THE

COLLEGE
HILL

THE BROWN/RISD WEEKLY | OCTOBER 7 2010 | VOLUME XXI ISSUE V

5 TEA PARTY POOPERS

8 AT WAR, WITH ZEN
14 STUPID WORLD BY DESIGN
17 POEMS FOR DWAYNE CARTER

IT’S PRETTY HARD TO ARGUE WITH A ZORSE

-p. 12
 The
College
Hill Independent
contents from the editors If Wyclef Jean was president, he would get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, so the Independent
is glad to officially announce Jean was appointed visiting fellow in the Department of Africana Studies at
NEWS Brown.
2 Week in Review Late December 1993, Who ruled the industry? Early October 2010, Who ruled academia!@!
Deepali Gupta, Ashton Stait, Natalie Villacorta, Emma Whitford
Jean was brought on board as part of the University’s Haitian Initiative. All we wanna know is, where my
3 No Leap ‘til Brooklyn
Jonah Wolf money at?
You lying man! $410,000 from Yelé, his charity, paid out to businesses owned by Jean; failure to file 2005,
2006, or 2007 tax returns; allegedly $2.1 million he owed to the IRS as of August 2010. Wonder how much
METRO
4 Compassionately High on Drugs Brown is paying, man.
Daniel Stump I heard he sang a good song, but what about that Esquire interview in which he stated: “We have to build
5 Conservativism in Rhode Island an open system that doesn’t stop [the small ruling elite of Haiti] from making money, that will work for
Jack Fujito, Simon van Zuylen-Wood
them, if only because what they’re making could double, triple. Everything starts with policy.”
NATIONAL Not exactly challenging social inequality—give Haitians what they need, a Mastercard or Visa or Amex.
7 Mr. Fujito and Mr. Prince go to Washington (for a I got one question for you, Wyclef, actually I got a few.
Rally) Money, money, money, moneyyyy
Jack Fujito, Timothy Prince
It drives the world crazy.

FEATURES -GAW + AKH

8 Zen Warfare
Tomas Rocha
9 FUNKMASTER FLEX CUSTOM CAR AND BIKE SHOW
Alex Spoto

SCIENCE
11 Ovarian Barbarian
Nupur Shridhar F A L L 2010
1 2 Science News Brief: Battle Edition MANAGING EDITORS Katie Jennings, Tarah Knaresboro, Eli Schmitt • NEWS Ashton Strait, Emma
Katie Delaney Whitford, Jonah Wolf • METRO Maud Doyle, George A. Warner, Simon van Zuylen-Wood • OPINION Mimi
Dwyer, Brian Judge • FEATURES Alice Hines, Natalie Jablonski, Marguerite Preston, Adrian Randall • ARTS
ARTS Jordan Carter, Alexandra Corrigan, Erik Font, Natasha Pradhan • SCIENCE Katie Delaney, Nupur Shridhar •
1 3 The Independent interviews a “Genius”
Alex Corrigan SPORTS Malcolm Burnley • FOOD Belle Cushing • LITERARY Rebekah Bergman, Charlotte Crowe • X PAGE
14 Design defecates, self-congratulates Katie Gui • NEW MEDIA Kate Welsh • LIST Simone Landon, Erin Schikowski, Dayna Tortorici • DESIGN
Alex Corrigan Maija Ekay, Katherine Entis, Emily Fishman, Maddy McKay, Liat Werber, Rachel Wexler, Joanna Zhang • IL-
LUSTRATIONS Emily Martin, Robert Sandler • COVER EDITOR Emily Martin • MEGA PORN STAR Rapha-
OPINIONS ela Lipinsky • SENIOR EDITORS Margo Irvin, Simone Landon, Erin Schikowski, Emily Segal, Dayna Tortorici
1 5 Religion in Mexico is bubbly • MVP George A. Warner
Julieta Cárdenas

SPORTS COVER ART: Valentina Sarfeh

16 LeBron James Plays Games The College Hill Independent
Malcolm Burnley PO Box 1930, Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
LIT theindy@gmail.com
17 I don’t write shit ‘cause I ain’t got time -LW
Franny Choi
Letters to the editor are welcome distractions. The College Hill Independent is published weekly during the
fall and spring semesters and is printed by TCI Press in Seekonk, MA.
X
18 Talia Levitt
The College Hill Independent receives support from Campus Progress/Center for American Progress.
Campus Progress works to help young people — advocates, activists, journalists, artists — make their voices heard
on issues that matter. Learn more at CampusProgress.org.

as if you care... ephemera

Mommies of ancient Egypt.

The mommies of ancient Egypt were not like the mommies we think of
now. The mommies of ancient Egypt were not wrapped up. They were put
in the sand, and they had to wait

Mummies had to be involved the and Ballmer would cut open a space in the
body and then they would wait for 42 days why the body deteriorate. A far
say would put this kind is embalming fluid inside the body. It would drain
all body fluids. They then took all the body organs in five different jars.

Mommies were very, very interesting to me. I think the greatest mummy
of all was King tied, because when they opened his toe there was a plague
that will released itself. And when they finally got to the very burial place
of King tied they found many of treasures. Many of great treasures.

I think it took an Canopic jars were very interesting the way their heads
were shaped it was all how the organs were put in saw. I think it’s interest-
ing that the organs had to be wrapped in Lenin. And including these differ-
ent kind of jars that there was different heads for each jar.

