation Notice database. The department evidently took notice after the coalition held a 30-person protest in De-cember 2004 against the deployment of a Rhode Is-land National Guard unit to Iraq, according to Greg Garrett, one of the protesters and a member of the Rhode Island Green Party.

The FOIA, passed in 1966, was designed to increase governmental transparency and accountability.

The TALON database was authorized in 2003 by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to gather “raw information” on “suspicious inci-dents,” according to an internal memo obtained by Newsweek.

Shaw Joseph, organizer of the Providence branch of the International Socialist Organization and a member of RICCP, reported that several National Guard employees took digital pictures of the activ-ists during the December 2004 protest.

The FOIA request was filed on behalf of groups whose members participated in that protest, in-cluding the RICCP, the South Kingstown Justice and Peace Action Group, the Providence branch of the ISO and the state Green Party — which has one branch at the University, Brown said.

The Department of Defense declined to com-ment on the R.I. ACLU’s FOIA request or its investi-gation of the RICCP.

After NBC News outlined allegations of the erro-neous targeting of activist groups, the defense de-partment admitted in a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that peaceful groups were in fact erroneously added to the TALON database.

“The recent review of the TALON reporting sys-tem … identified a small number of reports that did not meet the TALON reporting criteria. Those re-ports dealt with domestic anti-military protests or demonstrations potentially impacting Department of Defense facilities or personnel,” said Roger Ro-galski, acting deputy undersecretary of defense at the time.

Brown said the reports are particularly concern-

R.I. ACLU seeks records after anti-war protest is added to list of ‘suspicious incidents’

see ACLU, page 4

TOE-TAPPING TASTES

Jacob Melrose / HeraldAfter a long delay, the new bar-restaurant Spats opened Tuesday on Angell Street, just off Thayer.

were used.Senior class Co-President

Ari Savitzky ’06 said he knew students who felt very strongly about both options.

“I think that the symbol-ism of a tent would have been awful, but I also know people who would have been crushed if we eliminated the church,” Savitzky said.

The importance of the issue among seniors was evidenced by the high response rate to the poll. Nearly half the class — 48 percent in total — partic-ipated. 61 percent of respon-dents indicated they believe it is very important to keep the class together. But an equal-ly large majority, 63 percent, opposed the use of an over-flow tent. Only 10 percent of respondents said they would volunteer to sit in an overflow tent.

At the same time, 44 per-cent of seniors expressed a strong desire to maintain the traditional role of the Meet-ing House in the College Cer-emony, which made the pros-pect of abandoning the church undesirable, Carey said in his e-mail.

As of Wednesday morning, Carey said he had not received responses from a large num-ber of students regarding the final solution, but the few he had received were positive.

Michael Klufas ’06 said he is satisfied with the ultimate de-cision, adding that he was ini-tially concerned that the Meet-

ing House tradition would be abandoned.

“I think this is much better than just walking through the Meeting House, and, in retro-spect, I think that a tent prob-ably would have created a lot of discontent,” Klufas said. “I think this is a good middle ground for people who felt ad-amant about both aspects of togetherness and tradition.”

Savitzky said he is happy with the changes.

“I think that good things can come from this. I really like the symbolism of being outside of the church, in view of the entire city and the public — I think there is a real meaning in that,” Savitzky said. “Com-mencement used to be a very important public celebration, and I think in a different way this is almost a return to that tradition.”

One logistical issue that remains to be solved is how to accommodate faculty and Corporation members who would traditionally stand in a tent in the area where the se-nior class will now be gath-ered, Carey said.

In the event of rain, the procession will be cancelled and the College Ceremony will be held in the Pizzitola Center. In past years, when the entire senior class fit in the Meeting House, there was no need for an alternate rain site.

Students who attend the baccalaureate ceremony on Saturday will be able to sit in the Meeting House due to the historically lower rate of at-tendance for that event, Carey said.

ing because they might be em-blematic of other inappropriate practices undertaken by the de-partment.

“At this point, the monitoring of the protest is the only (obser-vation by the Department of Defense of an anti-war group in Rhode Island) we know of, but it wouldn’t surprise us to know if there have been other incidents of spying,” Brown said. “It’s an-other example of the secrecy surrounding (the Bush) admin-istration and often the secrecy surrounding its questionable activities.”

The RICCP is one of the many groups around the country who were added to the defense depart-ment’s list of potential threats. The 400-page document obtained by NBC contained more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” over a 10-month period.

Those involved in the peace protest said the defense depart-ment was interested in the small protest because of the govern-

ment’s intolerance of dissent over the war in Iraq.

“This is the action of a govern-ment and an administration that is attached to a series of deeply unpopular policies and is trying to change the attitudes to these policies through repression,” Jo-seph said.

“The government should nev-er be observing peaceful protest-ers in this way or form,” Garrett said. “We have gone into this age where protest seems to be illegal, though not in actuality.”

The defense department’s in-vestigation of U.S. citizens is one of several recent questionable national security programs that have been brought to the pub-lic’s attention.

The Federal Bureau of Investi-gation has looked into several en-vironmental activist groups, such as Greenpeace International and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for their alleged con-nections to eco-terrorism, ac-cording to evidence the ACLU’s national chapter obtained in De-cember 2005 through a different FOIA request.

Earlier this year, the New York Times revealed the existence of a

secret wiretapping program sanc-tioned by the president and run by the National Security Agency to intercept international calls made by American citizens with-out a warrant.

Though Brown said the ACLU is relying on its FOIA request to unearth any information collect-ed by the defense department on local activist groups, Scott Hodes, a privacy law attorney in Wash-ington, D.C., said the FOIA re-quest will probably be the first of multiple steps taken by the ACLU to gather information. After ob-taining responses from the dif-ferent agencies within the execu-tive branch, the ACLU will proba-bly have to file a lawsuit to obtain all of the relevant information its leaders seek, according to Hodes.

“(The defense department) may not find everything because they are not always searching hard or effectively,” Hodes said, adding “they may simply not want to release it all and use a FOIA exemption.”

The Rhode Island ACLU also contacted Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who is known for his criticism of the Iraq war, to help investigate the surveillance of Rhode Island groups opposing the war, Brown said.

“I remain concerned with re-ports that the Department of Defense has tracked numer-ous groups opposed to the war in Iraq,” Reed wrote in a state-ment released to The Herald. “As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am work-ing with my colleagues to address this matter.”

Though Reed has been in contact with the R.I. ACLU, he has yet to take any legislative action.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006

Solution, tips and computer program at www.sudoku.com.

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

ACLUcontinued from page 3

Ceremonycontinued from page 1

DUG disparities rooted in student involvement

BY MELISSA KAGENCONTRIBUTING WRITER

A Departmental Undergradu-ate Group is only as good as its students.

Because of this fact, there has traditionally been a wide dispar-ity between the quality of differ-ent DUGs — a problem trou-bling to administrators but con-sidered unavoidable by those involved in the groups.

“The degree to which the DUG is active is a function of the seniors of that year, how much energy they put into try-ing to plan events,” said J. Ver-non Henderson, professor of economics and urban studies and faculty mentor of the Urban Studies DUG.

A DUG is a group of under-graduates who share a com-mon interest in a department and “meet regularly to provide a setting in which students can explore potential careers in a given department, create a sense of community with a dis-cipline, and make and strength-en connections between con-centrators (and between) pro-fessors and concentrators,” ac-cording to the University’s DUG Web site.

DUG leaders emphasize that the informal environment between students and profes-sors can help attract potential concentrators.

DUG-sponsored events range from guest lectures and inter-views of potential professors to

more casual social gatherings with fellow concentrators. Be-yond these general activities, each DUG adapts itself to stu-dent interest and community opportunities. The Mathematics DUG began a program teaching calculus to local high school stu-dents, while the recently created Neuroscience DUG sponsors an annual Open Lab Day, in which students learn about professors’ research.

Student leaders agree that the success of DUGs depends almost entirely on student in-volvement. “You simply need to have students who are inter-ested in running the DUG. … If you have no events going on with your DUG, it’s going to die very soon,” said Rex Cheung ’06, leader of both the Mathe-matics and Philosophy DUGs.

Within the last five years, however, the Undergraduate Council of Students has pushed to improve DUG stability.

“If we make an effort to get as much information about DUGs as possible, about what DUGs have done in past, what has worked well and what hasn’t, we can give new DUG leaders more information to start with … ensuring that ev-ery DUG can meet a minimum standard of excellence,” said Tristan Freeman ’07, chair of Academic and Administrative Affairs for UCS. He added that keeping formal records would encourage continuity and in-formal student involvement.

