B R A N D E I S U N I V E R S I T Y ' S C O M M U N I T Y N E W S P A P E R T H E H O O T . N E TA P R I L 1 8 , 2 0 0 8

INSIDE: ONE TALL VOICE PG 3SEXILED PG 4

THIS WEEKEND PG 16COMICS PG 16

VOL 4, NO. 26

STUDENT-PROFESSOR LUNCH PG 6BRANDEIS MLB PLAYER PG 14

AT BAT: Students enjoy spring weather on the Great Lawn.

PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot

CRICKET MATCH

Following a hearing before the University Board of Appeals on April 16, TYP student Mamoon Darwish, who had been suspended for nearly two months, returned to campus.

Darwish’s hearing Wednesday came after a hearing April 8 in which charges against him for an ‘alleged incident’ were dismissed

after the reporting party retracted the accusation. Darwish was thus found not responsible for those charges.

The hearing April 16 concerned a fist fight, Director of Student Conduct Advisors Laura Cohen ’09 said in an e-mail message. Cohen has served as Darwish’s advocate throughout his appeals process.

Darwish did not respond to re-quests for comment.

Unlike Darwish’s April 8 appeal, Darwish was found responsible

for the first fight. The hearing con-cerned not his responsibility but his sanctions.

In order to file an appeal with the Board of Appeals, a student must claim procedural error, fraud, new evidence, or a rights violation, University Board of Student Con-duct member Ryan McElhaney ’10 explained. McElhaney could not specify the grounds for Darwish’s appeal.

After accepting Darwish’s ap-

Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey, Chair of the Se-lect Committee on Energy Inde-pendence and Global Warming, spoke on Sunday afternoon about Congress’s efforts to address cli-mate change and the need to go green.

Following the lecture in Rapa-porte Treasure Hall, a panel of environmental entrepreneurs dis-cussed the profitability of a green revolution. This was the main event of Earthfest 2008.

“It all began right here in Waltham 200 years ago when Charles Cabot Lowell and James Moody invented, for the first time, a way of putting cloth together in one place,” began Markey, following an introduction by President Jehuda Reinharz.

He continued, “when that indus-trial revolution began, there were 280 parts per million of CO2 up in the atmosphere. 200 years later there are 380 parts per million up in the atmosphere.”

He explained the problems that have already begun to occur as a result of climate change. “Lakes are being formed because it’s so warm up in Greenland. The wa-ter is now so warm…that over the course of the summer they create crevices that burrow all the way

down the ice.” Markey also noted ice quakes that measure up to 4-5 on the Richter scale as signs of in-creasing instability.

According to Markey, the private sector will present a huge challenge to the fight against global warm-ing, as companies will be reluctant to take the steps needed to address this issue.

He applauded the efforts of Wal-mart, who planned to sell 100 million fluorescent light bulbs, in convincing General Electric to in-crease their production of more efficient bulbs. In addition, he con-demned automobile companies like Toyota for their unwillingness to adapt to the growing crisis.

Markey pointed out the responsi-bility of Americans to fight climate change, since “most of the CO2 is red, white, and blue. We’re the ones putting it up there, along with the Europeans.” Americans must be the first to take action to help all the “poor countries all around the world that don’t have the capacity to adapt to that kind of dramatic change,” he said.

Last December, Congress passed what Markey called “the most im-portant energy legislation in 30 years.”

He discussed how this legislation would help America in fighting

After second appeal hearing, Darwish returns to campus

Markey discusses a green revolution

BY BEA PATERNOStaff

See MARKEY p. 13

Last week, in the shadow of his three year anniversary, proprietor of Back Pages Books Alex Green ’04 sent an e-mail to over 800 friends, acquaintances, customers, and colleagues detailing his store’s financial woes. After three years on Moody Street, his business is on verge of shutting its doors.

“[W]ithout significant increased financial support,” he wrote in his e-mail message, “I will have to

close the store in the immediate future.”

In an interview, Green described the challenges the bookstore has faced over the past three years. “When we started, banks weren’t going to lend us any money, we had no personal property,” he said. People were skeptical of the store’s viability, “but it took off so mas-sively.” Even so, six months after the store’s opening, another book-store, More Than Words, opened two doors away from Back Pages. While the stores each have a dis-

tinct niche, Green explained, the presence of More Than Words was less than a blessing.

Shortly thereafter, Green’s busi-ness partner, Ezra Sternstein ’04 departed. “It was very hard when he left,” Green commented.

Adding to his troubles, Green was paying high rent in an unsuc-cessful location. Thus, Green de-cided to move from 368 Moody Street to the store’s current loca-tion at 289 Moody Street. After be-

VIGIL: Students commemorate the first anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech. PHOTO BY Napoleon Lherisson/The Hoot

REMEMBERING V-TECH

Alum’s bookstore faces closureBack Pages owner reaches out for help

BY ALISON CHANNONEditor

See BACKPAGES p. 13

After negotiation, Student Events returns to F-board oversight

Following two weeks of negotia-tions, Student Events has agreed to return under the oversight of the Finance Board. Student Events, citing delays and inefficiency with the F-board’s method of accessing funds, placed themselves under the

jurisdiction of Senior Vice Presi-dent of Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy in November.

“The Union presented all their changes in terms of its fiscal year—they said we’re willing to go above and beyond funding you may receive from any other source from Jean, from everyone,” said Student Events Financial Direc-

tor Ben Gordon ’08. “Considering we want to make bigger events, we came to an agreement that means we will get a guaranteed amount of money and work in the framework that we need.”

“The Union really wanted us to come back, from what they’ve said

BY ALISON CHANNONAND PAT GAROFALO

Editors

See DARWISH p. 12

See STUDENT EVENTS p. 16

BY DAVID PEPOSEEditor

2 The Hoot April 18, 2008

E D I T O R I A L

SUBMISSION POLICIES

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The Hoot is a community student news-paper of Brandeis University. Produced entirely by students, The Hoot serves a read-ership of 6,000 with in-depth news, relevant commentary, sports and coverage of cultural events. Our mission is to give every com-munity member a voice.

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

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Transparency via blog

As the winners of our most re-cent Student Union elections get settled in to their new positions, it is necessary to take a few things into consideration.

In an election filled with catch words like “open dialogue”, “rep-resenting my constituents” and “transparency”, it only makes sense for both the winners and the candidates to do something that I haven’t seen in quite some time: start a blog. It’s not that hard, ev-erybody is doing it.

Starting a blog would be a step in the right direction for our elected officials. As it stands, the only real connection the average person has to an elected official is the weekly Student Union announcements, which are long, and may or may not be read, and the Union project reports. These are impersonal ways of explaining a Union member’s progress, allow for little interaction back and forth, and just simply don’t allow the kinds of things that a blog is capable of doing.

Facebook groups might be an ef-fective tool to get elected or for a certain cause, but once an election,

event or cause is over, they aren’t something that is checked often or updated. In fact, I am still in groups from Student Union elec-tions from several years ago.

Anyhow, it would seem in the best interests of the official and his or her elected representatives to have this increased interaction. The possibilities are endless, and are completely free of charge. Just think of an elected official who had a page detailing the day to day activities for his or her constitu-

ents, photos, audio clips, videos, the ability for comments, and the ability to make suggestions. A blog could even include polls, links to relevant articles and also a simple way of getting the word out on

various issues.Finally, a blog or journal would

serve as a good way of showing students what is ongoing, and were they to attempt to be re-elected or hired for a real job, they would have a tangible site that wasn’t made in a night specifically for the election. Perhaps these blogs could even accompany the now useless “elect me” sites of the candidates who did win. And for those candi-dates running, it is a way to show the things they have done.

The whole idea is to be more open about what is going on in our Student Union. Our recently elect-ed President, Jason Gray ’10, has started a variation of this idea with itsmystudentunion.com, where students can submit messages to their elected officials, but the blog interface is absent. I would encour-age Gray and the other elected of-ficials to create a blog of their own, either as part of a larger Student Union network or as their own separate entity.

If our elected officials truly want to make the community more open and transparent, this is the way to go. Pretty looking websites and promises of open dialogue can extend past being elected.

BY ANDY MEYERSEditor

A blog or journal would serve as a good way of showing students what is ongoing, and they would have a tangible site that wasn’t made in a night specifically for the election

Help Back Pages start a new chapter

With its modest size, diverse selection of books, and in-store readings by authors, Back Pages Books is the quintessential inde-

pendent bookstore for college students. Unfortunately, the store is currently in danger of closing down--that is, if the community does not come out to support it. Alex Green ’04, the store’s proprietor, recently announced that Back Pages needs to immediately raise $50,000 and an additional $25,000 throughout the coming months in order to make it self-sustaining by September.

This situation provides Brandeis students with an op-portunity to make a difference in Waltham. Supporting Back Pages Books is a simple way to produce tangible change on a small scale. If the Brandeis community succeeds in helping to save Back Pages Books, we will be reminded of our efforts every time we pass by it on Moody Street.

Activism does not have to be high-minded. Every small effort counts. While we often aim our activist efforts at global problems, such as poverty and war, we must not forget our potential to impact our community by helping out a local business--and not just any business, but that of a Brandeis alumnus.

While Brandeis prides itself on being a tight-knit com-munity, it is time to ensure that this sense of camarade-rie stays with our alumni after graduation. Ensuring the success of Back Pages Books can serve as a symbol of what Brandeis students are capable of achieving and the support they will receive from fellow Brandeis commu-nity members.

The sense of community derived from preserving Back Pages Books will filter back into the Brandeis commu-nity. As Stephanie Sofer ‘09 said, “it became a hub that offered the opportunity to learn more about Brandeis and Waltham.” While purchasing books may be a small aspect of everyday life, preserving the personalized ser-vice that Alex Green and his bookstore offer may help students in establishing a community away from home.

Back Pages Books is far from being a lost cause. De-spite a forced closure of 40 days, Green reported a a sales growth of 46 percent in the first three months of the year. If the bookstore can move past this bout of debt, it is likely that it will flourish and become a classic institution of the Waltham community.

April 18, 2008 The Hoot 3

I M P R E S S I O N S

A writer's return to controversy

In the February 29th edition of The Hoot, I announced my sor-rowful retirement from controver-sy. I had proclaimed that I could no longer take the tension and agi-tation that comes along with saying sometimes offensive or unpopular remarks. I wrote that my skin was no longer thick enough to take the countless assailments from the people who found my comments unfavorable. Since then, I have tried to contain my detested be-liefs. Outside of my column, I have held my tongue on a number of occasions, and inside The Hoot, I have p u b l i s h e d some of the worst dribble ever written in a college publ icat ion. A month and a half wiser, I have finally reasoned that my previous actions were not appropri-ate. In our contemporary society, pathetic malcontents have nothing better to do than to take offense, and I must not succumb to the craven attacks of this vociferous group. In addition, nothing would ever be accomplished if everyone in my predicament simply quieted down. Our society thrives from the free marketplace of ideas, and I must contribute to this institution. I cannot tread the middle ground; I cannot try to appease the majority. This would make me just as bad as the spineless people who have no conviction and merely pursue the admiration of others. I cannot re-main silent. I cannot be quiet any longer. For the following reasons I announce my triumphant return to controversy, offensiveness, or whatever else you’d like to call my legitimate opinions.

I have come to the conclusion that some unsatisfied people will always take offense at certain things that people say. If I use the word “he” as my default pronoun, some crazy-person will protest that I am succumbing to the male-domi-nated patriarchy. If I use the word “I” too much, people may believe me to be egotistical. I originally be-came aware of this phenomenon after I published my first “dull” article, which was about my recol-lections of the Dachau Concentra-tion Camp. I thought that this ar-ticle was completely sensitive, that the piece had no teeth whatsoever. Nevertheless, some unsatisfied reader thought that my comments about American pride were inap-propriate, as if patriotism goes out of style. I was so unnerved by

this incident that I felt sick to my stomach. How could someone take offense at my unobtrusive article, what motivated people to become so easily agitated?