In conclusion, I think mommies were really cool. And that’s why I’ve done
my essay on mummies
THEINDY.ORG
WEEK IN REVIEW
by Deepali Gupta, Ashton, Strait, Natalie Villacorta, Emma Whitford
Illustration by Kah Yangni
Yogis for
Christ!
Next time you consider changing into
spandex and easing into child’s pose,
wrap your mind around this: yoga is in-
compatible with the Christian faith, ac-
cording to Dr. Albert Mohler, Jr. presi-
dent of the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary.
“Christians are not called to empty
the mind or to see the human body as a
means of connecting to and coming to
know the divine,” Mohler said in a blog
post last week. Clearly Mohler has never
practiced yoga before, because connect-
ing with the floor, let alone the divine,
is challenge enough when your arms and
legs are twisted into a complicated pose.
Many Christians are confused by
Merton’s announcement. Yoga is often
taught in churches and practicing Chris-
tians have said they view it as simply an-
other way to pray and worship God. They
cite the Bible’s call to renew and prepare
their minds for action and to “set [their]
minds on things above, not on earthly
things” (Colossians 3:2).
Other Christians are just interested
in yoga’s physical and health benefits.
Besides increasing balance, flexibility,
and muscle tone, research shows that
yoga reduces stress and improves mood
and concentration. But more impor-
tantly, yoga is all the rage. Celebrities
like Madonna and Jennifer Aniston are
huge fans of yoga, citing it as great way
to cope with the stress of stardom.
So what exactly is it about yoga that’s
got Mohler turned upside down and bent
out of shape? Mohler says that the poses
aren’t the problem, but the necessity of
intense meditation to achieve them: “Be-
lievers are called to meditate upon the
Word of God—an external Word that
comes to us by divine revelation—not to
meditate by means of incomprehensible
syllables.”
Perhaps Mohler’s issue with yoga is
the connection to Eastern religions like
Hinduism and Buddhism. Or worse,
the sexual energy of some styles—the
sweat, the skin-tight spandex, and the
provocative poses that conjure up kinky
sex positions out of the Kama Sutra…
downward-facing doggie-style?
Mohler’s views are not new. The Cath-
olic Church has expressed disapproval of
eastern and New Age practices like herb-
al medicine and crystal healing since the
1980s. Despite this condemnation, yo-
ga’s following has soared. With millions
of Americans currently practicing yoga,
and research demonstrating its numer-
ous health benefits, Mohler is going to
have to be a little more flexible.
-NV
Minimum Tact
There are several things about Linda Mc-
Mahon that are indisputable. It is a fact
that McMahon is a candidate for the U.S.
Senate in Connecticut. She is a member
of the Republican Party. It’s also true
that she was CEO of World Wrestling
Entertainment (WWE) before she de-
cided to launch a senatorial campaign.
Her CEO position was pretty cushy, in
the neighborhood of $46 million a year.
But move away from biographi-
cal facts, and things start to get foggy.
On the last day of September, McMa-
hon admitted that she didn’t know the
minimum wage—federal or state. She
couldn’t say for sure if any of her employ-
ees at WWE received it. Still, she couldn’t
resist voicing her opinion: “I think we
ought to review how much it ought to
be, and whether or not we ought to have
increases in the minimum wage.” Demo-
cratic opponents immediately pounced
on the coifed 61-year-old in pearls, ac-
cusing her of supporting a decrease in
the federal minimum wage.
For McMahon’s clarification, the
minimum wage is $7.25 on the federal
level and $8.25 in CT. The Department
of Labor reports that 2.6 million work-
ers earned less than the minimum wage
in 2009—4.9% of all hourly workers in
the country. Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a
policy analyst with the Center for Law
and Social Policy in DC, speculates that
a lower minimum wage would make jobs
unaffordable for some potential work-
ers. After deducting transportation and
childcare, people would actually be los-
ing money.
When it comes to millionaires and the
rest of the world, it seems that miscom-
munication is inevitable. After reports
of McMahon’s ignorance hit the inter-
net, her campaign immediately issued
a statement that the words ‘review’ and
‘cut’ do not have the same definition.
One spokesman was especially indig-
nant: “Noah Webster, I’m certain, is
turning over in his grave today.” Appar-
ently, just because McMahon wants to
review the mystery wage, doesn’t
mean that she wants to slice it up
into tiny pieces.
-EW
It’s the Great
Famine, Charlie
Brown
Ireland looks to be headed toward its
worst financial tragedy since the po-
tato famine. The country’s banking
system has hit a rocky patch that needs
a €50 billion fix—the price Ireland’s
central bank has put on recapitalizing
the floundering financial institutions
if this financial blight continues to
spread. The Irish banking system has
been struggling ever since the property
market boom ended, causing the casual
lending practices during that period to
finally catch up with them.
The majority of this economic fertil-
izer will go to the Anglo Irish Bank—
€34 billion worth of green growth, in
fact. Why bother trying to coax these
dying businesses back to life? Accord-
ing to the Irish Finance Minister, Brian
Lenihan, “the failure of a bank on that
scale would do huge damage to the lo-
cal economy here in Ireland. This is the
only course to follow if we are to ensure
the future economic well-being of our
society.”
Unfortunately, the bailout will dig
the country into a deep hole, causing
the budget deficit to balloon from 12
percent to a whopping 32 percent of its
gross domestic product and exploding
the total government debt to a strato-
spheric 98.6 percent of the GDP if gov-
ernment estimates prove correct.
“The Irish banking system is at rock
bottom today,” Lenihan told reporters
in a news conference last week. The Eu-
ropean Union is also taking a pointed
interest in the economic health of Ire-
land. As mandated by EU regulations,
Ireland’s budget deficit needs to be at
or below three percent of its GDP. The
EU has good reason to be concerned—
the value of the Euro
2
News
slipped from $1.379 to $1.368 the day
after the announcement.
Plans to get the budget deficit below
three percent in the next four years
have led to vicious pruning of the Irish
national budget. Lenihan has already an-
nounced plans to hack €3 billion from
the budget later this year—that’s a
whole lot of potatoes.
-AS
Holy Holy Holy
Last Thursday, a three-judge panel in
Uttar Pradesh, India ruled that a highly
contested holy site in the city of Ayod-
hya will be split into three parts in order
to resolve a 60 year-long dispute. Two of
these parts will be given to Hindu groups,
while the third will be given to a Mus-
lim party. Some people might make the
point that this basically seems like split-
ting it into two unequal parts, but they
obviously just don’t understand. Some
people might even find it ridiculous that
a holy site can be ‘split,’ but who knows
where they’d get an idea like that.
The site is said by Hindus to be the
birthplace of Rama, one of the most re-
vered incarnations of Vishnu, a principal
god of maintenance and upkeep in the
Trimurti, or Hindu triad of deities. The
site was also once the location of the
Babri Masjid, a mosque constructed in
the 16th century that stood until 1992,
when Hindu extrem- ists—claim-
ing that a temple to Rama
had previous- ly existed
there— tore it
down. This act
sparked year-
long riots that
caused approxi-
mately 2,000 deaths
and exacerbated ten-
sions between Hindus
and Muslims, whose rela-
tionship was already shaky due
to decades of violent and some-
times deadly territorial conflict.
The panel’s unprecedented divi-
sion was based partially on histori-
cal accounts of Hindus and Muslims
worshipping together at the site and
generally being friendly and non-mur-
derous with each other before their wor-
ship segregated during British rule in
the mid-nineteenth century. Last week’s
resolution of this case—originally filed
in 1950 but kept alive in the judicial
system by a series of appeals—was met
with an unexpectedly quiet and non-
violent public response. Indian officials
have interpreted this as a newly arisen
maturity among the Indian public (and
more unusually, Indian officials) regard-
ing the situation. Impartial observers
are just hoping that this outbreak of
institutional back-patting
doesn’t accidentally
turn into another
riot—perhaps
it’s just that
no one cares
enough anymore.
-DG
3 O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
News
ALL ROADS LEAD T O
S B R O O K LY N Young Brunonians take differ-
eptember was a
uniformly
tressing month
for Kings County
Democratic Party Chair Vito Lopez
(Kings County has the same borders as
dis-
the borough of Brooklyn). In addition to
two federal probes into the politician’s
conduct, New York’s Department of In-
vestigations (DOI) launched an inquiry
into the Lopez-founded Ridgewood-
Bushwick Senior Citizens’ Council.
Though Lopez no longer has official ties
to the organization, his campaign trea-
surer is the director and his girlfriend is
the housing director. After the DOI ex-
posed the organization’s $340,000 in du-
bious claims and several inexperienced
board members—including 86-year-old
Carmen Orlando, who admitted to sign-
ing unread documents and getting paid
$25 to attend meetings, as well as two
non-English speakers who reported
“Brooklyn is probably thought
to be the hippest place at least in
the US, maybe even on Earth…
and yet we have an old-school
political machine that is out of a
totally different era.”
voting “yes” on every initiative—New
York Governor David Paterson froze the
Council’s $25 million in state contracts.
This past Monday, each of New York’s
daily tabloids ran a different Lopez cover
story. The New York Post revealed that the
federal government had sold the Senior
Citizens’ Council’s abandoned buildings
for ten dollars each and given the orga-
nization $24 million to renovate them.
Meanwhile, after shadowing both Lo-
pez’s Bushwick (Brooklyn) brownstone
and his girlfriend’s apartment in the
adjacent neighborhood of Ridgewood,
Queens, the Daily News questioned
the eligibility of the assemblyman who
didn’t live in his own borough.
According to Lincoln Restler B’06,
the recently elected state committee-
man representing the neighborhoods
of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Fort
Greene, Lopez’s corruption is matched
only by his influence among Brooklyn’s
53 elected officials, 52 of whom are Dem-
ocrats. “Brooklyn is probably thought to
be the hippest place at least in the US,
maybe even on Earth,” Restler told the
Independent. “Brooklynites are fiercely
independent and forward-thinking and
diverse, and yet we have an old-school
political machine that is out of a totally
different era.” As councilwoman Letitia
James told the New York Times, “some
people, when you mention the name Vito
Lopez, they quiver. They’re fearful. And
here this kid comes and knocks him on
his butt.”
Right now, Restler’s victory is as sym-
bolic as it is practical. State committee is
a part-time, unpaid position whose main
duties are the election of party officers
(such as Lopez) and the appointment
ent sides in the Kings County
Democratic Party
by Jonah Wolf, Illustration by George Warner
of judges. Still, Restler sees potential to
change Brooklyn’s inbred political sys-
tem, where “a fifth of the members of
the state committee have been involved
in the appointment of immediate family
members to the bench.” And Restler’s de-
feat of Warren Cohn, whose father held
the contested seat for 27 years with Lo-
pez’s support, is a significant blow to the
Brooklyn Democratic machine. Restler’s
victory by 120 votes was declared on Sep-
tember 22 after a week of recounts.
A Brooklyn native, Restler concen-
trated in Latin American Studies and Af-
think you are going to come in here and meet me one-on-one, they see that I’m
tell me how to run the party? It doesn’t an independent guy and I have my own
work that way.” Disenchanted, Cowherd opinions about things.” In our conversa-
and Lauter decided to use their resourc- tion, Restler emphasized the difference
es to challenge Lopez’s primacy: Restler
was the first candidate fielded by New
Kings.
between Levin’s results-oriented politics
and his own reform-minded campaign.
But the way things are going, it looks
Also present at that meeting was Steve
Levin B ’04, at the time Lopez’s chief of
like the “meaningful progressive change”
Restler desires is already happening.
staff and now the City Council represen-
tative for Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Levin,
who didn’t respond to requests for an
Ask JONAH WOLF B’12 about Brook-
lyn.
interview, grew up in Plainfield, New
ricana Studies at Brown, where he used
Jersey, and concentrated in Classics and
the departmental undergraduate group
Comparative Literature at Brown before
to start a lecture series for Hope High
moving to Brooklyn and working as a
School students. (He also contributed
community organizer. While campaign-
to the Independent.) After graduation,
ing last year, Levin told the New York Ob-
Restler moved to Fort Greene, where he
server, “I would just say that when folks
started working for the Office of Finan-
cial Empowerment and joined the boards
of several community-based non-profits.
Restler first became involved in politics
during the 2008 presidential campaign,
when he joined Rachel Lauter B’06 while
canvassing the borough with Brooklyn
for Barack, a grassroots organization.
After the election, Lauter and her boy-
friend Matt Cowherd approached Lopez
about integrating the organization they
had started, New Kings Democrats, into
the larger Democratic party. According
to Cowherd (as reported in the Village
Voice), Lopez replied, “You guys are a
bunch of gentrifiers and newcomers. You
THEINDY.ORG
 IN COM PA SSION C E N T E R
Rhode Island Department of Health Denies All
Medical Marijuana Dispensary Applications
by Dan Stump
Illustration by Isabel Khoo
“ Well can you just tell me
the name of a neighbor-
hood where I can get
some?” The voice on the phone was that
of an older woman, a cancer patient un-
dergoing chemotherapy. On the other
end of the line was JoAnne Lepannen,
Executive Director of RIPAC, the Rhode
Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, a
group dedicated to furthering education,
legislation, and patient care with regard
to medical marijuana. Lepannen had just
told the patient that RIPAC did not have
any available caregivers to help her get
the medicine she needed to be able to
tolerate the pain of chemotherapy.
In an effort to increase the availabil-
ity of marijuana to patients, the Rhode
Island General Assembly amended the
“Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slat-
er Medical Marijuana Act” in June 2009
to include a provision for the establish-
ment of Compassion Centers, non-profit
organizations licensed to grow and pro-
vide patients with marijuana. The bill
included a mandate to issue the first
Compassion Center license by January
16, 2010. However, bureaucratic red-
tape has held up the licensing process
for months. And on September 10, the
Rhode Island Department of Health de-
nied all 15 applications for Compassion
Center licenses.
R E D TA P E TA N G L E
Demonstrating the bureaucratic efficien-
cy that Americans have come to expect
from state governments, the Rhode Is-
land Department of Health (HEALTH)
did not even begin accepting applica-
tions until May of this year. HEALTH
held public hearings in June on the ap-
plication process and initially intended
to pick up to three of the best applicants
for licensing by July. The date was then
pushed back to September to allow for
“additional review.”
When the time came to announce
the results of the application process on
September 10, HEALTH shocked every-
one: none of the fifteen applicants were
“deemed qualified to apply for registra-
tion.” In a press release, HEALTH stated
that nine of the fifteen applicants did
not score high enough on their applica-
tion to qualify. Several of the others were
told their applications had too many
pages.
“It’s hard to imagine that a review
process would fault a group for providing
too much information,” said Chris Reilly,
a spokesperson for the Thomas C. Slater
Compassion Center, one of the leading
groups in the application process, “If
page counts were truly an issue, I find it
hard to believe they would have accepted
our application in the first place.” Reilly
said his group abided the 25-page limit
for the main part of the application, but
did provide additional pieces of informa-
tion such as business and security plans
which were not to count toward the lim-
it.
Applicants were never informed of
any procedural errors with their applica-
tions in the five months of deliberation.
Assuming that HEALTH’s goal is to pro-
vide patients with the safest means to
get their medicine, it would seem logical
for them to address any application is-
sues up front so they could be corrected.
Further questions are raised when
Maine’s Medical Marijuana Program
is taken into account. In January of
this year, Maine passed a law similar to
Rhode Island’s Compassion Center law.
Maine developed its entire Compassion
Center program to use Rhode Island’s
application and scoring matrix and has
already awarded eight licenses without
disqualifying any of its applicants in the
same manner. HEALTH has stated that
it expects to grant the first license four
to six months from now.
GRANNY WEED
“Imagine your grandmother going out
on the street to try to buy marijuana,”
said JoAnne Lepannen in an interview,
“it’s ridiculous. But that’s basically what
we have happening.” While RIPAC does
not provide patients with marijuana di-
rectly, it does help to connect patients
with primary caregivers who can supply
them. Primary caregivers are licensed
individuals who can supply up to five
patients with up to twelve mature plants
and 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana per
patient. Patients are also permitted to
grow their own. Currently, there are not
enough caregivers to supply all of Rhode
4
Metro
Island’s over 2,300 patients.
But growing pot isn’t so simple; many
caregivers and patients are unable or un-
willing to take on the expense and risk
involved in a field which still seems like
a legal gray zone despite the extensive
legislation on the matter. Though the
law clearly permits patients and care-
givers to grow, there is a general lack of
knowledge in enforcement agencies with
regard to what is or isn’t legal. Due to
privacy concerns, officers have no way of
knowing who is licensed without asking
the individuals themselves. An anony-
mous tip about a large grow operation
can lead to a SWAT raid on a licensed in-
dividual, bringing with it all the associ-
ated risks of any drug raid. Furthermore,
the marijuana a patient grows in his or
her house presents an enticing target for
criminals; home invasion and robbery
are a serious concern for anyone consid-
ering growing.
Now, caregivers are facing pressure
to supply more and more patients even
though they are only legally allowed to
supply up to five. As a result, several
caregivers have been arrested for exceed-
ing the number of plants they can legally
grow. This has led to even greater short-
ages in marijuana supplies for patients
who need marijuana to live with chronic
pain and illness.
HEALTH has stated that it will begin
accepting applications again, this time
without any page limits.
DAN STUMP B’14 never goes over
page limit.
5 O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
Metro
Photographs by Dia Barghouti
by Jack Fujito
The event was billed as a rally in support
of a Rhode Island version of the hotly
debated Arizona anti-illegal immigra-
tion legislation, sponsored by Rep. Peter
Palumbo (D-Cranston) and Rep. Jo-
seph Trillo (R-Warwick) in 2010. The
rally “is shaping up to be bigger than the
2004 [sic] launch of the ‘Minutemen On
The Border,’” the Minuteman Project’s
website said, comparing it to the April
2005 month-long patrol of the US–Mex-
ico border by over 750 minutemen activ-
ists. The release continued: “The project-
ed attendance is estimated well into the
thousands and is growing daily.”
But when Jim Gilchrist, founder of
The Minuteman Project, began his key-
note address in the central rotunda of
the State House, only around 20 sup-
porters, many of whom were themselves
speakers at the event, stood listening. If
attendance is a measure of success, the
rally was a failure.
But the sparsely attended rally be-
came homepage news on Projo.com, The
Providence Journal’s website, later that
afternoon, part of Friday’s nightly news,
and an A4 article in Saturday’s Provi-
dence Journal. The surprisingly low turn-
out was a marginal issue in the media’s
coverage—in some instances briefly
mentioned, in others left out entirely—
of the suddenly newsworthy event.
This begs the question: why did this
rally garner so much attention?
Part of the blame rests with the me-
dia, the Independent included. As Gil-
christ spoke, at least two reporters from
the Providence Journal, two more from
the Independent (with more on their
way), a news team from WPRI and an-
other from ABC6 were at the event.
The Tea Party and right-wing groups
like Rhode Islanders for Immigration
Law Enforcement (RIILE) bring read-
ers and viewers. Polemic rhetoric is, for
better or worse, sensational, and thus
appealing. With The Providence Journal
readership lower than ever, the paper
does not have the luxury of eschewing
the sensational if it will sell papers, even
if the event was more created than re-
ported.
The media’s production of a right-
wing movement in Rhode Island is part
of a larger trend, exemplified by Tea
Party Senate hopeful Christine Donnell.
Defeating Rep. Michael Castle—the only
Republican Senate candidate who sup-
ported global warming legislation—in
Delaware’s Republican primary, Donnell
was without a campaign office until last
week. Instead, she used conservative
talk radio and cable news, and the na-
tional media that has picked up her vit-
riolic and bizarre commentary, to make
herself a well known, well-funded candi-
date.
The game is to lock oneself firmly in
the inescapable cycle of news networks.
More coverage breeds more connections
with other events, people, and organi-
zations. So despite Sarah Palin’s docu-
mented inability to reason, the more she
is placed back-to-back with segments
about the President or other elected of-
ficials, the more she gains credibility and
authority.
But the event was not just a media
production. As Gilchrist spoke, around
10 members of “American Immigration
Policy,” a Brown public policy class were
on the stairs between the entrance and
the landing where the event was held,
interviewing attendees.
As has been reported widely, halfway
through Gilchrist’s speech, around 30
progressive activists dressed as clowns—
many of them Brown students and
alumni—entered the Statehouse, carry-
ing signs with statements like “Clowns
for Immigration Law Enforcement” and
“Clown Power.”
When Rep. Peter Palumbo was intro-
duced, the clowns drowned out the audi-
ence, whistling and chanting, “Clown in
Chief, Peter Palumbo.” When Palumbo
began his speech, saying, “as I look out
here… I look and I see a group of con-
cerned citizens,” laughs were audible;
State House security guards watching
from the balcony above could not hide
veiled grins and smiles.
For those at the event, the clowns had
the last laugh. They dominated the rally
for the half hour they stayed, distracting
media and other spectators from pay-
ing attention to Mr. Gilchrist and Rep.
Palumbo’s speeches. The clowns had a
point—their medium as message was
right. Palumbo and Trillo’s bill has a real
chance of passing in a political environ-
ment built on hate, but their platform is
a joke.
Unfortunately, the real joke may be
on all of us. In many ways, the event that
was covered in the larger media was the
Left’s fascination with the far Right. This
fascination has given a markedly uncriti-
cal voice to those same fringe right-wing
groups. If hordes of media, the progres-
sive protesters, and Brown’s sociology
class did not show up, the conversation
might have focused on how few support-
ers actually showed up or the xenopho-
bic, discordant rhetoric could have sto-
len the show. Instead, we got clowned.
JACK FUJITO B’10.5 can’t hide that
veiled smile.
by Simon van Zuylen-Wood
This January, Rhode Island will be the
latest state to consider legislation simi-
lar to the controversial SB-1070 law
Arizona passed this April. Rhode Island’s
bill is sponsored by State Reps Joe Trillo
(R-Warwick) and Peter Palumbo (D-
Cranston), who said he copied SB-1070
almost word for word. A previous ver-
sion of the bill was rebuffed in May.
Friday at the State House, Rhode Is-
landers for Immigration Reform (RIILE)
led a rally in support of Palumbo’s bill.
The bill, which detractors say would turn
Rhode Island into a police state, has
garnered support from Tea Partiers and
other fiscal conservatives who, paradoxi-
cally, usually advocate for less, not more
government intervention.
In Rhode Island, where the bill almost
certainly won’t pass, it may function
primarily as a campaign talking point.
by Jack Fujito
The political Right focus on illegal im-
migration is often maligned as racist,
extremist and intolerant. When Jim
Gilchrist, co-founder and president of
the Minuteman Project, spoke on Friday
morning at the Minuteman Rally in the
State House Rotunda, he tried to tackle
these concerns head on. In his keynote
address, Gilchrist said, “no one here, in
my opinion, is using this platform as a
means of engaging in what our critics
call ‘racial supremacy.’” Later during the
rally, Terry Gorman, the Executive Direc-
tor of Rhode Islanders for Immigration
Law Enforcement (RIILE), reiterated the
sentiment: “we are a nation of immi-
grants... [RIILE is] not anti-immigrant;
we are anti-illegal alien, anti-illegal im-
migrant.”
But further inquiry challenges the
benign self-portrayals of RIILE and the
Minuteman Project; both have close con-
nections to extremist groups.
On Friday, most references to race,
ethnicity, and racism were veiled. Rep-
resentative Joseph Trillo (Republican-
District 24, Warwick), co-sponsor of the
Rhode Island replica to Arizona’s immi-
gration bill, said during his speech on
Friday that America’s melting pot is be-
ing “contaminated by a particular popu-
lation and that is altering the makeup of
the United States.” But midway through
Friday’s rally, the link became much
more explicit.
Terry Gorman introduced Tim Di-
onisopoulos, a speaker unanticipated
by the event’s web-published schedule.
Dionisopoulos, a Providence College se-
nior, is the head of the Providence Col-
lege Republicans and the official creator
THEINDY.ORG
Palumbo admits he waited until 2010
to introduce the bill. “I didn’t put it in
2009. I couldn’t get support in the media
because the issue kind of died.” Once Ar-
izona passed the law in April, however,
he decided he’d try again to bring the bill
to vote. “You gotta get it while it’s warm,
or forget it,” Palumbo said.
Many who support Rhode Island’s
Arizona-style immigration reform bill
are not self-described anti-illegal immi-
gration activists. Rhode Island Tea Party
President Colleen Conley said she partic-
ipated in the rally to bring awareness to
the issue, which she was only drawn into
“when the immigration debate resur-
faced this year.” In Rhode Island, the is-
sue has mainly been framed with respect
to government spending—proponents
of the bill argue the state provides hun-
dreds of millions of dollars in services
for illegal immigrants.
Palumbo said his motivation behind
introducing the controversial legislation
is rooted in “dollars and cents.” Palum-
bo estimates that between health care,
correctional facilities, education, and
human services, the Rhode Island gov-
ernment spends somewhere between
$150-350 million a year on illegal im-
migrant (based on the assumption that
the state harbors 40,000 illegals—more
widely accepted estimates place the num-
ber around 10,000). Palumbo said that of
all the popular bills he has sponsored, he
has “never received the support from my
constituency [that] I have for this bill...
I’ve been on Fox News three times; I’m
getting emails from all over the coun-
try.”
Rhode Island Tea Party president Col-
leen Conley was the final speaker at the
rally and arrived only minutes before
she took the podium. Publicly, Conley
supports the bill but told Indpendent her
primary immigration-concern are border
“crimes being perpetrated by illegal im-
migrants.” Conley added that her vocal
support “is not to say we would need a
law exactly like the Arizona bill up here,”
which, of course, is what Palumbo’s bill is.
Further, the Rhode Island Tea Party
endorsed Palumbo’s Republican op-
ponent, Don Botts, in the November
general election. “Based on his voting
record, he would not have received our
endorsement,” Conley said. “[Palumbo]
voted too often for special interests and
not in interest of tax paying citizens.”
Conley added that she had only re-
cently become convinced immigration
was a fiscal issue once Palumbo framed
the debate as a referendum on bloated
government spending. “But as far as
the Tea Party goes,” Conley said, “we
don’t deal with a lot of issues outside
of fiscal responsibility, transparency…
and adherence to constitutional prin-
ciples.” For Conley and other small-
government proponents, the draw
of Palumbo’s strict immigration bill
may lie more in its hot-button topical-
ity than in its big-government ideology.
Narragansett GOP General Assem-
bly candidate Tim Burchett also spoke
Friday, but is not affiliated with the Tea
Party, RIILE, or the Minuteman Project,
the national border-watch group which
helped coordinate the rally. New to the
issue, he said he’s “more of an economics
guy” and a “non -interventionist at heart.”
Tea Party member Michael Beaudette
stood outside the State House for the
duration of Friday’s rally. Beaudette ex-
pressed a desire for immigration to be
done “the right way” but much preferred
to discuss the solidarity among “young
folks, old folks, college kids” the Tea
Party has bred. “We’re all just American
people—the Tea Party isn’t against im-
6
Metro
migration, it’s against the collapse of our
country from within.”
Conley says her organization’s sole
focus is getting political candidates the
“resources and human capital” they
need to get elected. Her appearance on
Friday, however, amounted to a stump
for Palumbo. Conley’s appeacance at the
rally is indicative of the political impor-
tance of speaking out on immigration,
regardless of her reservations about the
bill and its sponsor.
This week, conservative pundit
Charles Krauthammer called the Tea
Party a “spontaneous and quite anarchic
movement with no recognized leader-
ship or discernible organization.” The
Rhode Island Tea Party has a member-
ship of 2500. Conley says most RI Tea
Partiers are “solidly middle class—not
rich, not poor—and they’re hard work-
ing, they have jobs. And they’re waking
up for first time.” Many of them, like Con-
ley, are also participating in politics for
the first time. The big-tent Tea Party has
released mixed signals before. Amidst all
the mixed messages Friday, Democrat
Palumbo took one step towards getting
the right-wing vote he needs to cash ni
on his immigration gamble.
SIMON VAN ZUYLENWOOD B’11
got it while it was warm.