Gretchen Peterson, coor-dinator at the Curricular Re-source Center, which advis-es DUG activities, agrees that DUGs need a more structured support system to “help ac-tualize their potential,” but thinks UCS has not been utiliz-ing its influence to do so.

Peterson added that either UCS or the CRC should do a bet-ter job of encouraging DUGs to have a certain number of events per year, arranging meetings among DUG leaders for inter-disciplinary outreach and re-quiring those leaders to rep-resent their constituencies. “It seems as though coordination of the DUGs is in limbo at the moment,” she said.

According to many DUG leaders, however, instability cannot be solved completely by a more structured system.

“UCS should make sup-port available, but I’m not sure if mandating a specific DUG structure would be beneficial,” said Morgan Palmer ’07, who began the Classics DUG last year. She added that the CRC Web site and other events that bring DUG leaders together are helpful.

Melissa Epstein ’06, leader of the Urban Studies DUG, said regulations should be set up by individual departments, but emphasized that more struc-ture can only help so much. “Even if we do set events, turn-out is up to the particular stu-dent,” she said.

1986 to reach the Final Four.Romar said he believes the

parity will continue because of the new NBA rule requiring play-ers be 19-years-old or at least one year removed from graduating high school.

“Some of the lesser-known schools are going to get a chance to advance,” he said.

But Hewitt disagreed, saying star high school players who would have jumped immedi-ately to the NBA before would now choose to play only in elite basketball programs. However,

he said, overall, the rule is ben-eficial to both high school play-ers, who might discover that they love college, and to NBA teams, who will have a chance to further evaluate prospects.

The two coaches also dis-cussed the myth of the aca-demically slacking, poor-behav-ing student-athlete, saying it is overblown.

“When (student-athletes) make mistakes and it’s publicized on tele-vision, it gets blown out of propor-tion,” Romar said.

Hewitt said while there are some student-athletes “who will take the easy way out,” he believes that “the vast majority do their best to get the most of

their education.”In addition to honoring

Hewitt, who led the Yellow Jack-ets to the NCAA championship game in 2004, and Romar, who has led the Huskies to two con-secutive Sweet 16 appearances, Wednesday night’s ceremonies also honored Pollard, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005.

The Fritz Pollard Award was established in 2004 when Brown and the Black Coaches Association joined to co-spon-sor an annual award for the male college coach of the year. The night’s ceremonies includ-ed a presentation about Pol-lard, a star running back who led Brown to its first and only Rose Bowl in 1916. Pollard then played in the National Football League, where he became the league’s first black quarterback and head coach.

After the symposium, Hewitt and Romar told The Herald in brief interviews that they felt honored to be associated with Pollard’s name.

“It’s an honor,” Hewitt said, adding that he found it “ex-tremely interesting” to come to Brown and to learn about the obstacles Pollard overcame to become football’s first black coach.

“(I feel) honored, privileged, overwhelmed,” Romar said. “Be-ing associated with what Fritz Pollard has done is just over-whelming. When you’re young, you just don’t know if you’ll ever be in the position to represent something like this.”

BCAcontinued from page 16

UCS passes resolutions for renewable energy, end to ban on postseason Ivy footballBY KYLE MCGOURTYSTAFF WRITER

The Undergraduate Council of Students passed a resolu-tion seeking to end the ban on postseason competition for Ivy League football programs at its general body meeting last night. The council also passed a reso-lution endorsing a renewable energy fee of $25 to be imposed on each student.

The resolution to terminate the ban on postseason football was debated during the meet-ing of the Ivy Council, which brings together student govern-ment leaders from Ivy League schools, over spring break. Cur-rently, all Ivy League football teams are forbidden from par-ticipating in postseason bowls and playoffs. Other Ivy League schools will vote on similar res-olutions in the future, according to Brian Becker ’09, a UCS class representative.

The aim of the UCS resolu-tion is to promote a discourse with members of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents about lift-ing the ban.

The council also unanimously passed “A Resolution to Institute a Renewable Energy Fee” that calls for the University to “com-mit to purchasing Renewable En-ergy Certificates as an immediate source of renewable energy.” The proposal endorses a $25 student fee to be paid each semester. The resolution cites a concern about global climate change and notes that renewable energy was not addressed in the University’s Plan for Strategic Growth.

After the proposals were vot-ed upon, Tristan Freeman ’07, chair of the Academic and Ad-ministrative Affairs Committee, announced that “the plus/mi-nus debate is dead,” a declara-tion that was met with applause

from many UCS members. There were no motions to pass a resolution in favor of the ad-dition of pluses and minuses to the University’s grading system at the most recent meeting of the College Curriculum Council or at Tuesday’s faculty meeting, Freeman said.

“The faculty really listened to the opinions of Brown students on this issue,” Freeman said.

Freeman updated the coun-cil on plans to develop a winter session, referred to by some as a “J-Term.” Freeman met with President Ruth Simmons re-garding this subject in the past week and said Simmons “en-dorses the idea.”

In the current plans, the win-ter session will be comprised of courses that last for three weeks. They will be seminars and will meet three days a week for two-hour blocks, Freeman said. Hopefully, faculty mem-bers, graduate students and other community members will teach the courses, he said.

“The idea is to offer class-es that aren’t typically offered in the Brown curriculum,” said UCS Vice President Zachary Townsend ’08.

Freeman said the University would likely provide financial assistance for students enroll-ing in such a program.

An official proposal will ap-pear before the council in two weeks, Freeman said.

The dates for upcoming elec-tions for UCS and the Under-graduate Finance Board were announced. The elections will be held from April 17 through April 20.

After the meeting, Saxton-Frump told The Herald that can-didates will be finalized after a meeting on April 10, and a debate will be held April 11 at a location that has yet to be determined.

www.browndailyherald.com

CAMPUS NEWSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THUSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 5

A main reason for creating the Late Night Fund was to address the lack of non-alcoholic social options on weekends, according to Shelly Adriance, coordinator of student activities and a facul-ty adviser to the Late Night Fund board.

“It has been the funding board’s focus to support fun, social events that go past midnight on Friday and Saturday nights in order to provide the social outlet that is needed,” Adriance wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

“By putting money into non-al-coholic events, it would be a short-term way to respond to alcohol and policy issues,” said Deanna Chaukos ’08, chair of the Under-graduate Council of Student’s Campus Life Committee and the council’s representative on the Late Night Fund board.

Chaukos said the Late Night Fund is similar to the Undergrad-uate Finance Board in that it re-ceives requests for funding from student groups. But the Late Night Fund is much more flexible than UFB because its board can fund one-time events, whereas UFB gives a yearly budget to estab-lished student groups.

“We can schedule events that haven’t been funded in the past; smaller groups that don’t have the budgets to have events,” Chaukos said, adding many category I groups, which do not have a bud-get from UFB, have used the Late Night Fund for funding.

In addition to not serving al-cohol, groups applying for fund-ing from the Late Night Fund are prohibited from using the money for fundraisers or to hold an aca-demic event. Chaukos said the Late Night Fund is intended only for social events.

“We wanted the money to go to non-alcoholic events that would replace going to a party on Friday or Saturday night.” Chaukos said.

In this manner, the Late Night Fund not only encourages stu-dents not to drink, but also en-courages students who don’t drink to go out on weekends, Chaukos said.

“We want to persuade students to go out Friday night that wouldn’t go out at all,” Chaukos said.

Initially many of the requests received by the Late Night Fund board were academic in nature, Adriance wrote, but the board started receiving more requests for social events as the semester pro-gressed. “I think people are begin-ning to understand that the goals of the fund are to promote social events,” she wrote.

The Late Night Fund has al-ready allocated much of its bud-get. According to the University’s Web site, the fund is not accepting any more student applications for this semester.

The Late Night Fund in action

Atena Asiaii ’08 turned to the Late Night Fund in order to fi-nance Norouz Soiree, a party host-ed by the Persian Club in March. The event, which celebrated Irani-an culture, included a catered din-ner and a dance party.

Asiaii said while planning the celebration, event organizers con-sidered serving alcohol but opted against it because it would have been too expensive. Since the group was not serving alcohol, it decided to apply for financial sup-port from the Late Night Fund.

“If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have been able to throw such an amazing event,” she said.

Asiaii said there were no prob-lems with drinking at the party, and that the “vast majority” of the guests did not drink.

“Everyone enjoyed themselves without drinking — they actu-ally remembered it the next day,” Asiaii said.

Emily Blatter ’07, one of the co-chairs of Brown’s Relay for Life event, said the Late Night Fund enabled organizers to keep their event running after they lost some of their funding this year. Blat-

ter said the Late Night Fund was paying for the evening’s enter-tainment, which includes movies and performances by a cappella groups and bands.