I think that some people just naturally love to take offense at things. Their lives are so menial that they must spice it up a bit with a statement of agitation. Taking offense is also an egotistical affair. They place themselves and their opinions as superior to others and go out of their way to exert their

beliefs. I pity these individuals. Is your life so lame that you must at-tack me? Are there no other chan-nels for your unbridled need to be frustrated and offended? I shall no longer allow these individuals to influence my work. They are pathetic and deserve no consider-ation whatsoever.

I am a person who has read John Stewart Mill’s On Liberty, and be-lieve that the principles expressed in that masterpiece are valid. All points of view, regardless of back-ground, need to be expressed in the free marketplace of ideas in order for society to progress. By communicating all views, people can see for themselves the validity of certain beliefs, and the melting pot of contemporary thought can be enriched. Most of the time, the only views expressed on this cam-pus are the screeching ideas of liberal propaganda. This demonic choir howls amazingly biased be-liefs, and there is oftentimes not a single voice of opposition. Of-tentimes, I think that our school motto should be “seek liberalism even unto its inner-most parts” to reflect this reality. This unanimity is bad. It does not add to the intellec-tual debate. It does not enable peo-ple to expand their beliefs. I must continue my expression in order to break this condition. In doing so, I also hope to add my views to the marketplace of ideas. In addition, I also desire to express a point of view that rarely gets conveyed on this campus. Eventually, Mill’s sug-gestions shall be advanced as new views will be voiced.

I also realized during my hiatus

that I had become everything that I hated. One of the reasons why I retired in the first place was so that I could appeal to everyone and re-duce the amount of negative feed-back I had generated because of my beliefs. I was also running for Student Union office, and knew I had to be as unobtrusive as possible in order to maximize my likelihood of victory. This stance turned me into a completely undesirable self. I tread through life without a spine, biting my tongue at every occasion

to argue. Sure, I had appealed to many, and possibly generated a posi-tive image among my peers, but these were shal-low rewards. I had no conviction, no real fervor. I had become the smiley, passionless drone that I had always hated, and this was a wretched experi-ence indeed. It is so easy to tread the middle ground, so easy to appeal to everyone and reap the rewards of positive percep-tion and commu-nity approval. It takes a real person to show convic-tion, to go against

the grain and shout out a voice of opposition. These people, after all, are the movers of our society, and I would love to once again assume this role. I now cast away my su-perficial desire to gain acceptance, and bear the burden of expressing views that may sometimes be of-fensive or controversial.

A senior editor of this paper said I would only last a few weeks in my retirement, and he was right in the most part. I can no longer be the shallow soul that I had tried to become. I shall no longer take my opinions off the marketplace of ideas, and now firmly place them out for the selling. Finally, I can no longer bite my tongue, but must ardently expresses the views that I know are right. My return was not provoked by any one person, and I hold no grudges against any critics (Emma, no haters, your col-umns rock!). I only ask you, dear reader, not to attack my character in your responses to my pieces. Ad hominem attacks are never war-ranted, but your arguments are greatly appreciated. In conclusion, I know now that I must not be one soft voice of appeasement. I must, rather, once again become one tall voice, and not care about the nega-tive consequences that may come my way. Get ready dear reader, I’ve got some amazing ideas brewing in my head waiting to be written. They may be offensive or contro-versial, but in the Millian tradition, they will add to the marketplace of ideas and benefit the Brandeis community at large.

A letter to all Clinton supporters

Dear Supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton,

As many of you know, your can-didate has a very slim chance of being nominated. I am not trying to be harsh; I am merely stating a fact. She will find it quite difficult to persuade superdelegates to sup-port her as long as she is behind in the popular vote and the delegate count, and she will remain behind in these counts unless she pulls off some truly spectacular primary wins. This is unlikely.

I understand that it is not easy to watch your favorite candidate lose an election that she was once so heavily favored to win. It must be especially difficult, given how long and bitter this primary season has been. But regardless, I believe it is time to move on.

Most of you are either Democrats or Independents, and many of you have accepted, and even cel-ebrated, the fact that Obama is the likely Democratic nominee. I am glad to hear this, as the unification of the Democratic Party is some-thing that I consider to be vital to a victory in November. But there are some of you who, for one reason or another, have decided that if Hillary cannot be your nominee, you will back McCain instead. This I must admit I find intriguing.

Now don’t get me wrong. You all have the right to vote for whomever you want. But let’s take a moment and think about what McCain stands for. He supports a continued war in Iraq. He sup-ports cutting taxes for the rich. He believes healthcare is a privilege, not a right, and will do very little to fix our broken healthcare sys-tem. He offers everything George W. Bush offered, albeit in a more articulate manner.

Yes, I said it. The media may have forgotten to tell you this, but McCain is not independent maverick. He is a conservative Republican and he can’t deny it any longer.

Hillary Clinton’s platform, on the other hand, is almost a complete opposite of McCain’s. She prom-

ises to repeal the Bush tax cuts, end the war in Iraq, and establish universal healthcare. Regardless of the media’s attempts to make her seem more conservative, she is, in fact, one of the most liberal members of the Senate.

As a Clinton supporter, I think it’s safe to assume that you are in favor of the majority of these plans (if not, then your support for her is beyond me). So, I fig-ured those of you who plan to vote for McCain aren’t thinking about the issues. This leaves three reasons:

1. They have a lot of experi-ence: Both McCain and Clinton have years of experience, true, and it is possible that you feel this is the most important qualification for a president. If so, all I have to say is pick up a history book. Read about the inexperienced presidents that turned out okay. Read about the experienced ones that turned out terrible. See a pattern? No, you don’t. There is no correla-tion between experienced men and good presidencies. It takes more than that.

2. McCain is old. If he wins, he might not run in four years, and Hillary will have her chance: Take a look around you. The economy is failing. Our military is falling to pieces. People all over the world hate the USA. Do you really think we can afford four more years of this? We need a Democrat now.

3. I just really hate Obama: Certainly possible after this pri-mary. But I’m willing to bet that you hate Bush too. And knowing that, I’m sure you’ll hate McCain. Pick the lesser of two evils.

As Hillary Clinton said dur-ing her “crying” episode in New Hampshire, “Some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country.” She is absolutely right. So for the sake of our country, I ask you to put aside the bitterness that this campaign has fostered, and remember why you supported Hillary Clinton in the first place. I don’t think it will be long before you discover that John McCain does not deserve your vote.

BY BRET MATTHEWEditor

Book of Matthew

BY JORDAN ROTHMANEditor

One Tall Voice

All points of view, regardless of back-ground, need to be expressed in the free marketplace of ideas in order for society to progress.

4 The Hoot I M P R E S S I O N S August 31, 2007 4 The Hoot I M P R E S S I O N S April 18, 2008

Head hunting

Ramble on

Sexiled

Drive-thru marriageSo I was sitting down at my com-

puter this afternoon writing a col-umn for The Hoot (as I sometimes do) and I thought to myself, I did, “Gosh! I sure have some brilliant ideas. If only there was some way to remind the reader that it is I, Noah Klinger, who is the source of such deathless wisdom.” I know what you’re thinking (or rather, I know my lazy assumption of what you’re thinking): my name is already at-tached to the headline. But that is not enough! I must use the first per-son as much as humanly possible.

Why should anyone value my opinion on issues more than anyone else’s? Easy; I wrote a column and you didn’t! Of course, this doesn’t mean that it is always wrong to use the first person, so long as your per-sonal experience had a direct and important role in the events at hand. Here are two helpful examples:

Bad: “I picked up the newspa-per today and was reminded of Barack Obama’s keynote address to the Democratic Convention in 2004…”

Good: “I remember some years

ago when I was delivering the key-note address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention…”

You get the idea. But overuse of the first person singular isn’t the only crime; the passive voice is also had by us. In the first place, use of the passive voice is a classic ‘tell’ when people want to lie, or at least shy away from the truth. By modify-ing the verbs to build some distance, we remove ourselves from the ac-tion. For example, compare these two sentences:

“The American role in influenc-ing other nations can be criticized by us.”

“We can criticize America’s influ-ence on other nations.”

Makes a world of difference, yes? The second grabs our attention and makes us think about the sentence and its message. The first sounds dry and detached, pushing us away from the content of the sentence before we can even understand it.

How you say things is at least as important as what is said. Grammat-ical errors, as well as anything which obscures the meaning of words, are not only incorrect but immoral. Now, was I not right in having that been said by me?

Shopping for Truth

BY NOAH KLINGERColumnist

What does marriage mean in modern American society? I re-member when I was younger, little girls would watch Disney movies believing that the Prince was a real person. But with age comes wis-dom and you come to learn that no one is perfect and life is more excit-ing that way. But what happened to that fantasy marriage ideal and why are we lacking it now?

Nowadays, marriage is no longer the romanticized ideal it once was. Instead, it is a matter of conve-nience, an impulse decision, or the finale episode of a contestant show on TV. The American society has a pretty loose view of marriage and what was once a fairytale is now a say hello to your spouse as you run off to work kind of thing.

Marriage has become trivialized and has become something of con-venience or an ideal from the past that no one can reach. It seems like today marriage is what people do when they get pregnant out of wedlock or something they take a spur of the moment trip to Vegas for.

In a recent Boston Globe article, the decline in marriages was dis-cussed. Why are less people marry-ing? Certainly there must be some correlation to the culture, right? In a society where marriage is more of an industry and is idealized for the commercial aspect, love seems to be an afterthought.

Don’t be fooled, I will totally be insane when I get married and go on a giant shopping spree as all who know me best will tell you, but

shouldn’t the actual wedding be the thing you think about second to the actual marriage? Call me crazy, but it seems like the actual mar-riage is an afterthought and people don’t realize what they’ve gotten themselves into. People think it’s all cakes and dresses, and then the honeymoon’s over and voila, what did you get yourself into? Women are portrayed as Bridezillas and there is even a show by the same name.

Not to judge, but what are people thinking? Seriously, why do some people get married so quickly? If you can read or interpret data, you should see that marriages that aren’t thought out aren’t likely to last. Call me old fashioned, but I always figured that it would take a relationship longer than a month or two for a couple to get engaged and married. But with all of these ridiculous ‘find your mate’ type shows like the Bachelor and Tila Tequila, what has American society done to ‘marriage?’

I admit it, I’m guilty of having watched a few of these shameless shows in the past, but now I just look at them with disgust. How can anyone expect to find love on a television show? And how does the added pressure of having your rela-tionship filmed affect things? Have we all forgotten what happened to Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey?

Some may make the argument that going on TV to find your hus-band is sort of like a blind date where you’re set up with some ran-dom person. But most of the time, blind dates involve a friend of a friend who you trust won’t turn out

to be some psycho. And sure, blind dates have turned out to make for some great marriages, but love on TV? As far as I recall, there was only one relationship of this type that actually is still going-Trista and Ryan from the first Bachelorette. And that was after her relationship failed on the Bachelor.

The media idealizes celebrity marriages and fights for the rights to wedding photos, but sooner than later they’re fighting to report the latest celebrity divorce. Don’t you think this says something? Why hold marriage up to such an ideal when you’re only setting it up to come crashing down? Let peo-ple get married in peace and maybe then we’ll have a better public track record where marriage longevity is concerned.

