(11/19/13 5:00am)
This week in pop culture has a snazzy subtitle: celebrities getting injured. I'm not sure what was in the air, but the latest Hollywood headlines included reports of two big stars experiencing some pretty nasty injuries. Various celebrity news outlets, such as People Magazine and The Huffington Post, reported that actor Zac Efron broke his jaw after he slipped in a pesky puddle of water outside his Los Angeles home on Nov. 10. Now the actor's mouth is wired shut so that his jaw can heal. He also needed stitches for an additional gash he suffered from the fall. Efron, 26, who has garnered much attention lately after the publicity of his rehab stints, is expected to make a full recovery from his injuries. He was supposed to promote his upcoming comedy film That Awkward Moment, but those plans have been derailed. Unfortunately, that also means he won't be filming any musicals in the immediate future. Yet another handsome actor had to be taken to the emergency room this week. Here's one sign that Jake Gyllenhaal is dedicated to his craft he required stitches after filming an emotional scene on the Los Angeles set of his crime drama film Nightcrawler. Gyllenhaal, 32, reportedly got so deep into character during the scene that, in a fit of rage, he punched his fists into a mirror. The glass broke and cut his hands. According to his rep, the actor received "numerous stitches." Gyllenhaal has also captured attention for the pounds he shed for his role in Nightcrawler. Last month, the actor was photographed looking quite gaunt at the Hollywood Film Awards. He told People Magazine that he lost around 20 pounds. Talk about commitment! In other news, actor Alec Baldwin found his name back in headlines for supposedly assaulting yet another photographer. Yes, he's been involved in scuffles with photographers in the past, even pinning a paparazzo to a car back in August. On Thursday, TMZ posted a video of Baldwin, who has been involved in too many incidents where he has been caught using harsh, profanity-laden language, shoving a photographer who was hot on the trail of the actor and his family. Baldwin yelled at the photographer and reportedly hurled a homophobic slur at him. It doesn't stop there. On Friday, TMZ posted video of Baldwin shoving another photographer near his Manhattan apartment. At one point, Baldwin knocked the camera out of the unrelenting photographer's hand-even after the assault, the man continued to follow Baldwin down the sidewalk. The actor also made headlines this week when his alleged stalker, Genevieve Sabourin, was sentenced to six months in jail. Sabourin, 41, a Canadian actress, was found guilty of stalking, harassment and attempted contempt of court. Baldwin testified at the Nov. 12 trial. Apparently, during his testimony, Sabourin made quite a few outbursts. Baldwin admitted that he first met the woman at a Montreal movie shoot in 2000. Then, nearly 10 years later, a mutual friend had Baldwin agree to meet with her for dinner to give some career advice. After that, Baldwin claimed that Sabourin began to bombard him with unwanted phone calls and emails. This trial was no doubt stressful for Baldwin but certainly no excuse for the alleged slur he made against that photographer. That's your pop culture fix this week, Brandeis-courtesy of some clumsy, passionate and, well, angry celebs.
(11/05/13 5:00am)
As a long-time Jackass enthusiast, I had been looking forward to the Oct. 25 release of Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, the latest in the Jackass series, which is known for physical comedy, crude humor and spontaneity. The series uses scenes that are filmed off set with lay bystanders who are not privy to the film's plot. This filming style makes the movie all the more humorous as the reactions to the gags are candid. Produced by MTV Films and Dickhouse Productions and directed by Jeff Tremaine, Bad Grandpa was the highest-grossing movie its opening weekend at the box office. In the movie, Johnny Knoxville, arguably the face of the Jackass franchise, plays 86-year-old Irving Zisman, who originated in the Jackass series as a recurring character known for his inappropriate behavior in public settings. While Zisman makes brief appearances in previous films, Bad Grandpa is dedicated to the trials and tribulations of this eclectic elderly man. After losing his wife Ellie (Catherine Keener), Zisman finds out that his daughter Kimmie (Georgina Cates) is headed to jail for violating her parole. With no one to take care of his grandson, eight-year-old Billy (Jackson Nicoll), Zisman is tasked with bringing Billy to his father Chuck (Greg Harris) in North Carolina from Zisman's Lincoln, Neb. home. Having moved on quickly from his wife's death, Zisman doesn't want to have to be constantly responsible for Billy, as he believes that the boy will act as an impediment to his pursuit of young, attractive women. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have a choice. Bad Grandpa is not crafted to impress critics with a complex storyline, amazing imagery or top-quality acting. Rather, the plot is simply a device for duping average citizens into partaking in ridiculous pre-designed scenarios. During the open-casket funeral for his wife, Zisman gets into a physical altercation with Kimmie, which results in Ellie falling out of the casket and onto the floor. The onlookers-composed of unwitting caterers, singers and religious officials who were hired for the funeral-are horrified, believing that an actual corpse is on the floor. After getting tired of dealing with his grandson, Zisman attempts to mail the child to North Carolina. He puts the boy in a box and brings him to the post office, where two unsuspecting middle-aged female employees notice that the object inside the box is talking. Zisman brushes off their skepticism, saying that the life-sized, animated doll that he is shipping inside the box is simply short-circuiting. Eventually, Billy pops out of the box, startling the two women. Amazingly, Billy and Zisman were able to leave the post office without incident. While Nicoll isn't incredibly captivating or convincing with his acting, he doesn't need to be-he is simply an accomplice to the bumbling Zisman. Destruction is a recurring theme in Bad Grandpa. From shattering the front window of a store to destroying wine glasses and a wedding cake, Zisman uses his stature as a confused elderly man as an excuse for breaking things. His stunts may not have been entirely convincing, but he managed to keep from getting arrested, which, given his behavior, is a feat in itself. Having seen previous Jackass films, I was expecting a production full of constant amusement. However, while Knoxville certainly provided entertainment in bursts, the film failed to produce sustained humor. Instead, hilarity was isolated to certain segments-there were long stretches that possessed little entertainment value. Though Knoxville made up for this by ensuring that scenes such as the funeral and the post office produced a lot of laughs, the aggregate amount of humor was a bit below what I expected. This film certainly is not for the faint of heart, as many of the stunts were cringe-worthy. much like its predecessors in the Jackass series, Bad Grandpa's plot is virtually non-existent; it is a mere backdrop for the two characters to cause mayhem. Yet, those who view Bad Grandpa are likely not watching it for its symbolic complexity but rather for the obvious, yet hilarious, humor. As is the norm with the Jackass series, there is no word on whether Zisman will make further film appearances. However, if you happen to see an unfamiliar elderly man stumbling around at a wedding, you should ensure that your wine and cake are safe. *
