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Hot streakM. lax takes on Penn this weekend hoping to bring their win streak to nine

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deDaily Heraldthe Brown

vol. cxliv, no. 49 | Friday, April 10, 2009 | Serving the community daily since 1891

rISD admits larger frosh class due to bad economyby brian Mastroianni

Senior Staff Writer

During the first week of April, 930 hopeful students opened their mailboxes to find they were admit-ted to the Rhode Island School of Design’s class of 2013. That represented an acceptance rate of 33 percent, and an increase of 70 admitted students over last year.

More students were admitted this year because admissions of ficers were concerned that fewer people would choose to matriculate given the economy, said Edward Newhall, director of admissions at RISD.

“We were thinking mostly about the economy,” Newhall said. “You see stories everywhere about the wide variety of decisions families are making in terms of how to spend their money. College is a big part of that.”

The school received 2,814 ap-plications this year.

Though RISD has increased its financial aid budget for stu-dents, Newhall said, the school anticipates applicants will be more concerned about financing college than in past years. The admissions

Low acceptance rate reflects nat’l trendby ellen cusHing

Senior Staff Writer

Brown’s admitted Class of 2013 reflects both national patterns and previous years’ demographics, according to Dean of Admissions Jim Miller ’73 and admissions professionals.

Just 2,708 — or 10.8 percent — of the 24,988 total applicants were admitted this year. That figure is Brown’s lowest acceptance rate ever, consistent with a national admissions environment that has seen more applicants and lower admission rates than ever at many of the country’s elite schools.

Brown’s acceptance rate “ap-pears to be very much in keep-ing with the progressively more selective admissions processes at our already more selective insti-tutions,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director for the American Association of Col-legiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

According to Miller, this year’s growth in the application pool was generally “consistent across all regions, all groups and all con-centrations,” and there were no significant demographic dif fer-ences between the pool of admit-ted students this year and in the

past. High school seniors and col-

lege advisers underscored how competitive admissions were this year, at Brown and across the country.

Lily Waters, a senior at Phil-lips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. who was waitlisted at Brown, said she and her classmates were aware of how competitive admis-sions were this year.

“People were getting rejected by their safety schools. I have heard of a couple people who didn’t get in anywhere,” she said.

Business, art run together with RISD President Maedaby Dan alexanDer

Staff Writer

Just before 6 a.m., Providence is still sleeping, and its lamp-lit streets are silent.

But eight joggers are stretch-ing outside of a downtown Star-bucks before their monthly run with Rhode Island School of De-sign President John Maeda.

The group sets off, with Mae-da leading the pack. They run a two-mile loop up College Hill and back down to the Starbucks under the Hilton Hotel.

The pace is slow, and the runners chat as they weave through RISD’s campus.

“Let’s be technical — I don’t really run,” Maeda said. “We just jog.”

The idea for the jog emerged after the newly hired Maeda had just finished giving a “meet-and-

greet” lecture last June to busi-ness leaders in Providence.

“Is this the last time we’re going to see you?” Maeda re-calls someone asking during the question-and-answer session that followed. “Because every time we see a college president, they disappear.”

Steve Cronin was sitting in the front row when the question was posed. Cronin, president and CEO of Mercury Print and Mail, came up to the new presi-dent and said, “Let’s start a run — a jog in the morning” to stay connected, Maeda recalled.

So once or twice a month, Maeda rises with the sun and jogs with Cronin and anyone else who wants to join.

Most of the joggers are local entrepreneurs, businesspeople

by setH Motel

Staff Writer

Many Brown students are worried about their future job prospects, but more than 15 percent do not plan to enter the workforce immediately af-ter graduation, according to a recent Herald poll.

About 45 percent of students sur-veyed said they were “worried” about getting the job they wanted after graduation, while fewer, about 35

percent, said they were “confident” in doing so.

Most of the students who said they planned to get a job immedi-ately after graduation answered that their confidence was at neither ex-treme. In regard to getting the job they wanted, 31.2 percent said they were “somewhat worried” and 23.5 percent said they were “somewhat confident.”

Just 10.5 percent said they were “very confident” about getting the job they wanted.

Nationwide, many graduating se-niors are choosing either to take time off after college or to enter graduate school directly, said Andrea Koncz, employment information manager for the National Association of Col-leges and Employers. A study by the organization showed that 23 percent of last year’s graduates anticipated going straight to graduate school and 4 percent planned to take time off, Koncz said.

For some students, getting a job and making money immediately might be especially important during the current recession, which started in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Re-search. Others see graduate school as a way to stay out of the turbulent job market for the time being.

The number of college graduates heading straight to graduate school is increasing, but only slightly, Kon-cz said.

Barbara Peoples, the interim di-rector of the Career Development Center, advised students not to rush off to graduate school for the wrong reasons. “Students should apply to graduate school when they are sure why they are going,” she wrote in an e-mail. “You will be obtaining a professional degree, often at consid-erable expense, so it’s not something to leap into hastily.”

Job market is scaring students out of it

brown university class of 2013

Demographics52% female40% minority students15% first generation college-students10% international students

Most-represented states New York and California

intended concentration29% physical sciences26% social sciences21% life sciences16% humanities

HOPe SPRINgS eTeRNAl

Quinn Savit / HeraldThe Sustainable Food Initiative celebrated the first day of the 2009 growing season Thursday in the garden on Hope Street.

Quinn Savit / HeraldRISD worried fewer accepted students would matriculate next year.

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tHe HeralD Poll

SPOTlIgHT

sudoku

Stephen DeLucia, PresidentMichael Bechek, Vice President

Jonathan Spector, TreasurerAlexander Hughes, Secretary

The Brown Daily Herald (USPS 067.740) is an independent newspaper serv-ing the Brown University community daily since 1891. It is published Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding vacations, once during Commencement, once during Orientation and once in July by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Single copy free for members of the community. POSTMASTER please send corrections to P.O. Box 2538, Providence, RI 02906. Periodicals postage paid at Providence, R.I. Offices are located at 195 Angell St., Providence, R.I. E-mail [email protected]. World Wide Web: http://www.browndailyherald.com. Subscription prices: $319 one year daily, $139 one semester daily. Copyright 2009 by The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.

editorial Phone: 401.351.3372 | business Phone: 401.351.3260Daily Heraldthe Brown

FRIDAY, APRIl 10, 2009THe BROWN DAIlY HeRAlDPAge 2

CampuS newS “The Ivies tend to capture the first bite of the apple.”— Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of ACRAO

and RISD students, but anyone is welcome to join — if they can get up early enough.

The focus is not the jogging, but the communication that takes place between the joggers themselves. Steve Cronin calls it a “runversa-tion.”

John Cronin, a fellow jogger and executive director of the Rhode Is-land Small Business Development Center, said the jog gives him an opportunity to meet leaders in the Providence community in an infor-mal setting.

“It’s great just to be able to network in running shorts and a T-shirt,” he said.

Steve Cronin agreed. “My favor-ite part is people coming together and everybody exchanging ideas,” he said between short breaths as he descended College Hill.

He has exchanged marketing tips and consumer relationship sug-gestions with Maeda and others on the jog, he said.

Maeda “always has some an-ecdotal information that gives us perspective,” Steve Cronin said, adding that he also “gives us some technological ideas for how to make it work.”

Maeda has plenty of anecdotes to draw upon from his eclectic academic and professional background.

He isn’t just a designer. He has two degrees from the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology: a bachelor’s in computer science and a master’s in electrical engineering. He also has an M.B.A. from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in de-sign science from Tsukuba Institute of Art and Design in Japan.

Maeda said he sees overlaps be-tween all of his interests, including business and art — art and design, he said, are foundational to Provi-dence’s economy.

Much of the “runversation” didn’t go on during the jog but instead happened at Starbucks af-terward. The joggers stopped and had something to drink while they talked.

For nearly 45 minutes, they talked about everything from Twit-ter to tutoring. Steve Cronin told Maeda that he was having some

trouble with his tutoring program at Hope High School.

“These kids all aspire to go to college, but their writing skills are just terrible,” Steve Cronin said.

Maeda told him that might not be as big a problem today as it once was. “I’m not saying writing or reading or the written language is gone,” Maeda told him. But, he added, “imagine if you could turn in an essay on video.”

Some of the conversations di-rectly tied business together with design. One of the joggers men-tioned the environmentally con-scious design of his business. The business is almost entirely paper-free and has only gone through a ream-and-a-half of paper in the last six years.

Maeda was so enthralled with the idea of a paper-free company that he pulled out his iPhone, turned on the voice recorder and started interviewing the jogger about how his company phased out paper.

“It’s those chance encounters that are so important in life, if you

let them in. That’s kind of what I like about these jogs,” Maeda said. “We’re all connected, and that’s why I love communication.”

The jogs are not the only way Maeda tries to stay connected with the community. He eats lunch at RISD’s cafeterias and exchanges information on his blog.