Surely there are some Hollywood marriages that are stable and last, but many of them are mere public-ity stints that don’t last. Why do we pay so much attention when Brit-ney Spears has a 55 hour marriage? Is that the best news we can find and is that really representative of the American society?

Marriage should be something we take seriously and should not be vulnerable to cultural influence. It has the potential to be a great thing, but only if we stop to take the time to appreciate it. Sure, ev-eryone’s busy with their careers and lives, but families and relationships take work and shouldn’t be treated like a right.

America needs to stop taking marriage for granted, or else they’ll soon learn that the honeymoon’s over!

I’m hot and sweaty. I might even still be wet.

Because it’s summer and there-fore hot out. And because maybe I just went swimming. Get your mind out of the gutter. And now be pre-pared to hop right back in…

Summer is coming up fast, and so is the time to make something other than cover letters. Receive some-thing other than paychecks. Touch something other than sunscreen. Rub something other than noses. (It’s a phrase – to rub noses. I hope you don’t think I just go around, rubbing people’s noses.)

It’s time to start getting jobs. You know the kind I mean…And for those of you who have paid intern-ships, um, screw you! However, here are some pickup lines for any job that blows:

If you work at an ice cream store, sweet cream doesn’t only come as an ice cream flavor. “No soft serve here.”

How about a smoothie place? “Wanna juice that’s all protein?”

If you babysit, I hope there is ab-solutely no pick up line necessary.

Work at Blockbuster? “Want to make a movie?”

How about a job at the gym: “Can I see your hardest muscle?”

Now, there are so many clever ones for this, but I’ll let you use your imagination after I tell you the ones that made me…laugh: Working re-tail? “Screw the clearance rack, I’d rather clear yours” or “You’ll never have to ask ‘is there anything you need help finding?’” or “I know something else that you can get me…”

Ok, coffee shop? “You don’t need coffee; I’ll keep you up all night.”

Golf courses, my area of exper-tise, led me to these: “I can play the front and back and my flag will still be standing” and “Hole in one? I’ll

put one in your hole” and “These balls aren’t always white, but they still drive, bounce, and find the hole.”

Any type of advertising firm or something like that, and you get: “The name isn’t the only thing can have firm in it.”

A restaurant? Ok, how about, “I’ll just take the tip, thanks.”

Fast food? “The food isn’t the only thing that comes hot, fast, and cheap.”

If you’re going to be a tutor: “T and A don’t always stand for Teach-ing Assistant.”

Hardware store? Well, come on! With all the screws, nails, and nuts, the joke writes itself. Enough said.

Moving on – are you working as a lifeguard? Perfect time to say, “Mouth-to-mouth is boring, let’s try something else. Besides, I’m already wet.”

I’ve got a few more, the last one is the best. So you better keep read-ing, I promise to make it worth your while.

Movie theaters have a lot of envi-ronmental stuff to go off of, but I like, “We can pop something besides snacks, and it will be just as salty.”

If you’re working at a bookstore, “I only have hard-cover.”

Grocery store? “Want me to wrap that in plastic?”

Please be better at double enten-dres than I am after reading this one about cell phone stores; “My service comes with a bonus package: longer bars and you won’t lose connection. Besides, these minutes never run out.”

And last but not least, for all you Jews out there working at Jew Camp or a deli shop: “Is your meat Kosher?”

If you’re still looking for a job, look for anything that pays…under the table.

As for me, I will be doing what I do every summer. Making sure I don’t have any tan lines…

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

BY RACHAEL BARRColumnist

Do you still support Hillary Clinton ?

Are you looking for a good pick-up line?

Or are you just a generally angry person?

Write for The Hoot Impressions by emailingbmatthew@brandeis.edu

April 18, 2008 I M P R E S S I O N S The Hoot 5

Last Thursday afternoon, I was at the demonstration of solidarity for Mamoon Darwish and support for the issues that his case repre-sents. In fact, I helped organize it. I am a graduate student at the Heller School and in my world, free time is a precious commodity. Yet I gave a lot of it to Thursday’s event—not out of devotion to Mr. Darwish, and not because of my personal convictions regard-ing his guilt or innocence. I did it out of devotion to the ideals

upon which this fine institution was founded. I did it because of my personal convictions regard-ing equity, equality, and the right to due process and a fair trial.

These are the convictions that brought me to this university in the first place. Brandeis’ deep dedication to social justice reso-nates powerfully within many of our exceptional students, faculty, and staff, myself included. A de-votion to social justice is a mar-riage to a difficult path and an endless struggle—justice, dignity, and equity are rarely gracefully given—but here is a community that believes that struggle should be made.

Yet Brandeis is a human insti-tution and not immune to the weaknesses that plague all human institutions. We talk about truth “even unto its innermost parts”—but sometimes those parts are un-comfortable. Sometimes the pic-ture they paint is not the picture we want to see. Sometimes they are threatening to our established systems of understanding or of action. These are the times when we must hold our gaze steady, lest we become that which we pre-sume to fight against.

Let me be less abstract. As those of us following the case know, Mamoon Darwish was indicted on two charges in mid February. The cases were flawed by admin-istrative oversights that resulted in an unfair trial and undue sanc-tions. Upon retrial, Mr. Darwish has been completely cleared in the first case against him; his request for retrial has been granted for the second. The process which condemned him so quickly back in February has taken months to appeal, despite the clarity of the charges of mistrial and flaws of due process.

These circumstances represent but one of a series of disquieting

examples where fair treatment, equal opportunity, and due pro-cess have been dismissed in recent history here at Brandeis. We have all read about the arrests at the Mods party; we have heard about the battle for a student group that presents another side of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We have wondered what is so shocking about Govind Sreenivasan’s film about on-campus minority expe-riences that it has been kept from student’s eyes. These instances, while linked by the minority standing of the participants, in-volve more than minority rights.

They involve human rights, and they cut right to the core of who, and what, Brandeis is.

As a university, we are a bas-tion of free-thinking in American life, but as Brandeis University, we are more than that. Most col-lege communities are devoted to pushing past our inherited molds and questioning who and how we want to be in the world. As Brandeis students, we have already answered part of that question. Yes, we are intellectually driven and committed to academic suc-cess. But that is not all. A secular Jewish university founded in the aftermath of WWII, in the wake of the Holocaust, we are also deeply committed to social justice and truth. We are wise enough to recognize that such devotion is not easy, but that it is necessary to maintaining a society in which small injustices do not become large. It is necessary to being the type of community we want to be. When this commitment is threat-ened, it threatens the fabric of our very society, not just the lives of those on trial.

That is why I participated last Thursday. I am proud of this uni-versity—proud enough to hold it to a high standard. I am proud enough to exercise my responsi-bility as a member of this com-munity to ensure that we toe the line we have drawn for ourselves. Thursday’s demonstration focused around a call for student rights, equity, and due process. Most im-portantly, it called for measures to be taken which ensure that these core Brandeis principles are ap-plied to all students, mainstream or minority. The enemy in this battle is not the school, the ad-ministration, or the student with whom Mr. Darwish fought. The enemy is injustice, who is enemy to us all.

Know your enemy Tough times for feudalismIt’s been a rough couple of

weeks for feudalism. Despite the recent hegemony of capitalism, this plucky medieval economic and political system has continually found a way to survive. In the past two weeks, however—from the English Channel to the Himala-yas—feudalism suffered a number of setbacks which might well lead us to ask: Does feudalism have a future?

Take the Channel Island of Sark, population 600. The Seigneur of Sark—a vassal of the English crown—has controlled the tiny isle since 1565. The Seigneur possesses the power to grant the island’s 40 fiefdoms to tenants in exchange for customary labor. The Seigneur also enjoys a number of lucrative monopolies. Only the Seigneur, for example, can keep pigeons on the island; indeed, only the Seigneur can have an unspayed female dog. Sark’s legal system is also pleasantly antiquated. To initiate a civil action, a subject of Sark needs only to re-cite the Lord’s Prayer in French and cry “Haro, Haro, Haro! À mon aide mon Prince, on me fait tort!”

Sadly, all this came to an end on April 9th when Sark became the last place in Europe to abolish feudalism. From now on, everyone

(and not just the 40 tenants) will have the right to vote. Before you know it, two or three people will be breeding pigeons and the dog population will swell to unsustain-able levels.

A more serious challenge to feu-dalism emerged on the following day when the Kingdom of Nepal held its first elections in nearly ten years. The election comes two years after the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [CPN (M)] ended its decade long guerilla war and agreed to participate in elections for a constituent assembly which will rewrite Nepal’s constitution. In the words of the CPN (M)’s Charismatic leader Prachanda, the Maoists are “trying to crush a feu-dal aristocracy.”

Whereas feudalism in Sark is fairly hilarious, feudalism in Nepal is anything but. Nepal is the third poorest country on earth, and a rigid caste system dominates its society. Its government is nomi-nally a constitutional monarchy; however, historically the corrupt

political elites rarely challenged the King. Moreover, on the few occa-sions when they did, the King sim-ply reinstated absolute rule. The patriarchal aristocracy long barred women from serious participation in public life, and ethnic minorities saw their rights constantly trampled upon by the government. When

the Maoist’s People’s War broke in 1996, out the security services re-sorted to disturbing tactics such as disappearing dissenters and tortur-ing anyone thought to sympathize with the CPN (M).

Originally, the CPN (M)’s strat-egy was taken straight from Mao’s On Guerilla Warfare. The CPN

(M) mobi-lized the countryside and en-circled the cities; by 2006 they controlled most of the country. At this point, Prachanda dramatical-ly changed d i rect ion . Instead of taking the cities by f o r c e —

which the Maoists had the strength to do—Prachanda decided to win the country through democratic politics instead of crippling war-fare which would have left thou-sands dead and provoked devastat-ing military responses from Nepal’s neighbors.

In the run up to last week’s elec-tion, Western media outlets like the New York Times and the BBC were full of scare articles about the Maoists. Analysts believed that the CPN (M) would (1) use violence to suppress voter turnout and (2) come in third place behind the moderate and traditionally domi-nant parties, i.e. the Nepali Con-gress and the Communist Part of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) [UML]. The Western pundits dra-matically warned that when they lost the elections, the CPM (M) would return to war.

A funny thing happened on the way to that blood bath: (1) the election was the most peaceful in Nepal’s history and (2) the Mao-

ists won. Elections officials are still counting the votes, and full results will take weeks to tabulate; howev-er, the Maoists have clearly won in a landslide. Of the 210 seats decid-ed before my deadline on Tuesday, the Maoists have taken 114. Their closest competitors, the Nepali Congress, have only 32; the UML

are not far behind with 30. This is bad news for feudalism

indeed. While the Nepali Congress and the UML have already accepted the Maoists’ demand to abolish the monarchy, neither party expressed a desire to totally revolutionize Nepalese society. The Maoists, on the other hand, want to eliminate the caste system, empower women, and raise wages for poor Nepalese workers.

In fact, in the areas the Maoists already control, these changes have been underway for a long time. Maoist-aligned unions have already forced employers to double wages in some areas, and the Maoists ran more women candidates than any party in Nepalese history. Indeed, by the time the full results come in, there will almost certainly be more women in the Nepali Assembly than in the United States Congress. Additionally, the CPN (M) has al-ready undertaken enormous infra-structure improvements in western Nepal. Their election means that these beneficent changes will take place across the entire country.

In the streets of Kathmandu, Nepalese people are already cel-ebrating. Within weeks the King will be a commoner. After that, the arduous process of writing a new constitution and governing the country will begin. The Maoist’s commitment to democracy, while surprising in light of their ideol-ogy, is not in doubt. Thus far they have gone out of their way to take control of the country democrati-cally in a political culture where violent power plays have long been the norm. To any feudalists read-ing this article I’d simply say: watch out, feudalism’s days are numbered. Prachanda is fond of pointing out that the world always looks to Ne-pal for new ideas, and this new idea of abolishing feudalism is only going to become more popular as time goes on.