Relay for Life, which is in its third year of existence, is an all-night walking marathon that raises money for cancer research. Drink-ing and smoking are prohibited at the event, which Blatter said made it a natural fit for the Late Night Fund sponsorship.

Diana Moke ’07, one of the or-ganizers of “Games Night for Reli-gious Freedom,” said the planners of the event turned to the Late Night Fund because it was a “great way to get money.”

Moke said the event could have happened without the fund’s support, but it probably “wouldn’t haven been as long.” The event includes free food, along with games, a cappella performances, letter writing and card-making activities.

Moke said organizers’ fund-ing request was initially rejected because information included on the application was not specific enough about the organization of the event. He said members of the Late Night Fund board wanted to ensure the group had program-ming scheduled throughout the night.

“They want to keep people in the same place and not have them going out and drinking,” Moke said.

Students respond to the fundSome students, including

those who have benefited direct-ly from the Late Night Fund, told The Herald they believe provid-ing a non-alcoholic option on weekends is a much needed ad-dition to Brown’s social scene. Asiaii, who is Muslim and does not drink alcohol for religious reasons, said she often is frus-trated by the lack of non-alco-holic events on weekends.

“There is often nothing to do on campus if you don’t drink,” Asiaii said. She said many students feel uncomfortable being around

drinking if they themselves do not drink.

“People might not want to go to a dance party because of the pres-ence of alcohol,” Asiaii said.

Scott Hochberg ’09, who said he usually does not drink on weekends, said he looks for non-alcoholic events on campus dur-ing the weekends.

“I go to Improvidence shows, hang out with friends, go see mov-ies,” Hochberg said.

Some students also said there are many students who do drink that would also attend a non-alco-holic event.

“There is not such a dichoto-mous distinction between the world of students who drink at Brown and students who don’t drink,” Jesse Cohen ’07 said. “Stu-dents like options, and the Late

Night Fund provides a larger uni-verse of weekend opportunities,” he added.

Even places that are tradition-ally associated with drinking do not necessarily need to have alco-holic events in order to draw peo-ple. Jesse Stout ’06, who is a mem-ber of Alpha Epsilon Pi, said while his fraternity does have parties with alcohol, it also holds non-al-coholic events.

“We have the 10 to 2 (a.m.) par-ties where we serve alcohol,” Stout said, “but we also have events like the Hanukkah party where we don’t serve alcohol.” He said that people go to the Hanukkah party “to celebrate Hanukkah with the AEPi brothers.”

With that event, Stout said, “we’re targeting a different at-mosphere.”

THURSDAY, APRIL 6 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 7

Late Nightcontinued from page 1

attracted to those that featured a central campus and a main green.

But Robert Franek, vice president of publishing for the Princeton Review, said students are increasingly drawn toward schools in urban environments, and this is reflected in their top choices. This trend is partial-ly fueled by a rising interest in experience-based, practi-cal learning that many of these schools can provide. Students hope to explore areas adjacent to campus and take advantage of available resources to enrich their academic experiences, he said.

Many applicants increas-ingly come from high schools that emphasize community ser-vice, and they want to expand on these experiences with ad-ditional service and civic learn-ing programs while at college, Franek said.

Franek also acknowledged that a school’s name recognition holds considerable importance for both students and parents.

“I really wanted to go to an Ivy,” conceded Michael Groth ’09.

Parents also tend to think about where they or their friends went to college when choosing a “dream school” for their son or daughter, Franek said.

Perhaps more than students, parents typically favor schools located in a safe and secure en-vironment, Franek said.

That might explain why par-ents picked the University of Notre Dame, located in South Bend, Ind., as number four on their list. The school did not ap-pear in the top 10 for students. Additionally, urban schools like NYU or the University of Cali-fornia, Los Angeles, which both made students’ top 10 list, did not appear on parents’.

Groth said his parents also considered schools’ social cli-mates when advising him on col-lege choices.

“When my final choice came down between Dartmouth (Col-lege) and Brown, my parents were really pulling for Dart-mouth because of its more con-servative nature,” Groth said.

The Princeton Review survey also asked students and parents about other aspects of the col-

lege search process.Overall, “Students and par-

ents were more in sync than one would expect,” Franek said.

For example, high or very high levels of stress surrounding the college application process were reported by 59 percent of students and parents surveyed. Most students and parents indi-cated they believe standardized tests were the most stressful part of the college application experience.

However, both Groth and Allen said they were not very stressed about the college search and assumed their situations would work themselves out.

For Allen, applying through Brown’s early decision program re-duced his stress level significantly.

“I would have been very stressed for that next week if I didn’t get into Brown (when ap-plying early decision), because I hadn’t filled out any other appli-cations,” Allen said.

When it comes to finally se-lecting a college, 55 percent of students and parents surveyed reported they believe “best over-all fit” outweighs factors like ac-ademic reputation, affordabil-ity and program availability, ac-cording to the survey.

This statistic “fits perfectly with my sense of what people are going for in college admissions,” Miller said, adding students seem to choose a school based on an emotional or gut reaction that comes from a mix of factors which is different for each indi-vidual. These factors can relate to academics, social atmosphere, personal wishes or geographic location, Miller said.

Geography was important to Groth, who wanted to leave California and study on the East Coast. Allen also indicated a de-sire to go to college somewhere other than Texas, where he went to high school.

Miller described students who will thrive at Brown as “intellec-tually entrepreneurial,” meaning that they “come into a fairly com-plex intellectual environment and find it enriching and exciting.”

According to Miller, incoming Brown students have to be com-fortable with an “extremely co-hesive student body” that is also “richly diverse” and forces them to be flexible and open to stu-dents with different values.

When considering the cost of a college education, 71 percent of students and parents surveyed reported they expect the cost of a degree will ultimately exceed $50,000, while 47 percent think it will exceed $75,000.

Students and parents were on target with these figures. The av-erage cost of a four-year degree at a state university is $40,000, while attending a private institu-tion typically costs $115,000, ac-cording to Franek. That average climbs to $160,000 for competi-tive private institutions, includ-ing Brown and many others on both students’ and parents’ top 10 lists, he said.

“People are very thoughtful about college education in terms of value, in all the ways you can define it, not just monetarily,” said Miller, who added that “as long as we can sustain that val-ue people will be willing to bear those costs.”

The “College Hopes and Wor-ries” survey has been conduct-ed annually since 2003 and is published in The Princeton Re-view’s book titled “The Best 361 Colleges.”

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006

Rankingscontinued from page 1

THURSDAY, APRIL 6 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

career, it is assumed they do not experience the stress of apply-ing to medical school like regu-lar pre-med students. They also have fewer required courses and do not have to take the dreaded Medical College Admission Test.

The lighter expectations, pre-med and PLME students inter-viewed by The Herald agree, al-low PLME students to have a more pleasurable undergradu-ate experience than they would if they had to apply to medical school as seniors. But pre-med students manage to keep their envy at bay.

“I don’t really resent them; I think if some pre-meds do, it’s because they got rejected from the PLME program,” said pre-med student Evan Werlin ’08.

Werlin, who is taking CH 35: “Organic Chemistry” this se-mester, said he sometimes wish-es he could be as carefree about schoolwork as his PLME suite-mate and called their relation-ship a “playful rivalry.” He re-called sitting at his desk study-ing for a chemistry exam on St. Patrick’s Day while his suitemate went out to a party.

“But it’s just worthless to be jealous when you have this much to do,” he said.

Werlin added that jealou-sy might not even be the right word to describe how he felt be-cause he had no desire to be in the PLME program.

“The thought of spending eight years anywhere at this time in my life is scary,” Werlin said.

Pre-med student Kevin O’Brien ’09 agreed that the com-mitment seemed overwhelming — even, he said, for some PLME students.

“I’m not resentful because most of them are still thinking of applying to other medical schools, so they act like regular pre-meds,” O’Brien said.

In fact, in an average PLME class of about 60 students, only around four will leave the pro-gram and transfer to other med-ical schools, according to Asso-ciate Dean of Medicine Julianne Ip ’75 MD ’78.

“Most of the ones who are eventually going to apply out, I can pretty much tell by sopho-more year,” Ip said. She said she would assume a PLME student was considering transferring out of the program if she saw that

the student was taking a second semester of Organic Chemistry — which is required for pre-med but not PLME students — or was taking an English class, also a pre-med requirement.

Ip said the most popular rea-sons for transferring out include hopes of better financial aid, personal reasons like a signifi-cant other across the country or prestige.

“Brown Med is not Harvard, is not Stanford, is not (Johns) Hopkins — yet,” Ip said.

But she added that the PLME program still has a high reten-tion rate because of all the ben-efits it offers its students.

Without the stringent re-quirements of the pre-med pro-gram, the PLME program easily allows students to concentrate in areas outside of the sciences. Ip said that roughly 60 percent of PLME students concentrate in the humanities or social sci-ences, a number “significantly higher than pre-meds.”