(09/24/13 4:00am)
The bomb squad trucks sped, sirens blaring, through our innocuous, earthy-crunchy streets, and most of us could think only one thought-kill him. Last April, bombs went off at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring an estimated 264 others. The alleged bombers, Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, went to the same high school as me. Shortly after the bombings, a police officer was killed 50 feet from where I had eaten a burrito the day before. The car chase that followed was through the streets I grew up on; I heard the explosions of the make-shift bombs thrown during the pursuit as I biked home that night. A picture surfaced on my Facebook newsfeed of a friend of mine from school surrounded by 20 FBI officers, their guns pointed at him-he was Dzhokar's neighbor. About halfway through the chase, Tamerlan was killed, but Dzhokar got away, and the chase continued. Kill him. All of us were scared in liberal Cambridge. All of us who picketed the U.S.'s torture of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib, the infamous American war prison, just a couple of years ago were now glued to the TV and online news feed. We huddled in living rooms and neighbors' houses for hours on end, yelping with excitement every time we thought the police might have killed Dzhokar. We were peace-loving when the war was overseas, but not when it was on our streets. When Dzhokar was finally detained (alive, but with gunshot wounds on his head, neck and hands) everyone cheered; mission accomplished, we got him. We celebrated our police's accuracy in killing Tamerlan early on, and some of us even celebrated Dzhokar being alive because we thought death was too quick and easy. Our non-violent values were tried and proved to be conditional. Our disgust with the national security budget quickly turned into appreciation when hundreds of police and FBI officers swarmed our streets. Our liberal values proved to be privileged, existing only because we had never had to be afraid before. Right, wrong, moral, immoral, secure, paranoid-the distinctions are entirely conditional. Because I grew up in a place where I was never afraid that a bomb would go off on a bus or train, I would have cried "dictator" and "imperialist" if I ever had to walk through a metal detector in the subway station. But what if buses and trains were being blown up? Would I still think that it was an infringement on my privacy or liberties? Are we capable of unconditional feelings? In the infamous Stanford University prison experiment from 1970, 24 male students were selected to participate in a mock-prison scenario. They were each randomly assigned the role of either prisoner or guard. The experiment spiraled out of control within days; prisoners were subjected to psychological torture, among other things, and the experiment had to be shut down preemptively. Everyday people turned into monstrous jail guards, no better than those at Abu Ghraib. In Cambridge, we looked at Abu Ghraib and said that our soldiers were immoral. What do we say when we look at ourselves? The people selected for the Stanford prison experiment (though it was a small sample) were just college students, no different from most of us. Are we all monsters because we're capable of the same things? How much of ourselves is inherently "bad" and how much is inherently "good"? How much is just human, susceptible to what's going on around us? Would we all have been the admirable abolitionists in slave times? Would we have been the slave owners? Can we even predict who or what we are? I believe in non-violence as much as I believe in any social justice. But if I wasn't steadfast in my values now, could I have held on to any similar values in different situations? I'd like to think that I'd have been a freedom fighter in slave-time America, Nazi Germany or Rwanda not even 20 years ago, but the hard truth is that I wouldn't have been. Many argue that Dzhokar deserves the death penalty, or worse. It absolutely terrifies me that while I disagree logically, I agree emotionally. I do not object to people condemning Dzhokar's life. I do not object to myself feeling the same, even though I tried to hide it. I'm no philosopher king, but I'm no monster either. I'm just like you. *
(04/30/13 4:00am)
This past weekend I went on a wilderness retreat to Agape-a lay Catholic community in Hardwick, Mass. Agape is located in pristine woods near a gorgeous reservoir that we had the pleasure of walking to and meditating by-it's really a wonderful place. As someone continuously exploring his spirituality, it was refreshing to spend time focusing on it. However, by no means was Catholicism pressured upon me, as Suzanne and Brayton Shanley-the couple that founded and maintain Agape-are very open-minded and non-evangelical. Together, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing non violence both in practice and in principle. The Boston Marathon bombings had just happened the week before and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured the previous day. This meant a lot of our conversations about non violence related to Dzhokhar, his brother Tamerlan, and how we ought react to the whole situation. The Shanleys have firmly convinced me, or rather helped me realize something I knew all along: vengeance is not the proper response in this case. Understanding the Tsarnaevs and trying to rehabilitiate Dzhokhar is. Now, I am not saying that we should not be angry at what happened nor am I saying we should not feel anger towards the Tsarnaev brothers. I am also not saying that we should not try Dzhokhar, and if he is found guilty, send him to prison. He needs to be incapacitated so he cannot hurt anyone else. I am, however, advocating for a more complex reaction to the situation; one that