BY BRENNA CARMODYSTAFF WRITER

Though the University has long focused on increasing energy efficiency, these ef-forts only recently have turned toward exploring renewable energy options. This movement has been stimulated by student groups, including the Brown Environmental Action Network and the Undergraduate Council of Students, as well as Providence’s City Council.

Because its focus has been augmenting energy efficiency — by using upgraded oil and gas technologies, for example — the University does not currently purchase any renewable energy, such as solar or wind power. “The environmental impacts in the near term are the same (for both renewable and efficient energy sources) because fewer emissions have to be pro-duced by dirty (power) plants,” said Kurt Teichert, resource efficiency manager for Facilities Management.

But Teichert said renewable energy is important for economic and environmen-tal concerns. Renewable energy is much better for the environment, and it also “offers a much more stable energy cost,” he said. While energy plants require con-struction costs and the use of fossil fuels, renewable energy sources such as wind farms only require construction costs.

Brown has long been interested in “in-vestigating viable ways to incorporate re-newable energy into our portfolio,” Teichert said. The Urban Environmental Lab was in-stalled with solar panels and now has pho-tovoltaic panels to provide energy for heat.

Recently, students have also taken up the cause.

The Undergraduate Council of Stu-dents passed a resolution April 5 calling for the University to purchase 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the year 2010. The same resolution also supported a $25 opt-out student fee to subsidize the purchase of this energy.

The University has not solicited stu-dents’ opinion on renewable energy in the past, but recent evidence shows that stu-dents are concerned about the issue. In a March UCS poll, 77.4 percent of respon-dents said they would support the Uni-versity if it spent money to obtain its own source of renewable energy. “Up until this point there hasn’t really been a campaign that has mobilized the student voice,” said Aden Van Noppen ’09, a member of BEAN. She added that “students really want this.”

Van Noppen described the University’s current energy policy as a “kind of non-ex-istent conservation effort that isn’t really doing anything.”

The UCS resolution supported a $25 opt-out fee instead of a mandatory fee be-cause “UCS was much more likely to pass it if it was opt-out,” Van Noppen said. If the University commits to the $25 opt-out fee, the money will most likely be put to-ward Renewable Energy Certificates, Van Noppen said.

“That’s great because it is still put-ting renewable energy on the grid,” Van Noppen said. If no undergradu-ate students were to opt out of the fee,

THE BROWN DAILY HERALDVolume CXLI, No. 50 An independent newspaper serving the Brown community since 1891 www.browndailyherald.com

News tips: herald@browndailyherald.com

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006

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BY NATHALIE PIERREPONTCONTRIBUTING WRITER

On Monday night, Peiling Li ’06 com-pleted the third chapter of her history thesis, which analyzes desertion during the Civil War. The 50 pages of the chap-ter are “the best writing I’ve ever done at Brown. … I’m really proud,” she said.

The final product — which has been two years in the making —is due in less than a week, and though she has only completed a little more than half of the 120 pages she expects to write, she is surprisingly calm.

As she pulled out two four-inch bind-ers full of research she began over the summer, which are perfectly organized and labeled with color-coded post-its and highlighter marks, she explained that the thesis-writing process has taught her valuable lessons of balance and adaptability. “It’s a psychological battle trying to keep yourself sane” dur-ing this process, Li said.

Like many other seniors hoping to graduate with honors, Li is in the final stages of writing her thesis — an under-taking that varies depending on each department’s requirements as well as individual students’ philosophy about the endeavor.

Li has been looking at the thesis expe-rience from a broad, idealistic perspec-tive. She believes that writing a thesis “arms students with a different way of thinking,” as it trains students “to think more critically in everyday life.” She added that her thesis “is not the seminal product of my undergraduate years.”

Different requirementsHonors history students like Li are re-

quired to take a three-course sequence in order to write a thesis. The process begins with a seminar taken during the spring of a student’s junior year, HI 92: “Selected Topics in the Writing and In-terpretation of History,” taught by Pro-fessor of History Kenneth Sacks, who coordinates the department’s honors program.

Sacks’ seminar introduces students to history research methods and helps sharpen their critical reading and writ-

Writing the honors thesisAs deadlines loom, students reflect on the experience and describe requirements in different departments

Jean Yves Chainon / Herald

Many candidates for honors in various departments are putting the finishing touches on their thesis projects as final deadlines near.

see THESIS, page 4

BY SIMMI AUJLASENIOR STAFF WRITER

Administrators in University Hall know one thing about life with Banner.

“We should have fewer lines in Univer-sity Hall during registration and shopping period,” said Associate Provost Nancy Dun-bar. “Everyone agrees about that.”

Banner, a comprehensive program that will include online registration for cours-es, may change many aspects of pre-regis-tration and shopping period beginning in Spring 2007 if it is implemented on sched-ule, said Dunbar and University Registrar Michael Pesta. But Pesta and Dunbar are unsure of how significant the changes will be, they said.

Along with the online registration sys-tem, Banner will replace current systems and databases for the University’s admis-sions and financial aid operations.

Administrators are leaning toward tai-loring Banner so upperclassmen will be able to pre-register for courses before un-derclassmen. In addition, course prereq-uisites — now largely ignored — will be enforced.

Both Pesta and Dunbar said the sys-tem may encourage students to select their schedules sooner. Banner will immediate-ly tell students whether they have gained a spot in a course, Dunbar said, adding that students might register earlier because of this feature for fear that courses will fill up quickly.

“Students are going to be having to

U. explores renewable energy options

Banner may alter key aspects of registration

see BANNER, page 6

see ENERGY, page 6

BY ILA TYAGISTAFF WRITER

While other Brown students may spend the summer as camp counselors, in office

internships or investment banks, Patrick Cook-Deegan ’07 will bike along the entire

length of Laos, alone. Cook-Deegan will cy-cle 900 miles in an effort to raise $15,500 to-ward building a new Laotian school.

Sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, Laos has the dubious distinction of being one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. A former varsity lacrosse player for the Bears, Cook-Deegan spent nearly a month in Laos last summer while on an eight-month journey around the world which culminated in a semester abroad at the University of the Bosphorus in Turkey.

The “incredible poverty of the majority of Laotians” that Cook-Deegan saw first-hand inspired him to help alleviate local

challenges in his own way, he wrote on the Web site created for his trip. He sees his project, Cycle For Schools 2006, as an op-portunity to better understand the needs of people in the developing world, something he hopes to continue to do after he gradu-ates.

Cook-Deegan’s trip is scheduled for Laos’ monsoon season, which makes the country’s terrain challenging. To prepare for the conditions, Cook-Deegan went snowshoeing in Vermont over spring break. As further training he will take part in a half Ironman competition in June, in which he will have to swim 1.2 miles, bike another 56 miles and run 13.1 miles.

“That should get me in pretty good shape,” he said.

Despite the trying environment of his summer endeavor, the only special equip-ment Cook-Deegan plans to pack is a ham-mock with a mosquito net and “lots of bug repellant.” Expressing a disdain for the tra-ditional tourist traps found in every coun-try, Cook-Deegan said he hopes to im-merse himself in Laotians’ lives, eat meals with them, sleep in their houses and see how they live in “more of a raw form.”

So far, Cook-Deegan has raised approxi-mately half the money needed to build the school, primarily through e-mails sent to friends and relatives requesting financial donations and encouraging them to pass the message on. STA Travel has agreed to subsidize Cook-Deegan’s airfare, and DHL is sponsoring the shipment of his bike to Laos.

He is making his trip in partnership with Room to Read, an international or-

FEATURE

A long and winding road to a Laotian schoolPatrick Cook-Deegan ’07 will cycle across Laos this summer for an educational cause

see LAOS, page 8

Courtesy of Patrick Cook-Deegan

This summer, Patrick Cook-Deegan ‘07 plans to bike across Laos to raise $15,000 to help build a new school in the country. He was inspired to go on the trip while studying abroad last semester.

THE WRITE STUFFStudents and professors reflect on their experiences with the year-old literary arts concentration CAMPUS NEWS 5

WINNING THE WARMichal Zapendowski ’07 has a spe-cial message for the White House: how to win the war on terror OPINIONS 11

BLAZERS, NOT BREASTPLATES With “The Medium,” Brown Opera Pro-ductions shows off Brown’s little-known penchant for classical music ARTS & CULTURE 3

C R O S S W O R D

THIS MORNINGTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 2

Jero Matt Vascellaro

Chocolate Covered Cotton Mark Brinker

Deo Daniel Perez

Homebodies Mirele Davis

Freeze-dried Puppies Cara FitzGibbon

Caroline and Friends Wesley Allsbrooke

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ACROSS1 Wave away5 Drilling site,

maybe10 “Over here!”14 Connects15 Conscious16 Gross17 In __18 Levels19 Associate of

Jimmy20 Advice to a writer

to keep a stiffupper lip?

23 Don Diego de laVega, familiarly

24 E-mail addressending

25 Giant opening?28 Suffix with eth-29 “What a relief!”

relative33 Liable to lose it35 Writer

responding to thechallenge?

38 Maker of PrimeSlices

41 __ shadow ofone’s former self

42 Native suffix43 Invitation into a

writer’s home?46 Nonsensical

refrain47 Capital near the

Red Sea48 Amount past

due?51 Old Miss?52 It can be singular

or plural55 Leading57 Writer compared

to ShaquilleO’Neal?

62 Skid rowfrequenter

64 Arcade pioneer65 Idiot box66 Hydroxyl

compound67 Order of __:

Russian award68 River through

Orsk69 Hot70 Biting, as wind71 Cribbage pieces

DOWN1 Poetry piece2 Add to the payroll

3 Opera4 Make of the

Blend-N-Go Cup5 Cleo’s lover6 Horse of the

Century Man __7 Like many loafers8 “__ Alone?”:

SETI radioprogram

9 Establish newturf

10 Sourpuss11 Pooh-poohs12 Go downhill fast13 Cobb and others21 Printing process,

for short22 “I’m __ here!”26 Versailles verb27 Spud’s buds30 Agitate, with “at”31 “The Woman __”:

Shania TwainGrammy-winningalbum

32 Has hands-onexperience?

34 Falco of “TheSopranos”

35 “Hook” producerFayed

36 Down-underkiller?

37 Element #10

38 Doubting sound39 Retreat40 One-time site of

busy typewriters44 Show uncertainty45 Elided address48 Permanent status49 Mishmash50 1950s Citations,

e.g.53 Sonicare

competitor54 Absolute

56 Asked boldly, asfor money

58 Worthy ofreverence

59 “__ see?”60 “Trinity” author61 Stole fur62 Mag mogul who

turned 80 on4/9/2006

63 “Bed-in forPeace”participant

By Barbara Olson(c)2006 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

4/14/06

4/14/06

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, April 14, 2006

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

xwordeditor@aol.com

M E N U

SHARPE REFECTORY

LUNCH — BLT Sandwich, Italian Roasted Potatoes, Oregon Blend Vegetables, Vegetable Strudel with Cream Cheese Sauce, Butter Cookies, Chocolate Mousse Torte

DINNER — Coconut Tilapia, Basmati Rice Pilaf, Steamed Vegetable Melange, Cut Greeen Beans, Focaccia with Rosemary, Vegetable Stuffed Peppers, Strawberry Jello, Pumpkin Pie

VERNEY-WOOLLEY DINING HALL

LUNCH — Vegetarian Chick Pea Soup, New England Clam Chowder, Chicken Fingers, Vegetarian Grinder, Sticky RiceSugar Snap Peas, Butter Cookies

DINNER — Vegetarian Chick Pea Soup, New England Clam Chowder, Salmon Quiche, Grilled Chicken, Cheese Ravioli with Sauce, Roasted Herb Potatoes,Zucchini, Carrot and Garlic Medley, Fresh Asparagus Spears, Focaccia with Rosemary, Pumpkin Pie

MEZCLA CULTURAL SHOWFriday, 7:30 p.m., (Salomon 101) —MEZCLA will perform dances from Brazil, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. ImPulse and Mariachi de Brown will also perform.