of RIILE’s Facebook page.
He is also the head of the Providence
College branch of the Youth for Western
Civilization (YWC), a group unrecog-
nized by the college. Gorman told the
Independent that YWC “believes in the
same policies as RIILE does in term of il-
legal immigration.”
YWC, which has branches at eight
other colleges, officially opposes “po-
litical correctness,” “racial preferences,”
“mass immigration,” and “radical multi-
culturalism,” which it describes as a “cult
of ignorance.” One member, Marcus Ep-
stein—who claimed he was a co-founder
of YWC in 2008, but recanted that state-
ment in 2009—was arrested in DC after
calling an African-American woman a
“Nigger” and then karate chopping her
on July 7, 2007. A Secret Service mem-
ber who witnessed the event was told
by one of Epstein’s friends that Epstein
had been drinking at the time. YWC
also has expressed support for radical-
right politician Geert Wilder, who is best
known for comparing the Quran to Mein
Kampf.
“IMMIGRATION AND VIOLENCE”
As Dionisopoulos began speaking on
Friday, two younger men yelled, “fas-
cist.” The white, older crowd—clownless
by that point—cheered out the two men
and Dionisopoulos continued speaking.
A minute later, Dionisopoulos said,
“The British Labor Party openly admits
that they allow mass-immigration into
the UK as some type of social science ex-
periment in order to increase the diver-
sity so they can reap class warfare and
win more votes. Our elites think in the
exact same way.”
He continued, “immigration and im-
migrant rights rallies half the time…are
organized by people who want to enact
tyranny and anarchy within our streets.
The concept that Sam Francis talked
about, it’s called Anarcho-tyranny.”
At that point, Daryle Lamont Jenkins
of the One People’s Project, a left-wing
group dedicated “to research[ing] and
report[ing] on who’s who and what’s
what regarding right-wing groups,” in-
terrupted, yelling, “Sam Francis, Coun-
cil of Conservative Citizens (CoCC) Sam
Francis?”
“Yeah, yeah that’s right, that’s right
Daryle,” Dionisopoulos responded, clear-
ly knowing whom Mr. Jenkins was—
though Mr. Jenkins confirmed with the
Indepedent that the two had never met.
“You’re quoting Sam Francis?” Jen-
kins demanded.
Dionisopoulos continued, “Anarcho-
tyranny is enacted on our streets every
single day,” to the crowd’s applause.
Francis, who served as the Editor of
the CoCC’s quarterly publication until
he died in 2005, also wrote the CoCC’s
“Statement of Principles.” The second
principle is, “we believe the United
States is a European country and that
Americans are part of the European
people, [and] should remain European in
their composition and character.”
One of Francis’s last articles at
VDARE, a radical right-wing publication,
was titled “Why Immigrants Kill.” Fran-
cis’s answer:
“The link between immigration and
violence is that the aliens lack roots in
the society and civilization into which
they import themselves. The people they
see aren’t their people, and their moral
and social norms aren’t theirs either. Be-
ing strangers in a strange land, they feel
little obligation to it or its members.”
THE FRUIT NEVE R FALL S FAR . . .
The fact is, while Friday’s incident is dis-
turbing, the connections between RIILE
and extremist organizations such as the
CoCC and YWC reach back to its incep-
tion. It was founded with the help of
Federation for American Immigration
Reform (FAIR), a national organization
whose goal is to “stop illegal immigra-
tion, and to promote immigration levels
consistent with the national interest—
more traditional rates of about 300,000
a year.” (Meanwhile, around 1 million
people were legally naturalized in 2008,
according to the Office of Immigration
Statistics.) While Gorman says RIILE no
longer has any association with FAIR, he
himself is still a member. FAIR, which
the Southern Poverty Law Center desig-
nated as a “Hate Group,” has also been
criticized the Anti-Defamation League
for the hundreds of thousands of dol-
lars FAIR has received from the Pioneer
Fund, a group believes “there is a genetic
component to between-group (sex, so-
cioeconomic, and racial) IQ differences”
and funds scientific research to back the
claim.
Closer to home, RIILE member David
C. Richardson demanded two men shop-
ping in his refrigeration store, Rhode
Island Refrigeration, show their Social
Security cards in 2008 after they began
speaking Spanish to each other in his
store. Both men were U.S. citizens. When
the Providence Journal asked Richard-
son why he suspected they were illegal,
he responded: “What proof is there? I
think the majority of people who don’t
speak English in Rhode Island — at least
51 percent or more — are illegal aliens.”
In discussions with the Independent,
Gorman reiterated his statements at the
rally. “RIILE is just against illegal aliens,”
Gorman said, explaining it did not mat-
ter what race or ethnicity the immigrants
were from. He continued, “RIILE would
totally disavow any realtion with [YWC
and Tim Dionisopoulos] if, in fact, there
was any inkling” of racist behaviour. Mr.
Gorman, the ball is in your court.
JACK FUJITO B’10.5 was drink-
ing at the time.
7 O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
National
R EPORT F ROM T H E C A PI TOL
Notes from the One America Working Together Rally
by Timothy Prince and Jack Fujito
Illustration by Robert Sandler
This past Saturday, the Independent trav-
eled down to Washington, DC to attend
the One America Working Together
march at the Washington Mall. There, we
joined either 175,000 other attendees
(according to rally organizers) or “tens of
thousands” (according to The New York
Times). We don’t know how the rest of
the media and the event organizers es-
timated the number of people at the ral-
ly—it sure felt like a hell of a lot people
from our perspective in the thick of it.
Over 400 progressive groups, in-
cluding unions like SEIU and AFL-CIO,
as well as the NAACP and the National
Urban League, sponsored the rally. It
focused on job reforms—preferably
good, union ones; education reforms—
preferably progressive, teacher- and
student-friendly ones; and immigration
reforms—preferably inclusive, more-
than-just-law-enforcement ones. One of
the most powerful moments was when,
Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the
Children’s Defense Fund, bellowed, “We
are all in the same boat. This is the mes-
sage of this positive, inclusive rally.”
The end left us only half-fulfilled.
After watching three trains come and
leave the Federal Triangle Metro stop,
we packed into the middle of a train car
and struck up a conversation with an
American Federation of Teachers mem-
ber from Greenwich Village, New York.
In a word, the rally was “lackadaisi-
cal,” according to this attendee.
While commentary has focused on
the event as a response to Glenn “disc-
jockey turned Fox News commentator
turned faux glasses wearer” Beck’s Re-
storing Honor rally (a huge non-secular
revival and celebration of America’s he-
roes and heritage!), we found little talk
of the TV host or other conservative per-
sonalities. What we did hear a lot about
on Saturday, October 2, 2010 was No-
vember 2, 2010, the day Rev. Al Sharp-
ton called our “midterm exams.”
Your correspondents, progressives
that we are, only want the best for lib-
erals come Election Day (Shout out to
Progressive lion Sen. Feingold in Wis-
consin). But, Progressives, we want
more, more than just a vote. The teacher
from the Metro wants more. “We voted
last time,” she exclaimed, referring to
the 2008 elections, “And we are still [in
this situation].” Conservative nonsense
is dominating the media, Obama’s legis-
lative agenda has been hijacked by cor-
porate interests and, for working Ameri-
cans, the recession is far from over.
Some ideas are listed below.
1 . O CC U P Y S PAC E
As we walked towards the Lincoln Me-
morial, we came across a group of older
women, dressed in bright yellow and
wearing assorted pins, including many
that read “Granny Peace Brigade.”
Before the Grannies enlisted our help
to find some lost members of the group,
we heard the story of eleven grandmoth-
ers and friends who tried to enlist in the
United States Army. On June 18, 2006,
the Grannies showed up at the Military the rally had too many folding chairs and in the domestic economy.”
Recruitment Center in Philadelphia, not enough march for your correspon- But when we asked the steelworkers
asking to be enlisted so their grandchil- dents, but we loved talking to people from Lackawanna about potential mea-
dren’s generation would not need to go from all walks of life about politics and sures, like a 21st century WPA or an-
to war. After officials refused to enlist what we can do the get this country back other round of stimulus, they chuckled.
the women, the women refused to leave. on track. Give us some more of that con- It is simply not politically practical, they
They were charged with Defiant Tres- versation, progressives—with a little explained.
passing and arrested. Thankfully, the more pre-AARP flavor. We are a big tent Call us idealist youth, call us naïve
charges were dropped that December. party, just like the United States is a big yipsters, whatever (what is it about
We want to see more of this kind of ac- tent nation. twenty-somethings?). Your correspon-
tion—and not just from grannies. dents are tired of politicians, pundits,
4 . FO R G E T T H E P R AC T I C A L , and our friends from Lackawanna telling
2 . G R OW A PA I R GIVE US SOLUTIONS us what is not politically feasible. If you
As we watched the Rev. Al Sharpton While waiting in line to buy a Polish sau- like the idea, and we like the idea, let’s
speak, we noticed an older man holding sage (note: product of immigration), we start talking about it. At the end of Edel-
up a large sign: “Dems, Grow A Pair.” We began talking to two members of the man’s speech on Saturday, she reminded
are pretty sure he also had self-tinting United Steelworkers of America, Local the crowd: “Remember, [Noah’s] Ark was
glasses on. 2603 of Lackawanna, New York. built by amateurs; the Titanic was built
Opinions on Washington politicians For them, the big deal is jobs. The by professionals…Feel your own power;
tended to fall into one of three catego- job market is “lousy,” they explained. use your own power. Don’t rely on ex-
ries: The government needs to “work on the perts.” Yeah, we’re feeling our power.
a. “Obama is beautiful and the rest manufacturing base.” We agree. Our Let’s make our ideas part of the political
of the people suck,” as Teresa Thomas of buddy Robert E. Scott of the Economic equation, whatever that is.
Philadelphia explained. Policy Institute explained to The New
b. The Democrats are trying, but the York Times, “When the economy is in JACK FUJITO B’10.5 and TIMO
Republicans are blocking EVERYTHING. recession, there is added THY PRINCE B’14.5 defiantly tres-
c. The view expressed by our friend incentive to stimulate pass in the name of the Yipster Peace
with the aforementioned sign. domestic employ- Brigrade.
We understand—Republicans are us- ment. And when
ing Senate procedure to hold up every- steel is purchased
thing from a jobless benefits extension from a domestic pro-
bill, to a bill that would help 9/11 re- ducer the workers’
lief workers who have developed health wages generate fur-
problems caused by the dust at Ground ther spending, which
Zero, to climate change legislation to supports yet more jobs
union card check neutrality.
But, if your correspondents remem-
ber correctly, until 2008, 51 senators
were all you needed to get a legislative
agenda rolling. Embarrass the Republi-
cans. Make Senate obstructionism a sexy
issue. Get the media on your side. Sorry
Dems, but we agree with our sign-toting
friend. Grow a pair.
3 . “ T H AT ’ S W H AT I N E E D ”
As we parked our car and entered the
New Carrollton Metro Station in Mary-
land early Saturday morning, we wor-
ried we were going to a rally without
any attendees. But soon, the train filled
with a group of older men and women in
purple SEIU shirts and blue “One Amer-
ica Working Together” rally t-shirts. We
convinced one woman to give us a white
Tyvek baseball cap with the rally logo on
its face.
On our Metro ride over, we met Jo-
sephine Gonsalves, who happened to be
one of your correspondent’s neighbors
on New York’s Upper West Side. As we
discussed the upcoming rally, Gonsalves
explained the importance of the rally’s
diverse message. Jobs, Immigration Re-
form, and Education Reform: “That is
what I need.”
The rally was Gonsalves’s first in DC.
It was your correspondents’ first too.
Most of the friends we met were new to
the National Mall rally scene. They were
from Michigan, New York, and Indiana;
they were all ages (but mostly, they were
retired); they were White, Latino, Black
and Asian.
That’s what we need, diversity. Sure,
THEINDY.ORG
T H E SC I E N C E OF
ZE N A N D WA R Will Zen appear in
military manuals?
When Buddhist meditation was popu-
larized in the US during the 1950s and
’60s, its philosophies were disregarded
as New Age frivolity in most, if not all,
university departments. Yet, thanks to
the rise of neural imaging during the
1980s and ’90s, the effects of contem-
plative practices have been legitimized.
Experiments have shown, for example,
increases in cortical thickness over
time in the pre-frontal cortex—an area
critical to personality and higher-order
thinking—of meditators versus those of
non-meditating control groups. Other
studies have linked contemplative prac-
tices to increases in attention, working
memory, empathy, and emotional in-
telligence. Nowadays, meditation as a
legitimate field of study is only half the
question. In recent years, the debate has
been widely expanded by the question
of implementation. Given the peace-lov-
ing and spiritual origins of these tech-
niques, where do they fit appropriately
into modern life? Should public schools
be teaching meditation? Should prisons?
Corporations?
Throughout the history of debate
over the effectiveness, applicability, and
veridical nature of contemplative prac-
tices, a dramatic argument arose among
scholars and contemplatives over wheth-
er said practices could (or should) be in-
troduced to individuals or institutions
involved in violent activities. Namely:
should soldiers and armies use Zen to
help them kill? The disagreement is ethi-
cal. One side believes that everyone ulti-
mately benefits from such practices, and
the other that the practices are tools,
prone to misuse outside of a guiding
philosophical context.
U N T I M E LY M E D I TAT I O N S
In 1997, American author Brian Victoria
sparked the contemporary debate with
his book Zen at War. The book describes
the bastardization of Zen philosophy
during WWII to revive in Japanese sol-
diers the “warrior culture established
by the early shoguns.” Sawaki Kodo,
for example, then a Japanese Soto Zen
patriarch who had soldiered in Russia,
made it clear to the military that “if kill-
ing is done without thinking, in a state
of no-mind or no-self, then the act is
an expression of enlightenment.” After
the book’s publication, Zen leaders and
groups in Japan and the US dissemi-
nated apologies to shocked practitioners
and scholars who felt betrayed, hav-
ing practiced or studied Zen under now
seemingly false pretenses.
The self-denying egolessness prized
by Zen refers to the Buddhist concept
of anattā, or not-self. It is the idea that
there is no permanent or fixed entity
within or associated with the body/mind
that exists during life or after death. In-
stead, humans exist in a perpetual state
of groundless “becoming.” They describe
experience as a stream of consciousness,
aggregated by form, feeling, mental con-
structs, perception, and consciousness
itself. It denies the existence of a soul or
independently existing “I”; it refutes an
individual essence.
However, Victoria’s book explains
how imperial military trainers developed
the self-denying egolessness Zen prizes
into a “form of fascist mind-control.” The
Japanese Army could justify collective
martyrdom and the killing of enemies by
“romanticizing” the connection between
Zen and the samurai’s warrior ethos, and
by emphasizing a link between Buddhist
compassion and acceptance of death.
Coupled with practiced focus and atten-
tion, the result was a military training
that produced highly motivated, “in-
the-zone” soldiers who could ignore the
threat of death. According to Victoria,
“in Zen, there was the promise that there
was no difference between life and death,
so you really haven’t lost anything.”
CO N T E M P L AT I V E S C I E N C E
One researcher implementing medita-
tion in the military is Dr. Elizabeth Stan-
ley from Georgetown University. Her
program—Mindfulness-Based Mind Fit-
ness Training—is a multi-week mental
health training tested in both military
and civilian populations. To Stanley, war
is an attractive laboratory for two rea-
sons:
1) Concern over the mental health of
soldiers. There is a very real demand for,
and a grossly lacking supply of, mental
health care for veterans: 30-50% of re-
turning National Guard reservists, sol-
diers, and marines report some form of
mental health trouble (the real percent-
age is no doubt higher due to mental
health stigma); the Marine Corps suicide
rate in January of 2009 was the highest
ever recorded within that branch; and a
2009 Joint Force Quarterly article stat-
ed that “post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), substance abuse, divorce, do-
mestic violence, and murder within the
[armed] forces are on the rise.”
These ills germinate abroad inside the
bodies and minds of soldiers in combat
and are carried back into the societ-
ies that deployed them, straining the
bank accounts and empathic capacities
of families, friends, and government
institutions. They suffer, and so do we.
The hope is that these contemplative re-
siliency programs can help mitigate the
effects.
2) Predictability. When construct-
ing a scientific study on mental health,
by Tomas Rocha
Illustration by Charis Loke
the duration and intensity of stress are
variables that must be controlled for the
successful collection of data. Suffering is
an inevitable reality, but it becomes es-
pecially elevated and contained within
the duration of a tour of duty.
Dr. Amishi Jha, a University of Penn-
sylvania Psychology Professor is study-
ing the effects of Dr. Stanley’s MMFT
program with Department of Defense
funding. Jha told the Independent that
“other than pregnant women or people
that are about to enter chemotherapy,
there’s very few contexts in which a
known high-stress event 100 percent
is going to happen and its timeframe is
known.”
E T H I C A L N UA N C E
From the perspective of a soldier suf-
fering or a military policy-maker wor-
ried about the long-term effectiveness
of her country’s troops, these programs
are beneficial. But within ethically ori-
ented meditation communities they
can be problematic. The language of to-
day’s programs, emphasizing personal
defense and resilience, is different from
those of early 20th century Japan. De-
spite this, opponents to military uses of
meditation claim that some contempla-
tive practices are ethically neutral tools
that can improve a soldier’s killing capa-
bilities.
Therein lies the crux of the argument.
Theorist Michel Foucault might have de-
scribed meditation as a “technology of
the self,” a way through which humans
can operate on themselves. These tech-
nologies are always inextricably linked
to the broader social and political webs
from which they emerge. Meditative
knowledge and techniques are passed
on in a variety of ways, but especially
via mentor-mentee dyads, which, in
their highest forms, are relationships
of unconditional love and trust. Expert
teachers believe that only within these
relationships can often-frightening ex-
istential realizations be safely and skill-
fully worked through. If contemplative
practices historically enmeshed in an
ethos of existential interdependence and
compassionate action are appropriated
for wildly antithetical ends, then even-
tually some spiritual guide somewhere
is going to get majorly pissed. Not only
may the military appropriation of mind-
fulness be ethically problematic, but it
may also inadvertently deconstruct the
relationship between contemplative
practice and the transmission of existen-
tial knowledge from teacher to student.
When asked whether she had encoun-
8
Features
tered any ethical opposition to her re-
search from contemplatives in the Unit-
ed States or abroad, Dr. Jha said that
plenty of instructors and authors had
voiced their disapproval, but that she
didn’t “want to name names, of our ‘en-
emies’.” These dissenters acknowledge
that “it’s OK to offer it post-deployment
after damages occur,” but that more dam-
age may be done in the pre-deployment
training by “making people concentrated
robots;” in this context, robots with en-
hanced killing capabilities. These medita-
tion instructors are thus opposed to the
military use of the practices because of
what they enable—the enhancement of
an individual’s ability to use violence in
a high-stress situation—whether or not
it also protects against PTSD or other
mental health problems. Dr. Jha’s coun-
terargument is that, because both the
majority of soldiers currently deployed
and those participating in the study are
in their third or fourth deployment “that
line is instantly blurred, of what is pre-
and what is post-.” She also says that it is
incorrect to assume the training “is de-
void of an ethical container,” though she
did not elaborate on its nature.
Instead, Dr. Jha recounted an anec-
dote that had been relayed to her by an
army commander. A convoy was leav-
ing a town in Iraq. The last vehicle in
the convoy was a tank and as they drove
away, the gunner, locked and loaded,
protecting the rear, saw the convoy
come under fire. The Rules of Engage-
ment state that when fired upon, you
determine the source of the fire and you
fire back. The gunner did not shoot. The
commander stopped the convoy further
down the road, marched up to the tank,
and demanded to know why he had not
returned fire. The gunner said, “Sir, the
figure was too small.” He made the call
himself to not fire his gun at a child.
It’s difficult for a soldier to act against
his behavioral conditioning, and it’s
not something that would make head-
line news (American Soldier Does Not
Shoot Child), but this is an example of
an individual following an ethical code of
conduct in a high stress situation. Given
that “soldiers who screened positive for
mental health problems after returning
home were up to three times more likely
to report having engaged in unethical
behavior while deployed,” who knows if
these contemplative soldiers won’t ben-
efit from having the emotional self-con-
trol to make an already morally ambigu-
ous situation a little less so.
TOMAS ROCHA B’11 is not a concen-
trated robot.
FIRST F L E X
I
n somewhat of a head on collision, New
York City hip-hop car culture met local
Rhode Island flavor with a bump and a
grind. This past Sunday, the Funkmaster
Flex Custom Car and Bike Show, one of
the most highly esteemed tours for cus-
tom vehicles on the East Coast, rolled
through modest Providence for the first
time.
The Funk Flex Customs Show is
one of the few places to catch a ruddy, mustachioed
Rhode Islander camped out in a lawn chair next to a
dude with teardrop tattoos down his face. One such
Rhode Islander, George Arakelian, Jr., entered Funk
Flex to represent his recently founded magazine,
Motor Head. He presided over a pristine, vintage
mid-’60s Camaro. The car next to Arakelian’s display
had butterfly doors à la Michel J. Fox’s ride in Back to
the Future. Such contrast quickly became a theme of
Funk Flex—the show attracted all kinds.
Funkmaster Flex is a big deal. If you’ve ever
turned on a radio in New York City, you have prob-
ably caught some airwaves carrying his voice—he
has a prime chunk of nighttime programming on
NYC’s Hot 97 radio station six nights a week. He has
made a name for himself as a DJ on the club circuit,
dropped two handfuls of mixtapes, and bumped
shoulders with just about everyone in the game: Jay-
Z, Snoop, Dr. Dre, and Nas.
Musical fame aside, Flex has become an institu-
tion through his love of cars. He has hooked up cus-
tomizations for T-Pain and 50 Cent, and his automo-
tive exploits are chronicled on the new MTV2 Show,
Funk Flex Full Throttle. Flex’s high-profile show
didn’t arrive without healthy doses of glitz—lavish
displays by Car Clubs on tour with Flex and gaggles
of gussied up models—and fanfare—appearances
by a host of hip-hop elite: G-Unit’s Lloyd Banks and
Tony Yayo, recently reunited Dipset mainstays Jim
Jones, Cam’ron, and Julez Santana, budding Jay-Z
protégée J. Cole, and the entire D-Block crew.
But this isn’t just about the Funkmaster putting
on a show; the event serves primarily as a forum for
custom car clubs and shops. It works like this: when
people get serious about suping up their cars, they
usually pay a monthly fee. The club then hooks them
up with deals on custom parts, and it usually has a
private shop and mechanic who works on the vehi-
cles so that they look good for shows. The best cars
Illustration by Robert Sandler, Photographs by Mats Horn, Design by Joanna Zhang
and bikes can win titles, trophies, and sometimes
cash prizes in a myriad of categories—best luxury,
best muscle car, best Chevy, best paint job, best ste-
reo.
Clubs from all over New England and beyond
flocked to the first Funk Flex. The Gran Turismo Car
Club from Queens brought the most cars, represent-
ed by twelve vehicles with (by my count) a combined
5000 horsepower, 3000 watts of stereo power, and
some 55 TVs. The show also featured local vendors
and auto shops, as well as booths by fashion lines,
tire companies, record labels, and tattoo parlors.
Most attendees, however, were merely specta-
tors, slinging back baskets of chicken fingers and
taking pictures of bike-straddling, bikini-clad wom-
en. This kind of gathering attracts a lot of “Affliction”
t-shirts, tattoos, leather, rhinestones, and cleavage.
I spotted a twelve year-old who had just changed the
background on his Blackberry to a fresh snapshot
of a Flex model’s bosom. Despite the high ceilings
and adequate ventilation, the whole affair smelled of
turtle wax and my high school prom.
Upon entering, hordes of pushers descended
upon me with handbills for after parties, machine
shops, fight nights, and flyers with glamour shots of
a prize whip. A large stage was set up at one side of
the showroom for the performers. A DJ held court
for the duration of the show, pounding out jams for
attendees and beats for the rappers. The sound sys-
tem’s subwoofers strained to fill the cavernous hall
and compete with the dozens of blaring, high-pow-
ered car stereos. Any one place sounded like a black
hole of muffled low-end.
H OW M A N Y T VS ?
The cars and bikes on display weren’t necessarily
high-end wheels, but rather scraper, jalopy types
with a flat screen and PS3 in the trunk. The turn-
out was predominately domestic hi-risers (homeley
sedans jacked up several feet), muscle cars, and cus-
tomized bikes.
Most of the vehicles approached Pimp My Ride
absurdity: oversized sound systems, hydraulics,
stacked engine blocks protruding out of the hood,
and a variety of blinking, blinding novelty lights.
Motorcycles had been refitted to look like the bat
mobile—their street legality questionable.
Every vehicle was polished down to the rim. Paint
jobs vary between a fine gleam, demure matte, or cus-
by Alex Spoto
tom designs that included Scarface-era Pacino, Iron
Man, Whoppers candy, and Dragon Ball Z themes. A
well-tended Impala rested its reflective chrome rims
on a frothy foam material as if it were driving on the
clouds. One bike was trimmed in gold and painted
a glossy, heavenly cream color, the backdrop for an
RIP memorial portrait. The end result with most of
these custom jobs is simultaneously grand, artistic,
ornate, and tacky.
The ringleader of the Gran Turismo Car Club from
Queens told me he had over 30 TVs in his whip.
“You can put TVs anywhere. You could put them
on the ceiling if you want,” he said.
But can you really make use of three TVs wedged
under your rear window?
“I put tons of stuff on my car that I never use—I
got a 6 disc DVD changer but I never use it. It’s all for
show.”
While it might be “all for show,” the show goes ev-
erywhere he goes. He says he drives his custom (and
its 30 odd TVs) to work every day.
My personal favorite was an early ‘90s Chevy Ca-
price Wagon that from the outside recalled my third
grade carpool’s wheels. This one was covered in spar-
kly, fluorescent blue paint and the Chevrolet logo on
the back was replaced with the words “Lost Soulz.”
The owner capitalized on the wagon’s spacious rear,
installing CCE hydraulics powered by four car bat-
teries and surrounded by four 15” subwoofers. Most
impressive, every interior surface was upholstered
in spotless blue and gray cloth—the dashboard, the
floor… everything—and there was not a trace of
dirt, gummed up spare change, or half-eaten French
fries.
Bobby Bellerman, 53, runs his own shop in New
Britain, CT, and is the mechanic for the well-repre-
sented Game Over Car Club from Hartford. The ’73
Chevrolet Capri sedan he had customized with his
son had just won 1st place for “Best Donk,” a car
with 24 or 26 inch wheels (factory wheels on most
sedans are around 15”). Like the cars in Gran Tur-
ismo, Bellerman’s isn’t just for show.
“I race it on Friday, show it on Sunday.”
The car makes regular appearances for races on
the Berlin Turnpike just South of Hartford. Beller-
man claimed the Funk Flex show to be the biggest
show so far—the last one that came close in scale
was the “So Fresh and So Clean Celebrity Custom
Car, Bike & Concert Super Show” back in August.
 custom car s
ry ho
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m D J b r in g
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P