does not merely involve rage toward Dzhokhar and punishment for punishment's sake. In prison we should endeavor to rehabilitate him, to help him recognize the evil of his crimes and give him the chance to redeem himself. After all, Dzhokhar was not always a terrorist. Numerous stories and accounts of friends of his from high school described him as "friendly" and "sweet," certainly not capable of such a heinous act. If all we do is send him to jail for life or perhaps even execute him, we will be committing a terrible crime. We will be answering death with death (either with a switch or over a long period of time in a cell) and adding more suffering to the world. And not just for Dzhokhar and his family, but for us as well. Every time we give in to the intuition that drives us to seek retribution for crimes, we serve only to harm ourselves. We do not undo the bad thing that has occurred, but instead merely add more suffering into the world. Rather than grieving and peacefully letting go of the negative emotions, we allow them to fester. Why? Many would say the answer to that question is simple: justice. He did something illegal and very cruel and thus deserves a grievous punishment. But justice is not about taking our anger out on someone, it is about making amends-correcting the system so tragedies of this nature do not happen again. If all we do is continue a cycle of violence, without understanding why the Tsarnaevs committed this act or trying to help Dzhokhar, we would be committing a grave injustice. We need to understand why, what was wrong in his life that compelled him to do something so awful and how can we prevent this type of incident in the future. This cannot stop with just Dzhokhar however. The entire prison culture in American needs to change to be considerably less vengeful and much more rehabilitative. It is possible Dzhokhar will never be rehabilitated. It is possible he will always remain a threat to society and must therefore remain imprisoned for life. That is for parole boards and medical professionals to determine. However, that possibility of failure does not mean we do not have the moral responsibility to try. We need to help him understand the gravity of his crimes, teach him not to be violent, and help him work through any psychological issues that may have motivated his actions. Stories are coming out that assert Tamerlan was primarily influenced by a radical and violent form of Islamic thought. We need to better understand what is attracting people to these harmful doctrines. Why do they even exist? The only way to counter such hate is to fully understand its sources, as destroying the branches leaves the root intact. We would also do well as society to better understand Muslim faith. The vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and kind, the exact type of people who would be excellent allies in the fight against terrorism-regardless of its ideological justifications. We need to also find out how Dzkhohar, a seemingly mild-mannered and well-liked college kid, became a homicidal terrorist. None of this is meant to excuse Dzhokhar's actions. Instead, I am making the case for recognizing the humanity that still lies within him. I am arguing for punishing him and all criminals like him, not for the sake of causing him injury. We must endeavor to reform him, to give him a chance to make amends and redeem himself, and, hopefully, he can live a peaceful and productive life. Letting ourselves be consumed by anger and hatred will only lead to vengeance, not justice. It will produce a bloodier and darker tomorrow, not the gentler world we all seem to want. *
(03/12/13 4:00am)
* A euphemism is defined as a non-harmful phrase or word used to substitute another word or phrase that is seen as, in some way, unpleasant. These words and phrases, though created with the best possible intentions, are slowly causing the English language to decay. For example, penitentiaries used to be led by a warden. In an effort to seem politically correct, penitentiaries, prisons and jails have been renamed to the, allegedly less controversial, title of "correctional facility" or "detention facility." The wardens, as the leaders, are now referred to as the "correctional facility supervisor" or "detention facility supervisor." With these new euphemisms, the words "penitentiary" and "warden," which had no other use besides describing an actual prison or its leader, have been replaced. These old words are slowly disappearing from the English language, being replaced by softer phrases. The allegedly harsh words have been written out of the language, for fear of being offensive. It is one thing to replace an allegedly offensive or harsh word with another word meaning the same thing, but these euphemisms are simply removing the words from our lexicons and replacing them with presumably innocuous phrases. * It is true that the English language, specifically in the United States, differs greatly from some other languages in that, here in the United States, the government does not directly control the words; their creation is simply spontaneous. However, the language is controlled by the oligarchy of the nation, essentially the top one percent who own companies which may write the dictionaries. * There are hundreds of other examples of this phenomenon, many of which are highlighted in a famous George Carlin comedy routine, representing a quite troubling phenomenon. In George Orwell's famous book 1984, depicting a totalitarian, dystopian future in the British Isles, the English language has been abandoned in favor of a new tongue, known as "Newspeak." In Newspeak, the number of words was greatly diminished to a point where concepts disliked by the rulers were removed from the language. The idea was that if you removed the words for negative occurrences or actions, the actual occurrences or actions somehow disappear. Similarly, even though the rough words of penitentiary and warden have been removed, the roughness and harshness of prisons still remain. For, even though a "correctional facility" sounds nicer than a "prison," it isn't. An inmate at Guantanamo Bay could be described as undergoing "enhanced interrogation" rather than torture, but he is still being tortured. If a woman is described as "sexually assaulted," she has still been raped, even though many states, including my home of Texas, will use the former term in its penal code. * In this crusade for euphemisms, the most egregious assault at the integrity of our language is in the sphere of disabled people, with an example known as a "people-first language." In these examples, euphemistic advocates have argued that instead of labeling a disabled individual with a preceding adjective, which has been allegedly perceived as dehumanizing, any