“It gets awkward having this blog sometimes,” Maeda said. “It’s like I’m fully vulnerable. … I’ve got nowhere to hide.”

But for all of the business talk and exchange of complex ideas, Maeda had a quick response when asked about his favorite part of the jog.

“Umm, running.”Maeda is constantly trying to

get more people to come on the jog. He created a Web site for it, he blogs about it, he talks about it on television and he never misses it.

“It’s kind of a nice way to wake up,” Maeda said. “I went to sleep at like 1 a.m., and I was like, ‘Oh, I gotta go on this run.’ … But I’m glad I did it.”

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maeda’s jogs a place for creativityBrendan Barry ’13, a senior at

Classical High School in Provi-dence who was admitted early decision to Brown, said that while the magnet school usually sends “seven or eight” students to Brown each year, this year only three will be attending.

“It was a really, really tough year,” he said.

According to Nassirian, the Ivies, in particular, are experienc-ing a “bumper crop” this year.

“For our most selective schools, this was generally a re-cord-setter,” he said, adding that this trend “doesn’t seem to hold true at the second- and third-tier private institutions.”

Six of the eight Ivy League schools reported record-low ac-ceptance rates this year, accord-ing to their respective school newspapers. Harvard’s accep-tance rate was the lowest in the Ivy League this year, with just 7 percent of applicants earning admission. Brown’s admission rate decreased the most among Ivy League schools, fueled by a 21 percent jump in applications this year.

Nassirian said the increased competition for slots at Ivies among applicants resulted from the “critical intersection” of “su-perlative reputation and very high prestige” and the fact that “despite the setbacks and the losses to their endowments, these schools still have very deep pockets.”

Rick Rizoli, director of college counseling at The Rivers School in Weston, Mass., said this prin-ciple held true for his students.

“The generalization is that

the higher up you go in the food chain in terms of prestige, the more money you have, so not only will you get the golden ring of Ivy League admission, you’ll get a good financial aid package as well,” he said.

Miller also said Brown’s fi-nancial aid program may have contributed to the large number of applicants this year.

“It does appear anecdotally that the financial aid initiative that we announced last year had a positive influence on our appli-cant pool,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.

Brown also allowed students to apply through the popular Com-mon Application service for the first time this year.

According to Miller, Brown did not place more students on the waitlist this year than in the past.

But Rachel Petrella, co-director of college counseling at Brooks School in North Andover, Mass., said many schools her students applied to appeared to be using wait lists.

“There is this idea that every-one has a longer waitlist than usual,” she said.

Nassirian echoed these senti-ments, saying that in an uncertain year, many schools were using waitlists to better control their numbers.

“In general it appears to be the case that a lot of schools have opted for a longer wait list as a way of hedging their bets,” he said.

But Nassirian said this was less true in the Ivy League.

“The Ivies tend to capture the first bite of the apple,” he said.

Ivies lower acceptancescontinued from page 1

Herald File PhotoRISD President John Maeda carries out a “runversation” with localentrepreneurs once a month.

CampuS newSFRIDAY, APRIl 10, 2009 THe BROWN DAIlY HeRAlD PAge 3

“Being gay is a hardship, but in many ways it’s a privilege.”— Brayden McCarthy, associate at Barclays Capital

Study may reveal more about nicotineby eMily rosen

Contributing Writer

Though scientists have long un-derstood that smoking has detri-mental effects on the body, many of nicotine’s biological effects remain unexplored.

But research being conducted by Brown scientists under the guid-ance of Professor of Medical Sci-ence Edward Hawrot could provide a clearer picture of the chemical’s interactions with human tissue, giving additional insight into the body’s workings.

Hawrot’s team has been work-ing since 2006 to identify proteins normally found in the alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor if nicotine is not present, in hopes of discovering differences in the proteins when nicotine is intro-duced.

Hawrot and his team, which includes William Brucker ’04 GS and Joao Paulo PhD’08, published the results of their experiments in the April 3 issue of the Journal of Proteome Research.

The research could provide insight into epilepsy, schizophre-nia and Alzheimer’s disease, said Hawrot, the associate dean for the Program in Biology. Brucker added that the research might also help develop methods to help people quit smoking.

“We came up with 55 proteins that we felt very confident were associated directly or indirectly with alpha-7,” said Hawrot, who has been studying nicotinic re-ceptors for much of his scientific career.

In order to identify these pro-teins, Hawrot’s team conducted research on mice, which have a similar alpha-7 receptor to that of humans. The experiment used two sets of mice: one that had normal alpha-7 receptors, and a second, genetically engineered set of “knock-out” mice that had no alpha-7 receptors.

A neurotoxin which alpha-7 is known to bind was used to isolate the alpha-7 receptor in the normal

panelists discuss being gay in business worldQuinn Savit / Herald

Representatives from three business firms discussed issues facing gay individuals in the workplace.

changing plansReina Saiki ’10 said she had

planned to work for a few years after college and then enroll in graduate school. But due to the uncertain job market, going straight to graduate school is “becoming a big, big pos-sibility,” she said.

“It’s not really about the educa-tion,” Saiki said. “It’s about what I should do as an alternative to a job.”

Gabriela Camargo ’11 said she had envisioned taking a similar route, working for a few years to further determine her interests and then get-ting a graduate degree. But that was before the recession hit.

“Now, it just changes the order,” she said.

Andrew Evans ’09, who said he is looking for a job in the roller coaster industry, anticipates that he will take time off before committing to a job in that field. But he said he might have avoided going straight into a career even in a better economy.

“I’m kind of holding out for the dream job,” Evans said.

First-years and sophomores were more likely than juniors and seniors

to choose “somewhat confident” or “somewhat worried.” Of first-years and sophomores, 62.6 percent put themselves in the middle two cate-gories, compared to 43.8 percent of juniors and seniors who did so.

Additionally, 15.1 percent of stu-dents said they did not intend to get a job immediately after graduation, and 5.3 percent selected the “Don’t know/No answer” option on the poll.

Despite the struggling economy, salary offers to this year’s graduates are commensurate to those offered to last year’s graduating seniors, according to a February NACE re-port. Graduates who anticipate that they will earn degrees in business administration or management fared among the best of the class, seeing their offers rise by 4.7 percent since last year. But the average salary that companies are offering to graduat-ing seniors with potential computer science degrees fell by 1.4 percent. Salary offers to future liberal arts graduates fell by 0.9 percent.

Though internship positions are down 21 percent from last year, sala-ries for those jobs are on the rise, according to NACE research. These internships are becoming more com-petitive, but it remains important for

undergraduates to apply to ones in their anticipated career area, Koncz said.

“I would definitely say to an under-graduate to get some kind of related work experience,” she said.

Working as a paid or unpaid intern is a way to get a “foot in the door” for a permanent job after graduation, Koncz said.

Though some students are a few years away from exploring the market, the CDC encourages undergraduates “to begin crafting a plan, identifying resources and making connections,” Peoples wrote in her e-mail.

The poll, conducted from March 16 through 18, had a 3.6 percent margin of error with 95 percent con-fidence. The information specifically about first-year and sophomore re-spondents had a 4.6 percent margin of error and the information about junior and senior respondents had a 5.7 percent margin of error, both with 95 percent confidence. A total of 676 Brown undergraduates completed the poll, which The Herald admin-istered as a written questionnaire to students in the University Mail Room at J. Walter Wilson, outside the Blue Room in Faunce House and in the Sciences Library.


poll finds many students worried about jobs

office’s goal is to keep the size of the incoming freshman class remain the same — about 420 students — he added.

Each year, the school typi-cally places between 250 and 300 applicants on a waitlist, a figure that has remained about the same this year. It is difficult to predict

how many students will be taken off the waitlist this year, Newhall said.

Admission to RISD was even harder to come by for graduate students. The school accepted just 404 of 2,148 applicants to its graduate programs this year, an acceptance rate of under 19 per-cent, Newhall said.


rISD accepts a few more in uncertain admissions year

by brigitta greene

Senior Staff Writer

Representatives from three top busi-ness firms spoke Thursday to a small crowd in Smith-Buonanno 106 about being openly gay in the workplace, as part of a month-long collaboration between the Career Development Center and the Queer Alliance.

At the forum, representatives spoke of positive — and challeng-ing — experiences working in the business world.

“Being gay is a hardship, but in many ways it’s a privilege,” said Brayden McCarthy, an associate at Barclays Capital, a major investment bank. “You are a minority, and you get to understand how other minorities are being treated.”

The event was designed to fit with the theme of Pride Month, dur-ing which the QA has attempted to advance dialogue beyond same-sex marriage and address queer issues “in the 21st century.”

“It’s easy to be out at Brown,” Kyle Poyar ’10, the organizer of the event told The Herald. “But in the work-place, you worry to what extent that is professional.”

Much of one’s workplace experi-ence “has to do with the climate, the specific people that you work around,” said Richard Clark, senior managing director for investor relations at Ac-centure, Ltd., a consulting firm.