“THE MEDIUM”8 p.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, (Alumnae Hall) —Brown Opera Productions presents a fully staged English opera, directed by Jordan Elkind ‘08.

BROWN NEW MUSIC AND THE KEY OF CSaturday, 4:45 p.m. , (Main Green) —Brown New Music performs an hour of group improvisation with shifting polyrhythms and modes based on the key of C.

BAKAZI: WOMEN OF AFRICASaturday, 7 p.m., (Andrews Dining Hall) —Authentic cuisine and performances by Shades of Brown, The African Students Association, Divine Rhythm, Sugarcane and more.

W E E K E N D E V E N T S

8... Cal Ripken Jr. But see the real Iron Man at

www.browndailyherald.com

BY SARA MOLINAROSTAFF WRITER

MEZCLA’s spring show premiered last night with a heavy dose of modern and traditional Latino dance along with live music and a dramatic monologue.

The show, performed in Salomon 101, opened with a lively performance by Ma-riachi de Brown. The group was highly talented, but the music didn’t truly pick up until Daniel Villalobos ’09 showed off his impressive vocals during the second song. Mariachi de Brown made another appearance in the second act, when the group serenaded the audience, winning hearts with a reprise of “Los Laureles.”

Following the mariachi band, the dance piece “Dominican Medley” ex-plored three diverse dance styles. The choreography by Grisselle Escotto ’09 in the first song, “Los Palos Son Para Los Dominicanos,” was raw and organic. Es-cotto then explored the energetic dances of the merengue, a couples dance that resembles salsa, and Reggaeton, a mod-ern techno dance. The merengue dance by Christina Thompson ’06 and Adam King ’06 was also a highlight, showcasing an infectious upbeat spirit.

“Noches de Habana,” choreographed by Johanna Marmolejos ’08, featured the form of the Rueda, or the passing of part-ners in a wheel. The piece was intrigu-ing, and, much to the credit of the danc-ers, all the performers on stage seemed to move as one organic unit, weaving, twisting and intertwining.

Perhaps the most intriguing element of MEZCLA’s show was King’s mono-logue, “Manny the Fanny,” from John

Leguizamo’s one-man show, “Mambo Mouth: A Savage Comedy.” The piece on domestic violence was flawlessly execut-ed, ranging from startling and hilarious to tragic and thought-provoking. King perfectly portrayed the comedic char-acter, right down to the Latino accent, while respecting the emotional nature of the issue.

The show also featured several solo musical performances. Sadie Barchini ’06 sang and danced to Latin pop star Shakira’s “Ojos Asi.” In addition to be-ing a talented dancer, Barchini also ex-uded a natural charm that drew the au-dience into the performance. Ana Mas-carenas ’06 performed an impeccable, heart-breaking Brazilian guitar melody titled “Valse sem Nome.” Also notable was a performance from Alyssa Iglesias ’08 of the song “Contigo en la distancia.” Her low, powerful voice had an incred-ible, soul-bearing quality that crossed language barriers.

Low points of the evening included a guest performance by the Rhode Island Bolivian dance troop Fraternidad Boliv-ia Unida, which arrived to the show with spectacular costumes but no set chore-ography. Although an ambitious effort, the belly-dancing piece, choreographed by Reem Yusuf ’09, was also surprising-ly low in energy. The performers seemed to be so caught up in the technical as-pects of the dance that they neglected the necessary passion that the art form requires.

The show, however, ended on an ec-static note with the performance of “Lambada — the Forbidden Dance.”

Sexy and fun, the last number left the au-dience wanting to leap onstage and join in on the excitement.

MEZCLA performs tonight at 7:30 p.m. in Salomon 101. Tickets are $5 at the Post Office and $6 at the door.

ARTS & CULTURETHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 3

BY MELANIE DUCHSENIOR STAFF WRITER

Featuring worn-out khakis and blue blazers — not the characteristic blonde braids or brass breastplates — “The Me-dium” is not your father’s opera.

Presented by Brown Opera Produc-tions, “The Medium,” which will run to-night through Sunday in Alumnae Hall, is a tragedy that explores love, loss and the harrowing path to madness.

“It is about a charlatanic medium — a swindler, basically — who, during one of the phony séances, feels an other-worldly presence gripping her throat,” said Jordan Elkind ’08, the opera’s di-rector. “This precipitates a destructive mental crisis.”

The writing of the opera was origi-nally commissioned by Columbia Uni-versity in the 1940s. Only one hour long, it was chosen by BOP for its accessibil-ity to those unfamiliar with this form of theater. BOP’s goal, according to its co-founder, Michael Hadley ’07, is “to bring opera to the broadest possible au-dience.”

In addition to picking a particularly short and English-language opera, BOP made the decision to project the words of the libretto over the stage. This move underscores BOP’s effort to make “The Medium” as accessible to the public as an opera can be.

As a result, “The Medium” feels more like a theatrical musical than a stereo-typical opera. It is only when the actors exercise the full range of their classical-ly trained voices, often leaping beyond the recognizable vocal ranges typical of musical theater, is one reminded that it is an opera.

Although “The Medium” doesn’t nec-essarily feature a catchy show-stopping number — what Elkind called “everyday

people in a filthy slum”— Christie Gib-son ’06, who plays Madame Flora, an “alcoholic abusive single mother,” said some of the songs do occasionally “get stuck in (her) head.”

The actors, many of whom have never performed in an opera before, sing the libretto in a way that is strongly remi-niscent of a Broadway musical. They use exaggerated hand and body ges-tures and at times do more acting than one might expect to find in an opera.

Despite the similarities, many of the players said performing in an opera was more difficult than in a musical.

Sonia Nayak ’08, who plays the lead character Monica, a 16-year-old who is in love with a mute, said though she has seen many operas in the past, she nev-er before realized the kinds of obstacles specific to the theatrical genre.

“When we started rehearsing, it was really hard to move around and act and sing at the same time,” she said. “Add-ing the classical element makes it a lit-tle more difficult than musical theater because you’re more concerned about abiding to the laws of classical music. In theater you can just sort of belt through a song and get away with it, but with op-era you have to use very specific vocal techniques.”

Gibson said performing in an opera is difficult because “it’s hard to get all the music synched up. There’s a lot less liberty you can take with timing and in-

flection (than in a musical). You have to prepare more.”

She also added that she does not be-lieve in comparing opera to theater. “I feel that opera is a form of theater, just a highly stylized form of theater in that so much is written out by people who wrote the show.”

BOP, which was founded last semes-ter, boasts a membership of over 30 peo-ple and is the only currently perform-ing opera troupe in Providence. Despite BOP’s relative youth, Elkind, who makes his operatic directorial debut with “The Medium,” said he did not have trouble finding classically trained singers for the production.

“It’s a little known secret that there are a great number of very talented classical singers at Brown. Not an over-whelming number, but more than you’d expect,” he said.

BOP succeeded in earning catego-ry III status from the Undergraduate Council of Students and was thus able to enjoy the expertise of a professional voice coach and makeup artist, as well as a professional conductor to lead a small chunk of the Brown orchestra. The end result is a professional-looking opera that is sure to surprise audiences, said BOP co-founder Clara Schuhmach-er ’06, who also stars in “The Medium.”

Performances are tonight and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at Alumnae Hall. They are free and open to the public.

BOP strives to boost opera’s accessibility

From monologue to mariachi at MEZCLA show

Jean Yves Chainon / Herald

MEZCLA presented its spring show, which features dances, music and spoken word related to Latin American culture, Thursday night in Salomon 101. The show will run through Sunday.

BY TAYLOR BARNESSTAFF WRITER

Cherrie Moraga’s “The Hungry Wom-an” appropriates the Greek myth of Medea and enhances it with themes of Chicano nationalism, queer relation-

ships and contemporary political tensions in the United States and Latin

America. Though the play, performed last night in Leeds Theatre, has at-tracted much attention on campus for its lesbian love scenes, it offers more than prurient entertainment.

The play takes place in the aftermath of a future revolution, in which the war-rior Medea (Angelica del Valle ’06) is ex-iled to Phoenix, Ariz., along with other queers of color. Medea’s ex-husband is played by chorus member Natalie Hirsch ’08, who transforms herself into Jason, dons a blazer and tie and deep-ens her voice effectively to convey an air of masculine authority. Jason casts away both Medea and their son, Choc Mool (Arjun Bhartia ’08), after he dis-covers Medea in bed with a woman, Luna (Jenny Garcia ’08). After living in exile for seven years, Medea’s relation-ships begin to crumble as Luna begins to stray and Jason reappears to claim custody of Choc Mool.

The production is one of contrast, with its script incorporating both Eng-lish and Spanish and native spiritual practices while being set in the future. Though a recreation of a Greek trag-edy, the play includes both humor-ous scenes such as a girls’ night on the

Medea receives modern makeover in Moraga’s ‘The Hungry Woman’

see WOMAN, page 7

REVIEW

www.browndailyherald.com

Over the hill and proud of it

ing skills. The course provides an opportunity for students to “air their insecurities, bounce their ideas off one another,” Li said. It’s “akin to a book review … it provides a support net-work.”

In the seminar, students are required to produce a 20-page prospectus proposing the ma-terial they are interested in re-searching and outlining the ob-stacles they anticipate facing. Sacks addresses topics ranging from students’ uncertainties regarding the writing process to developing time-manage-ment skills. Li joked that she taught herself important skills like taking 10-minute naps and pulling all-nighters without caffeine.

Li said she appreciated Sacks’ seminar because “this particular kind of thesis needs a lot of guidance,” adding that the history department’s hon-ors program is “an extremely personalized process.”