BY MERRILL WILCOXSpecial to The Hoot

The Hoot accepts submissions to the Impressions section on any topic of consequence to any member of the campus community. Our mission is to give every community member a voice. The views expressed

in the Impressions section do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hoot's editorial board.

As a university, we are a bastion of free-thinking in American life.

To initiate a civil action, a subject of Sark needs only to recite the Lord’s Prayer in French and cry “Haro, Haro, Haro! À mon aide mon Prince, on me fait tort!”

BY JON LANGEColumnist

Fighting With Pinpricks

Nepal is the third poorest country on earth, and a rigid caste system dominates its society.

F E A T U R E S6 The Hoot April 18, 2008

Accidental 90% discount on gas brings crowds,

station befuddled

Boy uses nostril to fill balloons, sets record

STRANGE BUT TRUE

A Blaine, WA youth filled up 213 bal-loons with his nostrils. His parents kept track as he filled up each balloon, one by one and using one nostril at a time, and then tied them shut. The boy had attempt-ed the feat before in an attempt to earn a spot in the Guinness World Records but had been rejected because he hadn’t tied the balloons shut himself.

BY BEN SACKSEditor

A Wilmington, N.C. gas station acciden-tally set its premium gas price for the day at 35 cents instead of $3.35 and the crowds came quickly. Police had to come and control traffic flow through the sta-tion throughout the day. Not until 6 pm did station managers realize the mistake. One employee complained that not one customer came in to alert the station.

With help from neigh-bors, man moves from

treehouse to RV

During the last conversation with her ad-visor, David Cunningham, SOC, Kimberlee Bachman '08 discussed chocolate and base-ball because “they are two topics that I enjoy speaking with him about.” Not your typi-cal office hour type of conversation, right? That’s because this conversation occurred as a part of Take Your Professor to Lunch Week, Bachman’s initiative.

Bachman became acquainted with Professor Cunningham through their shared work on a Schiff fellowship last year. Her recent lunch with him was “an opportunity to hang out with Da-vid and we made a deal that we wouldn’t talk about my thesis so we didn’t, and instead we talked about our families, baseball, dessert and sociology. It was nice to relax and hang out without wor-rying about the next chapter (of my thesis) if you will.”

You probably received one of the cam-pus-wide emails advertising the program, but were you one of the almost 150 partici-pants of the Take Your Professor to Lunch program? Though Bachman came up with the idea to reinstate the program last year, the plans started this year during her role as Director of Academic Affairs. As part of the program, students were invited to take a current or past professor, an advisor, or a professor they really wanted to get to know better, to lunch. And even better, the lunch was free.

“One of my big goals going into the year was to better student and faculty relation-ships. And there’s something about having lunch or a meal, or hanging out with some-one outside of the classroom, but also out-side of the office, that you get to know them differently than you would in the classroom or in the office. And my hope was to kind of give people the opportunity to do that,” Bachman said.

When Cindy Kaplan ’08 came to visit Brandeis as a prospective student, she saw a student eating with a professor. After wit-nessing this, she was determined to take part once she was part of the community. Un-fortunately, when she got to Brandeis, the program had been dissolved, and professor-student lunches were not institutionalized the way that they used to be.

Kaplan had been meaning to meet with her advisor, Stephen Whitfield, AMST, for lunch for weeks, but a busy schedule on both ends, with her writing a thesis and him teaching classes, prevented them from doing so. But-when she received the email announcing the program, Kaplan decided it was about time to do just that. “I was so excited to finally get to experience that because it was one of my goals at Brandeis.”

“Talking to a professor over lunch is so different than office hours because it’s much more relaxed. You don’t have to talk about academics at all, and you just get to know your professor as a person, and that’s really cool,” Kaplan said. She added “getting to know your professors as humans is so im-

portant. They’re so smart and interesting.” Professor Whitfield, whom several stu-

dents took to lunch, agreed to the value of the program. In an email he wrote “getting to know students in this fashion is valuable and interesting, and the chance to converse casually and extracurricularly is for me both pleasant and educational.”

These lunches are of course, not a sub-stitute for office hours, but rather a supple-ment, as Whitfield said. “ I don't discount the value of meetings in the office, and to

conduct formal business is easier in that setting than over a pile of nachos.”But Professor Whitfield wasn’t the only

professor who was in demand for lunch, as there were over many professors who took part in the program.

We all know that rock stars have an entou-rage of loving fans, but did you ever think that professors might too? Surely Professor Harry Michael Coiner, ECON, didn’t. But he was just one of the many professors in demand.

Having participated in the former pro-gram 3 or 4 times before, Professor Coiner feels the program is a good one as it “gives students a chance to see the faculty as human beings, and it gives me a better sense of who the students are, what students care about, what they worry about. It makes Brandeis feel like more of a community. Sometimes it is hard to work out a convenient time for ev-eryone, but I feel like this is something that should happen each semester, if possible.”

For Caleb Smith ’10 who was home-schooled earlier in life, meeting with profes-sor Coiner or any other professor for lunch “ just seemed like a natural thing to do” and meeting with professors and getting to know them “makes the whole experience much more personal.”

In fact, Smith and a group of friends have taken Coiner to lunch once a semester over the past four semesters. Already planning on meeting anyway, the newly-reinstated pro-

gram only encouraged Smith to participate more.

Some of Smith’s friends viewed the lunch as intimidating because they “didn’t want to look like they were sucking up to their pro-

fessors, [but] I don’t think the professors take it that way at all.”And meeting for lunch proved Smith’s friends’ misconceptions wrong. They also benefitted from some wise advice about real-life economics and career questions. During their lunch, Smith and his friends chatted with Coiner about the 2008 Presidential election, the ways governmental policy can assist the poor, and the debate of efficiency vs. equality, among other subjects.

Smith feels there is less pressure at a meal with a professor than during office hours.

“When you go to office hours you can’t really let the conversation come to a halt. You have to keep talking and you generally need specific [class-related] questions…but a meal is casual. It’s kind of a casual time where you go into each other’s stories [and] we can ask the profes-sor about his kids and his college experience.”

For Smith, witnessing the differences be-tween the role a professor plays in class and the persona they have in person is also inter-esting; with a lecture professor like Coiner, keeping the class's attention focused is a pri-ority, and he’s much quieter in person than in class.

Holly Sarkissian ’08 and her roommate decided to take Professor Harleen Singh (WMGS) to lunch because she saw Singh as “very intelligent [and] wanted to hear more about her life outside of academia.”

“It was nice to talk to her in a less formal setting,” Sarkissian said, adding, “I think it’s good to forge better relationships with your professors and either talk to them more in depth about their subject matter or just like learn more about each other.”

Professor Singh also enjoyed her experi-ence and said in an e-mail to the Hoot, “there is so much more to students and professors than the classroom experience allows one to express, and it is always nice to get the chance to see that.”

Prof Singh also suggested a more extend-ed period for the program in the future rath-er than the one week they held this semester. “I do wish they would hold the program for longer than a week since my students and I couldn’t schedule a lunch during that week, and we ended up taking ourselves to lunch the week after!’

Bachman believes the program was “an-other way for students and faculty to kind

of communicate and get to know one another.” “The cool thing about this program…is that it was a real collabo-ration and I hope that it’s a model for future programs and future events be-cause it was a really positive collabora-tion,” Bachman said, referencing the of-fice of Students and Enrollment who funded the program and the Dean’s and Provost’s offices who assisted. “It was a true pleasure to work with the different offices in planning the program,” she added.

“I really hope that it becomes insti-tutionalized because I think that [the] positive feedback and utilization of the

program has been overwhelming,” Bachman said.

BY CHRISSY CALLAHANEditor

A Seattle man was facing eviction and homelessness when his neighbors bailed him out by buying him an RV. The man’s tree house, his only home, had been cited as a safety concern, so his neighbors found an old RV online for $50 and managed to buy it for a penny when the seller learned of their cause. The man couldn’t be hap-pier with his new home. He has been de-scribed as having many talents, including the ability to tame squirrels.

Retired police officer confronts obnoxious

people on public trainsA retired NY police officer has been ar-

rested eight times for harassing train pas-sengers who talk too loudly on their cell phones or engage in other annoying be-havior. Among other things, the man has reportedly thrown coffee, cursed loudly, and slapped people whom he deemed were behaving inappropriately for a public area. The man was dismissed after each of his first seven arrests and acquitted of all charges after the eighth. He claims to have no regret for his actions.

Woman catches and injures burglar, forces him to return items

A Cedar Rapids, IA woman saw some-one jumping out of the back window of her house as she came home and chased him with an ice scraper. She caught up and hit him over the head, at which point he gave up. She made him pick up the things he had dropped as he was running and kept him at the scene until police had time to respond to her phone call. The burglar is dealing with a cut on his head and a count of second degree burglary.

There is so much more to students and professors than the classroom experience allows one to express, and it is always nice to get the chance to see that.”

--Professor Harleen Singh

Getting to know your professors as humans is so important. They’re so smart and interesting.

--Cindy Kaplan '08

Over lunch, students and professors learn the truth

about each other

If one looks closely at the floor diagrams on the walls of Goldfarb 1, the area of the library currently occupied by the Brandeis Univer-sity Women’s Committee is labeled “Sakharov Archives.” Until 2004, Brandeis University housed a col-lection of papers (totaling eighty-one linear feet) of letters, man-uscripts, and photographs that belonged to Andrei Sakharov, who led the Soviet Union's nu-clear weapons program and later became known for his strong advoca-cy for human rights. In 1975 he was award-ed the Nobel Peace Prize, which referred to him as “the conscience of mankind”.

Four years after his death in 1989, his widow, Elana Bonner, do-nated his col-lected papers, including early

drafts of his memoirs, to Brandeis so that they could be catalogued and accessed by interested schol-ars. The majority had been carried out of the Soviet Union between 1978 and 1984. When the collec-tion was announced on October 15, 1993, former Brandeis Uni-versity President Samuel O. Thier, MD described in a brochure that Andrei Sakharov’s work expressed

“a commitment to scholarship and passionate regard for the rights of individuals” that “echoed…the spirit that led to the founding of Brandeis.”

Brandeis initially de-sired to establish “The Sakharov Center for the Study of the Cold War Era,” however a lack of funding and absence of a

strong program in Russian language studies made this goal difficult to achieve. “There was hope it [the Archives] would prompt studies of Russian and Soviet history,” recalled program director Tatiana Yankelevich, who is also Sakharov’s daughter-in-law. With the lessening pros-pects of an endowment to establish a separate center for the archives, Brandeis agreed with Elana Bonner’s decision to transfer the col-lection to the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard Universi-ty. While the collection now lives at Houghton Library at Harvard Yard, most of the cataloguing began while the collection was at Brandeis.

Yale University Press pub-lished the records of Sakharov kept by the KGB, the Soviet

intelligence division. Yale Univer-sity Press has also made digital ver-sions of the documents, in Russian and English, available online.