conditions should come after the acknowledgement of the person's humanity. For example, instead of "blind person," it would be "person with visual impairment." Such a concept is wrong for two reasons. First, the syntax of the English language places adjectives before nouns, as a general rule. Thus, grammar rules could become the second casualty in euphemism's crusade. Second, most organizations representing the interests of different disabled people reject this concept of people-first language, explaining it is not necessary. In 1993, for example, the American National Federation for the Blind condemned the concept at their national conference, explaining that they strongly disagreed with the use of such euphemisms. Additionally, organizations representing the deaf community have strongly condemned this concept. Notable autistic individuals, including a man named Jim Sinclair who wrote a strongly worded 2011 New York Times op-ed on the topic, have also voiced disapproval of such a concept. Again, there remains an idea that, as George Carlin put in his famous monologue on the subject, that "if you change the name of the condition, somehow you will change the condition." Referring to the blind as "persons with visual impairment" may seem to mitigate the severity of the condition, but it does not. * It is a common theme in the media to say the uneducated youth, or other delinquent urbanites, are polluting or helping to dismantle the English language through the use of slang or neologisms. However, throughout much of history, terms first coined as slang quickly become accepted nomenclature. It is the well-to-do, educated elite who are dismantling the language, through their use of euphemisms that mitigate the diversity of the vocabulary, providing needless exceptions to grammatical syntax rules.
(03/12/13 4:00am)
* A euphemism is defined as a non-harmful phrase or word used to substitute another word or phrase that is seen as, in some way, unpleasant. These words and phrases, though created with the best possible intentions, are slowly causing the English language to decay. For example, penitentiaries used to be led by a warden. In an effort to seem politically correct, penitentiaries, prisons and jails have been renamed to the, allegedly less controversial, title of "correctional facility" or "detention facility." The wardens, as the leaders, are now referred to as the "correctional facility supervisor" or "detention facility supervisor." With these new euphemisms, the words "penitentiary" and "warden," which had no other use besides describing an actual prison or its leader, have been replaced. These old words are slowly disappearing from the English language, being replaced by softer phrases. The allegedly harsh words have been written out of the language, for fear of being offensive. It is one thing to replace an allegedly offensive or harsh word with another word meaning the same thing, but these euphemisms are simply removing the words from our lexicons and replacing them with presumably innocuous phrases. * It is true that the English language, specifically in the United States, differs greatly from some other languages in that, here in the United States, the government does not directly control the words; their creation is simply spontaneous. However, the language is controlled by the oligarchy of the nation, essentially the top one percent who own companies which may write the dictionaries. * There are hundreds of other examples of this phenomenon, many of which are highlighted in a famous George Carlin comedy routine, representing a quite troubling phenomenon. In George Orwell's famous book 1984, depicting a totalitarian, dystopian future in the British Isles, the English language has been abandoned in favor of a new tongue, known as "Newspeak." In Newspeak, the number of words was greatly diminished to a point where concepts disliked by the rulers were removed from the language. The idea was that if you removed the words for negative occurrences or actions, the actual occurrences or actions somehow disappear. Similarly, even though the rough words of penitentiary and warden have been removed, the roughness and harshness of prisons still remain. For, even though a "correctional facility" sounds nicer than a "prison," it isn't. An inmate at Guantanamo Bay could be described as undergoing "enhanced interrogation" rather than torture, but he is still being tortured. If a woman is described as "sexually assaulted," she has still been raped, even though many states, including my home of Texas, will use the former term in its penal code. * In this crusade for euphemisms, the most egregious assault at the integrity of our language is in the sphere of disabled people, with an example known as a "people-first language." In these examples, euphemistic advocates have argued that instead of labeling a disabled individual with a preceding adjective, which has been allegedly perceived as dehumanizing, any conditions should come after the acknowledgement of the person's humanity. For example, instead of "blind person," it would be "person with visual impairment." Such a concept is wrong for two reasons. First, the syntax of the English language places adjectives before nouns, as a general rule. Thus, grammar rules could become the second casualty in euphemism's crusade. Second, most organizations representing the interests of different disabled people reject this concept of people-first language, explaining it is not necessary. In 1993, for example, the American National Federation for the Blind condemned the concept at their national conference, explaining that they strongly disagreed with the use of such euphemisms. Additionally, organizations representing the deaf community have strongly condemned this concept. Notable autistic individuals, including a man named Jim Sinclair who wrote a strongly worded 2011 New York Times op-ed on the topic, have also voiced disapproval of such a concept. Again, there remains an idea that, as George Carlin put in his famous monologue on the subject, that "if you change the name of the condition, somehow you will change the condition." Referring to the blind as "persons with visual impairment" may seem to mitigate the severity of the condition, but it does not. * It is a common theme in the media to say the uneducated youth, or other delinquent urbanites, are polluting or helping to dismantle the English language through the use of slang or neologisms. However, throughout much of history, terms first coined as slang quickly become accepted nomenclature. It is the well-to-do, educated elite who are dismantling the language, through their use of euphemisms that mitigate the diversity of the vocabulary, providing needless exceptions to grammatical syntax rules.