During their senior year,

honors history students work one-on-one with an advisor to complete their thesis while re-ceiving two course credits, one for each semester of work.

When the thesis is complet-ed, Sacks assigns it out to dif-ferent readers — one in the department whose interests closely match the topic and one from another department — who decide whether or not the finished product is suffi-cient to qualify the student for honors.

The professor who advised a student will not read that stu-dent’s thesis, thereby ensuring an objective process of evaluation. To qualify for honors, students must also have a 3.5 GPA in at least four history classes. Similar re-quirements regarding a student’s course performance are imposed by other departments.

But other departments don’t provide as structured a process for students writing honors theses.

Suzanne Smith ’06, who is writing a thesis in the sociology department, said she believes the history honors program is too regulated. It “seems like way too much,” she said.

Sociology students inter-ested in writing a thesis meet with Associate Professor of So-ciology Gregory Elliott once in the spring of their junior year. They do not have to take a the-sis-writing seminar until the spring of their senior year.

We “want the students to own their thesis … to write about something they care about,” Elliott said. The pro-gram, which attracts a handful of students graduating in soci-ology, is usually for people who are self-motivated and pas-sionate, he said.

“We facilitate the pursuit of that passion,” Elliott said. Writ-ing a “senior thesis isn’t for ev-eryone, and it isn’t that those who write one are better, but some students find a topic they’re really passionate about and want to delve into it,” he added.

The required seminar for so-ciology students writing a the-sis is structured like a writing workshop. The seminar helps to narrow the students’ topics down to a researchable ques-tion because as Elliot said, there is a tendency for students to “want to save the world” with their topics.

Most seniors working to-wards honors in sociology have just done preliminary research, and few have started writing before the required seminar in the spring, according to Smith. It’s “pretty decentralized,” she said.

Sociology students have the “freedom to do what they want,” whereas history thesis writers “sometimes have their hand held,” Smith said. Though

she claimed to favor the struc-ture of the sociology honors program, the mandatory semi-nar she is taking this spring im-poses actual deadlines, which she said makes her feel more prepared than last semester.

In the French department, many students discover their thesis topics while studying abroad. This is typically a “for-mative year intellectually,” said Associate Professor of French Studies Gretchen Schultz. Stu-dents don’t apply to write a the-sis until first semester of their senior year.

A strenuous workload

For Smith, the hardest part about writing a thesis has been motivating herself to do some-thing everyday, but she said it has been “fun to commiserate with everyone else” who is go-ing through the same process.

Last week, Linda Evarts ’06, who is writing a thesis in Latin American studies, and some of her friends talked about organiz-ing a “student sanity committee” for honors thesis writers. They casually spoke of putting togeth-er a self-help guide, an effort to alleviate some of the stress se-niors face when pursuing hon-ors. However, over the past few days, interest waned as deadline pressure increased, Evarts said.

The level of difficulty of the process “depends on how much grasp you get on the idea, rath-er than the idea itself,” Evarts said. “The enjoyment of writ-ing a thesis does not depend so much on how much you like your idea, but your ability to pin down what you want to fo-cus on,” she added.

PAGE 4 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 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.

Thesiscontinued from page 1

Beatles to join digital music boomBY J. FREEDOM DU LACWASHINGTON POST

Signaling an end to the highest-profile holdout in the booming digital-music arena, the Bea-tles are coming to the Internet. The band’s business arm, Apple Corps, has confirmed plans to digitally remaster the Beatles’ hit-filled catalogue and then sell the songs individually online.

Don’t get out your wallet just yet, though. The Beatles’ work won’t be available any time soon, nor has it been decided which on-line stores will stock the tunes.

“I think it would be wrong to offer downloads of the old mas-ters when I am making new mas-ters,” Aspinall wrote. “It would be better to wait and try to do them both simultaneously so that you then get publicity of the new masters and the downloading, rather than just doing it ad hoc.”

“This is not imminent,” Apple Corps spokeswoman Elizabeth Freund cautioned Thursday. “The only thing we’re prepared to say is that we are indeed working on the mas-ters. Where they’ll end up, or when, I don’t have that information.”

There were also hints in Aspi-nall’s statement, although no ex-plicit confirmation, that the re-mastering will result in new CD versions of the Beatles’ albums. “We’re remastering the whole Beatles catalogue just to make it sound brighter and better, and getting proper booklets to go with each of the packages,” he said.

CAMPUS NEWSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 5

BY JONATHAN SIDHUARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

Members of the University’s Education Alliance traveled to northeast Georgia Monday to meet with officials from the Hall County School System, a district that serves 25,000 stu-dents in 33 schools, to look at how the district teaches Eng-lish to its non-native speakers, many of whom are Hispanic.

The effort is part of the Comprehensive School Re-form Support and Capaci-ty Building Program, or CSR. This two-year initiative, fund-ed by an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Educa-tion, will evaluate policies for teaching English to non-native speakers in 10 different school districts.

Phyllis Hardy and Chris Unger, both EA program plan-ning specialists, met with Deputy Superintendent of Hall County Schools Will Schofield to determine how the partnership will operate. Hardy is currently program planning specialist for equity and diversity programs for the EA, while Unger is a program planning specialist and break-ing ranks coach.

The EA, founded in 1975, works to serve “populations whose access to excellent edu-cation has been limited or de-nied,” according to its online mission statement.

“We do research and devel-opment around education re-lated to K-12 public education basically in the northeast,” said CSR Project Director Brett Lane. “We work primar-ily through soft money, that is, grants from places like the U.S. Department of Education.”

Schofield said he hopes the partnership with the EA will al-low his district to benefit from Brown’s expertise in education.

“We have a large number of second language learners,

and what the visitors from Brown have to offer is an in-credibly powerful network of resources,” he said. 31 percent of the district’s students are Hispanic, according to Geor-gia Department of Education numbers cited in a March 14 Gainesville Times article.

“What we’re doing is work-ing on a clear understanding of what we will do and what will they do,” Schofield said. “Most specifically we’d like to better serve the girls and boys of Hall County. What we hope to get is an outside set of eyes looking at our policies and how we work internally and to determine what the logical next action step is,” he said.

In evaluating Hall County’s policies, Schofield expects the visitors from the EA to sur-vey faculty and staff from his district to determine if Hall County’s plans to teach Eng-lish to non-native speakers are clear.

“Through interviews with various leadership they’ll give us some feedback in terms of how we’re articulating our plans,” he said.

Lane said the program, in general, “will provide techni-cal assistance to states and dis-tricts designed to help under-performing schools make in-clusive and sustainable school improvement.”

The plan is based on the premise that “schools and dis-tricts should take on a system-ic approach when trying to help students,” Lane said.

Lane went on to describe the process this particular ini-tiative will follow. “This is col-laborative research whereby we collect information and document how the district is working to provide support to students and schools,” he said. “Then we provide that information to that district to

Education Alliance partners with Georgia school district Effort will evaluate how district teaches English to non-native speakers

BY TYLER WHITMIRECONTRIBUTING WRITER

A year after gaining its indepen-dence, the writing-intensive lit-erary arts concentration has drawn positive student reac-tion, though it still suffers from resource limitations.

Formerly a subset of the De-partment of English, the Literary Arts Program became a stand-alone concentration in March of last year. “It was a defensive move on the part of writers to de-fine their own destiny,” said Ad-junct Professor of Literary Arts Robert Coover, one of about 14 faculty members in the Literary Arts Program.

The new program is “truly a balance between the writing-in-tensive and reading,” said Peter Gale Nelson, assistant director and primary concentration ad-viser of the Literary Arts Program. When the class of 2006 gradu-ates in May, 21 students will have graduated with a degree in liter-ary arts, and 33 are scheduled to graduate from the concentration next year.

For the most part, students interested in writing and litera-ture seem pleased with the new concentration. Felicity Rose ’06, a co-coordinator of the Literary Arts Departmental Undergradu-ate Group, immediately changed her concentration from English to literary arts when the new pro-gram was announced. Rose, who wanted to get credit for writing classes, said “it was pretty easy” to change her concentration dur-ing her junior year.

“The literary arts requirement is much more accepting of lots of different kinds of classes,” she said. “You can pretty much take classes in any department … where you have to read literary books. I kind of like it, because it gives you a lot of room to create your own interest.”

Alison Nguyen ’08, who was planning to concentrate in Eng-lish before the literary arts con-centration was created, also stressed the flexibility of the new requirement. “My experience

with literary arts has not taken me on an organized, clear-cut path,” said Nguyen, who has tak-en classes ranging from LR 101: “Advanced Poetry” with Profes-sor of English Michael Harper to EL 119, Sec. 1: “Writing the Southeast Asian War” with Senior Lecturer in English Elizabeth Tay-lor. “But maybe that’s the beauty of the concentration — it’s com-patible to you going on your own weird odyssey as a writer,” she added.

Andrew Fox ’06, another co-coordinator of the Literary Arts DUG, changed his major from philosophy to literary arts when the new concentration became available. “My experience with the literary arts department has ranged. My poetry class last se-mester was easily the best class I’ve taken at Brown … while (oth-er literary arts classes) are not as stimulating,” he said.

Though he is generally pleased with the literary arts concentra-tion, Fox said if he could start again as a first-year he would have concentrated in English be-cause the department’s introduc-tory classes, despite their short-comings, cover valuable back-ground material, he said.

The creation of the new con-centration has also highlighted certain needs of the literary arts program going forward. The de-partment is currently searching for a new professor of fiction in order to increase the program’s course offerings in fiction and narrative areas, according to Nelson.

Another common complaint about the program is the small number of literature and theory classes offered, a problem that will not be addressed by the fac-ulty search. One reason for the scarcity of such classes, accord-ing to Nelson, is the fact that the literary arts concentration allows literature classes offered in other departments to count toward its graduation requirements.

The dearth of literature class-es is also a resource issue, Coover said. “We used to teach literature classes all the time ... (but there is) no room in our program for these classes,” he said. “I’d rather have writers study with writers … but we don’t have the resources to expand classes.”

Students also noted the diffi-culties of dealing with a depart-ment staffed by professors who sometimes seem to put writing above teaching. “A lot of people in the department are not professors so much as writers. So they are much more interested in them-selves and what they are writing than they are in students,” Rose said. She quickly added that this was far from true of all literary arts professors, but that “it’s an adjust-ment process for them to be their own department where people are actually going to expect things from them.”

As the literary arts program transitions from being a subset of the Department of English to a stand-alone department, it has continued to develop public pro-

On the write pathThe year-old literary arts concentration has drawn positive reviews

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Jean Yves Chainon / Herald

The David Winton Bell Gallery in List Art Center hosts the exhibit “7 Documentarians” until May 10.

see CSR, page 8

see LITERARY ARTS, page 8

PAGE 6 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006

there would be enough money for the University to buy 10 per-cent of its energy from renew-able sources, said BEAN mem-ber Jenna Horton ’08.