Studies have shown, Clark said, that when an employee does not bring his or her “whole self” to work, pro-ductivity goes down.

Jens Audenaert, a consultant at Bain and Company, said individuals can choose the extent to which they bring their personal lives into the of-fice. “It’s about what kind of image you set,” he said.

All three firms — Bain, Accen-ture and Barclays — received per-fect scores on the Corporate Equality Index, a ranking compiled by the Hu-man Rights Campaign. All three give medical coverage benefits to domestic

partners — a program even Brown does not currently implement, Poyar said.

Poyar worked closely with Laura Joshi, an employer relations manager at the CDC, to organize the event, he said. Firms expressed high interest in the forum, Joshi said, but many were unable to send a representative due to scheduling conflicts. The event fell on both Holy Thursday and Passover.

Poyar said he was disappointed with the turnout, which was fewer than 20 students. He said it is diffi-cult to reach out to LGBTQ students at Brown because there is no single network. The QA acts as an umbrella organization, but there is “no direct outreach mechanism,” he said.

The event represents current ef-forts by the CDC to work closely with students on campus, said Barbara Peo-ples, the center’s interim director.

“We really want to increase our engagement with student groups,” she said. “We want to look for what the students are looking for.”

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CampuS newS “The apha-7 receptor can be described as an extremely mysterious receptor.”— William Brucker ’04 gS, researcher

mice, and a similar procedure was performed on the mice without al-pha-7 receptors to serve as a com-parison group. Researchers then used mass spectrometry to analyze pieces of proteins extracted from the receptor and identified the proteins using a computer database.

The team concluded that pro-teins present in the normal mice but not present in the receptor-deficient mice were the proteins normally as-sociated with the alpha-7 receptor.

One of the next steps in continu-ing this research is to study how the introduction of nicotine to the alpha-7 receptor will affect the pro-teins associated with it, according to the researchers. They hypoth-esize that once nicotine binds to the alpha-7 receptor, the identity and quantity of proteins that interact with the receptor will change.

This three-year project was funded by a grant from the Na-tional Institute on Drug Abuse, a part of the National Institutes of Health. Brucker also received his own fellowship funding from the drug abuse institute to work on the project.

Hawrot noted that he and his colleagues were surprised that a protein known as G-alpha was one of the proteins found to interact with the alpha-7 receptor. The G-alpha protein is associated with another family of receptors, known as G-protein-coupled receptors, which are crucial for the normal functioning of the body, he said.

The G-alpha protein thus pro-vides a link between the alpha-7 re-ceptor and G-protein-coupled recep-tors, which interact with 40 percent of drugs in use today, Hawrot said. This could mean there is “cross-talk between alpha-7 receptors and (the G-protein-coupled receptors),” he said, which could provide more insight into the many roles alpha-7 plays in the body.

“The alpha-7 receptor can be de-scribed as an extremely mysterious receptor,” Brucker said. He added that “knowledge about the nervous system is murky” since it is highly complex, and it is often difficult to predict how certain drugs and other substances will affect it.

“We want to get more informa-tion about what nicotine is doing at the molecular and cellular level,” Hawrot said.

researchers examine nicotine’s effects on body


D O g DAYS O F S P R I N g

Quinn Savit / Herald

Students enjoyed the nice weather yesterday afternoon and came to the Main green to play with faculty members’ dogs for the “Heavy Petting” de-stressing event organized by Health education.

Financial, retail sectors show signs of strengthby annys sHin

anD renae Merle

the WaShington PoSt

WASHINGTON — The ailing finan-cial and retail sectors showed tenta-tive signs of strength Thursday, an encouraging shift for an economy whose prospects are tied to their recovery.

A resurgence among consumers and banks is a necessary precursor to a turnaround in an economy that has been battered on nearly every front — housing, exports, employ-ment — in recent months. New data Thursday offered at least some hope that the darkest days of the recession could be end-ing, even if the economy remains fragile.

Ahead of its official earnings re-port, Wells Fargo, one of the nation’s largest banks, said it has earned re-cord profits from January to March and that its mortgage business was “exceptionally strong.” The San Fran-cisco-based bank, which benefited from having acquired Wachovia late last year and writing down losses then, easily surpassed analysts’ ex-pectations.

Financial markets surged on the news, partly because they have been braced for a dismal first-quarter earnings season. The S&P 500-share index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq were up nearly 4 percent after steep losses earlier in the week.

This is the fifth week in a row that stocks have ended the week in positive territory. In the month since

the market reached a low point in March, stocks have climbed more than 20 percent.

The recession remains severe, and economists stress the worst for U.S. workers is still to come. Ameri-cans are still claiming jobless benefits at record levels, with the number of people continuing to receive unem-ployment insurance now approach-ing 6 million. The unemployment rate in March was 8.5 percent, and earlier this week, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

said he thought it could surpass 10 percent by

year’s end.Mounting job losses have kept

consumers out of retail stores, which have reported huge losses since the fall. The International Council of Shopping Centers said Thursday that national retail sales at established stores — a key measure of health in retailing — were down again in March, for the sixth consecutive month year over year.

The decline in sales have been stabilizing, though, in part because low energy costs have left people with more money to spend. Many retailers Thursday reported better-than-expected results and sounded more positive about the future than they have in months. Wholesale clubs such as Costco and BJ’s turned in particularly strong performances, with sales rising 5 percent in March excluding the impact of fuel. Even sales at those firms that missed ana-

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WorlD & nation

arts & CultureThe Brown Daily Herald

FRIDAY, APRIl 10, 2009 | PAge 5

‘art’ takes stage at pw this weekendby ben HyMan

artS & Culture editor

The artist Frank Stella once said of his minimalist paintings, “What you see is what you see.” But in Yasmina Reza’s 1994 play “Art” — to be staged at Production Workshop this week-end — this statement is as untrue of paintings as it is of people.

Nothing is what it seems in Reza’s extremely dark comedy, which sati-rizes the fragile veneer of civility that hides the monster in every human being.

The catalyst for all of this is, in fact, a Stella-esque painting — an all-white, four-by-five foot canvas marked only by faint diagonal stripes in a slightly different shade of white. Serge (Jon-athan Gordon ’11), a middle-aged dermatologist with art connoisseur pretensions, has purchased the work for an exorbitant amount of money, much to the dismay of his longtime friend Marc (Boaz Munro ’09), who can hardly contain his utter hatred for the painting.

Over the course of an hour and a half, the artwork becomes the site for a battle of wills between the two men, while their younger friend Yvan (Dan-iel Gonon ’12) finds himself caught painfully in the middle.

Essentially, that’s all there is to this tight drama. The first thing viewers see as they enter PW’s downstairs space is the canvas itself, facing backwards on a triangular stand. It’s the perfect starting image for a play whose stark geometry is based on the constantly shifting triangle its three characters compose. But lurking be-hind this classical balance is a fierce, primal energy.

This finely tuned production of “Art,” directed by Gordon Sayre ’12 and featuring three fantastic perfor-mances, is a slow-building crescendo of subtle intensity.

The play begins with the men mostly confined to their separate spheres, nicely delineated by the bal-anced, three-part set. In the opening scene, Marc — an aeronautical en-gineer who prides himself on his un-fashionable tastes — scorns Serge’s painting, initiating a rift between the two friends. Yvan, preoccupied by his upcoming wedding, acts as a media-tor, shuttling back and forth between Serge and Marc, trying to appease them both but only heightening the conflict.

When all three men finally end up in a room together with the painting, what ensues is a simmering war of words that questions whether or not the bonds of friendship, in the end, amount to anything at all.

Ever since its premiere, Reza’s play has been a hit not only with audi-ences, but also with actors, who relish its three meaty roles. Reza’s language is more of a blunt instrument than a precision weapon — she tends to overwrite and give away develop-ments the audience could probably figure out for itself — but the play nevertheless provides remarkable opportunities for performers who know how to mete out their energy in small doses.

Gordon plays Serge as the con-summate smooth-talker, but he injects something deeply threatening into his character’s glassy, almost uninflected voice, as though he’s keeping the lid of a pressure cooker firmly locked down. When Gordon finally does raise

his voice, the result is gripping.Gonon is wonderful as Yvan, ca-

reening from a hyperventilating de-livery of a monologue about wedding invitations to an affecting speech that brings to life the sense of betrayal he feels when his two best friends eventually turn on him.

While Marc and Serge have cushy, high-status careers, Yvan is lucky even to have a job as a statio-nery salesman at his bride’s uncle’s store. The class issues inherent in this dynamic are always bubbling under the surface. After Yvan tells Serge he likes the painting, Marc feels compelled to dissect his declaration, effectively denying Yvan’s right — as a younger, less skilled inferior — to have an opinion about something as complicated as art.

Munro portrays this condescen-sion skillfully. Marc becomes a com-pelling character who can’t look at himself objectively enough to under-stand his own flaws until Serge forces him to see himself for what he is.