One of the most valuable works in the collection are the multiple drafts of Sakharov’s memoirs, most of which he wrote while ex-iled in the city of Gorky (now Ni-zhny Novgorod), about 250 miles east of Moscow. Between 1980 and 1986 his main contact with the non-Soviet world was Elana, who would visit him from Moscow and bring documents for him to refer-ence. Sakharov rewrote portions of his 1,000-page autobiography three times after the KGB stole certain portions. Visitors such as his American colleague and friend Sherman Frankel (Professor of Physics emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania) returned revised manuscripts to him in secret after

publishers had reviewed them. Along with handwritten notes

and annotated manuscripts, the collection today includes around

300 personal letters, 200 telegrams, and over 1,000 photographs. All of this was housed for eleven years here at Brandeis. It seems fitting that the col-lected works of a noted hu-man rights ac-tivist and No-bel Peace Prize

winner were housed at a university that prides itself on its commit-ment to social justice. Sakharov’s commitment to individual liberties and an open society are perhaps best illustrated in his Nobel ac-ceptance speech: “We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive.” Interestingly, Sakharov was not allowed to travel to Oslo, Norway to receive the Nobel Prize, and his wife delivered his prepared remarks, as she was already in Italy receiving medical care. One cannot help but admire his rationality and positive perspective even while liv-ing in an oppressive society.

BY SAM FUCHSStaff

So what are the Sakharov Archives?April 18, 2008 F E AT U R E S The Hoot 7

We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive.

Until 2004, Brandeis University was home to the writings, letters, manuscripts and photographs that belong to Andrei Sakharov, former leader of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons program

--Andrei Sakharovnuclear physicist, dissident,

human rights activist.

PHOTO COURTESY OF lts.brandeis.edu

A LEGEND: Andrei Sakharov giving a talk to the Congress of People's Deputies in Moscow, USSR in June 1989.

With seniors leaving, some clubs find themselves endangered

Ben Douglas ’08 knows all about what it feels like to watch a club wither away and disappear. He’s seen it too many times, as a mem-ber of Digital Arts Club, Pirate Club, and, hopefully not joining the list soon, Gravity Magazine, a humor publication.

Gravity Magazine still exists, but it and other clubs in similar predic-aments may soon find themselves facing the same fate if they don’t boost their mem-bership soon. With seniors on their way out, many clubs have a dearth of mem-bers to support them next school year.

Of Gravity Magazine’s eight or so student members, five are seniors, and of the remaining three, only two attend meetings on

a regular basis. “We always run the risk of dying out,” stated Douglas. “When I joined there were twenty or so members, ten to fifteen or so attended regularly, and the num-ber just dwindled down over the years.”

Douglas noted that membership significantly decreased in 2006 be-cause many members had been se-niors the year before, similar to its current plight.

Chalav U D’vash, Brandeis’ Jour-nal on Zionist Thought, has eleven

members, four of whom are seniors and one to two of whom will be abroad next year, leaving a grand total of five to six.

As Dan Tempkin '08, who co-founded and put tog-tether the journal's first issue with a shortage of members, “it’s not easy.”

Women’s Rugby Club was so desperate for members

earlier this year that it sent a campus-wide e-mail asking stu-dents to partici-pate so that the club would have enough members to even play a game.

What is a club to do? “A lot of times I feel that if there were an easy way to mar-ket the club to people who would care about it, then a lot of clubs wouldn’t die out the way they have,” said

Douglas.“Most of the solution relies on

talking to people one-on-one, just like finding new friends. You have conversations with people, you meet at parties...you sign them up.”

According to Tempkin, getting and keeping members requires “cooperation, welcoming in new members, having a clear platform with what the club wants to ac-complish, and something that ap-peals to a certain contingency on campus.”

Some clubs, both noted, don’t have a clear focus or theme, lead-ing to confusion over what the club is really all about.

Nevertheless, many clubs will have to go over and beyond just to “break even” and maintain their “status quo.”

Looking to help? Want to get more involved on campus? Go to http://my.brandeis.edu/clubs/ and find a club that’s right for you.

A lot of times I feel that if there were an easy way to market the club to people who would care about it, then a lot of clubs wouldn’t die out the way they have

--Ben Douglas '08

IMAGE COURTESY OF My.brandeis.edu/clubs/pirate

ARR!: The onetime logo of Brandeis' Pirate Club

BY BEN SACKSEditor

12 The Hoot April 18, 2008

N E W S

Committee recommends ceiling for ticket charges

Sunday April 13, the Free Admissions Policy Review Committee released a report regarding this semester’s free admissions policy to events funded by F-board. Union Treasurer Choon Woo Ha ’08 created the committee to create a policy recommenda-tion.

The committee included Assistant Trea-surer and committee chair Jahfree Duncan ’09, Assistant Treasurer Deb Laufer ’09, Jen-nifer Diakun ’08, Andrew Franks ’09, Tatya-na Kostochka ’11, and Richa Sahay ’09.

The report recommends that clubs be able to charge admissions fees to events next semester. The report details guidelines for admissions charges. For events that are fully funded by the F-board, the committee rec-ommends that clubs charge no more than $3 per ticket. Events which raise money for charity may charge up to $5 if 100% of their proceeds are donated to charity.

Duncan explained nearly 70% of the 283 students who filled out a survey on the free admissions policy “felt that free admissions should be extended.”

However, because the free admissions

policy hindered clubs’ ability to add money to their fundraising accounts, Duncan felt it important to allow clubs to charge admis-sions to event. “I think fundraising accounts are very important to undergraduate clubs,” he said.

“Fundraising is that extra level of student autonomy,” he added. Preventing clubs from accruing monies in their fundraising accounts through a free admissions policy, Duncan re-mark, “is an unfair restraint on clubs.”

“I was fine with no ticket costs,” said Brandeis Players treasurer Mike Martin ’09, “but the one thing that happened was that it prevented any money to pay for certain fees and unexpected expenses, which happens quite often with shows.”

While Duncan defined the free admissions policy as a boon to students, he stated that it is “unfair to club leaders.”

“Club leaders,” he said, “are the most im-portant part of student government.”

In order to compromise the need for clubs to raise money and students’ need for in-expensive entertainment, Duncan and the committee settled upon a $3 ceiling for most events. “Three dollars instead of five has some effect on the amount of money stu-dents shell out of their pockets,” he said.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Mandy Carter gave a short speech followed by an informal discussion with students on coalition build-ing, activism on campus, and her experience as an African American, lesbian social justice activist. The event took place on Wednesday night and was sponsored by TRISK, the Women of Color Alliance, and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.

When Mandy Carter won the Gay and Les-bian Advocates and Defenders Spirit of Jus-tice Award in 2006, an award honoring those dedicated to the ideal of a just society, TRISK officer Scott Frost ’09 knew that “she need-ed to come to Brandeis.”

Frost ap-proached lead-ers of identity-based groups on campus about the idea of sponsoring Carter to come to Brandeis. Frost explained in an e-mail, “For a couple of years, I have noticed that Brandeis stu-dents often put themselves in boxes and get attached to particular aspects of their iden-tity at the expense of the others. I thought it would be important for the campus to have a speaker with a passion for combining inter-secting identities on both the individual and group level to achieve progressive change.”

In the Intercultural Center lounge, couch-es were pushed to form a circle, and as stu-dents trickled in, they were warmly greeted by Carter. “How did you hear about the event?” she questioned. Before she started her speech she struck up several conversa-tions with students and asked about the his-tory of the ICC.

She began her speech by telling a brief version of her “story,” she emphasized the importance of journeys, how people get to where they are today.

During the civil rights movement, a schoolteacher at Mt. Pleasant High School in Schenectady, NY, where Carter attended, brought a representative from the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee to speak to his students. He spoke of the “power of one,” how one person can im-pact change and Carter described how she was “intrigued by it.”

She explained, “we live in a society that tells us that no one person can make a dif-ference.” The representative invited the stu-dents to spend a week at a work camp in Pocono Mountains and this is where Carter said she gained “the tools” to be an orga-nizer.

After high school, Carter went to the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence, a school founded by singer Joan Baez and where Carter joined the Anti-Vietnam war movement. She, along with 400 other stu-dents, participated in a peaceful protest and blocked the entrance of the Armed Forces Induction in Oakland, California.

She then spoke about her experience as an African American, lesbian activist. As a person of multiple identities, she described

how it was confusing and distressing, to be told by feminist, black, and LGBT activist groups that she could only bring a “part” of her identity to the group.

Carter said, “we have been so compart-mentalized in our organizing…I’m bringing all of who I am to my work.”

She suggested that groups could be orga-nized, instead, based on the connections be-tween race, class, gender, and sexual orien-tation. Carter cited as an example a protest

that Southerners On New Ground, a group Carter founded, organized against the Mt. Olive Pickle Company.

In this case, she explained, the common denominator was money. A coalition of so-cial justice groups protested the company and eventually there were labor laws and unions at Mt. Olive.

Following her speech, Carter prompted a discussion by asking students how optimistic they are about the change they can impact through activism. Most students were fairly optimistic. FMLA president Emily Kadar ’08 said that “she used to be more cynical,” but because of learning more about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, she realized that, while they were heroes, the civil rights movement mainly involved “ordinary people working with other ordinary people.”

Rachel Kincaid ’10 commented on how activists may sometimes feel that they are not making a difference. “[What we do] doesn’t necessarily make a difference in our ordinary lives…it’s hard to see effects.”

The discussion then shifted to specifically Brandeis social justice on campus.

Sahar Massachi ’11 expressed that there is “no real activist community” because it is “fragmented” and there are so many of them.

Frost offered an explanation for Massachi’s observation. “[People] are overwhelmed and caught up in the work they are doing…there is not enough time to branch out,” he sug-gested.

Members of the Activist Resource Center present at the event explained that the cen-ter has been working on developing an infra-structure so groups can connect on campus. However, they described how it was difficult since the center did not have an office.

Carter ended the workshop by having stu-dents voice what, in a perfect world, they would want to achieve at Brandeis.

The answers varied from connecting activ-ist groups on campus to people conversing, who wouldn’t normally converse. Mandy Carter stated, “[Sometimes we] are so into what is not happening that we forget what it’s like to dream.”

BY ALISON CHANNONEditor

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Mandy Carter discusses activism and identity

BY KAYLA DOS SANTOSEditor

peal, “the Board of Appeals reheard all witnesses and all were cross examined. The Board then decided on new sanctions,” Co-hen explained.

According to Cohen, Darwish’s “official punishments are Disciplinary and Residen-tial Probation until December 2008.”

Cohen added, “After reading the new sanc-tions, Prof. William Kapelle (HIST), chair of the Appeals Board, stated that [Darwish] was allowed back on campus.”

“There’s no definite answer to whether or not [the outcome of] his first appeal affected his second,” McElhaney said.

Generally speaking, McElhaney explained, during a hearing to determine responsibil-ity, UBSC members are not informed of a person’s previous Rights and Responsibilities violations. If a student is found responsible, UBSC members are informed of any viola-tions during the sanction hearings.

“If an appeal overturned responsibility,” he said, “the second appeal would no longer be able to consider the prior event.”

“I believe the Board made a fair and bal-anced decision,” said Cohen, “Mamoon’s right to due process and procedural fairness were upheld during yesterday’s hearing.”

“The appeals process functions well,” said Director of Student Development and Con-duct Erika Lamarre, who handled Darwish’s initial conduct referral. However, she added

that “if an appeal goes through, that doesn’t necessarily mean there was a problem with the process in the first place.”

During Darwish’s appeals hearing, 10 to 15 students sat in the hallway outside, as a show of support. “Mamoon has had a great deal of support from both his friends and the Brandeis community,” wrote Cohen. “That kind of dedication is not seen often on this campus, or anywhere else for that matter. I think its a testament to how committed the students of this campus are not only to up-holding due process and procedural fairness, but to the University’s greater message of social justice.”

Despite Darwish’s return to campus, be-cause of the length of his suspension, he will not be able to complete his TYP year, Cohen said. “Now that Mamoon is allowed back on campus,” she commented, “we will be focused on figuring out how Mamoon can finish his TYP year.”