“If you look at the pre-med requirements, it’s almost a biol-ogy concentration,” she said as an explanation for many pre-med students’ decision to con-centrate in biology. Werlin, a bi-ology concentrator, said while he considered convenience when choosing to concentrate in a science, biology does inter-est him.

“A big reason why people ap-ply to be PLME is so they don’t have to major in science,” Wer-lin said.

Ip felt that the lighter re-quirements allow PLME stu-dents more of an opportunity to explore their interests.

“We urge PLMEs to pursue their passions,” she said. Ip add-ed that the lighter load allows about a third of each PLME class to study abroad their junior year — something virtually impos-sible for pre-med students, who must take the MCAT junior year.

“That’s the year pre-meds most point their fingers at PLM-Es,” Ip said.

However, PLME student Ja-mie Lincoln ’06 said he has nev-er felt any hostility from pre-med students at Brown.

“I have never run into a situ-ation here at Brown where there was tension between me and a regular pre-med,” Lincoln said. “The tension comes from indi-vidual courses,” he added, re-ferring to the second semester of organic chemistry and addi-tional biology and mathematics classes that pre-med students must take.

Lincoln, a history concentra-tor, said he has enjoyed the op-portunities that PLME has of-fered him.

“I think the time studying as an undergraduate is a great way to develop the personal and hu-manistic side of medicine,” he said.

Lincoln plans to take next year off before returning to Brown Medical School in 2007. According to Ip, about 25 per-cent of PLME students take time off before medical school, high-er than the number of pre-med students who take time off.

Ip said the difference could be attributed to the relaxed phi-losophy of learning that PLME promotes.

“I think the strongest part of the program is they get to pur-sue their own passions, and they are trained to work togeth-er. They didn’t have to compete with each other; they’ve learned to work as a team — and doctors should do that,” Ip said.

Lincoln agreed. “The PLME program creates a better envi-ronment for learning,” he said, adding that “it reduces stress and optimizes personal educa-tional needs.”

When Lincoln first came to Brown, he was able to take full advantage of the University’s Satisfactory/No Credit grading option because he didn’t have to worry about applying to medi-cal school.

“I thought the S/NC option was really exciting my first year,” he said. At first, he took half his classes S/NC. But soon his “at-titude changed and (he) didn’t get as much out of them,” so he

switched to taking nearly all of his classes for grades.

“The stereotype that PLMEs take all their classes S/NC is an exaggeration of what’s really go-ing on,” Lincoln said.

Ip said that even if PLME stu-dents take their classes S/NC, they must still obtain Course Performance Reports, so “even if we don’t have grades, we have some form of assessment.”

She stressed that PLME stu-

dents are highly motivated and prepared for the medical world by the time they leave Brown.

“PLME kids do really, really well in the real world. It hasn’t been as cutthroat for them, so they work well with others. They test well. They’re good students,” she said.

“I don’t mind PLMEs because they worked a lot harder in high school to get where they are now,” O’Brien said.

PLMEcontinued from page 1

THURSDAY, APRIL 6 , 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 11

laume de Ramel, and she com-ments regularly on Cranston politics and news.

“The Mayor of Cranston (Ste-phen Laffey) knows me well, and he knows if I have a problem I’ll put it on my blog, so if I call them up they listen to me,” she said.

Though she is a Democrat, Marek said she believes in the “competitiveness of ideas” and is “very open to the idea that Dem-ocrats can suffer from corrup-tion, from nearsightedness and blind spots.”

“We strive to be non-parti-san,” she said.

Marek is different from most of her fellow bloggers in one impor-tant way — she is a woman, while she estimated that 90 percent of her comments come from men.

“I think as more women do this, we would have a better participa-tory, civic environment,” she said.

Making their mark?Marek, Katz and Jerzyk may

disagree politically, but all share a disdain for the mainstream

media in Rhode Island.“I … find that when I go to the

ProJo every day, I miss a tremen-dous amount of what’s going on in the world,” Marek said. “I can cull information and offer it to, obviously, a small readership, but people can find out about things (on my blog) that they won’t if they just read the ProJo.”

Katz noted that “a lot in Rhode Island seems to slip under the ra-dar” and “the trick is to catch it when it does. We’re starting to get to the point where we can do that.”

Jerzyk goes so far as to call the Providence Journal the “BeloJo” on his blog, a reference to the paper’s corporate owner, Dallas-based Belo Corp.

“I just want to call attention to the fact that our state newspaper is controlled by a Texas corpora-tion,” he said.

But Marek noted that Rhode Island’s blogs have a limited readership, and often their com-mentary is more a “symbolic ges-ture” than anything else.

“If we were like DailyKos and had a million hits a day, it would be different, but we’re small,” she said.

Rhode Island’s bloggers are

enthusiastic, but it remains un-clear if they will shift the politi-cal landscape.

“Blogs have democratized the flow of information. They allow anybody to put information into the public domain. So I think they have had a real impact just in terms of getting information out,” said Darrell West, professor of political science and director of the Taubman Center for Pub-lic Policy.

West — who runs his own po-litical Web site, Inside Politics — said the state’s small size can en-hance local blogs’ impact.

“Blogs are the contemporary equivalent of the water cooler. People gather around them to fig-ure out what’s going on,” he said.

Jay Rosen, a professor of jour-nalism at New York University who teaches a course on blogs, is more skeptical.

“I’m not sure that they have changed (national politics) in any fundamental way, but they’re part of the decontrol of politics and that might change things eventually,” he said.

On the local level, though, Rosen said a concentration of blogs can affect the political land-scape. He said Greensboro, N.C. — dubbed “Blogsboro” by the Los Angeles Times — is a place where “the strength of local political bloggers and journalistic bloggers has encouraged public officials to start blogging.” There are almost a hundred local blogs listed on Greensboro101.com, with many focused on local politics.

In Rhode Island, an increas-ing number of candidates for of-fice include blogs on their cam-paign Web sites, from Secretary of State Matt Brown to congres-sional candidate and Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Jennifer Lawless. But only a few elected officials currently blog in Rhode Island, most prominently Providence’s Ward 1 City Councilman David Segal, who is a regular contribu-tor to Rhode Island’s Future.

“Matthew and I have known each other for four years now and have worked on a million different campaigns for a million different issues together,” Segal said, adding when Jerzyk start-ed the blog, “he asked me to be a contributor and I jumped at the opportunity.”

But Segal doubts many officials will join him in the blogosphere.

“I don’t think we’re going to see too many sitting, elected officials blogging,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to see city clerks blogging in Provi-dence for the foreseeable future. Our city clerks just got e-mail in their office.”

But Jerzyk, Katz and Marek all said they enjoy what they do and hope to make a difference in lo-cal politics.

“The ability to talk about politics and steer the debate in a better direction in a funda-mental way gets me up in the morning and makes me happy,” Jerzyk said. “That’s the whole point of this: access to informa-tion, access to resources — it can really level the playing field. I just hope that we can make a difference.”

Katz said Anchor Rising has given Ocean State conservatives “an avenue of expression that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.”

“It has helped us to find each other, give us more of a confi-dence and companionship,” he said. “And if it would start paying us, that’d be good too, but that’s down the road.”

Blogscontinued from page 3

PAGE 12 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006

And when Barry does send one up, up and away? Well, the crowd, be it home or away, wit-nesses history and reacts ac-cordingly. Add the ridiculously successful gimmick of him hit-ting the ball out of the best ball-park in baseball and into the waterfront, and the fans have themselves the most beautiful feat in sports.

So fans, why complain about the steroids? Sure, Bonds is a cheater — “Game of Shadows” makes it clear that Bonds knew he was using more than “flax-seed oil” — but how does that affect the average fan? (Unless, of course, you are a National League West fan, in which case your team shouldn’t be pitching to him, anyway.) But his steroid use doesn’t affect the personal lives of most fans, so why com-plain about the Greatest Show on Earth? (Apologies to Barnum and Bailey, but Bonds has defi-nitely one-upped you and your circus act.)

2) The arrogance. My favor-ite thing about watching Bonds is not watching him hit home runs, but watching him watch-ing him hit home runs. The way he holds himself on the follow-through, as his eyes gaze admi-rably at the flight of the ball he just walloped, is statuesque.

Add that to his refusal to run out routine ground balls, his now half-hearted play in left field and his request to sit out Sunday games, and Bonds is the ultimate package.

My personal all-time favor-ite moment: after Bartolo Colon

struck him out three times in a game in 2003, Bonds blasted a game-tying home run in his last at-bat. After the game, he was told that he had never struck out four times in a game against a pitcher. His response: “That ain’t never gonna happen.”