This leaves out the silent fourth character of the play: the painting. Its blankness becomes a constantly shifting mirror for the characters, the context for their agonism. As the men become more and more animalistic, the whole atmosphere of the play turns stifling. Unfolding at a stately pace, the inevitable climax is so tension-filled that, for the audience, breathing almost begins to seem like a distraction.

“Art” really is that good — it’s styl-ish intellectual catnip. For anyone who has ever used the word “prob-lematize” — and anyone who has ever been annoyed by the word “problema-tize” — it’s not to be missed.

The first Brown University Folk Festival kicks off Saturday. If weather permits, the festival will be held outdoors on Lincoln Field. In case of rain, events will take place in Say-les Hall and Wilson Hall.

11 – 11:45 a.m.• Shapenote Sing11:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.• Dylan Nelson’s Bluegrass Band11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.• Yiddish Dance with Yarmulkazi12:15 – 12:45 p.m.• Sea Music12:45 – 2:15 p.m.• Contra dance/Hambo workshop with the Rehoboth Jammers1 – 1:30 p.m. • Throat Collective — A student trio that explores the intersection of the human voice and architectural space1:45 – 2:30 p.m.• R.I. singer-songwriter Hannah Devine 2:15 – 3:15 p.m.• Balkan Dance with Zdravets, “Boston’s friendly neighborhood Bulgarian band.”2:45 – 3:30 p.m.• Tallahassee — A Providence trio purveying “catchy, folk- and country-inspired indie pop.”3:30 – 4:30 p.m.• Fishing with Finnegan — These four sibling performers are “a staple of the Rhode Island Celtic music scene.”4:30 – 5:30 p.m.• Ida Red5:30 – 6:30 p.m.• The Toughcats — Featured on National Public Radio’s “All Songs Considered,” this trio provides “classic American roots music with a salty New englandish twist.”6:30 – 7 p.m. • Break7 – 8 p.m.• Festival headliner lissa Schneckenburger, “New england fiddler and folk singer.”8:30 – 11:30 p.m.• Contra dance, called by Rebecca lay Artist information supplied by Folk Festival Web site and artists’

personal sites.

brown university Folk Festival: the lineup

Katherine Regalado / HeraldProduction Workshop’s new show centers around a four-by-five foot minimalist canvas.

world & nationThe Brown Daily Herald


tough times mean tight quartersby anna gorMan

loS angeleS timeS

LOS ANGELES — First Jason Farber lost his job. Then his new wife, Julie, lost hers. Their combined $160,000 income vanished, and soon their sav-ings did too.

The unemployment checks weren’t enough to pay the rent, so they turned to Jason’s mother for help. Suzi Farber, 62, willingly opened her doors because she was having trouble making her own house payments. The couple moved into her San Fernando Valley home in late February.

“It’s not where I would choose to be,” said Jason Farber, 39. “But it’s where we ended up.”

As the nation’s economic crisis deepens, families hit hard by layoffs and foreclosures are turning to rela-tives for help. They are trying to ride out the recession together by sharing homes, bills and groceries.

The pooling of resources harks back to the Great Depression, when families were doing whatever they could to make ends meet, said Zsu-zsa Berend, a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. She said the practice is probably happening more in areas like Los Angeles, where rents and property values are high, than in less

urban areas.Living with family members can

benefit everyone, Berend said, be-cause of the economies of scale — it’s less expensive to heat one house than two, less expensive per person to cook for six people than four. But living together can also strain family relationships and lead to arguments over privacy, money and household duties.

“There is this myth that hard times bring people together and they discover the true value of family,” Berend said. “I don’t think that’s true. ... Financial difficulties don’t bring out the best in people.”

Adult children moving back in with parents is the most common combined family living situation. No figures exist on how many families have begun doubling up as result of the recession, but even before the sharp downturn in the economy, about 19.9 million adults ages 18 to 34 were living in their parents’ homes in 2008, up from 17.8 million just five years earlier, according to U.S. Census data.

People are also renting rooms to siblings, cousins and aunts and uncles. In 2007, nearly 3.5 million people were living in the home of a

FBI joins u.S. navy in african pirate standoffby stePHanie MccruMMen

anD ann scott tyson

the WaShington PoSt

NAIROBI — The FBI and U.S. Navy were in delicate negotiations Thursday with Somali pirates hold-ing an American captain in a life-boat drifting in the Indian Ocean, as one U.S. destroyer hulked nearby and additional naval ships were speeding to the scene, U.S. officials said.

The USS Bainbridge, which ar-rived Thursday morning, launched a surveillance drone that fed live color video of the lifeboat back to the ship, though it was unable to provide a clear view of Capt. Rich-ard Phillips of Underhill, Vt.

“But as far as we know, the cap-tain is okay,” a Defense Depart-ment official said on the condition of anonymity.

Phillips, stuck in a hot lifeboat with no fuel and no toilet and bob-bing in a rolling sea, had been pro-vided with “batteries and other provisions,” according to a state-ment from his company, Maersk Line of Norfolk, Va., which said he remained unharmed.

At the same time, Somali sources said other pirates were motoring toward the scene off the Horn of Africa country, where their colleagues were thwarted Wednes-day by the American crew of the 17,000-ton Maersk Alabama con-tainer ship. The second pirate boat was loaded with guns, and possibly European hostages seized in an earlier attack, to deter the U.S. mil-itary from any action, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for their safety.

The aim of pirates in the sec-ond boat was to rescue their com-rades and probably also secure a cut of any ransom eventually paid, said the sources, who include a pirate’s brother, a former pirate negotiator and a resident of the coastal pirate town of Harardhere, who said the boat left there late Thursday afternoon.

Earlier, U.S. Navy officials in-structed the Maersk Alabama’s crew to steer their ship to the Ke-nyan port of Mombasa, about 50 hours away.

The defense of ficial said no other vessels had been seen in the area and dismissed the idea that the second group of pirates would get near the scene. “That’s not going to happen,” the official said.

Somali pirates are holding more than a dozen other vessels ranging from massive container ships to luxury yachts and fishing trawlers, along with more than 200 hostages from France, Turkey and other nations — part of a thriving business that pumps tens of mil-lions of dollars into the economy

of northeastern Somalia.Few, if any, hostages have been

harmed, which analysts say helps fuel piracy. The incoming money has made relatively thriving pirate towns out of fishing villages such as Harardhere, which now have ca-terers that bring food to hostages and new construction.

Ken Menkhaus, an expert on Somalia and the piracy epidemic off its coast, said that despite the U.S. show of force, military action was improbable.

Maersk Line was probably ne-gotiating a ransom with the pirates, as most companies do, he said. Menkhaus also said it was unlikely the pirates would free Phillips until they reached Somalia.

“If the pirates release him, then what happens to them?” said Men-khaus, a political science profes-sor at Davidson College in North Carolina. “He’s their only leverage to get back to shore.”

Private shipping companies have generally preferred to pay ransom rather than to arm their ships and engage in gunfights with pirates on the high seas. Doing so, the logic goes, would create a more violent situation.

The companies are also moti-vated to keep their ships unarmed by a concern the pirates seem to understand: money.

Putting armed guards on ships could trigger an array of legal and financial trouble for shipping companies. They might not be granted access to certain ports, for instance, and arms on a ship sharply escalate the cost of insur-ance. Paying ransom — a total of about $150 million for shipping companies last year — is still cheaper than insuring a heavily armed ship.

“For now, this is a sustainable business for the pirates,” Men-khaus said. “Everyone’s doing a cost-benefit analysis.”

The pirate business model usu-ally involves hauling the crew or passengers of a seized ship back to Somalia.

The pirates’ current predica-ment — stranded in a lifeboat and staring at the hull of a U.S. destroyer — is unusual.

According to a Somali business-man who has been involved in ran-som negotiations with pirates in the past, the pirates in the lifeboat have asked the U.S. warship to move away and allow them to take the captain ashore.

“They are afraid if they release him, the warship will reach them,” said the businessman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity be-cause of security concerns.

Tyson reported from Washington. Special correspondent Mohamed Ibrahim in Nairobi contributed to this report.

Francine Orr / los Angeles TimesSuzi Farber, center, and her son Jason and daughter-in-law Julie share a meal of chicken and salad. The three are trying to make saving money and living together fun.

continued on page 9

thanks for reading!

by anDreW braca

SPor tS editor

The men’s crew team’s varsity eight passed a stif f test at the San Diego Crew Classic this past weekend, finishing fifth in a field loaded with many of the top crews in the country.

Though the Bears weren’t completely satisfied with the re-sults, said three-seat Matt Wheel-er ’09, it was crucial to gain the experience.

“It’s always our goal to go out and win races,” he said. “But it was a good opportunity to go out and see the country’s best. It really gives us a lot of focus now heading into a tough (race) with Harvard this weekend.”