“Our sense is most students won’t opt out,” Van Noppen said.

In addition to the efforts of UCS, BEAN has started the em-Power campaign to increase stu-dent awareness and participation as well as set goals for renewable energy use by the University. The purpose is “to start getting the ball rolling on renewable energy as we currently purchase zero percent,” Horton said.

Support for renewable energy has also come from the City Coun-cil, which approved an ordinance in July committing the city to pur-chasing 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by the year 2010. “Brown as a progressive institution should be setting an example rather than lagging be-hind,” Horton said.

“The goal of 25 percent is defi-nitely possible; whether that mon-ey is actually allocated (by the Uni-versity) is another question,” Hor-ton said, adding “at the very least I hope the (emPower) campaign gets us somewhere.”

Funding renewable energy

The price of renewable energy varies greatly “depending on which renewable source it is associated with,” Teichert said. The current average cost for RECs is four cents per kilowatt hour, Horton said.

Teichert said energy from exist-ing plants in the Midwest is cheap-er than energy from recently con-structed local sources. Over the next five years, the supply is go-ing to be tight, he said, adding that “once these plants are built and people realize there are not a lot of reasons to oppose these plants, development will increase.”

There are many options for purchasing renewable energy. RECs allow the buyer to “claim credit for environmental benefits of that renewable energy source,” Van Noppen said. The buyer “pays the cost difference between con-ventional energy and renewable energy,” she said, adding “as con-ventional prices go up, the price of RECs should go down.”

Buying RECs increases the de-mand on the market for develop-

ing more renewable energy sites, Teichert said.

Van Noppen also acknowl-edged this effect. “The more larg-er entities like Brown invest, the quicker the price will go down,” she said. While RECs are “not much of an investment,” Van Nop-pen said, “sometimes they’re best in the short term.”

Another option is to create a long-term contract with a new energy company. As with RECs, the University would pay the dif-ference between the renewable energy and conventional energy prices. Van Noppen said the con-tract is essentially giving the en-ergy company a loan, but that as conventional energy prices go up, “they could be paying the Univer-sity a check.”

The Environmental Task Force has advocated for this longer-term option and is currently look-ing into investing in a wind power plant to serve as a financial hedge, said Kate Brandt ’07, a member of the task force.

Teichert also said installing re-newable energy sources on Uni-versity property could be another option.

However, not everyone sup-ports the University’s potential purchase of renewable energy.

During the Brown University Community Council meeting on April 11, Michael Williams ’08, an associate member of UCS and a member of the BUCC, advocated spending the money generated from the opt-out fee toward re-search on renewable energy rath-er than making renewable energy purchases.

“(The University) can do a lot more because of its institutional resources that can be augmented by the money (it) would put into renewable energy. … We can out-weigh what we could do by pur-chasing renewable energy,” he said in an interview with The Herald.

In response to Williams’ sug-gestion, Horton said, “I think re-search is great but in terms of a timeline that is going to be at least five years down the road. … The idea is we need to take steps now.”

Many other schools have also been changing their policies re-garding renewable energy, accord-ing to Horton. Harvard University recently passed a resolution in support of a similar opt-out pro-posal, while Duke University has announced that it will match any funds students raise up to a cer-tain kilowatt hour.

Energycontinued from page 1

make up their minds sooner in order to get into the courses they want,” Pesta said in a March 27 interview with The Herald. Stu-dents should not worry that Ban-ner will prevent them from tak-ing full advantage of shopping period, he added.

“I assume that students will bring their (registration) experi-ence to whatever technology we use,” Dunbar said. But “there’s a big incentive to pre-register un-der this new system,” she added.

Because Banner will tell stu-dents immediately if they have gained a spot, students will know immediately if a course with capped enrollment is al-ready full and will avoid pre-registering for several courses they have little chance of get-ting into, Dunbar said. Under the current registration system, students could pre-register for four seminars that are already over-enrolled.

Banner may also give faculty a clearer idea of enrollment before the semester starts, both Dunbar and Pesta said.

“It’s nice to be able to prepare, to make sure we can support the course,” Dunbar said. “From a planning point of view, (Banner) really helps a lot of us,” she said.

Both professors and students complain serious material is sometimes not covered in the first week or two of classes be-cause of changing enrollment, Pesta said. “To some extent the so-called shopping period is dis-advantaging students who want to get started and not tread wa-ter,” he said.

But Dunbar said Banner will not force students to make course decisions quickly. Rath-er, the nature of the program will simply make it easier for stu-

dents to create a schedule before the semester begins, she said. “Banner will give students what their viable options are earlier,” she said.

Students will have a better idea of their chances to get into a class because caps on enroll-ment will take effect. “There are registration restrictions listed but because of the fact that we still have a paper-based system we’ve never been able to impose those restrictions,” Pesta said. “But Banner will give us that op-portunity,” he added.

Faculty members will most likely have the power to overrule any restrictions Banner impos-es, both Pesta and Dunbar said. If a student attempts to register for a full class, Dunbar said, the professor may allow the student into the class despite any cap on enrollment.

Professors will also be able to override prerequisite restric-tions that Banner may impose, Dunbar said. Administrators will meet with faculty from each de-partment next fall to determine which departments will prevent students from registering for a course for which they have not taken a prerequisite, Dunbar said. Science and math depart-ments may be more inclined to use Banner to enforce prerequi-site requirements, while human-ities departments will not, Dun-bar said.

Both Dunbar and Pesta said administrators working on the project still have to find solu-tions for many issues of Banner. Getting advisers’ signatures elec-tronically is one problem that has yet to be resolved, Dunbar said.

Other questions, such as when students will be able to register for classes online and which stu-dents will be able to register first, are nearly settled, both Dunbar and Pesta said. Banner will prob-ably allow students to register

during the current pre-registra-tion and shopping periods, they said. But within those set time periods, registration will be stag-gered by year so that seniors and juniors, who have less time to take a class, get priority, Dunbar said. “This is the technological way of what faculty do anyway,” she said.

Though Dunbar and Pesta are not completely sure of the chang-es Banner will bring, they agree any change will be positive.

Pre-registering using “the current system doesn’t keep you out of the class, but it doesn’t re-ally get you into the class either,” Dunbar said. Banner will give students “greater clarity” about their next semester, she said.

Student response to potential changes in pre-registration and shopping period was mixed.

“(Banner)’s useful because I had classes that were over-booked, but if it would mean that classes would fill up sooner that would be a negative thing,” said Patrick Roux ’09.

Roux added that prerequi-sites should not be enforced for humanities concentrators who may have prepared for a course in some other way.

“I think it will be helpful be-cause people won’t have to deal with lines,” said Daniel Mac-Combie ’08, adding that “shop-ping period is a long drawn out process for a lot of people.”

MacCombie said enforcing prerequisites would be “a really bad idea unless professors take it seriously and make prerequi-sites absolutely essential.”

“(Online registration) could be more efficient (than the cur-rent system),” said Galen Brod-erick ’09. But he called enforce-ment of prerequisites “gross.”

“I’m definitely against that,” he said, adding, however, “If there was some sort of way you could talk to the professor that would be good.”

Bannercontinued from page 1

town in a lesbian dance club where the ladies line-dance to a disco remix of “The Hustle” and intense scenes like Medea mourning her son in the con-fines of a psychiatric hospital, only to be mocked by her doctors.

The play, already groundbreaking for its re-tell-ing of the Greek myth using queer relationships, further complicates the story by adding in the is-sues of Chicano nationalism. The specificity of these themes, however, does not prevent the au-dience from sympathizing with the marginaliza-tion these characters face.

Through del Valle’s persuasive and gripping portrayal of Medea, the audience relates to her tor-ment over her custody battle to keep her son, who

is asserting his desire to become a man. “Betrayal is when a boy grows into a man and sees his moth-er as ‘woman’ for the first time. Woman. A thing. A creature to be controlled,” Medea exclaims.

At the same time, Medea garners resentment for her mistreatment of her lover, Luna. This neglect sparks Luna’s adulterous behavior, as she kisses Sa-vannah (Erin Adams ’09) after a drunken night out.

So powerful were the performances that the au-dience members developed an emotional attach-ment to the characters. The play appropriately elic-ited gasps, shouts and laughter from the audience that reflected the emotional turmoil of Medea.

Performances will be held April 13 through April 16 and April 20 through April 23 at 8 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on both Sundays. Tickets are $5 for students. A keynote ad-dress by the playwright will occur on April 21 at 4 p.m. in Leeds Theatre.

WORLD & NATIONTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 7

BY SPENCER HSUWASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — Nearly eight months after Hurricane Katrina triggered the nation’s largest housing crisis since World War II, a hastily improvised $10 bil-lion effort by the federal gov-ernment produced vast sums of waste and misspent funds, an array of government audits and outside analysts has concluded.

As the Federal Emergency Management Agency wraps up the initial phase of its temporary housing program — ending reli-ance on cruise ships and hotels for people sent fleeing by the Aug. 29 storm — the toll of false starts and missed opportunities ap-pears likely to top $1 billion and perhaps much more, according to a series of after-action studies and Department of Homeland Security reports, including one due for release Friday.

The government’s costliest initiative — $6.4 billion allocat-ed to place storm survivors in temporary trailers and mobile homes — has ground to a halt around New Orleans this week, in part because of widespread racial and class tensions. Resi-dents of surrounding locali-ties have refused to accept the makeshift communities.

Only 71 percent of the 141,000 trailers that FEMA estimates are needed are being occupied.

Meanwhile, the trailer pro-gram is consuming more than 60 percent of the funds FEMA is spending on housing aid — even though it benefits about 10 per-cent of the approximately 1 mil-lion households getting help, according to agency data and the Brookings Institution, which tracks recovery progress.

By contrast, a rental assistance program is serving 800,000 fami-lies, or 80 percent of households, at about one-third the total cost, or more than $3 billion. It was dra-matically expanded four weeks af-ter the storm — a sluggish start, critics said — after intense pres-sure from Congress and others who said the administration from the beginning should have taken advantage of such proven pro-grams as low-income “Section 8” rental vouchers.

In a recent White House re-port, Frances Fragos Townsend, President George W. Bush’s homeland security and coun-terterrorism adviser, reserved some of the toughest criticism for FEMA’s mass-trailer initia-tive. She said it “foundered due to inadequate planning and poor coordination” and rec-ommended the Department of Housing and Urban Develop-ment take over from Homeland Security in future disasters.

Citing lack of training, exper-tise and engagement with other agencies, Townsend’s “Lessons Learned” report stated, “The Federal government’s capability to provide housing solutions to the displaced Gulf Coast popula-tion has proved to be far too slow, bureaucratic, and inefficient.”

FEMA officials say they could

have done better, but that Hurri-cane Katrina has displaced 1 mil-lion families outside their home zip codes nearly eight months af-ter the storm — a far greater im-pact than other recent disasters.