(02/11/13 5:00am)
Last Tuesday, Damien Echols, a former death row inmate now working towards his exoneration, spoke with students from the Justice Brandeis Innocence Project at an event called "Life After Death Row," part of the second annual 'Deis Impact. Anne Driscoll, senior reporter for the Justice Brandeis Innocence Project at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, introduced a panel of speakers, which consisted of Echols, his wife Lorri Davis, his defense team advisor Lonnie Soury, and CBS correspondent Erin Moriarty, who interviewed Echols as a death row inmate following his release from prison. Echols was convicted in 1994 as the ringleader of the "West Memphis Three," along with Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin, who were convicted of the 1993 murders of three boys in West Memphis, Ark. Following their convictions, the case has received considerable publicity as an example of a wrongful conviction, leading to the production of documentaries such as the Paradise Lost trilogy and West of Memphis, the latter one produced by Peter Jackson, and gaining celebrity support from the likes of Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder. In 2007, new evidence showed that none of the crime scene material contained the DNA of any of the men. Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were released from prison in August 2011 after entering an Alford plea, which allowed them to proclaim their innocence while pleading guilty to the crime so that they could leave jail. After a brief screening of the trailer for West of Memphis and Moriarty's interview with Echols after his release, the JBIP students posed questions for Echols and the panel. Echols discussed his struggles and hardships in prison and the health difficulties he faced. After spending most of his days in solitary confinement in his last 10 years in prison, Echols lost the ability to see in most types of light without dark-lensed glasses. He addressed the constant fear of being attacked by inmates, who were often coerced by prison officials into doing so. Additionally, his health continued to decline to the point where he would sleep and not be confident he would live to see the morning. "You're living with death hanging over your head at any moment and all of those things combined wear you down," he noted in his 48 Hours interview. Echols segued into his relationship with Lorri, a landscape architect in New York who believed strongly in his innocence and began corresponding with him. In 1998, she quit her job and moved to Little Rock, Ark., an hour from the prison, to visit him. On Dec. 3, 1999, they married. "Whenever I was in prison," Echols said, "people always asked me what things kept me going, what kept me from giving up, and it was two things: it was my spiritual practice and it was Lorri." He continually expressed his love and thanks for his wife, who has remained one of his biggest advocates and supporters, while also discussing his admiration of Buddhism. After meeting with a Buddhist monk who was performing last rites, Echols and the monk began correspondence as a healthy outlet for Echols. He spoke of the stress and depression he faced during his over 18 years on death row, and his eventual conversion to Rinzai Buddhism-a Japanese sect of Zen Buddhism practiced by Samurais-as a means of survival. Members of the audience asked Echols and the panelists questions relating to various topics from life in prison to the trial and the difficulties of transitioning into society. Carly Gutner-Davis '15 asked about politically motivated prosecutions, to which Soury, Echols' defense team advisor, responded that while prosecutions are not politically motivated, the issues themselves can become politicized. Celia Cataldo '13 spoke in an interview with the Justice, after the presentation, of her longstanding interest in Echols and his story. "I heard about the case a few years ago. I watched the Paradise Lost documentaries on HBO and it just made me so interested. I've been following it for a while. People seemed to come here from all over, older people, young people, even from other colleges." In an interview with the Justice, Davis and Soury addressed their hopes and fears regarding Echols' battle toward exoneration. "We would probably try to develop enough evidence to go to the governor," said Soury. He continued that in the best scenario, "a judge could overturn the original verdict and throw out the original indictment," which would allow the case to be re-opened without the potential for indicting Echols again. Before the close of the presentation, Echols again referenced his core beliefs and his focus on living. He spoke of his spirituality in depth, noting that he wants to open a meditation center in Salem, Ma. He finished with a message not to dwell on death, on the negative, but to keep alert and aware of your surroundings: "Whenever they train racecar drivers they tell them don't look at the wall," he says. "Look at your instrument panel, look at the track, look at the other drivers. But don't look at the wall. Because you're going to move in the direction that you focus your attention on." Echols held a signing for his book Life After Death in the packed Rapaporte Treasure Hall at the end of the program. *
(01/29/13 5:00am)
In autumn of 2011, a young woman named Elizabeth Seeberg told the University of Notre Dame police that a member of the football team had assaulted her. Nine days later, she committed suicide. Notre Dame allowed the player to remain on the football team, and he was later cleared of any charges. This summer, in the small town of Steubenville, Ohio, members of the high school football team tweeted and Instagrammed the sexual assault of a high school girl. Local authorities have been accused of giving the players special treatment. Both these cases have received media attention, but they are far from being unique. In a national study done by The New York Times, one in five women reported being a victim of attempted or successful sexual assault. Among college women, that number goes up to one in four. Nine percent of rape victims are male. Ninety nine percent of rapists are male. And that is only looking at those people who were brave enough to report attacks. Conservative estimates by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network state that around half of all rapes go unreported. According to the FBI website, only about a quarter of alleged rapists are ever convicted, and less than five percent of convicted rapists serve time in jail. Conviction rates are partially so low because victims do not always go to the police, due to the stigma of sexual assault. Even when victims do go to the police and receive a rape kit, the rape kit is not tested for years, if ever. Even worse, some states make the victim pay for a rape kit, which can cost up to $1,500. We have a culture