In Sunday’s grand final, Brown covered the two kilometer course in 6:03.77, beating Princeton by 3.30 seconds. Cal took the title with a time of 5:51.8, followed by Washington at 5:52.61. Harvard crossed the line at 5:53.95 to take third place in the six-team race, followed by Stanford at 5:56.34.

The Bears qualified for the grand final on Saturday by tak-ing third in a competitive heat. After Washington cruised home with the victory, Bruno crossed the finish line at 5:55.28, just 44 hundredths of a second behind Harvard. Syracuse finished 3.24 seconds back, and Ohio State and Purdue lagged far behind.

For Brown, Christian Crynes ’10 was in the bow, followed by Gavin Crynes ’10 in the second seat, Matt Wheeler ’09 in third, Cole Bonner ’10 in fourth, Ben Duggan ’10 in fifth, Scott Mor-gan ’10 in sixth, Nick Ritter ’10 in the seventh seat, Sean Medcalf ’09 at stroke and coxswain Rob O’Leary ’09.

Wheeler said the Bears enjoyed their trip across the country.

“San Diego was beautiful,” he said. “It was nice to get a break

from the weather here.”But the trip was not a vacation

for the crew. Although the San Diego Crew Classic is one of the largest regattas in the world, fea-turing 90 races over the two days this year, Wheeler said full focus on their own races precluded the Bears from seeing many others.

Back on the East Coast, the full crew will take on Harvard tomorrow on the Charles River in Boston, looking to defend the Stein Cup after a stirring victory

over the Crimson last season.Wheeler said the Bears are

not concerned that they lost to Harvard by nearly 10 seconds on Sunday.

“We raced them down to the line and we were within half-a-second of them on Saturday, so we’re sure that that’s more what our actual speed is,” he said. “There are a lot of things we’re going to do this week, but we’re definitely going to be ready for them out there.”

SPortS Staff rePortS

Among the Bears in action this weekend, the nationally-ranked men’s lacrosse team will look to keep its success going in a crucial home match, while the women’s water polo team will play its final “home” game of the season nearly 20 miles off campus. Women’s tennis also faces a pair of home matches against Ivy foes this weekend.

Men’s lacrosseThe No. 8 men’s lacrosse team,

currently enjoying an eight-game winning streak, will try to extend it to nine against Penn (2-7, 1-4) tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Stevenson Field.

Last Saturday, the Bears rallied from a 9-6 deficit to pull out a 13-9 win over Yale, running their record to 9-1 overall and 2-0 in Ivy League play.

Bruno has fielded a potent of-fense this season, ranking eighth in the country with an average of 11.8 goals per game.

Andrew Feinberg ’11 has led the way with 28 goals and 12 assists, good for an average of 4.0 points per game that ranks fourth nation-ally, while Thomas Muldoon ’10 has come on strong with four goals in each of his last three games, ex-tending a 29-game point-scoring streak that places him sixth in the nation.

Kyle Hollingsworth ’09 ranks

fifth in the nation in assists, dishing out 2.1 per game.

Women’s water poloThe women’s water polo team

will play a rematch with Harvard tomorrow at 1 p.m. It will be Bruno’s final “home” game of the season at Balfour Natatorium on the cam-pus of Wheaton College in Norton, Mass.

Last Saturday, the Bears (17-12) capped a 4-0 weekend with an 11-10 win over the Crimson in Cambridge, as Rory Stanton ’09, the team’s lone senior, scored the game-winning

goal.A powerful pair of juniors pace

the offense. Lauren Presant ’10 leads the way with 89 goals, while Sarah Glick ’10 has accumulated 123 points on 65 goals and 58 assists.

Women’s tennisThe No. 60 women’s tennis team

will look to improve on its 16-3 over-all record and 2-1 mark in the Ivy League when it hosts Columbia (4-11, 0-3) today at 2 p.m. and Cornell (6-10, 2-1) tomorrow at noon.

Last weekend, the Bears split a pair of road matches, trouncing

Penn, 5-2, before dropping a 6-1 contest to No. 47 Princeton to end a 12-match winning streak.

Bruno is powered by Bianca Aboubakare ’11 and Cassandra Herzberg ’12, who team up to form the 69th-ranked doubles tandem in the nation and also anchor the team’s top two singles slots. The third doubles duo of Emily Ellis ’10 and Kathrin Sorokko ’10 has a 12-7 record on the season with four matches left, giving them a good chance to break the school record of 14 doubles wins in a season by a single team.

SportsweekendFRIDAY, APRIl 10, 2009 |

The Brown Daily Herald

Fifth-place finish in tough San Diego field for m. crew

home lax, water polo action this weekendSaving the madnessWith the NCAA men’s basketball tournament now behind us, we plunge into a dark abyss with nothing to entertain us but the never-ending NBA playoffs and the three-hour snoozef-ests that we still inexplicably call our national pastime.

We enter, in short, the deso-late purgatory that is the NFL offseason. So in an effort to stave off for as long as possible having to dive into the numbingly dull Kobe vs. LeBron vs. — yes — D-Wade debate, why not milk March Madness for all it’s worth?

This year’s tourney was widely panned as chalk-full of powerhouse conferences and blowouts by domi-nant higher seeds and as the final stroke of midnight for wannabe Cinderellas. Every single No. 1, 2 and 3 seed advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, and only one team seeded lower than fifth — 12th-seeded Arizona, not exactly a Cinderella — made it to the third round of play. In the early rounds, upsets were few and as far between as Jon Scheyer’s top and bottom teeth when he lets loose the Scheyerface. Only three true midmajor teams survived their first game — Siena, Cleveland State and Western Kentucky.

Granted, there were some near-upsets — Pitt had some trouble with East Tennessee State in the first round and American University gave Villanova a scare — and plenty of exciting games, but there was also a slew of ugly blowouts: UNC over 16th-seeded Radford by 43, UConn over 16th- seeded Chattanooga by 56, Oklahoma over 15th-seeded Morgan State by 28.

And though the controversy over bubble teams has been somewhat muted in recent seasons — there were few qualms about this year’s se-lections of Maryland, Wisconsin and Arizona over Creighton, St. Mary’s and San Diego State — it’s still been a steady source of seasonal employ-ment for ESPN college basketball analyst Joe Lunardi.

Though I’m of the view that the chalky results of the last two tourna-ments — all four number-one seeds made the Final Four in 2008 — are more an anomaly than anything else, they’ve stoked admittedly well-found-ed fears among college basketball fans that the increasing parity we’ve seen in recent years is being inexora-bly reversed. The days of the George Masons of the sport advancing deep into the tournament, the pessimists fear, will soon be as distant a memory as Duke’s last men’s basketball cham-pionship (sorry Dukies, I just can’t pass up a chance to rub it in).

Justin Coleman / HeraldThe men’s lacrosse team hopes to add a ninth game to its winning streak this weekend against Penn.

continued on page 8

alex MazerovMaz’s Minute


SportSweekenD

So how can we cure what ails the Madness? Before the tournament began this year, there were repeated calls to add two days on the front end of the tournament and expand the field to 128 teams. Including so many more teams in the Big Dance would certainly make the selection committee’s tendency to favor the major conference bubble teams over smaller bubble schools — this year’s bracket was no exception — a moot point, since almost every team with a semblance of talent in Division I would make it in. But can you imag-ine what those first-round games be-tween the 1st and 32nd seeds would be like?

And to borrow a tired gripe from Bowl Championship Series commis-sioners, having such a large field would severely diminish the impor-tance of the regular season, at least in the power conferences, since all but the cellar dwellers would be of-fered spots. With 97 at-large bids to fill, it’s not hard to see a team like

2009’s St. John’s squad, which went 6-12 in the Big East with zero wins over ranked opponents, playing in late March. The point is, we don’t want the tournament to become a haven for mediocre teams and early-round blowouts.

So here’s what I propose: Add what are essentially two play-in games to each of the four regions of the bracket — we could include more than two, but let’s use two for simplicity’s sake — to increase the tournament field by eight teams over-all. The teams in each region would then be seeded first through 18th, with the top 14 seeds getting byes into the round of 64. In this case, the top seed would play the winner of the 16-vs.-17 game, and the No. 2 seed would take on the 15-vs.-18 victor.

This system would push the very lowest seeds — generally the measly automatic bids you’ve never heard of from obscure conferences like the Ohio Valley Conference — out of first-round match-ups with the pow-erhouse teams that they were never

going to win anyway and give them a chance to find their footing against a more comparable squad.

It would also turn possible at-large midmajor teams that would be among the “Last Four Out” in the current system — St. Mary’s is a good ex-ample this year — into 15th- or 16th-seeded teams. There’s a reason no 16-seed has ever knocked off a num-ber one, but in this new system we’d at least be giving 16 seeds a fighting chance (assuming they win the play-in), hopefully keeping blowout dreck to a minimum.