Spokeswoman Natalie Rule said although FEMA is learning from critical reports, “They do not capture everything that was done well and right.” She added, “The innovative housing solu-tions put into place in the after-math of Katrina will now become ready solutions we can offer in future catastrophes.”

Still, the weight of judgments from White House, Congress and analysts is that the hous-ing effort is a failure with many causes, including institution-al neglect, lack of funding and poor planning, decision-mak-ing and execution.

Neither FEMA nor its prede-cessors had ever housed hun-dreds of thousands of disaster victims for a prolonged period, and the collapse of its initial trail-er strategy is part of what Dennis Mileti, former director of the Na-tional Hazards Center in Colo-rado, called “the largest disaster-response failure in the history of our country.”

Mileti said the United States should focus on helping storm evacuees start over wherev-er they are living. “You cannot build a temporary housing park for a million people,” Mileti said. “If you did, you couldn’t call it a trailer park. You’d need to call it a new city.”

Arnold Hirsch, a University of New Orleans historian of race and housing, called the effort a “shuffleboard” policy “of ad hoc measures ... susceptible to last-second changes and political in-fluences.” He added: “The pri-mary lesson we may walk away from this incident would simply be the negative one — of what not to do.”

According to a 218-page audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to be released Friday that was ob-tained by The Washington Post, FEMA cited a New Orleans hur-ricane as a top threat in 2001 but never completed plans because of a lack of funds.

Among other things, the re-port refers to a string of rushed and inefficient decisions in the first weeks:

— FEMA spent $900 million to buy 25,000 manufactured homes and 1,300 modular homes, most of which can’t be used because agency rules say they are too big or unsafe in flood zones.

— The agency spent $632 million to subsidize hotel rooms for tens of thousands of fami-lies at an average cost of $2,400 a month, three times what it later paid families to rent a two-bed-room apartment.

— The agency spent $249 million to secure 8,136 cruise-ship cabins for six months, at a cost that Inspector General Rich-ard Skinner estimated at $5,100 a month per passenger. That is six times the cost of renting two-bedroom apartments.

Waste cited in HurricaneKatrina response

Military to protect U.S. aid teams in Iraq

Bush plans four commencement speechesBY PETER CLARKNEWSDAY

WASHINGTON — Every year since 1950, the senior class president of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy has writ-ten a letter to the president of the United States, asking him to deliver the commencement speech. And, every year since 1950, the president of the Unit-ed States has declined the invi-tation — until now.

President George W. Bush an-nounced Thursday that he will deliver the keynote speech to the graduating class of the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., on June 19, making him the first sitting president to visit the in-stitution since its creation in 1943.

Bush will also speak to the graduating classes at Oklahoma State University on May 6, Mis-sissippi Gulf Coast Community College on May 11 and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., on May 27.

Those four will be the most college graduations he will have spoken at during his time in of-fice in a single year.

“This is a very exciting event,” said Martin Skrocki, the public information officer for the Mer-chant Marine Academy. “We’ve had people visit the academy who went on to become president, but we’ve never had a U.S. president come to the Academy.”

Though Richard Nixon at-tended a function when he was vice president and Gerald Ford spoke when he was a congress-man, Dan Quayle remains the highest-ranking official to give a speech to the academy in 1991, when he was vice president to George H.W. Bush.

The current president has good reason to end this presi-dential embargo. Merchant mar-iners carry 95 percent of military supplies to the Persian Gulf.

When Secretary of Transpor-tation Norman Mineta gave the commencement speech at the

academy in 2004, he noted the role its members played during the relief effort in the days fol-lowing Sept. 11, 2001.

For nine days following the attacks, mariners transported food, emergency personnel and medical supplies from locations in Brooklyn and New Jersey to Ground Zero.

Bush also has personal ties to the academy.

Outgoing White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card attended the academy, and David San-born, whom Bush had nominat-ed to head the Maritime Admin-istration, is an alum.

Sanborn, who was Dubai Port World’s director of operations for Europe and Latin America, with-drew his nomination during the fracas over DP World controlling operations at six U.S. ports.

A White House spokeswom-an declined to say whether any of these factors contributed to Bush’s decision to speak at the graduation.

BY BRADLEY GRAHAMWASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — U.S. military forces will provide security for new reconstruction teams being set up in Iraq’s provinces to co-ordinate U.S. aid, the State De-partment announced Thursday.

The announcement followed months of disagreement between the Pentagon and the State De-partment over whether to use U.S. troops or private security guards to ensure the safety of doz-ens of diplomats and aid workers and other civilian specialists who would staff the new outposts. The State Department has argued that the teams warrant U.S. military protection, but the Pentagon, ea-ger to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, had resisted com-mitting to the new mission.

One senior State Depart-ment official involved in the in-teragency dispute said a gener-al understanding was reached

after Secretary of State Condo-leezza Rice pressed concerns about relying on private guards, and after it became clear that The State Department could get the funding and the personnel for the teams and was moving ahead with them.

“In terms of the Department of Defense and Department of State working together on this issue, there’s a total policy agreement,” Sean McCormack, the State Department spokes-man, said in opening remarks at his regular briefing Thursday. “Department of Defense will be providing security.”

A Pentagon spokesman con-firmed that U.S. forces will be involved but said, “In general, the arrangements include fa-cility and site security,” omit-ting any mention of movement security. That appeared to leave open how team members would be protected while trav-eling off base.

Plans to establish the groups, known as provincial reconstruc-tion teams, or PRTs, were an-nounced last fall and billed as an important initiative for re-building Iraq. A similar program has been tried in Afghanistan with some success.

In Iraq, the idea is to staff the teams with political, economic, legal and civil-military relations specialists who can help not only distribute aid but also advise re-gional Iraqi officials, thereby for-tifying provincial governments that had little authority under Saddam Hussein. But since three pilot groups were set up quickly — in Mosul, Kirkuk and Hilla — in November, the Pentagon and the State Department have haggled over a number of security, staffing and funding issues.

Defense officials have warned that guarding the PRTs could draw forces from more critical

see IRAQ, page 9

Womancontinued from page 3

www.browndailyherald.comindependent.

find out what that really means tomorrow.

PAGE 8 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006

ganization that seeks to educate children in developing Asian countries by helping to provide schools, libraries and language and computer labs. The orga-nization also strives to provide long-term scholarships.

Once the requisite funds are raised in full, they will be trans-ferred to one of the communities Room to Read is working on in Laos. Cook-Deegan’s cycle jour-ney will fund the construction of one community’s main sec-ondary school as part of Room to Read’s “challenge grant model,” according to Jayson Morris, the organization’s associate director. This program involves commu-nity members in the construction of new schools by requiring them to donate land, labor and materi-als — a method designed to en-sure long-term sustainability that appealed to Cook-Deegan.

When he visited Laos for the first time, Cook-Deegan was sur-prised by how kindly Laotians treated him in a country where the aftershocks of the Vietnam War can be felt to this day. Laos has been dubbed “the most bombed country in the world,” and the danger of leftover live bombs from the war makes trav-eling off the road a life-threaten-ing activity.

Those who know Cook-Deegan say that his enthusiasm for community service and pre-disposition to challenging him-self make him uniquely inclined to the cycling trip. “Patrick is a very socially minded young per-son, very determined and open to new ideas,” said Adjunct Lec-turer in Engineering Josef Mittle-

mann ’72 P’00 P’04, who advised Cook-Deegan on a group inde-pendent study project focused on innovation in domestic and international education.

Even the parents of Cook-Deegan’s friends seem to be enthusiastic about his sum-mer journey. Julie Hill, moth-er of Matthew Newcomb ’07, describes herself as “a bit of a cheerleader” for her friend’s son’s project. She has contrib-uted to Cycle For Schools 2006 and helped spread the word to others.

“He’s a very talented young man, but he has a real compas-sion of heart as well,” she said, adding that Cook-Deegan’s com-bination of athleticism, intelli-gence and compassion is rare.

Cook-Deegan hopes this trip will inform his future plans to work in international develop-ment by giving him an under-standing of the Laotian people and the challenges they face. He prefers this perspective to hypothesizing about develop-ment solutions from afar. “This trip is a way to be on the ground and talk to people as opposed to sitting in a classroom and reading about them,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel justified issuing blanket statements about what needs to be done about a differ-ent culture.”

But he also hopes his trip will be an adventure. He said he likes knowing that while journeying across the country he will have no idea where his next meal will be coming from. As some-one who said he finds himself “claustrophobic” in “distorted and mangled” urban environ-ments, Cook-Deegan can look forward to hundreds of miles of solitary journey through Laos’ lush natural landscape.

Laoscontinued from page 1

promote reflective discussion and dialogue about what they’re doing and what they can do to make it better.”

The EA is partnering with 10 sites over the next two years, Lane said. The districts will be similar to Hall County in that

they will have high numbers of non-native English speakers, he said.

Though Hall County is the first official partnership, Lane said the EA is working to finalize partnerships with other coun-ties. “We just don’t have formal partnership agreements,” he said. “We’re in the process of for-malizing partnerships.”

Unger and Hardy could not be reached for comment.

Educationcontinued from page 5

grams. “What the literary arts de-partment does is present Brown in its most entertaining form,” Coover said, citing the “Writing for Satellites: Brown E-Fest 2006” electronic writing festival held last month and the upcoming gather-ing of writers from McSweeney’s Quarterly. “Although we must ad-dress our fragility in terms of num-bers, I think now, as the literary arts

department and not as part of the English department, the work we do (for the campus) will be more transparent,” he said.

Besides the possibility of an addition to the faculty, the liter-ary arts concentration will retain the same structure for the 2006-2007 academic year. “The literary arts department faculty will likely meet next academic year to dis-cern whether any updates or ad-justments need to be made,” Nel-son said. “But so far the concen-tration requirements will remain the same.”

Literary Artscontinued from page 5

der 4:49.60.The steeplechase should also

be exciting for the Bears with Anna Willard ’06 competing in the event for the first time this season. Lake believes Willard will easily hit the qualifying standard and possibly a top time in the league.

On the men’s side, three har-riers will be running the steeple-chase for the first time this season as well.

“Ozzie Myers (’08), Neil Hamel (’07) and Nick Sarro (’08) are all competing and have looked re-ally strong in practice. All three have been putting in consistent work and have been really ded-icated, so I have no doubt that they will have great seasons,” Lake said.

In the sprints and hurdles, As-sistant Coach George Evans is ready to see some spark from the men’s side.

“Our men’s sprinters are due for a breakout performance. They have been battling some injuries and some bad weather,” he said.

The sprinters on the women’s squad have been stellar with early season speed coming from Nicole Burns ’09 and Akilah King ’08.