in the United States that normalizes rape and has a blame-the-victim attitude. Comedians joke about rape. In the media, coverage often focuses on what the victim was wearing or how they were behaving, rather than on the attackers. Victims are often questioned or, in extreme cases, accused of lying. How else are there statistics like the 35 percent of male students in a University of Illinois at Chicago study who said they would rape a woman if they could get away with it? Or that politicians running for national office say rape is a gift from God, as Richard Mourdock infamously said this election cycle, "or some girls just rape easy," according to former Wisconsin assemblyman Roger Rivard? Rape is not just a woman's issue, as the rape culture of our country is not one that only women live in. Men should be insulted by the idea that just because a girl is dressed in a provocative manner, there is the assumption that they can't control themselves and must have sex with her, consensual or not. Men should be disgusted by the fact that 35 percent of their college-aged peers would rape someone if they could get away with it, or disgusted with themselves for even contemplating the idea. Rape victims aren't sluts, they aren't easy, they aren't stupid and they aren't asking for it. It doesn't matter what they were wearing, or how drunk they were or if they originally consented but then changed their mind. After all, in the University of Illinois at Chicago study, 43 percent of male respondents said they had coerced or forced a girl into having sex, even if they had said no. Those who have experienced sexual assault are indeed victims. Rape victims are women. They are mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends. They could be any woman in your life. It is shameful that we have this culture in the United States. It is shameful that when an eleven-year-old girl in Texas was gang-raped by her peers, most of the media attention revolved around what she was wearing rather than the attack itself. Rape can no longer be the butt of Daniel Tosh's jokes. Instead, it should be covered like any other serious crime, with respect for the victim and not judgment. Perhaps if there were more stories about the victims, instead of just attacks, rape culture would be at least partially solved. There is not one right answer for how we can end rape culture. Part of it does rest on women, to be aware of their surroundings and know their limits. But it also rests on men, to respect their partners, understand that no means no, and that just because a girl is friendly to them does not mean they automatically can have sex. We need to hold the media to a higher standard, and make sure rape isn't just a storyline in a Law and Order episode, but rather an issue that gets the attention it deserves. If one in four women were robbed, wouldn't that make the news? Stop blaming the victim of a violent crime for what she is wearing or how friendly and flirty she is. Stop making excuses or apologies for the attackers. Demand that our police and courts test rape kits and treat the victims with dignity. Ending rape culture is a good way to start dealing with the rape problem in the United States. *
(10/16/12 4:00am)
Just in time for Fall Fest, the Brandeis Players readied themselves to perform a new show on campus-Liz Duffy Adams' witty masterpiece of a play, Or. The performances took place in the Carl J. Shapiro Theater, debuting on Thursday, Oct. 11, and running through Sunday, Oct. 14. At each show, the theater filled up comfortably with students and their families, eager to see a play whose bottom line-to pursue what is important to you, even if that is unaccepted by society-greatly parallels the Brandeisian experience. Adams' play is, on the surface, a fascinating comedy that explores the tension between personal commitment and political entanglement in the life of a charming and clever young plawright, named Aphra Behn. As much as one must pay attention to the involved plotline of the play, the mannerisms of the characters are where the true genius of this work lies. Though the play is set in the 17th century, critics have hailed it as a commentary on the social culture of the 1960s. Many details in conversation, implied social norms in the play and thematic scenarios presented in Or clearly correspond to elements of the 1960s that are familiar even to those of us who did not live through them. The play opened with a monologue by Aphra (Anneke Reich '13,) that accounted for its oddly pithy title by pleading to the audience the dilemma of living in a sequence of "or," following the general trend of loyalty or love? Choice or conformity? Perhaps the greatest theme in the play is that life gives us each only a certain amount of time and will confront us with impossible choices, and the decisions that we make determine not only what is important to us, but what our lives become. When the lights dim and re-illuminate for the first time after Aphra's monologue, we find her in a jail cell, perched all too comfortably at a writing desk, heckling the jailer for more ink for her elaborate quill pen. She is writing a letter to the King of England, reminding him to uphold his end of some bargain made between the two in the course of her other day job-as a government-employed spy. Once Aphra is released from jail, the next scene opens in her writing parlor, where the rest of the play takes place. Over the span of one night, Aphra remains in her room with a trifold purpose: to finish writing her newest play by the morning, to tie up loose ends left from her last spy mission and to keep under control her lovers and friends who pop in throughout the night. Judging from the audience's response of overwhelming laughter, a favorite scene was when Lady Davenant, a patroness of the arts, it seems, who has much levity in the London theater, bursts into Aphra's chamber barely announced. Perhaps the initial hilarity of the scene can be attributed to the fact that the actor (Christopher Knight '14) who played the Lady is actually a young man of considerable height, towering above the petite Reich in a ghastly colored gown with a voluminous hoopskirt, a blonde wig of tightly curled hair and even high heeled shoes-not that he needed them. Lady Davenant stormed into Aphra's parlor and blustered about, raving in a feigned British accent that required careful attention to decode. Aphra floated behind her, and the two made several hilarious turns about the room, knocking over furniture as the Lady poked at Aphra with an illustrious feathered fan while she spoke. Each character steals the show in his or her own way, and although each had an all-consuming presence, this only fueled and improved the interactions between them all. The course of the play sees an array of dynamics: Williams, Aphra's ex-lover and current coworker as a spy, played by Andrew Prentice '13, bobs in and