W H E R E D O T H E G I R L S CO M E F R O M ?
No car show can be complete without models. Funk
Flex attendees were predominately male with iron
feet and hungry looks in their eyes, while packs of
young women navigated the aisles of custom cars,
shimmering with glitter makeup to match their
dresses. Many showed generous amounts of thigh,
wearing skintight hot pants and cut up “Funkmas-
ter Flex” t-shirts. Throughout expo, girls posed with,
on, or in the custom bikes and cars to a barrage of
camera flashes.
Some are professional models for fashion compa-
nies, some are reps for the automotive companies,
some are promoters for the various after parties,
and some are there just there for the fun.
The woman manning the Ford booth distributing
Funk Flex t-shirts donned one of the more conspicu-
ous getups: her hot pants veered up in a thin trail of
black material that covered her belly button and met
her top. I asked her how one gets into this kind of
thing.
“I don’t know. A lot of these guys if they have a car
and know a hot girl will call them up—or if they’ve
got a friend who’s got a friend will give them a call.
You know, ‘cars and bitches,’ it’s all just show.”
For all the excessive display, the whole event
maybe felt out of place, or at least a little sanitized.
The RI Convention Center was almost too well lit,
and D-Block closed out the festivities at the sober
hour of 6PM. Trying to get into Jim Jones doing
anything (much less rapping) in the early afternoon
and under such illumination proved a challenge, and
even the most skull-studded bike didn’t seem that
intimidating on the Convention Center’s smooth,
clean concrete floors.