An inability to successful complete the TYP program jeopardizes Darwish’s ability to matriculate as an undergraduate degree student in the Fall. Union Advocate Brian Paternostro ’08 compared Darwish’s pre-dicament to that of a high school student ac-cepted to the university who failed to earn a high school diploma.

He said, “it’s unclear what course equiva-lent equivalents [Darwish] could take to suc-cessfully complete the program.”

Darwish suspension overturnedDARWISH (from p. 1)

Senator-at-LargeNoam Shouster ’11Justin Sulsky

Class of 2009 SenatorEric AltermanSung Yo Loon

Class of 2010 SenatorPaul BalikRebecca Wilkof

Class of 2011 SenatorLev HirschhornAlex Melman

Senator for RacialMinoritiesKamarin Lee ’11

F-board Member forRacial MinorityStudentsAdonis Watkins ’09

Justice of the Union JudiciaryRachel GrahamKagan ’09Judah Marans ’11Jordan Rothman ’09Julia Sferlazzo ’09Danielle Shmuelly ’10

Student Union Election Results

For a couple of years, I have noticed that Brandeis students often put themselves in boxes and get attached to particular aspects of their identity at the expense of the others. I thought it would be important for the campus to have a speaker with a passion for combining intersecting identities on both the individual and group level to achieve progressive change.

--Scott Frost ’09

April 18, 2008 N E W S The Hoot 13

global warming, and drew attention specifically to his own amendment, which called for an increase in the fuel economy vehicles of cars driv-en in the United States from 25 to 35 miles per gallon. A requirement to increase fuel econo-my has not occur red , according to Markey, since 1975.

M a r k e y went on to discuss how the current generation should address this is-sue. In regard to the private sector, he stated, “the only reason they’re not changing is because they don’t think they have to.”

He further discussed the smaller contributions people could make by turning off their computers and electronics at night, buying hybrid cars, and buying energy efficient products. “You have to change the way in which people think about

the issues so that an investment is not a deficit, but something you gain back.”

“There’s a new energy revolu-tion, a green revolution, a green in-dustrial revolution. That’s going to be what the 21st century is known for,” said Markey in closing. He continued, “This is your genera-tion’s great opportunity to have the defining moment when you have the answerable courage to use your skills…to make a difference.”

The panel, which followed Mar-key’s lecture, featured President and Founder of Solar Design As-sociates Steven Strong, and Direc-tor of Institutional Greening Pro-

grams for the NGO Green Seal Mark Rentschler.

Both Strong and Rentschler dis-cussed their companies’ actions to-ward fighting climate change, and the role that NGOs will play in the green revolution.

Students who attended the lec-ture seemed pleased with Markey’s comments. Susan Paykin ’11 re-marked, “Congressman Markey’s address was definitely inspiring. It’s exciting and reassuring to know that there are representatives in the government who strongly ad-vocate for confronting the issue of climate change, and especially em-phasize the need for investment in alternative energy sources.”

Sahar Massachi ’11, how-ever, disagreed with some of Markey’s comments. He stated, “While I respect Ed Markey, I was very shocked when he bragged about behind a force behind the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The 1996 Telco act decreased competition, in-creased consolidation of

media outlets, and was, at its core, a raid on government coffers by a few big Telco companies. I’m very upset that Markey is proud of this egregious example of corporate welfare.”

Even so, Massachi agreed with Markey’s position on the environ-ment. “I applaud his realization that we can grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time. Furthermore, his char-acterization of India and China, and how we had to tell them to stop polluting carbon from a posi-tion of having done so already, was spot on,” he commented.

Markey calls for green energy MARKEY (from p. 1)

ing assured he would be closed for less than two weeks, “this building had been held up endlessly in permits…we were closed for 40 days.”

Despite the 40 day shut-down, Green’s sales for the first three months of the year are up by 46 percent, he said. However, in late March, Green explained, “I realized…that I’d done a fairly decent job of reducing [the store’s] debt and I still wasn’t going to be able to come out of it fast enough.”

“This business is successful but not with what’s weighing us down,” he stated. “If we can erase the debt from before, we could be successful.”

As such, Green wrote in his e-mail, “[t]o resolve the current situation we need to im-mediately raise $50,000 and an additional $25,000 throughout the coming months that will allow the bookstore to be self-sustaining by the September textbook season.”

In order to reach that end, Green has de-vised a tiered membership plan. The plan, which Green modeled after a bookstore in California, allows customers to buy one year

memberships for anywhere between a $20 Entry membership and a $2500 Platinum membership. Depending on the level of membership, members receive certain ben-efits. For Platinum members, Green will ar-range a dinner with a guest author.

The membership plan “is the same as the idea of sending out the e-mail,” Green explained. “Fifty percent of what makes a good bookstore is the owner and 50% is the people.”

“I would never want people to throw money at me without them understanding my gratitude,” he said. “These are hard times and people don’t have extra money. I abso-lutely would love to give something back.”

Green stressed the importance of support not only from Waltham residents but from the Brandeis community as well. In addition to some students purchasing course books from the store, President Reinharz pur-chased $100 gift certificates for all depart-ment chairs a few years ago. “In a very basic business way,” Green explained, “Brandeis is absolutely crucial.”

But for Green, Brandeis support extends beyond the financial. “There’s nothing

Brandeis hasn’t done to extend itself and make me feel welcome” on Moody Street, Green remarked.

Back Pages has received significant help from professors and students who feel a connection to the store. Prof. John Plotz (ENG) remarked, “[Green] is really tuned in to the needs of a college community.” Plotz went on to praise the many readings Green has hosted at his store.

“Everyone in Boston comes to treasure independent bookstores,” Plotz said, “we all want to do everything we can to keep it afloat.”

Stephanie Sofer ’09 is a member of Green’s advisory board to devise strategies to pre-vent closure. Upon a recent visit to the store, Green handed Sofer a copy of the e-mail he sent. “The minute I started reading, I knew that I had to help,” Sofer explained.

For Sofer, Back Pages Books provided a sense of community she missed during her first year at Brandeis. The bookstore, she said, “doesn’t only sell books, it provides a place for students to hang out.” And more-over, “it became a hub that offered the op-portunity to learn more about Brandeis and

Waltham,” she said. Green elaborated upon the relationship

between his store and Brandeis. “It’s a par-ticularly giving and open institution,” Green said. “Brandeis understands better than oth-er universities that you can make business succeed while being fair to customers.”

Sofer mentioned Green’s positive busi-ness model, pointing to Back Pages’ positive impact on students and the Waltham com-munity. In turn, she said, “it’s my duty as a Brandeis student….to support local business who help facilitate places of community and education to not only survive but thrive.”

From Green’s perspective, Brandeis’ abil-ity to help Back Pages succeed is evidence of the school’s relationship with Waltham. “Brandeis is a lot more tied to the commu-nity than it even knows,” he said.

“There’s absolutely no distinction between how I see Brandeis and how I see Waltham,” Green remarked. The school, he said, is like a neighborhood of the town – a neighbor-hood that “brings something to town that is necessary for the survival of a local book-store.”

Back Pages Books introduces membership program to raise fundsBACKPAGES (from p. 1)

Journalist Gelbspan addresses reality of climate change

In Earthfest’s concluding event, journalist and environmental ad-vocate Ross Gelbspan discussed his perspective on climate change. In front of a small crowd in Lown Auditorium Wednesday evening, Gelbspan introduced his topic as “God awful.”

Gelbspan, a former editor at The Boston Globe, began reporting on environmental issues after learning of a cover-up by oil and coal com-panies. His original impulse to in-volve himself with this work “had nothing to do with trees,” he said.

“We are standing at the threshold of runaway climate change,” Gelb-span remarked at the beginning of his speech. In order to effectively mobilize public support, Gelbspan explained, the press must effective-ly inform the public of the reality of global warming. However, “the carbon lobby has mounted a suc-cessful campaign of deception and misinformation,” he said.

“The coal influence has muted the press,” Gelbspan continued.

As such, Gelbspan denounced the oil industry’s public denial of global warming as one of the big-gest obstacles to change.

“We need a switch,” to green en-ergy, Gelbspan remarked, “and we needed it yesterday.”

Gelbspan also criticized the Bush administration for its failure to support meaningful environ-mental policy.

Gelbspan further argued that climate change will lead to greater instability in geopolitics.

One of the “casualties of climate change is the democratic process itself,” he stated. Chaos caused by extreme environmental changes would likely lead to totalitarian governmental measures, he said. As such, the battle against climate change “requires a revival of our system of participatory democra-cy,” Gelbspan commented.

Acknowledging climate change, Gelbspan said, “plays havoc with one’s sense of future.”

“It’s a bittersweet kind of awak-ening,” he added.

Even so, Gelbspan said that climate change can act as a unify-ing force. “We are citizens of one profoundly distressed planet,” he said. “The global climate makes us

one.” Gelbspan stressed cooperation

between countries. “We need to elevate cooperation over competi-tion,” he said.

He explained the importance of countries embarking on clean en-ergy switches in tandem in order that one country doesn’t suffer a decrease in competitiveness as it makes the transition.

Embarking on a transition from fossil fuel to clean energy will cre-ate a tremendous number of new jobs in developing countries, Gelb-span explained, thereby helping to create “a far more equitable, se-cure, and prosperous world.”

“Our survival depends on a will-ingness to join together as a global community,” Gelbspan remarked. “Nature is giving us another chance to finally get it right.”

BY ALISON CHANNONEditor

There’s a new energy revolution, a green revolution, a green industrial revolution. That’s going to be what the 21st century is known for.

--Congressman Markey

It’s exciting...to know that there are representatives...who strongly advocate for con-fronting...climate change.

--Susan Paykin ’11

PHOTO BY Napoleon Lherisson/The Hoot

Are you intrepid? Do you like meeting new people?

Would your name look sexy on the front page? Contact Alison Channon at

achannon@brandeis.edu to write for The Hoot!

As the reporters filed out of what was once the locker room of the New York Jets in the underbelly of Shea Stadium, victori-ous New York Mets pitcher Nelson Figueroa ’96 sat with his wife Alisa at his side, his four year old daughter Renee happily chirping on his lap, and hundreds of family and friends waiting out in the corridor. It was the pin-nacle of a long journey for the Brandeis that took him four years around the world until opportunity arrived in the form of the New York Mets.

“Willie [Randolph] came up to me in bat-ting practice and said this was going to be my opportunity and that he believed in me and to go out there and do what I could do and enjoy it,” Nelson said.

With all eyes on him, especially the one hundred friends and family members in Billy Wagner’s suite, and the knowledge that his first start back could be his last, Figueroa responded with flying colors. The powerful bats of the Milwaukee Brewers were held at bay as he went six innings with six strikeouts. Figueroa had a perfect game going until a walk to Corey Hart in the fifth ended perfec-tion and J.J. Hardy’s double later in that in-ning ended the shut out. Nelson surrendered one more run before turning the ball over to the bullpen where they kept the Brewers off the scoreboard and preserved the 4-2 win.

“To have the opportunity to come back in baseball and pitch for my hometown team and have the confidence from Willie [Ran-dolph, NY Mets manager] and [pitching coach Rick] Peterson and Omar [Minaya, general manager] too…I’m very grateful to them for the opportunity,” Nelson told re-porters after the game. “I was in such a good rhythm, really minimized my mistakes, even the pitch Hardy hit was a curveball, could have been down a little but the game’s a game of less than inches.”

Figueroa’s journey begins back in 1992 when the Brooklyn native spurned offers from Division One schools and joined Pete Varney’s baseball squad. While at Brandeis, Figueroa took courses in Engineering and American Studies while hanging out at the radio station at times from 2-4 am, playing unedited NWA records. Figueroa finished his major in 1998 but did not receive his di-ploma until this year.