“The team is training pretty hard right now, and by no means are we peaking for the Brown In-vitational. But we expect to see some great performances this weekend,” said co-captain Kelly Powell ’06. “Our main goal is to improve consistently through-out the season and peak when it matters.”

Overall, the weekend is brim-ming with potential, and all the athletes and coaches are ready to seize it.

“I am truly excited each week for each meet to come. I sort of live weekend to weekend, just to get to the meets,” Lake said. “Our practices are going extremely well, so I know that we are going to have some great performances. Ultimately, I cannot wait for the Ivy League Championships and postseason to get here.”

“I’m really excited. I really like to compete at Brown, and there have been a lot of great perfor-mances here in the past,” Wash-burn said. “We hope this weekend to continue that and just enjoy competing at home.”

an Tews ’07, the conference’s leading hitter, praised Nuzzo’s presence at the plate earlier this week after Nuzzo’s game-winning homer. Tews told The Herald that adjusting to colle-giate pitching can be difficult for a first-year early in the sea-son. Most high school seniors are accustomed to thriving on sheer talent and pulling ev-ery pitch they see. In college however, players have to learn to take what the pitcher gives them, going to the opposite field more often.

With the top of the Bears’ lineup among the most fear-some in the Ancient Eight, Brown has more than a fight-ing chance to knock off Har-vard if the bottom third of the order can produce on a regular basis. Bruno currently leads the league with a .318 team batting average. Anything that the team can squeeze out of the seven-eight-nine spots in the lineup will go a long way toward securing the Red Rolfe division crown.

Another crucial element the rookies have brought to the table this year has been improved defensive play. Sur-prisingly, Brown leads the league in fielding. Just a year after making 75 errors in 42 games, Brown is on pace to cut that number by 20. The reduc-tion is partly because of the strong play from the left side of the infield.

Papenhause had a rough week in the field, committing six errors — including three in one game — but he has made

all the routine plays Brown needs him to make in order to win. He has also shown the ability to make the tough plays going into the hole be-tween third and short and to hang in on double play balls with a runner barreling down on him.

On the hot corner, Nuzzo was impressive over the first home weekend of play. He made a sprawling stop on a two-hopper to his left against Princeton and exhibited some range of his own and a strong arm — not surprising, giv-en that he is also a quarter-back on the football team. Of course having Dietz and co-captain Danny Hughes ’06 at first certainly allows the rooks to get away with some errant throws every now and then.

The improved defense in the infield bodes well for the Bears pitching staff. Much maligned earlier this year for relinquishing a few late leads on the team’s spring break trip, the bullpen was superb in Brown’s weekend sweep of Cornell and Princeton.

Closer Rob Hallberg ’08 re-turned to last season’s form in the game two win over Princ-eton, pitching three hitless innings. The following day against Cornell, he entered the game with the score dead-locked at 7-7 and worked out of a jam. Hallberg didn’t give up another hit in the next two frames, as the Bears won in ex-tra innings. Most importantly, his velocity looked to be what it was last year, as he struck out three Cornell batters.

With the four Red Rolfe teams within a game of each other in the standings, Brown will need continuing contribu-tions from the rookies in order to keep pace. Though it looks like the Bears will be going with three newbies down the stretch, when it comes time to crown the division champ, those first-years might very well have a large say in who is raising that trophy.

Sports Editor Stephen Colelli ’08 is running for class repre-sentative on the Undergradu-ate Council of Students, where he will certainly not hone his range.

Brown Sugarcontinued from page 12

Trackcontinued from page 12

In 2005, the same pitchers saw their ERAs climb to a combined 4.47, giving up more total earned runs despite pitching 254 fewer innings than they had the year before.

So what can be concluded from the World Series, All-Star Games and league-changing comparisons? It is safe to say that the lineups in the AL, espe-cially since they have the advan-tage of the designated hitter, are better. But the designated hitter itself does not account for such a dramatic difference in ERA. Therefore, the NL offenses sim-ply must not be as good as their AL counterparts, and NL pitch-ers might not be as good as their numbers suggest.

ESPN.com’s preseason power rankings listed four AL teams as the best in baseball: the White Sox, Athletics, Yankees and Indi-ans (the Red Sox are ranked sixth behind the Mets). Also, eight of the top 11 are from the AL.

So why does the obvious dis-parity between the two leagues exist? I suggest the reasons are threefold: superior AL front of-fices, greater resources and a change in philosophy among big-market teams.

Management is as important in baseball as it is in any busi-ness. Just ask the Yankees, Dodg-ers, Giants, Mets, Phillies, Mari-ners and Cubs, who have com-bined for zero championships since 2000 despite being among the league’s highest spenders. The AL’s front offices outshine the NL’s. The AL’s top small market-teams (clubs below the average payroll of $68.1 million) — the Twins, Athletics and Indians — combined to go 264-222 in 2005. Conversely, the NL’s top small-market teams — the Marlins, Na-tionals and Brewers — combined to go 245-241. The Nationals and especially the Marlins figure to slip significantly from their 81-81 campaigns in 2005, while the A’s and Twins will probably improve on their 88- and 83-win seasons a year ago.

The second reason for dispar-ity between the leagues, and for much of baseball, is resources. The AL has an average payroll of $82.5 million, while the NL’s av-erage is $66.5 million. NL cham-pionship teams, for instance,

can’t afford to keep their teams together. 2001 World Series Co-MVPs Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson were traded to the Red Sox and Yankees to save the Dia-mondbacks money in 2004 and 2005, while the Marlins were forced to part with their entire 2003 championship infield and outfield, with the exception of Miguel Cabrera, as well as five of their top six starting pitchers. Meanwhile, the rich have got-ten richer, with the wealthy AL snatching up 10 of the 14 former Marlins and the World Cham-pion White Sox acquiring Javier Vazquez and Jim Thome from the NL.

Finally, the wealthiest teams in baseball have changed their philosophies to think thrifty like small-market clubs. Case in point, baseball’s richest teams: the AL’s Yankees and Red Sox.

For years the Yankees traded away prospects like they were a dime a dozen in hopes of filling short-term needs. Unfortunate-ly, they found out it is impossible to build a winner without young, cheap, homegrown players. Now, while still spending their mil-lions, the Yankees have hung on to their top prospects like Robin-son Cano and Chien-Ming Wang and are better off because of it.

The Red Sox had only two players they had drafted on their 2004 World Series team. Since then, Boston has let key play-ers walk after determining them to not be worth the money — Johnny Damon and Pedro Marti-nez, in particular. In their place, the Sox have turned to talented, young and inexpensive players like Coco Crisp and Josh Beckett. Plus, they have held onto their elite pitching prospects by refus-ing to make trades for the short-term.

In short, AL teams who con-tend perennially are no longer willing to sacrifice the future for the present. The days of free spending and $250 million Alex Rodriguez-type contracts are over. What is not over is the re-cent AL domination. With the re-cent reversals in philosophy by teams like the Sox and Yanks, the AL will continue to own the NL until the senior circuit comes to its senses.

Even a recent reversal in philoso-phy won’t have Tom Trudeau ’09 owning the conspicuously absent Ross Trudeau ’06.

reached this level so early in the season. We’re at a place that would normally take us another couple of weeks to get to. The question is, will we be able to improve upon that and get faster and faster? That’s our goal.

Harrison: The changes that our coaches have made in the last year are paying off. I can’t say enough great things about our head coach, Paul Cooke. As a person and a coach, he is prob-ably the most determined and honest person I know.

Who would you cast to play your coach in a movie?

Harrison: I wish I had a week to think about this ques-tion and do research. Someone determined.

Coughlin: And a little crazy.Harrison: Al Pacino maybe?

He’s not good enough of an actor.Coughlin: Gregory Peck.Harrison: He’s dead.Coughlin: That’s too bad. He’d

be great.

How about each other?Harrison: Brad Pitt for Dave,

I mean, come on, Dave’s an at-tractive guy.

Coughlin: I think Ben should be Dolph Lundgren, the big Russian guy (Ivan Drago) from Rocky IV.

How do you lead the men out of the boat?

Harrison: I’d say moral guid-ance. The only thing you can re-ally do as a captain is decide to lead by example. Dave is a great example of how to live your life,

academically, socially, athletical-ly. Dave and I both believe very strongly in doing well in school.

Coughlin: We have a few mechanisms that help in that area. You have an invaluable network of guys available to you for guidance, whether in the hu-manities or sciences. (Harrison is a history concentrator, while Coughlin concentrates in neuro-science.) We have academic ad-visers within the team. We also do a lot of community service as a team. We have guys going down to Fox Point (Elementary School) to volunteer (in a fifth-grade classroom).

What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened on the water?

Harrison: Once this fall we were pretty far down in the bay, out on a low row. The Coast Guard patrols the area to pro-tect the natural gas and oil tankers. … So we were row-ing by a huge tanker, and a Coast Guard (boat) with a M-60 mounted on the front came speeding out after us. I guess we were too close, and he said he would have to shoot us if we came that close again.

When you go on away trips do you use your own boats?

Harrison: The thing about the nature of our sport, is that you do a lot of training for very few competitions. This season we really only have one true away race minus the champion-ships. … But for that, you take the boats apart, put them on a trailer, hook them up to a truck and drive them to the competi-tion site.

Coughlin: Our boatman … even drove them down to Flor-ida for our spring training trip

this year.

And most people don’t realize that crew is a year-round sport.

Coughlin: Indoor season is by far the hardest. In the win-ter we use machines called ergo meters. … You line up 40 people in one room on these and you mimic rowing for hours.

Harrison: There is an indoor race in the winter that we are lucky to do well at (Harrison won the championships as a sophomore and placed second this year). But yesterday was our first outdoor race and we have been training daily since Sept. 1, sometimes twice a day. We’re here during breaks and stay a month after school is out.

Coughlin: Joe (Donahue ’07) did the math recently, and it’s three hours of practice for every stroke we take in a race.

What does the future hold for you two?

Harrison: I’d like to continue my rowing career if I can by at-tending Oxford (University). I’d like to try and make a national team.

Coughlin: He’s actually go-ing to go train at Princeton with the national team this summer and hopefully make a boat for the national championships. I guess for me, I’m intending to go to med school. I’d like to take a year off though and in my gap year, I’m also considering going to Oxford for a master’s and row.

Harrison: I want Dave to be my brain surgeon when I’m older.

Are you going to need brain sur-gery?

Harrison: No, but if I did, I’d trust Dave to hook me up with a frontal lobotomy.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 THE BROWN DAILY HERALD PAGE 9

AOTWcontinued from page 12

Trudeaucontinued from page 12

counterinsurgency missions. They noted that private guards are al-ready being used extensively to protect State Department person-nel throughout Iraq.

But State Department offi-cials have argued that hiring and equipping more guards for the new teams would delay the pro-gram and run up the cost. Rice was described as having been particularly worried about ensur-ing adequate coordination be-tween an expanded private secu-rity force and American troops.