No matter how much the field is expanded, there will always be a bubble, but with this system we’d be letting in the top-tier midmajors without automatic bids as well as most of the big-conference teams with conference records above .500 and a few quality wins against ranked opponents — the general consensus standards for being “on the bubble.”

And Joe Lunardi can keep his job.


alex mazerov ’10: Fixing the tourney

Online every day before breakfastbrowndailyherald.com


world & nation “We’re seeing more surprises to the upside.”— Beth Ann Bovino, S&P senior economist

sister or brother and 6.8 million lived with other relatives. Seven years ear-lier, 3 million were living with siblings and 4.9 million were living with other relatives.

Suzi Farber bought her house for $711,000 two years ago, using in part money she had recently inherited from her own parents. She put 15 percent down and was able to afford the $3,759 mortgage each month primarily using interest from her investments.

But in the last year, the invest-ments have lost two-thirds of their value and will run out soon if the re-cession continues. Her house also has plummeted in value and now is worth less than the loan. She defaulted for the first time on March 1. Farber, who recently ran a gift-wrapping company, hasn’t been able to find work. “It’s not just people in Lancaster,” she said. “It’s hitting everyone right now.”

Farber, who was already helping Jason and Julie pay their bills, said having them move in made sense for everyone. She said she is trying to go out of her way to make sure they feel welcome. She gave up her bedroom and moved into the guest room so they would have more space. She moved her car to the street so they could use the garage for storage.

Suzi said she is anxious about her own finances but more worried about her son.

“I think it’s harder on Jason and on his self-esteem, being with his mom and not being able to support his wife,” she said. “That makes me sad.”

Jason said the move has “been a little blow to the ego” but that he is also getting spoiled. On a recent morning, Farber made an egg salad sandwich for Jason as he watched the news. “The Dow is dropping rapidly,” he said.

Jason, a University of Southern California graduate, was working as a project manager in commercial de-velopment when the bottom fell out about a year and a half ago and several hotel projects canceled and he found himself unemployed. In February 2008, Julie was laid off from her job as a brand manager after 17 years in the fashion industry.

They moved to a cheaper place, but even with $21,000 a year in unem-ployment checks, they couldn’t afford to pay rent and they used up their sav-ings. Both have applied for numerous jobs. Jason has submitted applications everywhere from property manage-ment companies to a 99-cent store. “I’d rather not work at Jack in the Box, but I’ll take anything,” he said.

He is taking classes to be certified as a welder, hoping that federal stimu-lus money will lead to jobs. Julie plans to study medical coding and billing.

She said she has changed her life-style, shopping at the 99-cent store, clipping coupons, eating at home and washing her car by hand. She wishes she didn’t have to rely on her mother-in-law.

“I hate it,” she said. “But thankfully we have his mom’s house to move into.”

For some families, the honeymoon already has ended.

Maria Garnica, her husband and their two children are sharing their two-bedroom apartment in East Los

Angeles with five members of her husband’s family. The relatives moved in over the last year because of rising rents and lost jobs. There are bunk beds in Garnica’s living room and makeshift beds on the couch and the floor.

“There is no privacy anymore,” said Garnica, 29, who works at a day-care. “Before I had my living room. Now everyone is in my living room.”

Before, Garnica said, she used to relax on her couch in the afternoons before cooking dinner. Now, she goes straight to her room after work and rarely cooks because she said prepar-ing meals for nine people is too much like working in a restaurant. There are two refrigerators and they don’t share food. They try to give each other space, she said, but too many people are crammed into a small apartment. “You can feel the tension,” she said.

But Garnica said living on their own isn’t an option. Her husband, who worked at a printing company, was laid off last month. The relatives pay half of the $1,600 rent.

“I have no choice,” she said. “We do need them for the income.”

She knows that isn’t likely to change for a while.

Adrea Bellenbaum’s time living

with family, however, soon may be over.

After graduating from the Univer-sity of California, Riverside in 2008 with a degree in political science, Bel-lenbaum moved in with her father in a senior citizen complex in Hemet, thinking she would find a job and be back on her own within a month. She hid in the apartment so her father wouldn’t get evicted.

“I couldn’t find a job to save my life for three months,” she said. “It was definitely a reality check. ... I kind of thought I would have my act together by the age of 25.”

She found a minimum-wage job stocking shelves at a craft store 40 minutes away. The paycheck didn’t go far, so she contributed by cleaning and buying some food. Last month, she and her father moved in with his girl-friend, who worked in real estate and couldn’t afford her own mortgage.

Finally, Bellenbaum’s resume, de-gree and determination paid off; she got an entry-level offer for a govern-ment job in Washington, D.C., and is waiting for a background check. Now she is trying to save money for moving costs. Bellenbaum said she is thankful that her father, a truck driver, has been able to help.

continued on page 9

Francine Orr / los Angeles TimesJulie Farber, left, and mother-in-law Suzi shop with coupons.

unemployed move in with their families Confidence in u.S.economy increasinglyst expectations could have been worse, according to analysts.

“The overall tone for March was actually stronger than the re-ported sales performance,” ISCS chief economist Michael P. Niemira said.

Exports, another fundamen-tal driver of the economy, are also rebounding marginally. The Commerce Department Thursday reported that exports rose in Feb-ruary for the first time since July. That, along with plummeting im-ports, helped shrink the U.S. trade deficit to a nine-year low.

Demand for U.S. goods re-mains below what it was before the downturn. Companies have been slashing production to catch up with falling sales at home and overseas, and they appear to be making progress, with wholesale inventories declining. Many com-panies have more to cut, though. Boeing, for instance, said Thursday that it would reduce production of some planes next year.

Government officials have been counseling patience on the econo-my, even as they argue that actions they have taken are beginning to pay dividends. Thursday, President Obama gathered Washington-area homeowners at the White House

to spotlight his administration’s efforts to bring down mortgage rates.

Officials have also said they have reason for optimism. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s top economic adviser, told a packed luncheon in Washington Thursday that while he could not predict when the re-cession would end, “this sense of freefall ... will be arrested within the next few months.”

Some of that cautious optimism has begun filtering through to Main Street, according to the Discover U.S. Spending Monitor, a monthly index. Compared with the Febru-ary survey, twice as many consum-ers last month reported feeling the economy is getting better, though a majority still feel tough times lie ahead.

Analysts, too, say are increasing-ly confident that the breathtaking pace of the economy’s decline over the past six months is easing.

“We’re seeing more surprises to the upside,” Standard & Poor’s senior economist Beth Ann Bovino said. “Less weakness is the new strength.”

— Staff writers Lori Montgomery and Ylan Q. Mui contributed to this report.

continued on page 9

editorial & Letters | FRIDAY, APRIl 10, 2009


A L E x Y U L Y

Transfers a valuable addition

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opinion

Letter to the editor

a rare experience … that more people should have

I have a confession to make: I actually had two weeks of Spring Break this year! But don’t hate me too much; I wasn’t just tanning on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean. A week before spring break, I was lucky enough to be in Milan, Italy, representing the United States as Secretary of Defense at the annual Model G8 Youth Summit.

Around Christmas, when the international relations program sent out its periodic newsletter, the entry for the “Model G8 Youth Summit” caught my eye and I filled out the application. From there everything went very quickly, and, after a brief phone interview and a couple of meetings with Brown professors to brush up on issues of defense, I was on my way to Milan!

At the summit, there were delegations of 15 or more students, graduate and undergraduate, from the G8+5 countries. Students from the University of Oxford, La Sorbonne, the Free University of Berlin, Moscow State University and many other leading schools around the world passionately argued their countries’ positions over the course of six days.

From start to finish, the summit was one of the most exciting, educational and fun experiences of my life. In terms of my negotiations with the other Ministers of Defense, it was amazing to see how much our positions differed in the beginning, and how, through a week of intense discussion, we reached a consensus on all the different points on the agenda. While issues such as the fight against piracy or strategic missile control and disarmament were rather easy to agree on, when it came to the problem of Iran or the Missile Defense

System, much lengthier negotiations were needed. While I learned a lot from the process of negotiation

itself, it was the discussions that took place outside the negotiation room that I enjoyed the most. I believe that such a summit is a rare opportunity to meet bril-liant and passionate students from around the world and learn first-hand about their perspectives on the different global issues we face today.

After the daily negotiations were over, many of my nights were spent sitting around drinking wine with the different ministers, just learning about their personal views on many global issues. In this way, I formed a real friendship with the Russian Minister of Defense. I discovered the perspective of an educated Russian citizen on issues such as the Russia-Georgia conflict, the Putin-Medvedev dynamic and on differences be-tween Russian and American society. The knowledge I gained through these discussions and the others I had at this summit have given me valuable exposure to perspectives not represented on our campus.

The reason I am writing this column is not to say how great my spring break was, but rather to encour-age other students to apply for this type of summit as well. Indeed, I was shocked to find out I was the only Brown student to apply for this conference. As I have hopefully conveyed here, I think these types of sum-mits are rare and enlightening learning experiences, and I truly hope more students take advantage of them in the future.