out of the writing room at the most inconvenient of times and is shut in a closet with a bottle of liquor by Aphra the rest of the time. A rising actress and friend of Aphra's, Nell, (Corrie Legge '14,) alternates between indulging in her attraction to Aphra, eavesdropping unsuccessfully on Aphra's other encounters when Aphra shuts her in the bedchamber and sleeping with King Charles, who happens to be Aphra's other lover. King Charles (Alex Karel '14,) is utterly clueless to the happenings within Aphra's parlor and is entirely taken with Nell. Maya Grant '13 plays Maria, Aphra's feisty housemaid who supplies endless sass and makes a hilarious impression on each of the other characters. Altogether, the play was harmoniously executed. Each line poured gracefully into the next, and the actors' impeccable timing provoked many laughs from the audience. The students acting were so comfortable that they hardly seemed aware of the taboo nature of their parts, considering the time period in which the play is actually set. They explored themes of promiscuity, openness about bisexuality, the empowerment of women and used obscenities in normal conversation-all things which hearken more to the "free love" culture of the 1960s than to the tight-laced ethos of colonial-era England. I hope that those who saw Brandeis' production of Or also picked up on the complex underlying themes in it, as this play is most enjoyable and relatable when one realizes that it is multidimensional. The thematic content of the play may compound into a different take-home message for every viewer, but perhaps that is the grandest thing to learn from Or: Everyone is different, and if we choose not to express what makes us each unique, life will certainly be one boring show. *
(10/15/12 4:00am)
Last year, Prof. David Sherman (ENG) spent his sabbatical creating a podcast after listening to "Philosophy Bites," a podcast featuring academic philosophers discussing "focused, curious questions or concepts in the world of philosophy," according to Sherman. After listening to "Philosophy Bites," he thought about how a series of podcasts could benefit the literary world. "We learn a lot from each other and that trickles down to our students in our classrooms, but mostly, readers out in the world have no idea of what we're learning in our research," Sherman said in an interview with the Justice. For this reason, Sherman decided to begin to conduct a series of interviews with professors and scholars on the work they were doing in the literary world and create a podcast called "Literature Lab." Granted, he realized that there were already podcasts on literary topics, but he mostly found interviews with authors explaining characters and choices about details-Sherman was looking for something more. "What I wanted were more in-depth conversations with people about their obsessions, their intellectual obsessions, ... just deeper conversations about more precise issues, that might seem very specialized or rarified but that have a lot at stake, that have really interesting consequences for anybody," he said. Sherman explained that many shows that feature authors publicize their books for audiences, but "those conversations rarely get into larger issues of literary studies," he said. An example he gave consisted of an author publishing a successful vampire novel, but never explaining the history of the gothic novel, its requirements or social consequences. Most of the critics Sherman has interviewed so far are local scholars. His most recent interview was with Robert Crossley, a retired professor from the University of Massachusetts Boston, who spoke about the tradition of writing about the planet Mars in literature. "As it turns out, there's a very entrenched Mars tradition. People have imagined, people have used Mars to imagine life on earth in all sorts of very creative ways," Sherman said. Another topic covered in one of Sherman's podcasts is about the role of literature in prison and alternative sentencing in prison. He interviewed Robert Waxler from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who started a program called "Changing Lives through Literature" 20 years ago. The program finds "a kind of probation where convicts of serious crimes can take intense literature classes as an alternative to going to jail, as part of a program. The point of the class is to talk through issues that make them understand behavior better," according to Sherman. The program has been successful and spread across the country. Sherman said he would like people outside the literary world to also experience the podcasts. He wants people to see that critical ways of considering literature are an enjoyable part of the process. A critical approach "has to do with literature being at the center of a conversation where you're trying to figure out things together. I would hope that the consequence would be that people would take new kinds of pleasure in their reading," he said. "I guess the corollary to that is that people who aren't in academia get a better sense of what people in literature departments do." Some other topics of the podcasts already on iTunes include an interview with Harvard University's Nicholas Watson about medieval imaginative theory, concerning the mind and imagination 500 years ago; Carrie Preston at Boston University on Ezra Pound's relationship with Japanese Noh theater; and Laura Tanners from Boston College on 9/11 fiction, especially Don DeLillo's Falling Man. Sherman comes up with the ideas for the podcasts, which he uploads once or twice a month, from conversations with other literature professors. "It's a mix, sometimes I suggest something or they already have something they're really interested in and I can suggest something a little different. It's mostly I'm going to where they are. Mostly I reach out," he said. Sherman is planning on creating podcasts with interviews with Brandeis professors as well, now that his series has gotten off to a good start. "I didn't want to start with all Brandeis [professors], but now I have just interviewed [William] Flesch (ENG), he's talking about close reading, the idea of close reading, and Ulka Anjaria in the English department. She just came out with a book on the Indian novel from India, so I'm interviewing her," he said. Sherman stresses that the podcasts can benefit anyone who enjoys reading, not only those who are directly involved in literary studies. A misfortune in the field is that historically, people do not buy books about books, literary theory, literary studies or literary history, according to Sherman. Another problem with the field is that many scholars write articles and publish them for other people in the literary world, but few others are exposed to their work. "I want to do this for a really long time. I want to do this as long as there's interesting work going on. I want to help get it out there."