“She was concerned that, no matter how hard you try, there would be differences in radio fre-quencies, in vehicles, in a variety of things that could get in the way of rapidly rescuing people,” the senior State Department official said. “She felt more comfortable if it could be all military.”

Pentagon officials had raised questions about the willingness of Congress to fund the teams and the ability of the State Depart-ment to staff them. They “wanted to ensure that we would come up with actual teams of real people who would be assigned for signif-icant periods of time — typically a year — before they committed their forces,” said the senior offi-cial, who was granted anonymity to speak more freely about inter-nal deliberations.

State Department officials were somewhat vague Thursday about when the new understand-ing about the use of troops was reached. One official suggest-ed that the issue might not have been entirely settled. He said the Pentagon’s willingness to provide troops might remain dependent on the establishment of PRTs on or near American military bases.

“Agreement is too serious a term,” the official said. “I think there was just a general meeting of the minds.”

Iraqcontinued from page 7

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EDITORIAL/LETTERSTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 10

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those guest columns and letters before Tuesday, April 25!

A diamond to Queer Alliance and College Hill for Christ for co-sponsoring free anonymous HIV testing, but coal to the fact that we already reported this — inaccurately — over a month ago. See, the way it works is, you give us the ideas.

Coal to a certain first-year charged with kicking in Thayer Street windows while appearing intoxicated and smelling of al-cohol — all while sporting a “Brown Lacrosse” sweatshirt. Be-cause college lacrosse programs haven’t already had a rough enough time this week.

A diamond to the soon-to-be-constructed “reading garden” in the Friedman Study Center, complete with season-themed courtyards and a tanning area. It’s high time the University showed a little love to those students who gave up sunning in a tropical locale over spring break to write senior theses.

Coal to the construction of an “Earthdome” in front of the List Art Center. Dream up all the futuristic titles you want — we know a mound of sandbags, earth and barbed wire when we see one. Just because Rhode Island School of Design dorms didn’t pan out is no excuse for the administration to get lazy about solving the housing crunch.

A diamond to Warren Brown ’93, who proudly claimed, “I put myself in the bowl when I am cooking. I am part of the bowl.” We can’t think of any better complement for the state’s new Medical Marijuana Program than Italian buttercream me-ringue cupcakes.

A diamond to men’s crew for being the first team to knock off Harvard in three years. If this trend continues, we might be able to add the Head of the Providence River to next year’s Fall Weekend calendar.

A cubic zirconium to the Brown Debating Union, whose members used their verbal repartee to score beef jerky dis-counts. Who says extracurricular activities don’t have practical applications?

A kickball challenge to the College Hill Dependent. Satur-day. Be there.

And, lastly, a diamond to countdowns. And counting in gen-eral. Certain printing presses could learn a thing or two from our house ads.

Diamonds and coal

OPINIONS THE BROWN DAILY HERALD · FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 11

BY MICHAL ZAPENDOWSKIOPINIONS COLUMNIST

Comparing America’s imbroglio in Iraq to the Vietnam War has become cliché, but there is another conflict for which the Saigonese simile is far better suited: the war on terror. Insofar as it can be under-stood as a conflict between two protago-nists, the war on terror is clearly a coun-ter-insurgency campaign and in this way it closely resembles the Vietnam War. Amer-ica fights an insurgent terrorist network that strikes unexpectedly and then recu-perates among sympathetic populations.

Understanding what happened in Viet-nam is, therefore, key to understanding the war on terror. In a guerrilla war, every citizen is a potential enemy or a potential friend, so each mind you convince is an enemy target destroyed, and each enemy killed is a defeat if it fills two neighboring hearts with anger. This makes convention-al military tactics essentially irrelevant. Military force failed in Vietnam because it failed to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese populace and thus created a quagmire in which the United States was unable to destroy the insurgency.

In Vietnam, we treated the Vietnamese Communist movement according to our own theories on Communism. We pro-jected a false image onto our enemy, see-ing them as nothing but ideological fanat-ics. Most of the Vietnamese people, on the other hand, saw the VietCong as nation-alist freedom fighters fighting an uphill battle against a string of foreign occupiers (Japanese, French and then American).

We’re in the midst of making the same mistake in the war on terror. We portray terrorists as religious fanatics, motivated by an irrational ideology of jihad and ha-tred of freedom. This interpretation re-flects the most superficial aspects of the

enemy and plays to our own moral superi-ority complex. It ignores the facts.

There is a distinct division between the religious fanatics who found regimes like the Taliban (bearded mullahs from back-water madrassas) and the type of men who run and man terrorist networks. Re-ligious fundamentalists in the Muslim world are primarily concerned with in-ternal enforcement of antiquated moral codes, rarely having the expertise to build a bomb or fly a plane. Our enemy in the war on terror is not ideological Islam.

Islamic terrorists are overwhelming-ly the educated sons of middle- and up-

per-class families. The economic theory of fighting terrorism has got it backwards — terrorism is often the product of wealth and education, rather than poverty and ig-norance.

And, as Osama bin Laden himself has said, if terrorists organized their attacks because they “hate freedom,” they would attack Sweden rather than America and its allies. It is tempting to ignore bin Laden’s words due to anger, but his declarations give us insight in this conflict.

The true motivations of terrorism are much more prosaic. International terror-ism has historically almost always been a form of extreme nationalism. This was true before Serb terrorists assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, start-

ing World War I, and it remains true after Basque terrorists declared an official end to their campaign in violence in Spain a few weeks ago. There was no meaningful ideological element to most international terrorist networks. The issues motivating terrorism are issues of national pride.

The phenomenon of popular national-ism needs to be understood as being espe-cially complex in the Muslim world, where so-called “national” identities are often the results of artificial borders imposed by colonialism, and state-based loyalties in-termingle with trans-border identities. Is-lamic terrorists are religious nationalists,

and if they cloak themselves in Islam it is only because Islam is part of their nation-al identity. It is largely because of its inter-mingling with nationalist identities that Is-lam has managed to survive, and strength-en itself, in an age when secular national-ism has swept the rest of the world.

We misunderstand Islam by thinking of it merely as a religion. Like Judaism, Is-lam is as much a community as it is a faith. Those who once argued that Judaism was a trans-border religion, and therefore could not constitute a nation, were prov-en wrong by the foundation of Israel. Even though terrorists are not on the verge of founding a pan-Muslim state, it is this re-ligious nationalist frame of reference that constitutes their fundamental motivation.

Al-Qaeda grew out of a network of Arab fighters who risked their lives fighting in far-away Afghanistan alongside fellow Muslims. They saw the Soviet invasion of that country in the 1980s as an aggression against a trans-border Muslim nation.

Nationalist anger, no matter how un-justified its results, always has root causes. The international issues feeding Muslim and Arab feelings of injustice are many, but the primary issue is the Israeli occu-pation of the holy sites of East Jerusalem. Both the world’s Muslims and the interna-tional community reject this occupation, and the selective enforcement of U.N. res-olutions that has followed on its heels has served as the kindling to Muslim anger.

The White House continues to wage its counter-insurgency campaign against an enemy it fundamentally misinterprets. Its appeals to the world’s Muslims, neglectful of all major relevant international issues, inevitably fall on closed minds and closed hearts. Forcing Muslim nations to abide by the will of the United Nations while simul-taneously refusing to enforce resolutions aimed at protecting their own interna-tionally-recognized rights makes a hollow mockery of the whole international order. Muslims are effectively second-class citi-zens in today’s world. How can we expect Islamic nationalists to lay down their arms when we fail to recognize their rights as equal members of the international com-munity?

The gap between the Muslim world and the rest of the international community is the key to the war on terror and in the bat-tle of hearts and minds, actions carry far more weight than words. Al-Qaeda under-stands this, it’s time that we did as well.

Michal Zapendowski ’07 wants people to smile on their brother, everybody get togeth-er and try to love one another right now.

How to win the war on terror

Time to stop fighting windmills

Instead of moving beyond rhetoric in the “war of hearts and minds,” America misunderstands its enemy

Renewable energy provides the answer to Brown’s energy woes — and the world’s

BY JOHN KELLERGUEST COLUMNIST

It was with remarkable foresight that Cervantes chose the windmill as his clas-sic symbol of the misunderstood enemy. Don Quixote’s windmills were always changing, always promising treasures, yet somehow were never fully real. Ironically, this is exactly how many people view their modern counterparts — wind turbines. Indeed, the promises of turbines and oth-er forms of renewable energy are enticing: power sources that don’t run out, have lit-tle environmental impact and don’t cre-ate hostile political situations. The world of renewable energy is full of fantastical creatures, like solar-powered hot tubs and cars that run on corn. But somehow, these promises always seem just out of reach. No matter how hard we try, the technol-ogy is never quite developed, the supply is too small or it is just too expensive. No matter our intentions, we always seem to fall back to fossil fuels.

The time has come when renewable energy can no longer be a fantasy. It is the only way for Brown to address the very real impact that its energy policy has on the community and the world. From prac-tical and moral points of view, renewable energy just makes sense.

It is true that the costs of oil and coal are currently lower than most renewable energies. However, fossil fuels are also much more volatile and unstable. Brown learned this the hard way last fall when it

found itself facing a $3.6 million deficit in our energy budget. There is considerable disagreement among experts, but most predict the price of oil to increase at a rate somewhere between steady and sky-rocketing. The price of renewable sources, however, is consistently declining due to increased demand and improved technol-ogy. If Brown wants to bring some much-needed stability to its budget, and to pre-

pare for the long term, investing in renew-able energy now is the wise choice.

There is far more at stake here, though, than our own economic benefit. In the big picture, the issue is really about the envi-ronmental, political and moral impacts of our energy policy. The environmen-tal advantages of renewable energy are enormous. Humans contribute an excess 1.6 billion tons of carbon into the atmo-sphere every year, almost entirely from combustion of fossil fuels. This increases global temperatures, raises sea levels, in-tensifies natural disasters, causes imbal-ance of eco-systems and mass extinction,

disrupts crop yield, breeds disease and much more. In addition, fossil fuel com-bustion releases chemicals into the atmo-sphere that create smog and air pollution, resulting in an unprecedented rise in re-spiratory disease and asthma. Finally, the very process of mining for oil rips apart the earth and has displaced millions of people from their land.

Beyond the obvious environmental ef-

fects, the irresponsibility of our energy policy is also proving to have disastrous effects on our foreign policy. Even Presi-dent George W. Bush acknowledged that America is dangerously “addicted to oil,” though he has done little to encourage breaking the addiction. Our utter inability to operate as a nation without large quan-tities of imported oil (even if we were to use all of our domestic reserves) forces us to chose between invading countries to take over their supplies or living at the mercy of the largest suppliers.