ALEX SPOTO B’11 shows generous amounts of

thigh.
11 O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
Science

B I G G AY O VA R I E S
Repercussions of bioengineering breakthroughs
for the queer community by Nupur Shridhar

S cientists at Brown Univer-

sity and Women & Infants
Hospital have created the
first artificial ovary that
can grow oocytes (basically
immature egg cells) into
mature human eggs in a
laboratory setting: a remarkable achieve-
ment that will likely pave the way for
more research into the sources of and so-
lutions to female infertility. But as with
every discovery, there’s always a social
not-so-good, of our interest in repro-
ductive technology, which will only gain
more and more attention as women
continue to have children after their re-
productive prime and as infertility rates
increase worldwide—either a result of
all the hormones we’ve put in our milk
or our new personal/statistical sensitiv-
ity to the future of our fecundity. After
all, we seem to be the only species that
can provide consistent solutions to the
problem of reproduction, whether it’s
T H E Q U E E R CO N U N D R U M
In most academic discourse, very little
attention is paid to how discoveries and
policies of any kind, scientific or politi-
cal, might affect queer-identifying indi-
viduals and couples. In 2004, researchers
at the Tokyo University of Agriculture
were able to create a fatherless mouse
by combining genetic material from two
mouse ova, a process known as parthe-
nogenesis. The fatherless mice appeared
to be as healthy as their heterosexually-
of homosexuals—not the theatre critics
on the Upper East Side but the lean, hard
butches of the Midwest - if we celebrated
our queerness (instead of being ashamed
of it), or if homosexuals were in any kind
of position to fund scientific research, to
insert themselves into the [economic]
history of our nation, instead of facing
discrimination on the street and in the
workplace.
No doubt that, like me, these queers
find themselves fantasizing about fami-
context—and new means of reproduc- through the use of safer-sex devices or produced counterparts, and even lived lies and futures they can create, or might
tion bring with them the potential to fertility therapies. longer, but the laws of human partheno- have had, if marriage and adoption poli-
both alter and reinforce existing sexual Perhaps our new ways of thinking genesis remain—the microscopic sleight cies were different, or if our bodies didn’t
identities. about intercourse stem from an unnatu- of hand that fused two female mice gam- require artificial ovaries. When asked
ral separation of sex from reproduction etes together fails to have the same ef- about the implications of his work,
N E W D I S COV E R I E S and the stability and happiness that can fect on human eggs. however, Morgan remains grounded,
In a press release issued by the univer- come from family. In the animal king- There are few things less scientific and responds in true scientific fashion.
sity, Sandra Carson, Professor of Obstet- dom, infertile individuals have been than admitting defeat, but I’m only will- We’re still a long way off from doing
rics and Gynecology at the Alpert Medi- thought to contribute little to the future ing to accept this conclusion if research- much more than maturing unfertilized
cal School and director of the Division of of their species—but what about Vir- ers and laypersons alike acknowledged eggs in vitro—eggs still need sperm and
Reproductive Endocrinology and Infer- ginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Rosalind the inherent queerness of infertile het- a place to bed down—and to him, this
tility at Women & Infants Hospital, ex- Franklin, Julia Child, and Frida Kahlo? erosexual couples who, like practicing isn’t about where we’re headed but about
plains the significance of their research. Try as I might, I can’t separate my desire homosexuals, cannot rely on their genes what we can do now: “I don’t see [this re-
“An ovary is composed of three main cell for my own family from my identity as a to bind them to their cultures and com- search] as separating sex from reproduc-
types, and this is the first time that any- queer female: why do I want for myself a munities. In order to be honest about tion. Maybe the opposite. Infertility is a
one has created a 3-D tissue structure type of relationship that historically and our motives and interests, it’s important significant problem now, and our work
with triple cell lines.” Unlike cell cultures biologically has [re]produced nothing, to admit that perhaps Jon + Kate abused might potentially help make a lot of peo-
growing in flat Petri dishes, the artifi- and that, for the most part, leaves lov- their reproductive privileges, and that ple happy.”
cial ovary actually looks and functions ers vulnerable to circuits of power that science, like all other disciplines, tends  
like the real thing, with all three cell privilege others? to favor those already possessing power. NUPUR SHRIDHAR B’11 is proud.
types growing and interacting with one I’m certain that we’d be more considerate
another in a 3-D moldable agarose gel.
This “3-D Petri dish” was invented
in the lab of Jeffrey Morgan, Associate
Professor of Medical Science and Engi-
neering, who co-authored the paper in
the Aug. 25 online issue of the Journal
of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics. His
scaffold features honeycombs of theca
cells—donated by patients at Women &
Infants Hospital, ages 25-46—that suc-
cessfully nurture implanted granulosa
cells and oocytes into maturity. Having
such a reliable laboratory model will not
only help researchers preserve the fertil-
ity of women whose eggs are exposed to
toxins like radiation or chemotherapeu-
tic agents, but also increase our knowl-
edge of reproductive health in general.
Carson and Morgan were able to fund
their work partly through a Collabora-
tive Research Award from the Rhode Is-
land Science and Technology Advisory
Council (STAC), which is doled out to
research with “commercial potential,”
a principle that suggests that success-
ful scientific discovery can, and ought
to, bolster economic health as well. As
Morgan points out, “it makes sense be-
cause it’s state money,” and indeed, this
discovery means more money for our
state. Morgan has launched the RI-based
biotechnology company MicroTissues,
Inc., which markets his 3-D scaffold as
a tool for other scientists and business-
men. “Not only does our model reduce
the need for animal testing, it also works
for skin, liver, and cartilage cells,” says
Morgan, which makes their discovery
relevant to many scientific fields.