Anthony Staehelin ’10 is a political science con-centrator from geneva, Switzerland. He can be

reached at [email protected].

BY ANTHONY STAeHelINopinions CoLumnist

senior staff Writers Mitra Anoushiravani, ellen Cushing, Sydney ember, lauren Fedor, Nicole Friedman, Britta greene, Sarah Husk, Brian Mastroianni, Hannah Moser, Ben Schreckinger, Caroline Sedano, Melissa Shube, Anne Simons, Sara Sunshine staff Writers Zunaira Choudhary, Chris Duffy, Nicole Dungca, Juliana Friend, Cameron lee, Kelly Mallahan, Christian Martell, Heeyoung Min, Seth Motel, Jyotsna Mullur, lauren Pischel, leslie Primack, Anne Speyer, Alexandra Ulmer, Kyla Wilkessports staff Writers Nicole Stocksenior business associates Max Barrows, Jackie goldman, Margaret Watson, Ben Xiongbusiness associates Diahndra Burman, Stassia Chyzhykova, Caroline Dean, Marco deleon, Katherine galvin, Bonnie Kim, Maura lynch, Cathy li, Allen Mcgonagill, liana Nisimova, Thanases Plestis, Agathe Roncey, Corey Schwartz, William Schweitzer, Kenneth So, evan Sumortin, Haydar Taygun, Anshu Vaish, Webber Xu, lyndse YessDesign staff Katerina Dalavurak, gili Kliger, Jessica Kirschner, Joanna lee, Maxwell Rosero, John Walsh, Kate Wilson, Qian YinPhoto staff Qidong Chen, Janine Cheng, Alex DePaoli, Frederic lu, Quinn Savit, Min Wucopy editors Sara Chimene-Weiss, Sydney ember, lauren Fedor, Miranda Forman, Casey gaham, Anna Jouravleva, geoffrey Kyi, Frederic lu, Jordan Mainzer, Kelly Mallahan, Madeleine Rosenberg Web Developers Jihan Chao

Marlee Bruning, Anna Migliaccio Designers

Kathryn Delaney, Sydney Ember, Adam Rodriquez Copy editors

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the brown daiLy heraLd

ben HymanHannah levintovasophia liemmy lissgaurie tilakMatthew Varleygeorge MillerJoanna Wohlmuthchaz kelshJenna starkbenjy asherandrew bracaalex Mazerovkatie Wood

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Higher ed editorHigher ed editor

Metro editorMetro editorNews editorNews editor

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Asst. Sports editorAsst. Sports editor

editor-in-Chief

steve Delucia

senior editors

rachel arndtcatherine cullenscott lowenstein

assoCiate editors

nandini JayakrishnaFranklin kanin

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manaGinG editors

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oPiNioNS Sarah Rosenthal opinions editor

editoriaL paGe board

James ShapiroNick BakshiZack BeauchampSara MolinaroWilliam Martin

editorial Page editorBoard memberBoard memberBoard memberBoard member

GeneraL manaGers

alexander HughesJonathan spector

offiCe manaGer

shawn reilly

direCtorsellen Dasilvaclaire kiely Phil Maynardkatie kohJilyn chao

manaGers

kelly Wesskathy buialex carrerechristiana stephensonMatt burrows

Sales DirectorSales DirectorSales Director

Finance Directorasst. Finance Director

local SalesNational Sales

university Salesrecruiter Sales

Credit and Collections

PoSt- magaziNeArthur Matuszewski Kelly McKowen

editor-in-Chiefeditor-in-Chief

to the editor:

The Herald’s Tuesday editorial (“The Transfer Tradeoff,” April 7) was at once incoherent, misinformed and offensive. It laments the “fact” that Brown’s acceptance of transfer students requires it to admit fewer freshmen, ignoring the fact that transfer students are generally filling spots vacated by students not returning to campus.

More troubling, however, is the apparent perception on which this statement is based. If the Herald editorial page board is troubled by what it thinks are transfers filling spots that might otherwise add to the number of incoming freshmen, it is suggesting that transfer admits are less desirable than those who enter Brown directly from high school. Indeed, the board seems to say this overtly in its final sentence, which claims the Office of Admission needs to “ensure that transfers are as deserving as members of the incoming class.” Combined with the editorial’s recommendation — that the number of transfers be reduced — and the headline of the piece — “The Transfer Tradeoff” — this statement gives the impression that the board needs to be disabused of several other misconceptions.

First, transfers are neither of a lower quality nor less “deserving.” In fact, transfers are disproportionately represented in leadership positions and in activity participation at Brown. Most are not transfers because they had hoped to be admitted from high school and been rejected, but because they went to schools they thought they’d like and found themselves unhappy there. In fact, many transfers did not apply to Brown from high school, and some of those that did were admitted and chose not to matriculate.

Furthermore, transfer admission is already more difficult statistically than admission as a freshman, so the board’s suggestion that the admission office should “keep the admit rate for transfers below the rate for freshman applicants” betrays an ignorance concerning even the most basic facts of the discussion. Freshmen arriving on campus this past fall faced about a 14 percent acceptance rate. Transfers arriving the same day faced a rate of around 12.5 percent, and brought with them diverse experiences from colleges all over the country.

Lots of people look at their lives and wish they were happier. Every transfer actually made the difficult choice to do something about it. Let’s not disparage that choice with flailing elitism.

Philip kloss ’11 (transfer Fall ’08)April 7


opinionsThe Brown Daily Herald

I have a thirty-something relative, a work-ing woman, married with kids. She has a Facebook account, which I can’t say I ever thought about twice — until I noticed, one day, a note she had posted.

Remember that game where you put your iPod on shuffle, and every song that popped up was the answer to some question about your life? That game all the annoying girls in your high school played when you were 16? My thirty-something relative, a working woman, married with kids, was playing that game.

It’s the sort of thing that invariably makes me cringe, the kind of thing that makes me realize, with dawning horror, just how good a chance there is that we’ll all still be help-lessly tethered to this stupid thing 10 to 15 years down the line. I’ll say it outright: Face-book drives me crazy.

I have it, I sort of hate it, but I can’t kick it, because I’m under that same delusion we’re all under; without this handy dandy network-ing tool making my life oh-so-much easier, I couldn’t possibly keep up with old pals. I’d never get the memo about campus events, and I’d probably have no friends whatsoever at college, none.

Okay, but really. Somehow, some way, once upon a time, humanity got by just fine without Facebook, right? Yes, yes, I think I can vaguely recall it. A time when friends called each other on the phone if they want-ed to get together instead of mass Facebook messaging. A time when people took pic-tures so they’d remember an event forever, not so they could happily rub it in others’ fac-es later on. A time when acquaintances said

“hello” on the street instead of ignoring each other and caught up on each other’s lives by conversing in person, not by “creeping” on the computer.

To me, Facebook is scary because we all want to be a part of it — and yet it represents an approach to life with which I can’t say I’m particularly comfortable and an outlook on human existence I can’t pretend to condone. When we log on, we are living solely for the approval of others, for the presentation of a particular public face, and existing, without even realizing it, in isolation, in an alternate cyber reality.

We hardly stop to think about the fact that writing on Jane Doe’s wall does not mean we’re talking to her — no, we’re just idly posting on a Web site she might happen to visit later on! We’re not even writing for Jane’s benefit — we’re just hoping every-one else checking out Jane’s page will think we’re pretty cool. We don’t have Facebooks so we can keep up with other people — our Facebook existences are, instead, all about

us. We think of our profiles and ourselves, Web site and person, as one and the same — and in that, I’m afraid, we’re treading on dangerous ground.

What’s alarming isn’t so much that we’re carrying on in such a way, effecting such shenanigans — we’re just kids, after all. We’re only in college, one might even argue, right? So what’s really got me worried is that this thing might actually be here to stay. I look at my elder cousin’s Facebook profile and get a bit nervous.

What’s in store for our generation in a few years’ time? Facebook albums instead

of family photo albums? Engagements an-nounced via relationship status? RSVPing to meetings and work get-togethers via Face-book event? Catching up with old friends on Facebook chat, instead of getting together for dinner? In 15 years — or in 50 years — will we still be wasting our free time sending bumper stickers and pieces of flair, playing iPod games and last-ten-people-to-write-on-your-wall games, stalking recently updated statuses and relationship statuses?

When is it time to grow up? We have our fun on Facebook, sure, but mightn’t there come a time when the decision to simply live our lives will be the better one? And as the boundary between life and Facebook grows blurrier by the day, as our day-to-day exis-tences get more deeply entangled in this web of profiles, groups, notifications and events, is it ever really going to be possible to just let it go?

Hours spent on Facebook are, at the end of the day, a bit of a waste. We live in a day and age when there’s much to be fixed in the world — a large task, and one that is in the hands of our generation. Maybe it’s time to meet the challenge — and not let a profi-ciency at social networking prove our great-est legacy.