One may ask, shouldn’t that type of behavior be frowned upon? I answer nay; it simply adds more mystique (and hilar-ity) to the myth and legend that is Barry Bonds.

3) The clubhouse character. They say no man is an island, but Barry Bonds most certain-ly is one. He has taken the bad teammate stereotype and run with it, making himself a carica-ture of himself.

He talks about his teammates behind their backs (remember Jeff Kent?), he hates talking to the media (even using his son at one point to shield himself) and has his own personal wing in the Giants’ clubhouse, com-plete with the aforementioned leather recliner, a big-screen TV and his own personal group of assistants who know just how Barry likes his flaxseed oil rubbed in.

Now he’s trying to paint him-self as the clubhouse good guy on “Bonds on Bonds,” his new reality show on ESPN (over which, by the way, he has edito-rial control). One of his first acts this spring was to don a dress and wig a la Paula Abdul for the Giants’ own version of Ameri-can Idol. See? He can be Barry fun!

Oh, and he also doesn’t like to tell his manager things, which leads me to the next rea-son I love Barry…

4) The blog. Last season, when Bonds sat out about the

first 148 games of the season be-cause of knee surgery, he refused to tell poor Giants manager Fe-lipe Alou about the progress of his rehab. But he didn’t want to keep everyone in the dark, no. So he decided to get with the rest of us in the information age and keep us informed the way most college students today know best: a blog.

Can you picture beat writ-ers continually checking bar-rybonds.com every hour, on the hour, to see if his knee got drained that day? Can you imag-ine Alou in the dugout, trying to answer reporters’ questions about the slugger’s return with a printout from Bonds’ Web site? Well, that all happened last year, because that’s the way Bonds wanted it to be. At least it gave Alou a chance to learn to use the Internet.

Barry Bonds may be a despi-cable cheater and human being. Okay, he IS a despicable cheater and human being. But couple his game with his off-field an-tics, and Barry has become the ultimate entertainer.

He generates as much news on the front page of tabloids as he does on the front page of the sports section. Every clubhouse spat is as exciting as a home run, every grand jury testimony as thrilling as a strikeout and every blog update as entertaining as a misplayed fly ball. Barry is Anna Nicole Smith with more game, Joe Namath with more pizzazz.

Barry may be a bad man, but he is the best thing we have in sports right now.

Stu Woo ’08 also roots for the Yankees in his spare time.

Woocontinued from page 16

things a lot,” Cummings said. “But what Cass seems to be do-ing is something different, a grassroots type of event that will give a lot of people (across the country) the chance to give back.”

With the fund’s blessing, Sa-pir set about working out the lo-gistics of his mammoth cross-country road trip. Factoring in costs for gas, tickets, food and the occasional lodging accom-modations, the estimated price tag of the journey is between $18,000 and $19,000. Fully pre-pared to foot the bill out of his own pocket at this point in time, Sapir has been in negotiations with car rental companies and hotel chains in hopes that they might be receptive to covering some of the trip’s expenses.

“I’m actively seeking corpo-rate sponsors,” Sapir said. “I’ve gotten a mixed-bag response. Some people love the idea and raising money for the Jimmy Fund; others hate it or just think (I’m) crazy. Mainly, I’m look-ing at the big three in terms of sponsors: lodging, gas and an automobile from Avis (or anoth-er company).”

Despite lacking any concrete monetary aid at the moment, Sapir wanted to reiterate that every donation he collects at a ballpark or receives on his Web site will go directly to the Jimmy Fund.

“100 percent of all dona-tions go directly to the Jimmy Fund,” he said. “Not one penny will go to the trip itself. I would

love to have a sponsor but if it doesn’t work out it won’t affect the tour.”

Thinking big is nothing new for Sapir, a biology concentrator at Brown who turned a passion for film and a love of movies into a career. After graduating, Sapir interned in New York City with a film company and decided to pursue a film career full-time. He landed in Cambridge, Mass., producing films mainly for the “PBS crowd,” and he has since produced multiple documen-taries for the Discovery Chan-nel and PBS’ “Nova.” Now, Sapir plans to use his film background on his journey by filming every stop on the trip and eventual-ly turning his experience into a documentary after the trek is over.

Sapir said he believes Brown’s educational philosophy and the recent rise of the Ivy Film Fes-tival contributed greatly to his eventual career choice and had a role in his current endeavor. Ac-cording to Sapir, traveling across the country in a car to help raise money for cancer patients is the type of trial that is fairly routine for a Brown student. In addition, as the president of the class of 2001, he said he had some prior experience with planning large undertakings.

“A Brown education really prepares you for any field you desire to pursue,” he said. “Lo-gistically, (because of my experi-ences as class president) I knew how to handle large events and set a budget. This is one of those large, crazy ideas that flourish at Brown.”

To make a donation to the Jim-my Fund or track Sapir’s progress, visit Tourforthecure.org.

Tourcontinued from page 16

OPINIONS EXTRA THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 13

BY PETER MCELROYGUEST COLUMNIST

There were 25 of us in New Orleans over spring break, one of several Brown groups there to help with the recovery effort. Two days of the trip were spent digging ditch-es alongside 160 University of Auburn stu-dents from the Opelika Baptist ministry, UA hats on their heads, war eagle fight songs on their lips and praise for God in their hearts. Those two days revealed the deep-seated aversion to religion that ex-ists in the Brown community.

Our fellow ditch-diggers were good southern Baptists; Bible study kept them in their Federal Emergency Management Agency tents after work every night except one, when they walked through a riverside park in the French Quarter in moving prayer. They deplored the debauchery of Bourbon Street and prayed for the tourists who con-gregate there.

Over cold, donated pizza, my group of Brown students cluttered together, be-mused that any half-rational being could maintain such beliefs while possessing san-ity and intelligence. We struggled to come to grips with a culture that was so publicly and unapologetically committed to religion, one that could present a thoughtful monologue on religion without one reference to a glut of deities, or without so much as mentioning Christianity’s inherent sexism, racism and homophobia.

Our Baptist friends became responsible for defending over two millennia of Chris-tian dogma and all its adherents. Every-one knows evangelists are out there, and

in enough force to win the last presidential election for the candidate of moral clarity.But no matter how large their numbers, their existence is somehow incomprehensible.

Out of this culture gap emerge politi-cal conspiracy theories that attempt to ex-plain the electoral decisions of the South, a region blue-state Democrats cannot un-derstand. Outside academia, religious con-servatism is alien to most Brown students, who consider religion a topic reserved for intellectual inquiry rather than personal adherence. If the political science depart-

ment were to offer a class on contemporary conservatism, one can envision students approaching the material with a self-con-scious acceptance bred from relativism, poking warily at this foreign breed.

However, some in my group professed to be offended when particularly zealous southerners tried to teach them the word of God. It’s a sentiment I’ve experienced inside Brown’s gates as well. We do have a remark-ably tolerant campus and a student body diverse in every respect — except ideology. Nearly any belief will be respected, though some, like social conservatism, will be toler-ated more grudgingly than others. But when one of these grudgingly tolerated groups tries to convert others to what they ardently

believe, in the eyes of most Brunonians, they have crossed the line.

There is a palpable aversion on campus to College Hill for Christ, a religious group which aims to spread its beliefs. When a Her-ald article incorrectly suggested a formal al-liance between the CHC and Queer Alliance to organize AIDS testing (“QA and CHC col-laboration for HIV testing no an official co-sponsorship,” Feb. 24), the QA rushed to dis-pel the notion that it might collaborate on any issue with a group “that has not always favored some of (its) members.”

Another telling news clip appeared last year in the New York Times. The paper had published an article about the grow-ing influence of evangelism at Ivy League schools, specifically Brown, where just a few years ago services were held in the stairwell of Manning Chapel (“On a Chris-tian mission to the top,” May 22, 2005). Two Brown parents reacted to the article with a letter to the editor expressing their dis-gust with student missionaries attempting to “impose” their beliefs on others (“God and man in the Ivy League,” May 22, 2005). “Students may attend programs such as Hillel, Newman and Christian Houses, but these are not a replacement for other fas-cinating and expansive opportunities,”

they wrote. I’m unsure just what these parents meant;

by adopting a strict and coherent set of prin-ciples, were these students necessarily clos-ing themselves off from the greater commu-nity? The hypocrisy is apparent, as religious students only try to defend the validity of their social and political beliefs, not unlike the parents’ entreaty to the Times. Mission-ary work, so reviled by the Brown commu-nity, is no different, and, besides, the sugges-tion that Brown students cannot withstand this “imposition” is mildly insulting.