THE FUTURE IS WILD Illustration by Kah Yangni

It’s easy to start daydreaming about the
consequences, both good and maybe
THEINDY.ORG
W HO WOULD W IN IN A FIGHT?
Science news goes head[line] to head[line]
B AT T L E O F T H E B AC K- U P
P L A N [E T S ] : G L I E S E 5 8 1 G VS .
MARS
Last week we learned that the planet
Gliese 581g might be ‘a new hope’ for
life beyond Earth. Gliese 581g orbits a
star in the constellation Libra and is in
the so-called “Goldilocks Zone”—orbit-
ing not too close and not too far from
its star. Its temperature is just right for
hosting life and potentially water.
Compare this to Mars, the subject of a
new NASA mission called MAVEN (Mars
Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mis-
sion) that aims to figure out why the red
planet’s atmosphere has been slowly
leaking into space, leaving Mars barren
and scorched. The prime suspect is solar
wind, but NASA hopes MAVEN will be
able to uncover additional causes, as well
as find out more about the solar wind ef-
fect.
As far as finding extra-terrestrial life
goes, there are drawbacks to both plan-
ets. Mars’s bleeding atmosphere and
superheated surface mean that we’ll
probably have to go underground to find
something interesting, if anything at all.
And Gliese 581g always has the same
face toward its star, leaving half the
planet freezing and half sweltering. And
it’s 20 light-years away.
Indy Weigh-In: The Gliese 581g team
has a good handle on the epic-ness of
what’s at stake. (“If we do discover life
outside our planet, it would perhaps
be the most significant discovery of all
time,” says Ed Seidel of the NSF.) Gliese
581g is three to four times the mass
of Earth, while Mars is only one tenth.
Size matters. Also, MAVEN’s acronym
doesn’t make sense.
Winner: Gliese 581g, by a light-year.
Out with the old, in with the new.
B AT T L E O F T H E L E T D OW N S :
G R A P H E N E VS . S A R A H S AU -
RUS
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov
of the University of Manchester  have
shown that graphene (a flake of carbon
just one atom thick) has some extraor-
dinary properties, and they received the
2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their
trouble. Graphene, they discovered, is
better at conducting heat than any other
known material and it performs just as
well as copper at conducting electricity.
Scientists hope that graphene will not
only advance electronics and compos-
ite production, but also provide much-
needed information on two-dimensional
materials and their interaction with
quantum physics. The kicker? The scien-
tists extracted graphene from graphite
(a material made from layered sheets of
carbon) found in an ordinary pencil. To
get graphene, they just used tape to peel
off layers of graphite until the remaining
layer was only one atom thick.
Another simpler-than-we-thought
science headline involves a new type of
dinosaur the bones of which were un-
earthered in Arizona. The fossil find
leads researchers at the University To-
ronto Mississauga and the University
of Texas at Austin to believe that dino-
saurs spread much less aggressively than
previously thought. Originally, it was
believed that many dinosaurs fought
their way into North America from their
home base in the south, out-competing
and generally scaring the shit out of oth-
er species. But this new dino is around
190 million years old, suggesting that
the massive migration was not the result
of competitive dinosaurs, but of newly
available space in the food chain caused
by a mass extinction 200 million years
ago. Aligning with its less-scary habits,
the new dinosaur is aptly named Sarah-
saurus, in honor of a Texas philanthro-
pist with a passion for dinosaurs.
Indy Weigh-In: Sarahsaurus gets
points for sounding like a Land Before
Time character, but graphene got a Phys-
ics Nobel with tape.
Winner: Graphene. Tape is the answer
to every physics problem.
Illustration by Maddy Jennings
B AT T L E O F T H E U N E X P E C T-
E D : T H E CO LO R A D O R I V E R
VS . H Y B R I D S
Fifty-five million years ago, a river
with roughly the same size and path of
the modern Colorado-Green River ran
through Arizona and Utah, but flowed
in the opposite direction as its present-
day counterpart. Steven Davis, lead au-
thor of an article in this month’s journal
Geology, explains that the research team
used uranium and lead isotopes in sand
deposits to determine that the river be-
gan in California’s Mojave region and
emptied into a lake in Utah. But why the
change of heart for the modern Colorado
River? Easy: somewhere between 55 mil-
lion years ago and now, the Rocky Moun-
tains sprung up, changing the slope of
the land and forcing the water to flow in
the direction it does today, toward the
Gulf of California.
Speaking of reversing expectations,
hybrid species—once brushed aside as
an evolutionary afterthought—are now
thought to play a larger role in natural
selection. Biologists have known for
a while that hybridization is not a rare
event: some estimates put the inter-spe-
cies mating rate at 10 percent in animals
and 25 percent in plants. But because
of genetic differences in parent species,
hybrids are often unviable or infertile
(like the mule), and thus evolutionarily
insignificant. However, DNA analysis is
now proving that hybridization could
be much more than an amusing oddity
(see: wholphin), and that these inter-
species couplings might actually produce
offspring that are better suited to their
environment than their parents. Species
of fruit flies and sunflowers have both
created recent specialized hybrid spe-
cies (a sand-loving sunflower and a hon-
eysuckle-loving fruit fly). New research
earlier this year into the Neanderthal ge-
nome reveals that we might actually be
a product of Neanderthal/Homo sapien
hybridization as well.
Indy Weigh-In: The change of direc-
tion in the Colorado River did give us the
Grand Canyon. But it’s pretty hard to ar-
gue with a Zorse. Or a Liger.
Winner: Hybrids. Beefalo.
12
Science
by Katie Delaney
B AT T L E O F G R E E N -VO C AT E S :
O S A M A B I N L A D E N VS .
B A R AC K O B A M A
In a tape released last Friday, a voice
presumed to be bin Laden lamented
the situation in Pakistan and linked the
country’s flooding to global warming.
“The huge climate change is affecting
our nation and is causing great catas-
trophes throughout the Islamic world,”
he said, adding that “the number of vic-
tims caused by climate change is very
big—bigger than the victims of wars.”
While some see it as a last-ditch attempt
to keep Al Qaeda relevant, this isn’t the
first time he has harped on the subject;
last week’s message follows a January
tape warning “industrial states” to “re-
duce harmful gas emissions.”
Meanwhile, the White House is waf-
fling over climate change issues of its
own. Last month, environmental ac-
tivist Bill McKibben tried to convince
President Obama to install solar panels
on the White House roof. To make his
point, he drove an old solar panel—one
President Carter put up and Reagan later
took down—from Maine back to its pre-
vious home in the Capitol. He was re-
buffed by administration officials. Then,
after a month-long “deliberation pro-
cess,” the officials had a change of heart.
Last week, the White House Council on
Environmental Quality and the energy
secretary vowed to install rooftop panels
in the First Family’s home.
Indy Weigh-In: While Obama’s efforts
at sustainability are appreciated, his flip-
flopping is confusing. As for bin Laden
—the guy is in a cave, on dialysis, being
hunted by the U.S. military, and he still
manages to weigh in decisively on cli-
mate change.
Winner: bin Laden. But just this one
time.
K ATIE DELANEY B’11 is the double-
hybrid daughter of a beautiful Zorse-
Liger marriage.
13
S
Arts
ebastian Ruth started Commu-
nity Music Works fourteen years
ago with a small, year-long grant
from the Swearer Center for
Public Service. On September
28, the MacArthur Foundation
named Ruth a fellow based on
his work with CMW, granting
him $500,000 with “no strings attached.”
Ruth’s organization describes itself as “a
string quartet in permanent residence in
an urban neighborhood that teaches music
to young people, performs locally, mentors
their students, and organizes community
events for entire families.” CMW currently
employs twelve resident musicians to teach
115 seven to eighteen year-old students
from Providence’s West End, South Side,
Elmwood and Olneyville neighborhoods.
In Ruth’s words, “The problem with
definitions when we talk about CMW is
that often people see it through one lens
and not the complex lens. Some people see
it as an after school music program. Some
people see it as a chamber music urban
residency for professional musicians. Some
people see it as a community development
project. It’s all things and, yet, it’s also no
one of those things by itself. It’s really the
combination of these things coexisting and
being part of this whole that makes CMW
the experiment it is.” Ruth recently took
the time to speak to the Independent.
 
The Independent: Congratulations on
the MacArthur Grant and the fourteenth
season of Community Music Works. Can
you speak to any immediate or long-term
plans you have for the future of the pro-
gram?
Sebastian Ruth: We are taking a fresh
look at our program and thinking about
how our students can have a good expe-
rience in music learning. We’re also re-
considering how our resident musicians
could have a more creative experience as
performers. So we’re taking a new shift in
how we look at things. One of the changes
is that the students will come at a baseline
minimum of twice a week now, as opposed
to the last minimum of once a week. They’ll
be still doing their lessons on violin, viola
or cello but also coming in once a week
for an all-play day, which is playing in an
ensemble and a chance to meet with the
group outside of class.
 
I: How do you envision “Friday All-Play”
impacting the program and the students?
And how does this relate the rehearsal and
performance with the creative?
SR: Kids tend to influence one another in
a really positive way when everyone is to-
gether. Over the years, we’ve found that
when we have places of performance, a
party, or a dress rehearsal where all the
kids are in the building with the instru-
ments, the kids learn from each other in
wonderfully informal ways. We want to
make that a regular thing every week—not
just an occasional thing. You asked about
the rehearsal, performance, and creation
moment. What we’re trying to do is have
an informal way that all the kids are in the
building together. There’s certainly plenty
of structured time, but there’s also a nice
half-hour block of unstructured time. Like,
“Hey I’m playing this piece”—“oh I played
that before let me show you how I did it.”
Kids tend to learn in a different way when
they learn from each other.
 
I: How is the relationship to the commu-
nity around CMW changed in the last four-
teen years, especially regarding the re-
quirement that resident musicians live in
the community they serve? And, secondly,
how do you envision your relationship en-
gaging in the community now?
SR: It’s an organic process to engage and
be accepted by the community we work
in—especially to become an important
part of that community. Over the years,
the subtle thing that has happened is
that families, at one level, see what goes
on because we operate in a storefront.
They see how we interact with their kids
in schools and after-school programs.
They know that there are people in town
that are members of the community who
are very available and visible musicians.
Then there’s the level that are the 100 or
so kids and their families who are heavily
involved with us.
I think we are an important commu-
nity fixture for all those levels. And, the
basic message we’d love people to come
away with is that music is a normal part
of everyday life in a city. You see musi-
cians rehearsing, working and perform-
ing, and it’s not an exceptional thing. You
don’t have to be someone special who
knows a lot about this experience. But
rather, it’s just what goes on. I would say,
going forward, we’re trying to make the
visible piece more of a feature of the stu-
dents’ work as well as the teachers’ work.
Members of the community could see a
cello quartet playing some place, but they
would also see spontaneous performances
of the students cropping up all over the
place.
We challenge the students to each play
one self-directed community performance
a year, if not many. They will set up to play
in a barber shop or a restaurant or church
or their school—somewhere that’s not a
typical concert space. We have a big beauti-
ful map in the office of our neighborhood.
Kids report back to place the location of
their community performance. Hopefully
over the course of the year, we’ll see the
map fill up with great spontaneous musi-
cal performances.
 
I: Speaking of places, you chose to stay
in Providence after you graduated from
Brown. Why did you choose Providence,
and why did you choose these specific
communities?
SR: Mostly I stayed in Providence be-
cause I had a connection to this particu-
lar neighborhood, Elmwood. When I had
the opportunity to apply for the Swearer
Center fellowship to start [CMW], I en-
visioned this artists’ residency in that
neighborhood for a year. I didn’t know
how long it would take to get things going.
I didn’t know how deeply invested I would
become in this neighborhood. It became
clear to me within a few months of being
here that it was not a short-term project.
The set of ideas I was trying to explore was
really about creating an educational expe-
rience for kids that really got to the heart
of the questions that people ask them-
selves about life, and about their place in
the world. It was important to me to make
the opportunity and presence available
to the population of kids who didn’t have
that experience.
 