Kate Doyle ’12 is from Westport, Con-necticut. She can be reached at

[email protected].

time to grow up

When it comes to sustainability, most Brown students think big — attacking or propos-ing national policy or urging the Univer-sity administration to create a completely carbon-neutral campus. These efforts will hopefully lead to big, positive impacts. But unfortunately, I think we big thinkers are getting ahead of ourselves when it comes to sustainability.

Many Brown students, and many Amer-icans in general, ignore our deficiencies when it comes to very simple, basic sustain-ability efforts. Most people I know have not even mastered how to recycle a bottle.

When I look into recycling bins around Brown, even the one in my own apartment, I see that most bottles have caps on them. This makes them un-recyclable and probably destined for the landfill.

Our problem is not intent, but execution. Brown students make persistent efforts to recycle. However, when people fail to follow some small piece of procedure, like remov-ing caps from bottles, their good intentions are wasted.

As the Providence Recycling Office’s Web site makes clear: “All bottle caps should be thrown into the trash because they cannot be recycled.” The reason for this policy is that plastic caps have a differ-

ent melting point than other recyclable plas-tics and will contaminate the load. Time is money when it comes to recycling, and no recycling plant employee is going to take the time to untwist and discard your caps. Individual bottles, or even the whole load, will be discarded.

Small efforts, like removing a bottle cap or properly sorting paper, could add up to huge differences. These small actions, however, are not the kind of problems that

Brown students seem to notice or get ex-cited about.

In a column from the beginning of the school year (“Brown should force students to think green,” Sept. 5) Joshua Kaplan ’11 proposed a few big, flashy, green ideas.

Among other initiatives, he advocat-ed installing sensors and displays into the Grad Center Dorms that would “show that room’s energy use and compare it with the average use of each room in the dorm at that moment.” This idea strikes me as am-

bitious, but it is not certain that it would have a substantial impact. How much ener-gy would have to be saved to make up for the manufacture and installation of these systems into the dorms, if there even is a way to measure equivalents?

Kaplan’s sensor project demonstrates a problem with “sustainability” today. Many sustainability proponents insist on pur-chasing more things, using more technol-ogy and spending a ton of money, all in the

name of some fairly uncertain payoff. I wish that more environmental advocates would recognize that we have very easy, simple and cost-free ways to be more sustainable right now.

One might say that I can’t compare ap-ples to oranges. Recycling bottles aims to reuse materials, while installing sensors aims to reduce power consumption.

Both of these activities, however, fall un-der the heading of efforts to create a more sustainable lifestyle and mode of consump-

tion. The true difference between recycling bottles and installing sensors, I believe, is each concept’s cache and ability to grab at-tention. Sadly, the difference is not the true impact that they could have in the future.

I know that removing bottle caps is not exciting. It’s not a Lexus hybrid. It’s not sensors and monitors rigged up to com-pare individual power consumption. But when it comes down to it, sustainability is not exciting.

Truly meaningful sustainability is real-ized through many mundane, everyday ac-tions like choosing fluorescent bulbs, us-ing a reusable water bottle, taking public transportation and yes, properly recycling a bottle.

No, you cannot recycle pizza boxes. No, those biodegradable containers from Blue State are not likely to degrade if sent to a landfill.

While failed efforts at recycling bottles might seem insignificant, they are only one example, among many, of ways that we have misunderstood and failed to maximize the benefits of the existing sustainability in-frastructure.

I hope that Brown students will work to-ward educating themselves about how to properly recycle, in the name of true, last-ing and simple sustainability.

Katharine Hermann ’09 is a COe and Urban Studies concentrator from Port-land, Oregon. She can be reached at

[email protected].

First things first — learn how to recycle a bottle

Truly meaningful sustainability is realized through many mundane, everyday actions

like choosing fluorescent bulbs, taking public transportation and yes, properly recycling a

bottle.

We have our fun on Facebook, sure, but mightn’t there come a time when the decision to simply

live our lives will be the better one?

KATe DOYleopinions CoLumnist

KATHARINe HeRMANN

opinions CoLumnist

FriDay, aPril 10, 2009

Today 57

PW’s ‘Art’ goes on this weekend

How to fix March Madness


53 / 39

toDay, aPril 10

6 P.M. — Relay for life, OMAC

7:30 P.M. — “Cirque de Mezcla: Mez-

cla’s 15th Anniversary Show,” Salomon

101

toMorroW, aPril 11

11 a.M. — Brown University Folk Fes-

tival, lincoln Field and Sayles Hall

10 P.M. — “SAFeTY: Brown’s Safer

Sex Dance,” grad Center lounge

ACROSS1 What’s up?4 It may be split at

lunch10 Big name in

shoes14 Sine __ non15 “L.A. Law”

co-creator16 Mishmash17 Young __18 Sightseeing at

The Steppes?20 Medical suffix22 Paid player23 Stand at attention24 Dogs’

communicationsystems?

27 Wall St. trader28 Final: Abbr.29 Close-at-hand33 Point of view36 Cádiz cat38 ’50s campaign

monogram39 Creative

executivecompensationtechniques?

43 Stowe girl44 Hurt45 Healthy-looking46 Cow country

sights49 Crooner’s asset50 Soft & __:

deodorant51 Price of the

village green?57 Increasing60 Certain

presentee61 Old Mercury

model62 Ones who never

know what to usefor their salad?

65 Cool air feature66 Swing era

bandleader Cates67 Egyptian god68 Windy City “L”

runner69 Steamy70 __ à trois71 Angry, with “up”

DOWN1 Witticism2 “Roots” hero3 Co-Nobelist

Arafat

4 “Very funny”station

5 Family-styleAsian dish

6 AmericanGreetings“mailing”

7 Severe pang8 Disgusted cry9 Soft spots

10 Haydncontemporary

11 Medical officeaccessory

12 Isn’t wrong?13 Canceled19 Literary

miscellanea21 Move stealthily25 Pitch indicator26 Nonviolent

protest30 Nice way to beg

off?31 Like Gen.

Schwarzkopf32 Swedish actress

Persson33 Imitator34 St. Petersburg’s

river35 Formula One

race36 Get

37 Chartres chum40 “‘I __ you liked

your drink,’ sezGunga Din”

41 Attractive force:Abbr.

42 Kind ofcomprehension

47 “Holy cow!”48 Rear49 “La Dolce Vita”

actress52 Pitch specialists?

53 Madrid monarch

54 “MulhollandDrive” director

55 Get together56 Political outcast57 Sci-fi hoverers58 Castel Gandolfo

resident59 Largest of the

Marianas63 Fr. title64 MS. enclosure

By Nora Pearlstone(c)2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. 04/10/09

04/10/09

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, April 10, 2009

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

[email protected]

the one about Zombies | Kevin grubb

enigma twist | Dustin Foley

sHarPe reFectory

luncH — Chicken Jambalaya with

Bacon, grilled Vegetable Calzone,

Roasted Herb Potatoes, Snickerdoodle

Cookies

Dinner — grilled Salmon with Minted

Pea Puree, Manicotti Piedmontese

Verney-Woolley Dining Hall

luncH — Chicken Fingers, Baked

Vegan Nuggets, Vegan Rice Pilaf,

greek Style Asparagus, Blondies

Dinner — Salmon with Provensal

Sauce, Toasted Ravioli with Italian

Salsa, lemon Rice

Coal to UCS for making $100 available to the Brown Origami Club, a Category I group now eligible for funding. We appreciate your commitment to the arts, but one paper crane with Benjamin Franklin’s face on it isn’t exactly what we had in mind.

A diamond to the faculty, which recently voted to change the name of Columbus Day to “Fall Weekend.” Way to strike a blow against injustice — just make sure the tickets don’t sell out in the first four minutes.

Coal to the fact that a new left-wing student investment group will be allowed to gamble with $50,000 of the University’s money. Do we really have to throw away that much cash on failed Obama commemorative plate start-ups and solar-powered longboards just to teach a few hippies the merits of portfolio theory?

A diamond to Lincoln Chafee ’75, who announced he is exploring a run for governor in 2010 without party affiliation. Finally, a College Hill Independent that non-ironically cares about politics.

Coal to the RISD students who complained this week about a bad job market. Oh, please — it’s Brown students who are after I-banking jobs that really have the right to be worried. The world will always need people to glue googly eyes on felt cut-outs of animals (or whatever you do down there).

A diamond to the University of California, San Diego, which played a very un-funny April Fool’s joke by sending out “acceptance” letters to all rejected applicants. Oh wait ... make that coal.

A diamond to new Tex-Mex restaurant Baja’s, which will open on Thayer Street this spring. If you can wipe down your microwaves more than once a year, you already have Ivy Room nachos beat.

A cubic zirconium to University planners, who are racing to spend money to build “the fastest pool in the Ivy League.” That’d sure be nice, but given our track record with pools, we could probably settle for even a semi-fast pool as long as it has a, you know, roof.

4 37CaLendar

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