Indeed, this campus needs more peo-ple to question orthodox beliefs. Aggres-sive persuasion may make us uncomfort-able, but discomfort is a necessary precur-sor to learning. An uncomfortable com-ment is not necessarily an offensive one. The Brown students on my trip were chal-lenged, not offended, by their ditch-dig-ging companions.

We learned a lot about ourselves and the limitations of our Ivy League bubble. The Brown students, to their credit, were open-minded and friendly; the southerners re-turned in kind. We came to sympathize with their beliefs if not to share them, revealing another dimension to the importance of in-tellectual diversity on this campus.

Maybe through increased exposure, the campus at large will come to accept that even intelligent, rational people can espouse the great opiate. We’ll turn our most popular campus event into an occasion to question religious, not just sexual, identity. We could invite the Alabamans.

Peter McElroy ’09 dug some ditches and learned something.

A religious awakeningOver spring break in New Orleans, the author asked, ‘Is there beef with Christianity on Brown’s campus?’

Our two days in New Orleans

revealed the deep-seated

aversion to religion at Brown.

Allison Kwong, Night Editor

Amy Ehrhart, Chris Gang, Copy Editors

Senior Staff Writers Simmi Aujla, Stephanie Bernhard, Melanie Duch, Ross Frazier, Jonathan Herman, Rebecca Jacobson, Chloe Lutts, Caroline SilvermanStaff Writers Justin Amoah, Zach Barter, Allison Erich Bernstein, Brenna Carmody, Alissa Cerny, Ashley Chung, Stewart Dearing, Kristina Kelleher, Hannah Levintova, Hannah Miller, Aidan Levy, Taryn Martinez, Kyle McGourty, Ari Rockland-Miller, Chelsea Rudman, Kam Sripada, Robin Steele, Spencer Trice, Ila Tyagi, Sara WalterSports Staff Writers Sarah Demers, Amy Ehrhart, Erin Frauenhofer, Kate Klonick, Madeleine Marecki, George Mesthos, Hugh Murphy, Eric Perlmutter, Marco Santini, Bart Stein, Tom Trudeau, Steele WestAccount Administrators Alexandra Annuziato, Emilie Aries, Steven Butschi, Dee Gill, Rahul Keerthi, Kate Love, Ally Ouh, Nilay Patel, Ashfia Rahman, Rukesh Samarasekera, Jen Solin, Bonnie WongDesign Staff Adam Kroll, Andrew Kuo, Jason Lee, Gabriela ScarrittPhoto Staff CJ Adams, Chris Bennett, Meg Boudreau, Tobias Cohen, Lindsay Harrison, Matthew Lent, Dan Petrie, Christopher Schmitt, Oliver Schulze, Juliana Wu, Min Wu,Copy Editors Chessy Brady, Amy Ehrhart, Natalia Fisher, Jacob Frank, Christopher Gang, Yi-Fen Li, Taryn Martinez, Katie McComas, Sara Molinaro, Heather Peterson, Lela Spielberg

S T A F F E D I T O R I A L

R O X A N N E P A L M E R

C O R R E C T I O N S P O L I C YThe Brown Daily Herald is committed to providing the Brown University community with the most accurate information possible.

Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

C O M M E N TA R Y P O L I C YThe staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Brown Daily Herald. The editorial viewpoint does not necessarily

reflect the views of The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Columns, letters and comics reflect the opinions of their authors only.

L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R P O L I C YSend letters to letters@browndailyherald.com. Include a telephone number with all letters. The Herald reserves the right to edit all letters

for length and cannot assure the publication of any letter. Please limit letters to 250 words. Under special circumstances writers may request

anonymity, but no letter will be printed if the author’s identity is unknown to the editors. Announcements of events will not be printed.

A D V E R T I S I N G P O L I C YThe Brown Daily Herald, Inc. reserves the right to accept or decline any advertisement at its discretion.

EDITORIALRobbie Corey-Boulet, Editor-in-ChiefJustin Elliott, Executive EditorBen Miller, Executive EditorStephanie Clark, Senior EditorKatie Lamm, Senior EditorJonathan Sidhu, Arts & Culture EditorJane Tanimura, Arts & Culture EditorStu Woo, Campus Watch EditorMary-Catherine Lader, Features EditorBen Leubsdorf, Metro EditorAnne Wootton, Metro EditorEric Beck, News EditorPatrick Harrison, Opinions EditorNicholas Swisher, Opinions EditorStephen Colelli, Sports EditorChristopher Hatfield, Sports EditorJustin Goldman, Asst. Sports EditorJilane Rodgers, Asst. Sports EditorCharlie Vallely, Asst. Sports Editor

PRODUCTIONAllison Kwong, Design EditorTaryn Martinez, Copy Desk ChiefLela Spielberg, Copy Desk ChiefMark Brinker, Graphics EditorJoe Nagle, Graphics Editor

PHOTOJean Yves Chainon, Photo EditorJacob Melrose, Photo EditorAshley Hess, Sports Photo EditorKori Schulman, Sports Photo Editor

BUSINESSRyan Shewcraft, General ManagerLisa Poon, Executive ManagerDavid Ranken, Executive ManagerMitch Schwartz, Executive ManagerLaurie-Ann Paliotti, Sr. Advertising ManagerSusan Dansereau, Office Manager

POST- MAGAZINESonia Saraiya, Editor-in-ChiefTaryn Martinez, Associate EditorBen Bernstein, Features EditorMatt Prewitt, Features EditorElissa Barba, Design EditorLindsay Harrison, Graphics EditorConstantine Haghighi, Film EditorPaul Levande, Film EditorJesse Adams, Music EditorKatherine Chan, Music EditorHillary Dixler, Off-the-Hill EditorAbigail Newman, Theater Editor

THE BROWN DAILY HERALD

EDITORIAL/LETTERSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 14

In the past, we have urged students to accept greater re-sponsibility for several negative characteristics of Brown’s so-cial scene, which is sometimes marred by vandalism and ver-bal or physical confrontation. By proactively addressing such problems themselves, students can avoid relying on Universi-ty policies — such as those recommendations set forth by the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Social Events Policy and Proce-dures— to curtail these incidents. However, it is also true that initiatives conjured up by University administrators can play a significant role in improving Brown’s social climate and, hope-fully, limiting the number of times students accuse their peers of setting fire to a vomit-filled shoe.

If the weekly police log provided by the Department of Pub-lic Safety is any indication, many reports of on-campus vio-lence and vandalism are alcohol-related. Thus, it stands to rea-son that attempts to enhance the presence of alcohol-free so-cial events could do much to reduce perceptions of Brown as a place where inappropriate drunken behavior becomes an ac-cepted weekend norm.

The success of the Late Night Fund, which provides sup-port for alcohol-free events that take place on weekend nights, shows that demand for such events does exist and might be stronger than many students realize. The fund, which was cre-ated this semester, has already contributed to several popular events, some of which would not have been as successful with-out its support. A high number of requests have nearly exhaust-ed the fund’s $20,000 budget, and no more applications will be accepted this semester, according to the University’s Web site.

We believe the University’s financial support for such events should rise to meet evident demand. Moreover, we dismiss the notion that such a financial allocation only serves to benefit a small minority of students who prefer to stay sober on Fridays and Saturdays. By encouraging the proliferation of alcohol-free events, the Late Night Fund can do much to dispel the notion that, as Atena Asiaii ’08 told The Herald, “There is nothing to do on campus if you don’t drink.” Moreover, if such events take a more prominent position on Brown’s social scene, then dis-ruptive incidents of violence and vandalism will likely become less tolerated. We agree that, as Jesse Cohen ’07 stated, “there is not such a dichotomous distinction between the world of students who drink at Brown and students who don’t.” Even if many students don’t choose to directly participate in those so-cial events that receive support from the Late Night Fund, the entire Brown community benefits if the fund receives full sup-port from the University.

Dry events — not dry martinis

C O R R E C T I O N

An article in yesterday’s Herald (“College Roundup,” April 5) incorrectly attributed a quote from Duke senior Tiana Mack to a March 28 Chronicle of Higher Education article. That quote actually ap-peared in a March 28 article in the Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper.

www.browndailyherald.com:

It’s all fun and games until someone gets foursies.

Apply to be a columnist.opinions@browndailyherald.com

Send a guest column.opinions@browndailyherald.com

Send a letter.letters@browndailyherald.com

OPINIONS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 15

BY ETHAN WINGFIELDAND SARAH HIGHLANDGUEST COLUMNISTS

With the threat of terrorism, the rising cost of energy and a national debt that is spiraling out of control, it is imperative that we have leaders who are willing to ask the tough questions and who remain focused on securing our future. We need leaders like Sen. Lincoln Chafee ’75, R-R.I., representing us in Washington, and that’s why we’re forming Students for Chafee, a group dedicated to encouraging students from around the state to come out in support of Chafee’s re-election.