Furthermore, the nearly exclusive use of fossil fuels means that the effects of

rising oil prices on our daily lives will be huge — and not just when we are filling up at the pump. Every sector of the econo-my depends in some way on a cheap sup-ply of oil. The majority of our food and manufactured goods are shipped across continents or hemisphere with oil, all of our plastic products such as computers, iPods and water bottles are made of oil and so forth. If demand continues to in-crease while the supply reaches its inev-itable peak (precisely when the peak oc-curs will depend on the rate of technolog-ical development, but as with any limited resource, it is unavoidable) we will see a spike in the price of oil that could cause an unprecedented national, even global, recession. The more we decrease our soci-ety’s dependence on fossil fuels, the more we decrease the very real risk of an eco-nomic catastrophe.

Brown has an important part to play in this story. Dozens of other colleges around the country are already investing in renewable energy, and the commit-ment to just 25 percent renewable ener-gy by 2010, called for by the Brown Envi-ronmental Action Network’s emPOWER campaign, would put us at the forefront of this movement, setting an example for other schools, for Providence and for the nation. Now, with over 70 percent sup-port in recent UCS poll, the student body is calling on Brown to do its part. It’s time to stop fighting the windmills.

John Keller ’08 is no Don Quixote.

Islamic terrorists are religious

nationalists whose fundamental

motivation is their wounded

national pride.

As we decrease our society’s

dependence on fossil fuels, we

decrease the very real risk of an

economic catastrophe.

BY SARAH DEMERSSPORTS STAFF WRITER

With home field advantage, a few com-petitions under their belts and a weather forecast that just might resemble spring, members of the track and field squad are primed and ready to let the games begin at the Brown Invitational this Saturday at Brown Stadium.

“The outdoor season isn’t that long, so the important thing is to take advantage of every competition we have,” said captain Owen Washburn ’06. “We have been train-ing since the fall, and we have already had a few meets. … Without the distractions of traveling, it will be a good time to see some strong performances.”

The meet will begin at 9:30 a.m. with the javelin throw. Assistant Coach Mi-chelle Eisenreich is priming her throwers to start the day off right.

“I feel that if we get good conditions, everyone is ready to pop. We’ve been see-ing especially great practices from Paul Rosiak (’07), David Howard (’09) and Kent Walls (’06),” Eisenreich said.

The men will certainly need to come out strong with Yale junior John Lang-hauser slated to attend. Currently lead-ing the Ivy League in the shot put, Lang-hauser has the potential to be a threat in the discus and the hammer throw as well. The University of Connecticut, which the Bears faced last weekend at the Huskies’ home invite, is also a perennial power-

house in the throws.Another highlight to look for is the

long-awaited return of Herald Sports Staff Writer Hugh Murphy ’06 to the javelin runway.

Eisenreich is ready to see her team compete on its home turf.

“All of the throwers are ready to go big and are dying for conditions that will al-low it,” she said. “Given the opportunity, they will throw very well. I’ve been telling the team all year that this season is like a great movie everyone is talking about. You’re not sure how it’s going to end but you know it’s going to be awesome.”

Meanwhile, the jumps squad, led by Assistant Coach Jerome Romain, is hop-ing to continue its show-stopping perfor-mance. Commencing with the long jump, which is slated for 11 a.m., Romain is ready for nice weather and a chance to see his athletes show their competitive spirit.

“Tiffany Chang (’08) and Grant Bowen (’07) have been consistent throughout the season and are looking really good. Erin Meschter (’06), in what may be her final home meet, should do really well,” Ro-main said.

Later on in the afternoon will be the running events. Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Craig Lake ex-pects that the commitment level of the team and the consistency it has shown both in practices and in past meets will produce more top-10 performances and standout races this weekend.

The running portion of the day will be-gin with the 3,000-meter race, an event that is not normally in the outdoor pro-gram for the men. However, Chris Burke ’07, Nick Neely ’07 and Ari Zamir ’08 will all be at the starting line ready to race.

The mile has the potential to be a big event for the Bears for both the men and women, as Jordan Kinley ’06 will look to go under 4:06 to hit the NCAA Regional qualifying time, and Naja Ferjan ’07 and Smita Gupta ’08 will try to hit regional standards of their own by clocking in un-

Want something to look for in 2006? How about the American League’s con-tinued dominance over the National League?

The AL’s superiority can be seen both in World Series results and statistics. Over the last decade, seven Fall Classic winners have come from the AL — the Yankees (four times), Angels, Red Sox and White Sox. Only three have come from the NL —

the Marlins (twice) and the Diamond-backs. In those 10 series, the AL has gone 36-18 with four sweeps.

While many would discount All-Star Game results, the AL has not lost since 1996. Is this a coincidence, or are the AL’s finest bet-

ter than the NL’s best?Consider these players: Roger Clem-

ens, Andy Pettitte and Pedro Martinez, three former All-Star American League pitchers who have switched from the AL to the NL. All three had an ERA between 3.90 and 4.02 in their final seasons pitch-ing in the AL. Last season, the trio, which finished first, second and fourth in NL ERA, combined for an ERA of 2.36 — over one and a half runs per game fewer than they had given up in the AL. Conversely, last year’s crop of NL pitchers going to the AL included Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright and Matt Clement. In 2004, the pitchers had a combined ERA of 3.10.

SPORTS WEEKENDTHE BROWN DAILY HERALD · APRIL 14, 2006 · PAGE 12

In Ivy League baseball, teams with upperclassmen win. In 2005, when Brown set the school record for vic-tories, fifth-year senior Matt Kut-ler ’05, the unanimous Ivy League Player of the Year, was the team’s leader. At shortstop and third base, the Bears had Jeff Nichols ’05, Chris Contrino ’05 and outfielder

James Lowe ’05, all of whom put together sec-ond team All-Ivy campaigns in their careers.

A few first-years made nota-ble contributions last season, the most significant being Jeff Dietz

’08, who went 4-0 with a 3.60 ERA on the mound after being main-ly a position player in high school. However, no first-years made much

of an impact in the field for a se-nior-dominated lineup.

What a difference a year makes. Through the first two weekends of conference play, the bottom third of Brown’s lineup has been manned regularly by three first-years. Matt Nuzzo ’09 has stepped into the reg-ular third base slot, Robert Papen-hause ’09 has inherited Nichols’ spot at short and Steve Daniels ’09 has been working the corner out-field spots and hitting ninth.

So far, so good. Nuzzo capped an impressive week for the rookies with his eighth-inning, two-run home run on Tuesday to down Sacred Heart University 9-7. Against Princ-eton on Sunday, the three combined to score four runs and drove in an-other in Brown’s 7-1 game one win.

Nuzzo seems to be settling in af-ter struggling earlier in the year. Bry-

Dan Petrie / Herald

Robert Papenhause ’09 has 12 hits and eight walks this season.

Race to Heps begins this weekend at Brown Invitational for m. & w. track

Rookies look good so far for surging baseball team

STEPHEN COLELLIBROWN SUGAR

Rowers Harrison ’07, Couchlin ’07 make Ivan Drago-like effort to down Harvard

AL will be better than NL again in ’06

Dan Grossman ’71

Akenna Ichilihu ’08 and the track teams will hold the only home meet of the out-door season this weekend.

FRIDAY, APRIL 7

M. TENNIS: vs. No. 71 Cornell, 2 p.m., Varsity Tennis CourtsW. TENNIS: at CornellGYMNASTICS: at USAG Nationals (Ithaca, N. Y.)W. GOLF: at Dartmouth Triangular

SATURDAY, APRIL 8

BASEBALL: vs. Dartmouth (DH), 12 p.m., Aldrich Dexter FieldM. CREW: at NortheasternW. CREW: at Boston University w/ Texas and Massachusetts M. GOLF: at New England Division I ChampionshipsW. GOLF: at Dartmouth TriangularGYMNASTICS: at USAG Nationals (Ithaca, N. Y.)

M. LACROSSE: at PennW. LACROSSE: vs. Cornell, 1 p.m., Stevenson FieldSOFTBALL: vs. Harvard (DH), 1 p.m., Softball FieldM. TENNIS: vs. Columbia, 12 p.m., Varsity Tennis CourtsW. TENNIS: at Columbia M. & W. TRACK: Brown Invitational, all day, Brown StadiumW. WATER POLO: at Connecticut College

SUNDAY, APRIL 9

BASEBALL: vs. Dartmouth (DH), 12 p.m., Aldrich Dexter FieldM. GOLF: at New England Division I ChampionshipsW. GOLF: at Dartmouth TriangularSOFTBALL: vs. Dartmouth (DH), 1 p.m., Softball Field

BROWN SPORTS SCHEDULE

TOM TRUDEAUTRU STORY

BY JILANE RODGERSASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

The men’s crew team accomplished a seeming-ly impossible mission last weekend. In its 2006 spring season debut, Brown took down peren-

nial-powerhouse Har-vard, stunning the three-time defending national champions in the varsi-

ty eight race. The back-and-forth battle came down to the final 500 meters, with Bruno pre-vailing in 5:35.7, a half-second in front of Har-vard. The loss was the Crimson’s first in a head-to-head race since the 2001 season — a span of 24 races and 32 opponents. Led by Head Coach Paul Cooke ’89, the young squad was also the first American team of any kind to outpace the Crimson since 2002. Captains Ben Harrison ’07 and Dave Coughlin ’07 sat down with The Her-ald to talk about the epic win.

Herald: How would you describe what you felt when you beat Harvard?

Harrison: It’s comparable to beating (the University of Southern California) in foot-ball next year, if the Trojans had won the na-tional title again this year and then been un-defeated through next fall.

Coughlin: Beating Harvard is something that every school dreams about. They are always the ones to get, and when they win, they tend to not be too sportsmanlike about it. To defeat them is very satisfying.

Since crew isn’t exactly the most spectator-friendly sport, how would you best explain what you do to the Brown student body?

Coughlin: It is a terrible spectator sport, but it’s something you can appreciate while doing it. There’s a beautiful symme-try to the whole thing. You’re rowing a boat that’s about two-and-a-half feet wide, and then there’s eight 200-pound guys going up and down as fast as they can. So you’re trying to keep this tiny boat as straight as possible … it combines a lot of differ-ent aspects of athleticism — endurance, strength and a definite degree of balance and finesse.

Your team is young this year, and a large per-centage of the varsity eight boat moved up from last year’s standout freshman boat.

Coughlin: (The sophomores) were used to rowing in their own boat, and we had to mesh that with our varsity style. We had to go back to square one, but we had a lot of good, competitive training and races be-tween each other this year. It elevated our training to a new level.

Harrison: We only graduate one rower and one coxswain (next year). Though they are two great athletes, we are in a strong po-sition right now.

Coughlin: I’m excited that we’ve already

see BROWN SUGAR, page 8

see TRUDEAU, page 9see TRACK, page 8

see AOTW, page 9

ATHLETE OF THE WEEK