“They said I owed some kind of loan for something, I’m like, ‘I don’t believe I owe anything.’ I think it was all taken care of 10 years ago and my wife surprised me this year when I came home, she had it up on the wall.”

Figueroa and his wife, who was at Brandeis as an athletic trainer for the Boston Celt-ics during Figueroa’s time at Brandeis (they didn’t date until long after Brandeis), keep in touch with Coach Varney and invited him to the game. He couldn’t attend as he spent the day coaching Brandeis to a 5-4 victory over Bridgewater State.

“Yeah, he’s soft”, Figueroa joked. “He be-came a grandfather and now he’s soft.” He then turned serious about Varney. “He was a tremendous influence on me, throughout Brandeis and well past. He’s softening every year. I remember he had number 25, and he gave it up to a freshman I think two years af-ter me, and I said right then and there, ‘you’ll never be the same.’ Whenever he’s between the lines, he becomes a whole different per-son.”

Aside from Brandeis coach Richard “Pete” Varney, the person whom Figueroa

connected most with was his advisor, Jerry Cohen, and he made an effort to take all of his courses.

“Which one didn’t I take” Figueroa said, recounting his time. “I went to my first class with him and just fell in love with the way he talked, the way he pushed the debate, the way he was so receptive when we sat down…I didn’t even like the other classes. He’s the only person that is real to me, I was lucky to have him…For me being a Puerto Rican at Brandeis, there’s not many that get to Brandeis and even excel and do the things I did and make the friends I made. I have life long friends coming out of Brandeis; my wife and my beautiful daugh-ter because of Brandeis.”

In 1995, with his 6’1 frame and command over four pitches, Figueroa caught the attention of Major League Baseball scouts. Figueroa saw his dreams come true when the Mets selected him in the 30th round, 833rd overall. Although easy to overlook due to the low position, Figueroa made his stuff speak in volumes as he picked up seven wins with Ap-palachian League club Kingsport Mets. By 1998, he made it to double-A Binghamton. However, he soon learned a hard lesson about professional sports – things can change in an instant. Figueroa was traded to the Arizona Dia-mondbacks in a five player trade.

“I’ve learned one thing in this game, you can’t control anything,” Nelson explained. “I can only control when the ball is in my hand and I’m out there on the mound.” Figueroa later explained, “Its part of the journey. You always think when you’re a little boy and you want to play baseball for the rest of your life, you think it’s easy. Sign with one club, make it to the major leagues and be there forever, and win a world championship, but the real-ity of it is how few of us make it into the big leagues. For me, at each level, being a 30th round draft pick by Mets, I really had to ex-cel at each level. So as I was excelling and moving up the ranks and getting more and more excited about possibly playing for the Mets, I got traded and it was probably one of the worst days of my life because I didn’t want to go. Got to Arizona and provided me with an opportunity to make it to the big leagues maybe a little quicker than the Mets organization because they were new. Played there, got traded right away, went to Philadelphia which provided me with an op-portunity to pitch my first almost full season to show what I could do. They gave me the ball every fifth day and I made the most out of that opportunity…Now I’m back with a championship caliber team and want to be a part of that for as long as I can.”

Figueroa made his MLB debut on June 3, 2000, facing the Texas Rangers. His perfor-mance made him the first Brandeis alum to play in a major league game, and afterwards he became the first Brandeis alum to lose a

game, giving up four runs and seven hits in 6.1 innings. Figueroa appeared in two more games until he was part of another five play-er trade, this time to Philadelphia. He spent 2001 with the Phillies, picking up his victory on July 1st against the Florida Marlins and earning three more throughout the year, along with five losses. He then spent next season with Milwaukee and two years with the Pirates where, until last week, his last Major League appearance was a two inning relief appearance.

Released by the Pirates after tearing his ro-tator cuff, 2005 was spent rehabilitating his shoulder from two surgeries. His ‘team’ be-

came “the physiotherapy associates in Arizo-na who took care of me and helped me get better.” Fully recovered from his injuries and rehab, Figueroa returned to the professional ranks with a triple-A club, New Orleans, in 2006. The next year saw him get cut by Se-attle in spring training, and with no takers, Figueroa turned his attention internationally. It was a difficult period for Nelson but one thing that never changed was the love for the game.

“The game was always going to be fun; that was kind of my escape from every-thing. My escape from all the hard work, everything that I went through, being away from my family… the only time I was really content was by playing baseball. So to go all over the world and sacrifice that time from your family and friends and without them, without their support – that was the hardest thing for me, being in Taiwan and not being able to see your daughter in the morning and take her to school. I never felt I was going to give up, as long as someone was going to let me play somewhere. It was the same reason with Brandeis… I went to Brandeis with the ‘big fish in a little pond’ theory, I figured if I could do that there, I could do that any-where in the world.”

Nelson picked up his career with Dorados de Chihuahua of the Mexican League, and later that year, he ended up in Taiwan, play-ing with the Uni-President Lions of the Chi-nese Professional Baseball League. Thanks to his arrival, the Lions climbed into the postseason and made it to the 2007 Taiwan Series. Figueroa shined in the series, starting in games one, four, and seven, winning them all, and taking the MVP Award. Not stop-ping to rest, Figueroa returned to represent Mexico in the Caribbean Series where he

also won the MVP Award. Acting on a tip from scout Ramon Pena, Mets GM Omar Minaya watched him pitch and invited him to Spring Training where he won a spot in the bullpen thanks to a solid spring and a rash of injuries to the Mets arms.

Although back in the majors, Brandeis is never far from his mind. After leaving school, Figueroa worked in the offices, working hard especially to recruit and bring in more mi-nority students to Brandeis. Unfortunately, the school has not been the most receptive or accommodating to one of the most suc-cessful athletes the school has produced. For one thing, he still doesn’t know why Brandeis

hasn’t retired his number or inducted him into the athletic hall of fame.

“One of them said they wanted me to get back to the big leagues and the next person says they want to wait for my career to be over. Then the next per-son said, what happened was that Adam Levin – he was our scorekeeper for the baseball team, and so once he became the AD (actually sports informa-tion director), he’s like, ‘we’re going to retire your jersey this year’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t make it, you know I’m trying to hook with a team and I’m going to be in spring training’ so he says that then we’ll have to wait until I can… What I couldn’t under-stand was why not during alumni weekend which is

in October which I’ll be done playing ball, I can go then… I would love to go down there and get that done this year.”

Despite the joy of the night, Nelson knows better than anyone that rarely is any-thing guaranteed in baseball, and he cur-rently has to keep an eye over his shoulder. The day before the start, the Mets brought in Claudio Vargas, ostensibly as another body to tryout for the fifth spot. With Figueroa’s strong start, he’ll still have to show he can do it again. Still, he has shown no signs of stop-ping now, and he takes pride at his legacy and notoriety within the Brandeis community.

“You always talk about trying to leave your mark wherever you go, and that’s been my biggest goal all my life, to just be remem-bered for more than being a baseball player. Any time I can use my notoriety to help oth-ers and to try and make someone else’s life better or to try and inspire someone else. I had it rough growing up, but baseball pro-vided me with so many opportunities. My education was first and foremost to me, and to get a Brandeis degree meant the world. I visited my uncle and my cousin in the cem-etery before I came, and Jackie Robinson’s grave is maybe a two minute walk from there, so I went there and visited Jackie Robinson’s grave, and he has a quote on his tombstone very similar to that, ‘a man is measured by the lives he changes’ and I believe in that.”

Eventually departing to enjoy the praise, love, attention and big meal courtesy of his family, Nelson Figueroa could smile know-ing that after everything he went through, the rehab, the minors, the long distances traveled – for at least one night, he was on top of New York.

14 The Hoot April 18, 2008

S P O R T S

BY ZACHARY ARONOWStaff

Brandeis alum Nelson Figueroa ‘96 returns to the major leagues, picks up victory for the Mets

BASEBALL: Nelson Figueroa ‘96 and his wife Alisa after his win against the Milwaukee Brewers.

PHOTO BY Zachary Aronow/The Hoot

April 18, 2008 S P O R T S The Hoot 15

The weather was hit or miss this past Saturday as the men’s and women’s Track and Field teams traveled to UMass-Lowell for the George Davis Invite. The Judges did relatively well in the second competition of their outdoor sea-son and had numerous individual standout performances. The men performed relatively strongly in the field, but they were able to re-ally excel in the long distance and sprinting events. The women also competed well in every part of the arena. The squad excelled in the jumps, sprints, and long distance events, making a good showing be-fore their championship season in just a few weeks. Strong individual performances led to team success despite the on-and-off weather this past weekend.

Numerous members of the men’s team competed strongly at

the competition this Saturday. In the high jump, Frank Longo ’08 was able to jump 5 feet 10 inches, enough to place him fifth for the event. The men also excelled in the triple jump as Shyam Vimal ’09 and Frank Longo ‘08 were both able to jump around 41 feet, earning them 5th and 6th place respectively. These two competitors also raced in the 110-meter high hurdles, where they placed in the top ten for the event. Co-Captain Patrick Gregoire ’09 finished the 100-me-ter dash in 11.42 seconds, earning him seventh in the event, while teammate Ned Crowley rounded out the sprints with a fifth place performance in the 400 meters. The Judges also performed well in the distance events. Matt Jennings ran close to his personal record in the 1500-meter run with a time of 3 minutes and 58 seconds, plac-ing him in fourth. First-year Dan Anastos also ran well, with a per-

sonal record time in the two mile run, finishing the race in 9 minutes and 38 seconds. Ryan Cheng ‘10 also added to the team’s success with a fourth place finish in the steeplechase. The men performed well in numerous events this past Saturday.

The women’s team also per-formed well at their meet at UMass-Lowell. Olivia Alfrod ’08 led the sprints with a second place finish in the 400-meter dash, completing the event in just less than one min-ute. In the 800-meter event, Em-ily Owen ’11 finished sixth with a time of 2 minutes and 25 seconds. The Judges had a strong finish in the 1500-meter run with 3 team members placing. Rookie Marie Lemay ’11 finished in just under 4 minutes and 52 seconds to claim third place for Brandeis. At her back were teammates Grayce Selig ’11 and Beth Pisarik ’10 fifth- and sixth-place finishes respectively.

Adie Sprague ’08 put Brandeis on the map in the hurdles with a fifth-place finish in the 400-meter high hurdle event. The Judges also ex-celled in the field. Suzy Bernier ’10 and Bessie Bianco ’08 jumped over 5 feet to claim third and fourth for Brandeis. Ali Sax, returning to the field from injuries, took fifth in the triple jump. The weather prevented Brandeis from competing in the throws, but these performances nevertheless showed strong depth all around the arena.

Members of the men’s team had positive comments about their re-cent performance. Co-Captain Dan Suher remarked, “I think everyone is starting to come back around to the shape they were in toward the end of indoors, although we are not quite there yet.” He continued by explaining “since UAAs is in the middle of the spring schedule, we did not exactly peak for the meet, rather it is just another good meet

to get some fast times.” Suher fin-ished by saying “I would expect everyone to have some fast time this weekend” where they will be competing at the UAA champion-ships in Chicago.

Members of the women’s team similarly had good remarks about the meet at UMass-Lowell. Co-Captain Katy Agule ‘09 stated, “The meet on Saturday was a great one.” She went on to explain that “everyone’s looking really strong for the upcoming UAA meet and hopefully we can run strong throughout this week and then in Chicago.”

The Judges have the UAA Cham-pionships at the University of Chi-cago over the first weekend of the Passover break. This past meet provided good competition for the Judges as they prepare for the championship season right around the corner.