Students for Chafee will have a strong and active presence in each of Rhode Is-land’s colleges, in various high schools throughout the state, and among young professionals. Like Chafee, we will draw on a broad range of support. We believe the Republican Party needs and deserves to have a big tent, and we will reach out not only to college Republican groups, but groups that protect civil liberties and personal freedoms and environmental organizations throughout local college campuses. This will be a fiercely con-tested senatorial election, and Students for Chafee will encourage people of vast-ly different backgrounds to staff polling places, go door to door, make phone calls and bring their friends into a larger grass-roots network of support. Just as Chafee brings different groups together, Stu-dents for Chafee will adapt a similar at-titude by being a truly inclusive organiza-tion, dedicated to protecting our future by promoting policies that work. We are energized, we are committed and we are eager to let you know why Rhode Island

needs Chafee. We respect Chafee’s passionate com-

mitment to the environment. As the next generation of leaders, we want to inher-it a world that is not marred by pollu-tion and poor stewardship. We care about the environment and support environ-mental protections, if only because that will determine the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. We need to send Chafee back to Washington so he can continue to work for innovative and

forward-looking policies that preserve Rhode Island’s coastlines, rivers and for-ests for this and future generations. As senator, he has worked to keep our air and water clean by voting against harm-ful legislation that would lower emissions standards and imperil our health. Most impressively, Chafee has demonstrated a unique ability to bring together members of the business and environmental com-munities through his Brownfields legis-lation, which revitalizes contaminated lands and turns them into vibrant com-mercial and civic places.

We believe that Chafee has the vision necessary to change our energy policy. Our generation stands to pay the eco-

nomic and environmental price associat-ed with America’s dangerous dependence on foreign oil. If we are going to break this addiction to oil, we must support leaders like Chafee who are working to promote sustainable energy alternatives. Chafee has worked tirelessly to pass legislation that would dramatically reduce air pol-lution, raise fuel efficiency standards and save hardworking taxpayers’ money at the gas pump. Again, these are the kinds of policies we need if America is going to

achieve energy independence and these are the kinds of ideas that we, as the next generation of Americans, need to sup-port.

We support Chafee’s fiscal conserva-tism and admire his record as a leading deficit hawk. As tax payers, we are wor-ried about the out-of-control spending in Washington, and we believe that Chafee is the only candidate with the vision to se-cure our economic future. He is focused on ensuring that our legacy is not one of debt and escalating taxes. That’s why he has been the leader in the battle to rein-stitute a pay-as-you-go approach to fed-eral spending. The principle is simple — if members of Congress decide to in-

stitute new tax cuts or entitlement spend-ing, they have to find a way to pay for them first. Leaders like Chafee need our help so they can keep fighting for policies that will ensure that our generation is not saddled with hundreds of billions of dol-lars of debt.

Chafee is a proud Republican in the mold of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Theodore Roosevelt, who is able to get results because of his commitment to bringing disparate coalitions together. Chafee’s record as a fiscally conservative Republican who believes in protecting personal freedoms and the Bill of Rights uniquely positions him to work from the center. That’s important. Because it is only by bringing people together, by ris-ing above partisan rancor and by always talking straight about the problems we face that Rhode Island and this country can achieve its promise.

There is much to do in the fight to re-elect Chafee, and we hope that you will join us. Please visit our website, www.stu-dentsforchafee.org, where you can learn more about Rhode Island’s junior sena-tor, sign up to receive e-mail updates and volunteer to work on the campaign. In working to ensure Chafee’s re-election, Students for Chafee is standing up for a principled leader who will not mortgage our future for short-term political gain, but will instead shape it through the clar-ity of his vision and the strength of his character.

Ethan Wingfield ’07 and Sarah Highland, a sophomore at Providence College, are the executive director and president, re-spectively, of Students for Chafee.

Chafee’s the champ

A glimpse of Israel beyond the conflict

Rhode Island students have created a group to support the Ocean State’s incumbent Republican senator

Domestic Israeli politics displays numerous progressive triumphs, though challenges abound

BY MAX CHAIKENGUEST COLUMNIST

Last week, Israel elected its 17th Knes-set (Parliament). I do not write this col-umn, however, to elaborate on why the election results are good or bad. Instead, I would like to illuminate the wider array of domestic issues that concern Israelis and some of the many political issues in Israel that exist outside the scope of the Palestin-ian conflict. A nation of nearly 58 years, Is-rael has a vast array of achievements and flaws in the realms of domestic policy that are rarely covered by American media.

In terms of environmental awareness and conservation, Israel continues to make important strides. In a country com-prised of more than 50 percent desert, wa-ter conservation and access is critical. De-spite the country’s arid terrain, 100 per-cent of the Israeli population has access to “an improved water source” as defined by the World Health Organization.

Additionally, while the rest of the world has been deforesting throughout the 20th century, Israel is one of the only nations with a negative rate of deforestation. In 2000, the rate of deforestation in Israel was negative 4.9 percent. In other words, Israe-lis plant more trees than they cut down.

Also, small groups of activists have made great strides in recycling and sus-tainable living. For example, Kibbutz Lo-tan, a small, intentional community in the Arava desert, builds structures out of mud, tires and other products that would oth-erwise be garbage. Its members also have a significant organic garden that grows a large percentage of their produce. Their

mission is defined by “working to create ways to live in harmony with their desert environment.”

Israel is also a leader in progressive so-cial issues. On Feb. 13, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that lesbians could adopt their partners’ children. Two parties that ran in last week’s Knesset elections (Meretz-Yachad and Alei Yarok) had stances for the decriminalization and legalization of mar-ijuana and supported gay marriage. While

Meretz-Yachad earned only five out of 120 seats and Alei Yarok did not earn any, so-cial justice issues are sure to continue to be prominent in Israel’s 17th Knesset due to the 20 seats that Avodah, the labor par-ty, won. Chairman Amir Peretz was quot-ed in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz last Wednesday saying, “We are the only party that will make sure the next government will march toward peace and social jus-tice.”

Yet Israel, like any other nation, is not without domestic problems. While the Is-

raeli economy is growing at a tremendous rate, Israeli poverty is as well. Israel has one of the greatest wealth gaps in the world. 20 percent of Israel’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of 16 families. The unemploy-ment rate in Israel was estimated at 10.7 percent in 2004. This, however, doesn’t in-clude the vast number of ultra-orthodox Jews who (for better or worse) choose not to work so that they can study. Thus, Jeru-salem, the capital of Israel and arguably

Israel’s holiest city, is by many standards a city of orthodoxy and poverty.

Israel also struggles constantly with the relationship of religion and state and defining what exactly it means to be a Jewish democracy. The Israeli popula-tion is approximately 80 percent secular, and the divide between the secular and the religious is growing. The city of Je-rusalem is too religious for many Israe-lis, yet many others think of Tel Aviv with disdain because it epitomizes secular Is-raeli culture.

We cannot forget the conflict either; Is-raelis certainly don’t. There are many Israe-lis who believe that coexistence and peace are possible. Take a look at the city of Hai-fa. The third largest city in Israel, Haifa is a place where Arab-Israelis and Jewish-Is-raelis live together peacefully, along with the thousands of Russian and Ethiopian immigrants who also live there. There are non-profit organizations and centers all across Israel that work on coexistence be-tween Palestinians and Israelis, bringing them together on issues like the environ-ment and education.

We cannot allow ourselves to be com-placent in the face of the international crisis that Israel faces. We cannot allow ourselves to absent-mindedly support all of the policies of the Israeli govern-ment or the Israel Defense Forces. But we must hold ourselves accountable for attempting to understand the big-ger picture. We must understand that Is-rael is a young, growing nation that has made incredible achievements in the last six decades. We must understand that Israel has serious international challenges yet not forget its domestic challenges as well. We must understand that what Israel needs from the world is the right balance of constructive criti-cism, understanding and support. As Is-rael moves forward with Ehud Olmert as its next prime minister and a brand new political party in power, finding that bal-ance is our only option.

Max Chaiken ’09 is a Zionist who loves Israel and wants peace and justice.

We respect Chafee’s

passionate commitment to the

environment and his record as a

deficit hawk.

A nation of nearly 58 years, Israel

has a vast array of achievements

and flaws in the realms of domes-

tic policy that are rarely covered

by American media.

BY STU WOOCAMPUS WATCH EDITOR

Paul Hewitt, head basket-ball coach at Georgia Tech and Lorenzo Romar, head basketball coach at the University of Wash-ington, were honored with the Fritz Pollard ’19 Award in a sym-posium at Sayles Hall Wednes-day night.