I: Has your perspective on social justice
changed in your time at CMW?
SR: My perception of this work and its
role is constantly evolving. While I had an
inclination to do this work in this com-
munity originally, I certainly didn’t have
O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
a very nuanced perspective on what the
ins and outs of doing it would be. That
grows from doing this work and living
in these communities and talking with
people. My perception of the meaning of
this work has certainly changed. Ideas like
social justice and transformation are not
small issues. They are products of a series
of very small interactions and very small
Grant Fellow.  by Alexandra Corrigan, Illustration by Katherine Entis
Director of Community Music Works and 2010 MacArthur
An Interview with Sebastian Ruth B’97, Founder and Artistic
PROVIDE N C E TA L K S
decisions accumulated over long periods
of time. Transformation isn’t something
that happens when you walk in the door
one day or a kid walks in the door one day
and goes “pow -- my life is different.” It
doesn’t work that way. What it is is a slow
and somewhat unglamorous daily life of
practicing and teaching and working with
the challenges of running these programs
and the challenges of finding time to be a
professional musician. All while running a
very busy socially engaged project.
Over time, there’s pretty significant
change taking place. People who we’re
working with are really looking at very
good and competitive four-year colleges.
They’re bringing perspectives on the world
that have certainly been influenced by
their work at CMW. They have a sense of
confidence and ambition that they them-
selves attribute to their time at CMW as
a kind of depth of musicianship that has
been made in them over the years. Then
you say, aha. Something big has happened
here. But it’s not like something big hap-
pens on day one, day five or year three. It’s
just a gradual process.
I enjoy thinking about questions like
social justice. At the same time, I know
they’re questions for a later reflection.
They’re also questions of a guided philoso-
phy. They’re not daily questions. The daily
question is: how do you approach families
with authenticity and sincerity. How do
you strike the right balance between being
supportive and being demanding? How do
you strike the right balance between mak-
ing a fun environment and making a strict
education environment? How do you, as
an artist, balance life between the need
for self-centered study and practice and
the very outwardly giving teaching fami-
lies and their kids? It’s all these very fine
balances that we must strike every day.
That’s how things have changed over the
years.
THEINDY.ORG
FOR M FOL LOWS FUN CT ION,
W HIC H FOL LOWS FOR M
Design’s problem with relevance
by Alexandra Corrigan
Illustration by the author
As a war of words rages on Fox News, the designs
for the Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center in down-
town Manhattan have been revealed. The clean,
glassy façade and airy interiors suggest a marked-
ly 21st century idea of religion. The ‘WTC Mosque’
bears little semblance to the Orientalist vision of
a scrupulous attention to ornament and busy,
dark interiors. The design-centric building makes
a statement: innovation in design trumps social
meaning. It tells the world that New York can and
will transcend religious differences through sexy
architecture. Paul Gunther, president of the Insti-
tute of Classical Architecture & Classical America,
said it best: “a great design would help Park51
transcend cultural borders.”
As anyone who attended the Better World by
Design conference in Providence this past week-
end can attest, hope in the pursuit of high art has
no ceiling. The conference hosted designers across
many fields in order to raise the bar for design
through communication: speakers, panels, work-
shops, and mixers. ‘Design,’ in the abstract, was to
be ‘advanced’ in order to save the world, by design.
Analogies drove this celebratory point home. Ar-
chitects at the conference borrowed from finan-
cial systems. Bio-tech scientists waxed on about
political strategies. Even mechanical engineers
used theoretical musings on art. Dreamy inter-
disciplinarity was the locus of energy for these
representatives of American intellectual entrepre-
neurship. Designers designed abstract solutions,
divorced from real situations or tangible func-
tionality. While cross-analysis produces interest-
ing results, as was evident in many workshops,
the conference also highlighted some clumsiness
in sanguinely embracing to new ‘solutions.’ For
example, Lisa Gansky (author of The Mesh, a glorified
business book) explained how the Velib bike-share sys-
tem in Paris illustrated her abstraction of mixed ideas
(“the mesh”). The example also demonstrates a differ-
ent point. The “sexy and spectacular design of cities”
based on this “access over ownership” is described by
an inefficient model, namely bike-sharing.
Designing from abstraction didn’t escape skepti-
cism. Bert Crenca, of AS220, framed the “Urban Arts
and Activism” panel by attempting to locate the “Mac-
book” elitism of RISD/Brown. But as the panel—fea-
turing representatives from the Steel Yard and New
Urban Art—engaged with the problem, the artists-
cum-activists raised the problem of access to design,
as opposed to designing for wider access. The keynote
panel dared to ask just how far the conference had
come in the two years since its inception. Did the po-
litical, social or cultural systems change since the at-
tendees had given talks? One speaker, Aliza Peleg, an-
swered: “Two years ago I wore jeans, I think.”
The heart of the story here, however, does not lie
within questions about design per se. Rather, the de-
sign talk masks the insular, object-centric views of
many in the field. The conference suggested that ge-
nius lies in the actual design of things. From those
things (i.e. electric cars, sustainable homes, or energy
conductors) come abstracted concepts (i.e. ‘meta-sys-
temic change.’) Can it be understood that the hierarchy
(object --> idea --> insertion into time/place) is the ra-
dix of Western civilization’s relevance?
Contrast this idea—that we must make meaning
from things—with the things themselves. Things,
when they are big enough to impact many people, can
be private or public. The Ground Zero mosque is a cross
between these two. It is designed to be a flexible com-
munity space, open to new views and tolerance. The
floors are literally glass; the place breeds tolerance for
anyone who doesn’t wear skirts. The proposed plans
for the Park 51 Center highlight the building’s exterior.
The lattice is made up of abstracted shapes, white and
stark. From certain angles, they resemble the Jewish
Star of David. When blogs descended and feasted on
their resemblance, Park 51’s Twitter account refuted
the idea, linking to Wikipedia articles on traditional Is-
lamic architecture (featuring similar latticework) and
hexagrams. Sharif El-Gamal, the developer, said: “We
want to have a marriage between Islamic architecture
and New York City. We want to do something that is
green and cool.” In this space, a marriage of ideas (and
people) is found in the ‘green and cool.’
Designing the New York landscape is inevitably po-
litical. Whether the city is a symbol for the nation or
simply the most expensive home to the most expen-
sive real estate on earth, social relations show here.
The design-centric creators of these buildings seem
14
Arts
to be saying that the ‘green and cool’ comes
first. The political and social mandates for
this cultural center are largely trend-driven,
dominated by an ephemeral, heavily-branded
notion of ‘relevance.’
The semi-private object creates a hierar-
chy in its own right. Some of us benefit from
high design, whether architecture, bio-tech
drugs, or artist design collectives. Others
do not have access. At the conference, many
seminars were focused on social justice and
design. From “Urban Arts and Activism”
to “Ethics in Design,” questions of commit-
ment, relevancy, and sustainability filled the
air. Despite their intention, the actual work-
shops and speeches at the conference were
attended by designers who had paid $200
for the weekend pass or students at Brown
and RISD. Hardly anyone but other critical
designers comprised the audience of these
semianrs. There seems to be a severe discon-
nect between theoretical ‘design,’ arty-ob-
jects, and access.
Does it matter if practice comes before
theory, and theory seems to simply mask
the meanings of objects? We can only wait
and see. One can’t fault people interested
in design with their preoccupation with the
objects. They aren’t paid, or schooled, to con-
sider the nuance of social production and
relations. Academics and the media are. But
the headstrong, creation-before-installation
mindset makes high-design seem out of
touch. Case-in-point: were the designers of
the conference too busy crafting meaningful
seminars to create a more sustainable confer-
ence? The boxed lunches, with individually
wrapped everything, and the limitless ‘green’
swag illustrate a preoccupation with the big
picture, eschewing smaller design systems.
When designers think big, they go big.
Saul Kaplan, affirming this spirit in the de-
sign world, referred to the conference speak-
ers as “systems level renegades and chang-
ers” whose mission was to find the “leverage
points” where the world could be redesigned and redi-
rected. Perhaps these could be found outside of these
“world-changing” objects. Perhaps designing for ac-
cess and tolerance means something more to people
than an “opening” Islamic Cultural Center. Providence,
the “Creative Capital,” seeks to gain relevance through
its “Knowledge District.” The American economy is in-
creasingly reliant on exports of financial systems, en-
tertainment, and technology. Design matters, clearly.
But relevance must be attended to or else sloppy in-
stallation will paralyze high-design abstractions in
the realm of ideas. The Cultural Center demonstrates
how much hope New York has in a smart building to
engender tolerance. In Providence, this hope in de-
sign is swelling. But design may be more relevant out
of the studios and in the hands of people involved in
the process. If the hope of designers trickles down into
daily small scale intelligent design, then the confer-
ence will be proven successful. Design’s genus should
be its genius, but the domination of the pre-made ob-
ject, imposed onto places, technologies, or other fields,
should be stopped. Or else Providence’s trash cans will
be filled to the brim with plastic, single-quart organic
apple juice bottles.
ALEX ANDR A CORRIGAN B’12 wore jeans two
years ago, she thinks.
15
A HOLY F I Z Z
Opinions
Rethinking the Role of Coca-Cola in Rural Mexico
by Julieta Cárdenas
Graphic by Eli Schmitt
1906: “Great National Temperance Beverage”
1937: “America’s Favorite Moment”
1945: “ A Passport to Refreshment”
1948: “ Where There’s A Coke There’s Hospitality”
1955: “Americans Prefer Taste”
1958: “Refreshment the Whole World Prefers”
1975: “Look Up America”
1985: “America’s Real Choice”...
2010: I’ve seen more advertisements for “America’s Favor-
ite Moment” in Mexico than I have in the United States.
There isn’t a gas station, restaurant, or convenience store
without a hand painted sign on its facade that advertises
proudly: we have Coke.
I’d always thought Coca-Cola was a symbol of America,
a symbol of globalization, of exploitation, and of imperial-
ism. After taking a Development Studies course at Brown,
I figured people in third-world countries didn’t actually
want to drink Coca-Cola; I thought it was a matter of lim-
ited choices, the ease of shipping carbonated beverages to
places lacking potable water on account of non-existent in-
frastructure, or else infrastructure in a state of perpetual
construction. But that didn’t seem to be the case in Mexico:
The tap water will make you sick, but there are still plenty
of places to buy liters of clean bottled water. Despite that,
the people of Chamula seem to prefer buying, selling, and
drinking Coke. The local embrace of what I felt was the ex-
portation of manipulative American advertisement, cul-
ture, and values floored me.
I sensed that there was pride involved in carrying the
beverage in your restaurant. Over the summer, while in
Chiapas, a southern region of Mexico, I wondered if Mexi-
cans carried the beverage in their stores because tourists
from around the world would recognize it, feel a sense of
home, of hospitality, and might stop by, eat, and pay for
a meal, the Coke serving to dilute the foreignness of it all.
Coke, a symbol of the first world, could make squeamish
tourists feel comfortable in the poorest regions of Mexico. I
wondered if the corollary was true—if carrying Coke made
Mexicans feel more cosmopolitan, made them feel that they
had something in common with the gringos who swarmed
their cities in the summers. Or if maybe it just tasted good.
CO K E A N D C A N D L E S
In Chamula, Coke is everywhere. Not just in small busi-
nesses and eateries, but also places of worship. Within the
ash-covered walls of the Church of San Juan, women wear-
ing black llama-fur skirts kneel on floors flooded with pine
needles. Men and women alike melt the bottoms of the
candles and use the liquid wax as an adhesive to stick can-
dles of different colors onto the floor, arranging intricate,
abstract patterns. These patterns are complemented by the
carefully arranged coke bottles that sit adjacent to them. I
look around—there are many, many gallon bottles of Coke
on the floor of this church. The aromatic warmth from the
pine and smoke is contrasted by the cold-red plastic label of
the bottles. All around me, people are using these branded,
corporate soft-drink bottles for prayer.
Chamula is an autonomous town about 30 minutes by
van from San Cristóbal de las Casas. The people there, of
Mayan descent, gained their freedom from the Mexican
government and Catholic Church by ejecting foreigners
from their town in the 1970s. Chamula maintains its own
leadership, police force, and prison system. It is indepen-
dent to such an extent that it forbids people born elsewhere
to live in it or join its culture: that is to say, it is endoga-
mous.
I had come to Chamula because I had remembered the
town from a previous visit when I was fourteen, and want-
ed to revisit and try to learn more about the culture than
I had before. I had also wanted to get some pictures, but
photography was forbidden inside the church, and I had
to ask permission before taking pictures of anyone. These
rules, although reasonable, made me feel like an outsider
in a town where, ironically, residents make a considerable
profit from sales of artisan crafts to visitors. Although the
O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
small town is a site of tourism, as a non-resident of Chamula you
cannot help but be constantly reminded that you are only a visitor.
It was peculiar to observe an exclusive community—stringent
about upholding a boundary between the indigenous and the im-
ported—also incorporate a first-world soft drink into their reli-
gious practices. Luckily our guide, a man from San Cristóbal who
spoke English, Spanish, and Tzotzil—the Chamula Mayan dialect—
offered an explanation. After leaving the church, we headed to the
home of a local woman, who demonstrated her weaving techniques
on a handmade loom with homespun thread, and gave us home-
made tortillas sprinkled with pumpkin powder and rolled into de-
licious cylinders. Standing in the path of a number of hens, and
against a backdrop of finished textiles, our guide elaborated on
the significance of Coke in religious terms. The people of Chamu-
la believe in a syncretic religion—a hybrid of Mayan and Catho-
lic beliefs—that mixes the iconography of the Saints with more
ancient symbols like colored corn, which comes in red, yellow,
black, and white varieties, each color bearing spiritual sig-
nificance. This color symbolism manifests throughout the
church, in candles made from animal fat or beeswax and
most prominently in half-filled glasses of vibrantly col-
ored beverages. Among these beverages are Pox (pro-
nounced posh)—a white sugarcane-based liquor—vari-
ous orange-flavored drinks, and, of course, Coca-Cola.
A REFRESHED PERSPECTIVE
Coke, distinctively dark brown, has become a rep-
resentation of the black corn that is sacred to the
people of Chamula and to many of Mayan decent.
(Black candles are thought to get rid of envy. White
is for the tortillas, an offering to the Gods. Yellow
is for money, and red is for health.) Each color
means something, and the specific placement of
the candles on the floor represents different vo-
tive pleas to the Saints.
Coca-Cola has not only found its way into
Chamula culture for its color. It serves a func-
tional physical cathartic purpose as well—the
gaseous qualities of Coke make it invaluable-
in the context of the preexisting religion;
its carbonation has taken on spiritual sig-
nificance. The Chamula people believe that
burping is a purgative mechanism. It provides
an outlet for the body and the soul, a release
for the negative energy that affects a person in
need of healing.
As I walked through Chamula I realized that
Coca-Cola, which I assumed was an invasive
and stubbornly American substance, is actu-
ally a malleable symbol, adaptable to many so-
cieties and time periods. This symbol, an icon of
American leisure, a marketing campaign that is
so widespread that we forget to notice its pres-
ence in South Africa’s World Cup, may actually
be the “Refreshment the Whole World Prefers.”
That is to say, at the very least Coca-Cola has been
re-appropriated by the very cultures it once in-
vaded. Maybe this isn’t about Coca-Cola. Maybe it
is about misconceptions of American presence in
other countries. Perhaps these reflections are about
guilt, about making Coca-Cola the bad guy in hopes
of alienating myself from the consequences of the
Mexican-American War or about feeling guilty for
not actively protesting against immigration laws in
Arizona and then pouring this guilt into the image
of Coca-Cola. I assumed a power dynamic that I
did not see manifest, not realizing that cultures
have as much of an effect on an imported object
as the imported object may have on the cul-
ture.
JULIETA CÁRDENAS B’13 actually pre-
fers Pepsi.
THEINDY.ORG 16
Sports

L e H A ML ET
The Tragic Flaws of LeBron James

by Malcolm Burnley
Illustration by Maija Ekey

Of the many nicknames endowed to LeBron James,

“The King” best reflects his Shakespearean hubris and
the irony of his narrative; LeBron, expected to have
already achieved a dynasty of NBA championships,
has yet to win a single one. The King may not equal
Henry V’s heroism, but he certainly maintains a royal
ego.