BY JORDAN ROTHMANEditor

Men’s and Women’s Track team yields strong finishes in George Davis Invite

This Saturday, the wait is over. The NBA playoffs begin. This year there are many questions. Which team will come out of the strong West? Is this the year of Kobe? Is it time to end a 20+ year drought and bring the NBA Championship back to Boston?

Since Day One, the Eastern Con-ference has been dominated by the Boston Celtics. The Celtics won 66 games, seven more than any other team. They swept the season series of 17 different teams, including their first round opponent Atlanta Hawks. The Celtics also only lost 5 games to the West, making it likely that they will win the NBA Finals this season.

Three other series in the East will occur in the first round. The second place Detroit Pistons, com-ing off of their seventh straight 50-win season, will take on the 7th seeded Philadelphia 76ers. The two teams split the season series. In a battle of two of the best young big men in the league, Chris Bosh’s To-ronto Raptors will take on Dwight Howard’s Orlando Magic. Finally, for the third straight season, the Cleveland Cavaliers will take on the Washington Wizards in the first round of the playoffs. Cleveland, led by the league’s leading scorer LeBron James, has won each of the last two playoffs.

In the East, Golden State would have been the #4 seed in-

stead of Cleveland. In the West, Golden State is sitting this year’s playoffs out. All eight teams in the Western Conference playoffs have won 50+ games.

The #1 and #8 seed match-up is between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Denver Nuggets. Den-ver has two tremendous scorers and a strong defensive presence in Marcus Camby. What the Lakers have is Kobe Bryant, the man who should be voted MVP. If there’s any team with enough firepower to take down the Lakers, it might be Denver. But can Denver stop Kobe?

The #2 seed and #7 seed match-up is between the New Orleans Hornets and the Dallas Mavericks. The Hornets have Chris Paul, who many think should be MVP. Dallas has not done well since acquiring Jason Kidd at the All-Star break, and Dirk Nowitzki has lacked the killer instinct to win games this season. This match-up may be between two of the better talented teams in the West, but neither may have what it takes to win it all.

The other two match-ups are San Antonio versus Phoenix and Utah versus Houston. San Antonio has defeated Phoenix twice in the last 3 playoffs. Phoenix now has Shaq to contend with the Spurs. Utah against Houston will be a rematch of last year, when Utah won. How-ever, Houston is without Yao Ming this time.

BY JOSH GELLERStaff

NBA playoff look: Dominant Celtics

with strong chance to win Championship

What a difference a year makes. After spending last year escaping from the mire surrounding the fall out of former coach Mary Sullivan’s dismissal and adjusting to a new coach in Jessica Johnson, Brandeis Judges softball’s April 16th sweep of MIT, 9-1 and 11-0 now gives them their 19th and 20th wins of the season. This rep-resents the fastest run to 20 wins in school history.

In Game One, catcher Erin Ross ’10 went 4-5 with four runs bat-ted in while Kate Streilein ’08 sur-rendered only one run and picked up seven strike outs as Brandeis waltzed to the 9-1 win. Also having a big day at the plate was Natalie Volpe ’08, who went 3-5 with two RBI’s of her own. Along with 15 hits, Brandeis took advantage of six MIT errors. Of the nine runs

surrendered by Engineers hurler Leah Bogstead, only one was an earned run. Mopping up the win was Emily Vaillette ’10, who had a scoreless inning of relief.

Showing that the first game was no fluke, the Judges demol-ished MIT in game two thanks to nine hits and five Engineer errors. Needing only one more run to put the eight run rule into effect, Brandeis rounded up four thanks to an RBI ground out from Carly Schmand ’11, an RBI triple from Melissa Cagar ’11, and two passed balls. Rookie second baseman Cagar set the tone as the leadoff hitter, finishing 3-4 with two RBI’s. Danielle Lavallee ’11 and Saman-tha Worth ’09 each had two hits of their own. Earning the win was Natalie Volpe scattering three hits over four innings, and Allie Mus-sen ’10 got through two walks to preserve the shut out. MIT pitcher

Jessica Oleinik was charged with three earned runs out of the elev-en Brandeis scored off her.

The win gives the Judges their third straight 20 win season and extends their winning streak to 14 games. Brandeis softball contin-ues action over the break, hosting Bates College on April 19 at 11 am. On April 21, Brandeis faces a big test as they play four games in one day, starting with a double header against Regis beginning at 12 pm and then a double header against Smith at 4 pm. From there, the Judges hit the road, taking on Sa-lem State on April 22, Framingham State on the 23rd, Fitchburg State on the 24th, and Bowdoin College on the 27th. After the road swing, Brandeis closes out their regular season at with Babson coming to town on April 29 and Emerson College on the 30th. Both games are at 3 pm.

BY ZACHARY ARONOWStaff

Brandeis Softball dominates MIT in

doubleheader sweep

Falling victim to a sweep in dou-bles play left the Brandeis Judges men’s tennis squad at the mercy of visiting MIT. They did not get a re-prieve as the Engineers left Judges on the losing end of a 6-3 defeat.

The double’s pairings of Scott Schulman ’09/Simon Miller ’11, Steve Neiman ’11/Seth Rogers ’10 and Dor Almog ’11/Mayur Kas-etty ’11 could not score a victory against #13 MIT’s powerful squad. The number two pairing of Nei-man/Rogers came closest, going

to a tiebreaker but falling 7-9.In singles play, Brandeis scored

tough wins at the top of the line up as number one Simon Miller took his match, 6-3, 7-6, (7-3) and number two Steve Neiman rallied after dropping the first set 2-6 with two straight wins of 6-4, 6-4. Seth Rogers scored the last point for Brandeis in the number four match, also requiring a tie breaker round where he triumphed 6-3, 3-6, 10-4.

Unfortunately, with the sweep in doubles, MIT needed only two matches to clinch the victory. They came at the bottom of the line up

as Kasetty fell in the number five match 4-6, 1-6, and Dor’s 4-6, 3-6 defeat in the sixth match slammed the final nail on the lid. The Engi-neers picked up another victory in the third match as Schulman was unable to claim the tie breaker vic-tory, falling 4-6, 6-3, 4-10.

Brandeis is now 5-10 on the sea-son, but it gets to enjoy a five day layover before traveling down to Connecticut to take on Wesleyan at 3pm. Then, from April 24-27, Brandeis has Georgia on their mind as they travel down to Atlan-ta where the UAA Championships take place.

BY ZACHARY ARONOWStaff

Men’s tennis falls to MIT

In a play by Sinan Unel, a photojournalist and her colleague are captured by insurgents in Iraq. Sevgi is given one telephone call, which she chooses to use to talk to her estranged mother. The lines blur between the captors and captives and a tentative friendship forms while bombs rain down around them. This play tackles

issues of identity, faith, and mystery, in this “ripped from the headlines” story.

W E E K E N D F U N16 The Hoot April, 18 2008

Spotlight on BostonThe Cry of The Reed

Friday to Sunday, April 18-20, 2008, 8 p.m.Wimberly Theater, 527 Tremont St., Boston

Beethoven. Wang. What more do you need? International concert violinist Linda Wang performs, for the first time in Boston. Beginning with Beethoven’s tragic Coriolan, then his transcendent Violin Concerto, and finishing with his Eighth symphony, this is one Beethoven-filled night that you don’t want to miss.

Brilliant Beethoven, Wonderful Wang!

What's going on at Brandeis?

Insert Comic Here By Anthony Scibelli

Akwaaba means welcome in the Akan language of Ghana. Appropriate, because at this event, sponsored by the African Students Organization, you’ll be introduced to African Culture and History. Special guest Banky W, an artist who plays a large range of genres from hip-hop to

traditional Nigerian, West African tunes, will perform. Dance into early morning!

Akwaaba!: Re-presenting Africa to YouFriday, April 18, 2008, 7:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. Levin Ballroom

Like Oprah? Trust her opinion? She likes Marjorie Thompson and you might to. Listen to this singer-songwriter strum blues and folk tunes on her guitar. Chomp on free bagels provided by Rosenfeld’s Bagels and sing along.

WBRS Acoustic CoffeehouseSaturday, April 18, 2008, 1 p.m.Multipurpose room, Shapiro Campus Center

Friday, April 18, 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 20, 3 p.m.Faneuil Hall, Boston

Still at Brandeis over the weekend? If you like baseball and don't have tickets to the next Red Sox game, show some school spirit and go cheer on the Judges as they face-off with Bowdoin College in a home game. It’s a good way to enjoy the nice weather and it’s free. Take yourself out to a ballgame.

Baseball: Judges Home GameSunday, April 20, 2008, 1 p.m.Athletics Field

Judge B. Owl By Ian Price

For more information visit http://www.huntingtontheatre.org

For more information visit http://www.bostonclassicalorchestra.org

they really want the benchmark of having allocations of having over a million dollars—that’s very impor-tant to them to have a benchmark of a million,” he added. “They wanted us back—they didn’t want money being spent by a student group, especially a secured organi-zation that they had no say over.”

Student Events Co-Director Ilyssa Adler ’09 said, “I think the most important thing is we’re not ‘going back’ to the F-board—we’re turning a new leaf…we’re both groups that are meant to serve campus life. We were able to come to an agreement that will only help the student body.”

“I’m glad we can put our fi-nances behind us,” said Student Union President Shreeya Sinha ’09. “[Now] we can work together more on improving social life, en-gaging students and supporting each other to put on the most in-novative ideas and policies.” When asked about the evolution of the negotiations, Sinha said that the F-board kept Student Events’ criti-cisms in mind when altering the Treasury protocol.

According to Student Union Treasurer Choon Woo Ha ’08, under the new proposal, Student Events could ask for additional funds past its benchmark using the F-board’s 24-hour system, and ap-ply for a P-Card to expedite pay-ments. Ha also added that Student Events would be able to apply for a grant, which would allow the group to transfer funds amongst their various requests.

“If we have extra money left over… instead of appealing to the F-board to have it changed or giv-ing it back to the Union we can move it straight over,” said Student Events Co-Director Lauren Barish ’08. “It allows us a lot more flex-ibility in terms of our planning.”

Ha, meanwhile, said he was satis-fied with the arrangement, because Student Events would honor the Student Union Constitution and its bylaws.

Gordon said that another incen-tive to return to the Student Union was additional funds. “The Union basically told us that they can give us money in excess—a huge sum of money that we could never get from Jean Eddy…we believe they have a lot of rollover money. They have a lot of money that needs to be reallocated: to have more bar-beques to have more concerts, to put on a huge concert,” he said. “We really believe we can get an al-location of $150,000, which even under our budget under Jean, we would never be able to do.”

Indeed, according to Sinha, “the maximum that Student Events was receiving from the administration used to be their minimum baseline amount received as a secured orga-nization from the Finance Board.”

When asked about the admin-istration’s response to the new proposal, Gordon said they were supportive of the idea: “They’re all supportive…with $150,000 bud-get, the possibilities are very, very large to us—we can plan a lot big-ger than we thought.”

Barish added, “I think there’s two things: I think the first thing was similar to what the Union was saying. I think Student Events and the Student Union are the two most powerful and prominent or-ganizations on this campus—if the two organizations can work with respect to each other, a lot of good things can happen.”

Adler added that the arrange-ment was “done in a very friendly way… it was something the groups approached each other with,” she said. “We have a lot of respect for the Union, and the Union for us, and this is a reflection of that.”

“It’s good that students were able to come to an agreement amongst themselves without interference from anybody,” said Ha. “It’s all about communication…our con-stitution and the bylaws are going to be protected, and that’s the best part. That’s why I’m so proud that students were able to do this.”

Student Events to receive Finance Board fundingSTUDENT EVENTS (from p. 1)

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