Hewitt and Romar, who were honored as the Black Coaches Association’s Male Coach of the Year of 2004 and 2005, respec-tively, also discussed the obsta-cles they overcame on their way to their current positions, their love of coaching and important issues concerning college bas-ketball and collegiate sports in general.

Among the topics discussed was the number of minority coaches in college and profes-sional sports. Kevin McNamara, the Providence Journal college

basketball reporter who moder-ated the forum, cited recent sta-tistics showing only five of the 119 Division I-A football coach-es were black and that about half of the 50 college basketball coaching positions vacated at the end of this season had been held by minorities. Both coach-es found the statistics alarming.

“It’s embarrassing to (col-lege) administrators, it’s embar-rassing to athletic directors and it’s embarrassing to everyone associated with D I-A to have only five black (football) coach-es, and maybe only 10 ever,” Hewitt said. “Something has to be done about that, and it starts with the interview process.” He added that he hopes the recent firings or resignations of three black coaches that made na-tional postseason tournaments was only a “coincidence.”

Romar agreed with Hewitt, saying it is difficult enough for

anyone to get a head coaching job because of intensity and pressure of college basketball programs.

“There should be an oppor-tunity for (minorities) to get po-sitions,” Romar said.

The coaches also spoke about less contentious issues, like the recent parity of college basket-ball, which was illustrated last week when 11th-seeded George Mason University became the first double-digit seed since

SPORTS THURSDAYTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · APRIL 6, 2006 · PAGE 16

BY STEPHEN COLELLISPORTS EDITOR

If the professional baseball sea-son is a six-month, 162-game grind, then what Cass Sapir ’01 is attempting to do can only be described as an odyssey.

A lifelong baseball fan and current employee at Providence Pictures on Eddy Street, Sapir is traveling to the nation’s base-ball stadiums this summer. All of them.

Using the slogan “Tour for the Cure,” Sapir is attempting to travel to all 180 Major League and Minor League Baseball sta-diums in 180 days. Along the way, he is hoping to elicit over $100,000 in donations for the Jimmy Fund, a Boston-based charity that raises funds for cancer research and has had a strong partnership with the Bos-ton Red Sox for over 50 years.

“My brother and I had al-ways talked about touring all of the Major League ballparks in America,” Sapir said. “I was al-ways interested in traveling to all of the ballparks, I just never had an opportunity or a reason to. Thinking about it, when we came up with the connection to the Jimmy Fund, we thought it was the perfect charity for some-thing like this. If we could go on a tour of 180 ballparks and try to get this thing really big, it would be an amazing accomplishment

for an important cause.”So far, Sapir has already trav-

eled over 1,700 miles and has taken in two games, a Rangers-Red Sox tilt in Texas on Tuesday and an Astros-Marlins game last night in Houston. He will travel around the country until Sept. 8, when the tour will come to an end at Fenway Park in Boston.

The Jimmy Fund is accus-tomed to participating in vari-ous promotions, said Jimmy Fund Associate Director of Me-dia Relations Karen Cummings. In the past, the fund has benefit-

ed from the efforts of a man who bicycled to every MLB stadium and another two who biked the perimeter of the United States.

But Sapir’s idea was the first of its kind on such a grand scale. Though it could not offer much in the way of assistance along the way, the charity welcomed Sapir’s enthusiasm, and its staff members are very excited about the publicity the tour should generate.

“People do these kinds of

Photo courtesy of Cass Sapir ’01

Cass Sapir ’01 will travel to 180 Major and Minor League Baseball sta-diums this summer in hopes of raising $100,000 for the Jimmy Fund.

Alum’s charity tour to hit 180 stadiums across U.S. in 180 days

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5

BASEBALL: vs. Rhode Island (DH), ppd (games will be replayed April 12)

THURSDAY, APRIL 6

SOFTBALL: vs. Central Connecticut (DH), 3 p.m., softball field

WEEKLY AWARDS

BASEBALL: Bryan Tews ’07 — Ivy League Player of the Week

BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE

Why I love Barry BondsIt was Ty Cobb in the early

1900s, Pete Rose 50 years later and now it is Barry Bonds.

Congratulations, Mr. Bonds. You are currently baseball’s MHP: Most Hated Player.

When GQ M a g a z i n e named Bonds the most hat-ed player in baseball in February (and second in all pro sports be-hind only Ter-rell Owens), it surprised no one. Since en-

tering baseball in the late 1980s, Bonds has been known as an arrogant, self-centered and un-pleasant teammate, and now, thanks to leaked grand jury tes-timonies and a new, scandal-re-vealing book, he is also known as a cheater.

This season, Bonds will be the villain of baseball. The me-dia hates him, his teammates hate him and the fans hate him, too. He’ll be booed at every ball-park he plays in this year, in-cluding the one his home runs built in San Francisco, and al-most nobody, especially not Bud Selig and his buddies at Major League Baseball, will be cheering for him to break Hank Aaron’s home run record, per-haps the most prestigious re-cord in all sports.

But count me out as one of the Barry-bashers.

I love Barry Bonds, although I should hate him. A San Fran-cisco native, I grew up rooting for the Oakland A’s, the fan-friendly, low-budget underdog team that directly contrasts with Bonds’ $20 million sala-ry, his “I don’t run out routine grounders or play on Sundays” attitude and his vibrating leath-er recliner — the only one in the Giants clubhouse.

Why do I love Barry? Well, let me count the ways.

1) The game. The first time I visited Pac Bell, or SBC or what-ever-Park-they-call-it-now was in 2000, the summer before I entered high school. The first time Bonds went to bat he yanked a ball into the San Francisco Bay just a few feet foul. The very next pitch? He splashed it again into the bay, but managed to keep it between the poles. It was unforgettable.

Watching Bonds hit is the most exciting thing in sports today. When he steps up to the plate, the crowd, be it home or away, rises to its feet, and it seems as if time has stopped. The cameras flash as Mighty Barry takes his practice swings. Then, during the at-bat, the crowd oohs and aahs at every cut he takes — no matter if he makes contact or not. A swing and miss is almost as exciting as a homer — the crowd gasps, momentarily stunned by the re-verberations from Bonds’ gar-gantuan hack at the ball.

Kori Schulman / Herald

University of Washington head basketball coach Lorenzo Romar (left) and Georgia Tech head basketball coach Paul Hewitt (right), participated in an open forum in Sayles Hall Wednesday night. The event was moderated by the Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara (center).

BY STEELE WESTSPORTS STAFF WRITER

In its first competitive outing since November, the men’s golf team kicked off its spring campaign with a less-than-stellar start. Brown finished tied for 16th in the 22-team Drew Upton Towson Memo-rial Classic in Westover, Md., this past weekend. The Bears’ five players carded a 600 in the two-day tournament, putting them 24 shots behind Rich-mond University (576), which comfortably edged out West-ern Kentucky University (581) and Liberty University (582) for the overall title.

Brown’s standout player once again was Larry Haertel ’08, who continued to further his reputation as one of the Ivy League’s top golfers. Haertel shot a four-under 68 with six birdies in the first round, just two shots off the course record and good for second place. He closed out the tournament with a 74 on Sunday to finish in fifth place in the 115-man field, four shots behind win-ner Andrew Turner of Liberty, who carded a six-under 138.

Conor Molloy ’09 impressed again in what is fast becoming a distinguished rookie season, carding a 74-75 and finishing tied for 43rd. Danny Wallis ’06 lost control of his final round to finish tied for 54th with a 73-77. Aaron Telch ’07 (83-76) and Donny Mowlds ’06 (83-

77) rounded out Brown’s top five.

Haertel was pleased with his weekend performance but was frustrated by his struggles in the second round, which prevented him from contend-ing down the stretch.

“It would have been nice to secure a win, especial-ly given the first round, but there were a lot of really good golfers in the field,” he said. “But I can’t complain about my form right now and feel in pretty good shape to do well at the (Ivy League Champi-onships, April 22-23).”

A few on the team attribut-ed the poor performance to a lack of focus in preparing for the Bears’ spring break trip to Florida.

Haertel said their spring break trip to Florida helped prepare him for the spring season. “While it was a lot of work and long days, it was also a really good chance to relax and focus,” he said.

Molloy said he was frustrat-ed that the team finished be-hind league rivals Columbia, Princeton, Yale and Cornell. “It was a matter of focus and preparedness,” he said. “There were some really, really good schools in that field and our loss of concentration at differ-ent points cost us.”

The team’s next tourna-ment is this weekend at the Yale Men’s Spring Open in New Haven, Conn.

M. golf stumbles in openerHaertel ’08 impresses, takes fifth place Romar, Hewitt talk coaching, hoops at

Pollard Award winners’ open forum

STU WOODRUNKENSTU-POR

see WOO, page 12see TOUR, page 12

see BCA, page 5