LEGGO MY EGO
LeBron’s inflated sense of self-importance origi-
nated in high school, when he graced the cover of
Sports Illustrated, becoming an instant cult icon and
media spectacle. The King progressed from teen-
age man-child with awe-inspiring athleticism to
global icon of flawless ability; however, the former
number-one-overall pick has failed to live up to his
lofty expectations, earning no championship rings in
seven seasons. When the Cleveland Cavaliers lost to
the Boston Celtics in the second round of the 2010
playoffs, LeBron became a free agent, inaugurating a
national news beat to follow his daily pondering: “To
leave, or not to leave?”
LeBron publicly wavered on whether to flee his
home state of Ohio—and his mediocre supporting
cast there—and transplant his high-flying act else-
where. After bathing in whirling speculation, in early
July 2010 he gave the people “The Decision,” a one-
hour special—and triumph of self-glorification—on
ESPN where he announced he would sidestep the
Cavaliers’ $20 million/year-offer to take a humble
salary of $14.5 million with the Miami Heat. Ten mil-
lion people watched The King’s declaration, solidify-
ing LeBron as the NBA’s most fashionable figure; he
remains nothing more than a tease, but his audience
can’t turn away. LeBron has become the NBA’s very
own Hamlet, a protagonist that fails to fulfill his am-
bition but steals the spotlight anyway.
T H E R AC E C A R D
Last week, LeBron’s Shakespearean self-absorption
was on full display when he set off a media eruption
with comments during an interview with Soledad
O’Brien of CNN. While discussing
his free-agent signing with the Heat
and reactionary disgust of com-
mentators and fans over “The Deci- The King was
sion”—including a public burning
of LeBron jerseys and memora- well aware of
bilia in Cleveland—O’Brien asked
whether race factored into accusa-
tions of being selfish and spoiled.
his egotistical
“I think so at times…It’s always,
you know, a race factor,” James formula—
said. The statement was insightful
less for its content—it was vague Race +
and un-provocative on the subject
of race—and more for its context,
coming amidst a storm of negative
LeBron = an
publicity targeted at LeBron; The
King cried for attention, praise, and
explosion of
sympathy. In one of the innumer-
able reactions to LeBron’s state- attention
ment, J.A. Adande, an ESPN bas-
ketball columnist wrote: “Trying
to avoid writing about the Miami
Heat this season will be as difficult as trying to avoid
writing about race and the NBA.” The King was well
aware of his egotistical formula—Race + LeBron =
an explosion of attention—and used this concoction
to place himself back on center stage of the sports
world, returning to the limelight from a momentary
hiatus during a late-summer lull.
Although they lack the breadth of Hamlet’s ver-
bose soliloquies, LeBron’s comments similarly try to
frame himself as a victimized hero, rather than an
egoist and a disappointment. O’Brien’s interview was
the first moment of LeBron’s career when he deci-
sively injected race into his own narrative; previously,
he avoided devisive issues altogether to preserve his
marketability, sticking to Michael Jordan’s famous
phrase: “Republicans buy sneakers too.” LeBron’s past
refusals to dive into the murky waters of race are all
the more evidence that last week’s comments were
first and foremost publicity-seeking and self-promo-
tional. He confirmed these assumptions the follow-
ing day: when given a chance to clarify his words dur-
ing training camp practice, he said:
“I think people are looking too far
into it. I’ve said what I had to say….”
Had LeBron’s original message been
misinterpreted, he was given plenty
opportunity to revisit it, but the re-
ality is that the media’s blow-up was
precisely his objective—a successful
strike to reclaim headlines.
DA D DY I $ $ U E S
On the court, LeBron displays excep-
tional self-confidence, alley-ooping
with ease and a showman’s swagger.
Yet while his nicknamesThe Chosen
One and The King being the most
prominentare flattering, they also
function as permanent brands, bur-
dening LeBron with marks that bear
Herculean expectations. As his career
continues to elapse without titles, it
becomes more and more difficult
to justify the labels he’s received;
meanwhile, LeBron invites more and more pressure
through his superficial attempts to stay in the fore-
ground. When criticized as an “under-achiever,” LeB-
ron’s defense is to appear invincible, merely upping
his bravadoepitomized by “The Decision”which cre-
ates more dissenting voices. LeBron’s front-and-cen-
ter station popularizes his name, but simultaneously
magnifies his shortcomings. Each TV segmentESPN
is currently following the Miami Heat throughout
their inevitably uneventful pre-seasonintensifies the
awareness that his ego exceeds his resume, and with-
out success soon, The King will tumble from his arti-
ficial throne.
Along with Hamlet’s self-obsession and calls for
pity, LeBron parallels the Prince’s feelings of neglect
from the man he tries to succeed. Like the displaced
Dane who wants to satisfy his father’s ghost, LeB-
ron bids for Michael Jordan’s approval, the last un-
disputed supreme ruler of basketball. Jordan lurks
about the NBA like an apparition, reminding LeBron
of the hegemony he has failed to achieve: his cologne
lingers in department stores, his clothing line adver-
tises with trophy-raising videos, and he silently sur-
veys the game from courtside seats, now as majority-
owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. In an attempt to get
an affirmative “You truly are the next great one” nod
from Jordan, LeBron changed his jersey number from
23—Jordan’s—to 6, and even suggested that nobody
in the league should wear those digits, like Jackie
Robinson’s 42 is retired across baseball. Prior to pro-
fessing to “take his talents to South Beach,” and join
the Miami Heat, many thought The King would sign
with the Chicago Bulls and make hay in the city where
Jordan secured his titles. Jordan, though, remains
stoic and silent to LeBron’s pleas for validation, leav-
ing The King to wallow in self-doubt.
Like Hamlet, LeBron exhibits an alluring mix of ar-
rogance and insecurity. On the Shakespearean stage,
this same blend of characteristics blurs the line be-
tween tragedy and comedy, allowing a character like
Hamlet to be both laughable and lamentable. Perhaps
his tenure in Miami will bring championship success,
but until results come, LeBron will unwillingly strad-
dle these two genres, producing sound bites while
lacking satisfaction.
MALCOLM BURNLEY B’12 is “taking his talents”
to South Kingstown.
17 O C T O B E R 7 2010 T H E C O L L E G E H I L L I N D E P E N D E N T
Literary

BedRock (remix)
girl watchin a photo of space said
i’m attracted to bad oxygen, asbestos lotion to spend on my back,
a hopeless starch romancing.

loyal to surprise, she recognized the murderers in the posters.

POSE, PRETTY BABY, she rejoiced. BUTTON UP TIME LIKE GLUE,
KEEP FLAWLESS CAGED.
stuck on a shake-and-bake kind of pussy,
red-bull stop-rock emotions—rolling/coasting

oh miss hopeless money wasabi walk

show lights steal her words
when she takes off her grocery clothes

call an echo into her g-spot:

i-i-i-i-i love to scrunch her
i-i-i-i-i’m pressin her slow motion
i-i-i-i-i can hold her closed GPS.

T H A C A RT E R III T R A N SCR IPT ION S

8. Tie My Hands 10. Let the Beat 4. Got Money
(feat. Robin Build
Thicke) Straight off the block with the eagle VIP rainmakers, clock-murder like forty-
Tell me from the ups and lower backs.
The knock knock jokes of fame—ask me
what’s right and I’ll hurricane the morn-
ing sun to the horizon, the morning fun
the floating presidential football team.
All you have is politician prayers.
And if you come from under houses
that sank to the stress levels of success.
Steal your grind in the clouds, the silver
tragedies. A shot in the drought.
(feat. T-Pain)
dues. I can see the purple sprinters in
the finish line suits. Scientific line tow-
ers. Fingernails have money morning
alarms. Believe the two-story true story.
Paralyzed masterminds. I undermine
the cloverfield nightmares. BB gun
rhythms keep the twenty legend beats.
Pancake the snare, thank your family
on the mic. Act like you would never ask
for million dollar phone calls. Take it
back, the webcam forever notes. Show
improvement from asking for fasting.
Why wouldn’t you wait like scuba fools?
Hit the kill switch when he brings you a
rhyme on a silver tureen.
Eyelid glitter. Like a fucking ram, ask
uncle sam what you would ever ask for.
Forty eight catheter tattoos trying try-
ing trying.
ounce brandishers. Fly cross neon floors
with tabasco sauce trajectories. Keep me
city copper fettuccini and you’ve never
been a keeper, have you? You’ve never
seen my name in light saber theater
inflections. Cool it down if you want
to crack the whores. Two for the wow,
bank robber sizzlers. Creeps crawling off
the knee caps of your growl, MMmmm-
mm. Skatehead stitchrippers. Chew the
pocket money, chew it in grindhouse
Christmas lights. Mr. Rainman may we
have an anachronistic trickster?
Shit’s click on the slack walk. Crick in
your crassness. Flock to you in your
vastness. Slackers got a vast way of
watching your electronic karaoke. Or-
chestral orgasms were never your forte,
were they?

by Franny Choi
Illustration by Maija Eckey
THEINDY.ORG 18
X
FRIDAY | 8 FRIDAY | 15
6 PM, 8 PM, 10 PM 4 – 7:30 PM
Nine Nation Animation. Opening night. Cable Car. $9. Free Teen Movie Night. Pizza and flirting. RISD Mu-
seum, Providence. FREE.
6 PM
Author Paul DiFilippo reads from “The Steampunk Trilogy.” Brown Book- SATURDAY | 16
store. FREE. 9 AM – 3 PM
St. Jude the Apostle Annual Gingerbread Craft Fair.
8 PM 249 Whittenton St.,Taunton, MA. FREE.
Captured: The Journey Tribute. By Aerochix, an all-girl Aerosmith tribute
band. At Lupo’s, 79 Washington St. Providence. $15. 10 AM
SATURDAY | 9 Audubon Wild Mushroom Workshop. Get acquaint-
8 PM ed with local ’shrooms on an educational tour through
Tonstartbandht, Cool World, Run DMT, & Dream Boat. At Home the woods. 12 Sanderson Rd., Smithfield. $25.
Depot, Washington and Matthewson Sts. Providence. $5.
10 PM
SUNDAY | 10 Concert for Kibera. Raise money for Shining Hope
1 – 5 PM Communities. Last Good Tooth, Sasha Lee Pemper-
Talking About the Taboo: 2nd Annual Center for Sexual Pleasure ton & The Huskies, The Syndicate f. Nora Rothman,
& Health Conference. Tackle your erotophobias. 250 Main St, Paw- Stank Drank Blues, Deep Pu$$y. 37 Charlesfield St.
tucket. FREE. Providence. $3 - $5.

8 PM SUNDAY | 17
Mary J. Blige. At Foxwoods Casino, Connecticut. $50-75. 4 PM
Folk Concert/Dance Party Featuring The Gnomes.
MONDAY | 11
Benefit for the RI ACLU. Central Congregational
12 – 10 PM
Church, 296 Angell Street, Providence. $20.
Columbus Day Weekend Festival. Parade! De-
Pasquale Square at Atwells Avenue. FREE.
MONDAY | 18
9PM
12 – 6 PM
Alec K. Redfearn &; The Eyesores; Lac La Belle. The
International Oktoberfest. Get your yodel on with
last band is from Detroit and plays some good honky
Märzenbier, Witibier, Bock, Schnitzles & Giggles
tonk. At AS220, 115 Empire Street, Providence. $6.
(not a joke), and more. Newport Yachting Center.
$10/12.
TUESDAY | 19
4 PM
3:30
Poet and Lit Arts prof Thalia Field reads from Bird
PRONK! Activist street bands from around the
Lovers, Backyard. At the Brown Bookstore. FREE.
world join for HONK Fest Providence. At India
Point Park. FREE.
WEDNESDAY | 20
6:30 PM
TUESDAY | 12
Unspoken: Lynda Benglis And The Limits Of Art
9:30 PM
Criticism. Lecture by Richard Meyer. At RISD Mu-
Divets, Volcano Kings, and Full of Birdy. Garagy
seum. FREE.
rock and freaky psychadelic. AS220. $6.
6 PM
WEDNESDAY | 13
Black Spot Haunt. A walk-through haunted attraction
7:30 PM
loaded with Rhode Island Pirate Players. At Dave &
Galumpha...The Human Jungle Gym. At Rhode Is-
Buster’s Showroom on the top floor of the Provi-
land College, Roberts Auditorium. $15 non-RIC stu-
dence Place Mall. $10.
dents, $35 general public.
THURSDAY | 21
9:30 PM
6 PM
GHOSTFACE KILLAH. Protect ya neck. At Lu-
Reading from Hamlet’s Blackberry. Author William
po’s, 79 Washington St. Providence. $23.
Powers takes a critical look at our mass consumption
of electronics and our “screen addictions” with his
THURSDAY | 14
new book. At the Brown Bookstore
11 AM
Conversation with Lydia Davis, translator of Ma-
8 PM
dame Bovary. Followed by 2:30 PM reading. McCor-
Brown Jazz Combos perform. Grant Recital Hall,
mack Family Theater, Brown Campus. FREE.
Brown University. FREE.
7PM
RI Gubernatorial Debate. Candidates for Governor,
Kenneth Block, Moderate; Frank Caprio, Democrat;
Lincoln Chafee, Independent; and John Robitaille,
Republican square off in Salomon Center for Teach-
ing. Brown Campus. FREE.