(09/03/12 4:00am)
The West Bank has always been in an area of the world engulfed in political controversy. Although the Dheisheh Refugee Camp was created as a place of refuge for Palestinians, the people there have done their best to transform the land where they live with positive spirits. Andrea Verdeja '14 was born in Japan and then moved with her family to the Dominican Republic where she lives now. An International and Global Studies and Politics double major and Peace and Coexistence Studies minor, Verdeja stays involved on campus from being on the Brandeis sailing team to being the president of the International Club, a student worker at ISSO, as well as being a community advisor. This past summer, Verdeja, who is a 2012 Sorensen Fellow, volunteered at the Al-Feniq community center, also known as the Phoenix Center, which is located in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem in the West Bank. The camp was created after more than 750,000 Palestinians had to leave Israel. This refugee camp is "the biggest camp in the Bethlehem area. They have 13,000 refugees living there," according to Verdeja. She said the community center was established 10 years ago and is made up of mostly locals, so "they accept any international volunteers willing to go and help, but it's basically community life." Verdeja was one of only two from the United States volunteering at the center. Much of the volunteer work consists of assigned projects involving the camp, such as the project Verdeja took on, which was a series of interviews with members of the camp in their early 20s, speaking about what life is like in the camp. While she was there, she took editing and filmmaking classes, which she hopes to put in use when she compiles the interviews and finalizes her film. Besides her project, Verdeja was also working on translations, updating the center's webpage and writing grant proposals. Verdeja described the center which she learned about from her Palestinian friend who took her to his center, as being "a very family-based, community culture" and said the center "is basically the house [for] everyone." Al-Feniq has programs for people of all ages. Some of the activities available for the members of the camp include bringing in trainers to run workshops on various topics including team building and stress relief; workshops on mosaics, photography, filmmaking, mural painting and theater; and exercising in gyms, including one newly built only for women. There are also library programs for younger children. "Because there is no space inside the refugee camp, they really don't have a place to play or [a place] to have a recreational area, so the center does give them that space that they wouldn't have otherwise," Verdeja said. One aspect of the center that Verdeja particularly appreciated was the involvement of the volunteers inspired by pure concern for the members of the community. "Every single person including the director is a volunteer. Absolutely no one gets paid. It comes out of themselves to go and work. ... It comes out of themselves to do it, for love of their communities, for love of their friends and families because they do want to make things better," she said. Another program that the community offered, "Campus in Camps," gives 15 to 20 young adults with college degrees the opportunity to complete a two-year post-graduate program involving their ideas on how to improve the camp, "what are the projects that they themselves want to see implemented inside the camp," according to Verdeja. "That was really inspiring to see them taking over the future of the camp and what's going to happen with their community and see them so excited and motivated. Everything was so inspiring," she said. Within the Dheisheh refugee camp, there are two major community centers, of which Al-Feniq is one, and the Ibdaa cultural center is the other. The directors of each community center "were jailed together and inside the jail ... they conceptualized the project of [building] these two centers" and began their project as soon as they were free. Verdeja plans on continuing work in NGOs, human rights and advocacy once she graduates from the University. She praised the individuals in the community center and the camp. "They're so inspiring. They're honorable and their capacity to love and their capacity to be openhearted, open-minded ... they're so hospitable and so loving and [have] so much warmth. They welcome you into their families," she said. Verdeja said that considering their situation, she was so impressed with their attitudes and personalities and called her whole experience humbling. "[The people in the camp are] under occupation 24/7. They wake up every morning with a smile on their faces. It gives you perspective on what real problems are; if they go through everything they go through and still have a smile on their faces and be as loving human beings as they are, what gives us the right in our perfect little world to complain about things?"
(08/27/12 4:00am)
On July 28, Dorian Williams '13 was arrested with 19 others in Charleston, W.VA for trespassing and obstruction at a protest hosted by Radical Action for Mountain People's Survival. Initially held on $25,000 bail, Williams was released from jail after ten days with a fine of $500. According to its website, RAMPS is a campaign in West Virginia aimed at ending coal mining in Appalachia in order to fight for the survival of land, people and a healthy, sustainable future. The event this summer, "Mountain Mobilization," shut down the Hobet 21 coal mine for three hours after scores of activists, including Williams, locked themselves to a truck in protest. "I had made the decision beforehand that it was worth the risk," Williams said in an email to the Justice. This is Williams' third arrest for environmental activism. "Mountaintop removal is one of the most glaring injustices happening in this country right now. One of the fundamental issues here is that no one should have to die so that we can keep the lights on," she said. Mountaintop removal involves blasting mountain tops with explosives to reach coal underneath. Williams learned about the issues of mountaintop removal from a documentary called The Last Mountain which she watched in 2011. According to the documentary's website, the health and environmental cost of coal production is estimated to be $345 billion annually, and contributes to over 43,000 premature deaths every year from health hazards such as brain damage and asthma. Additionally, it says that while coal production in West Virginia has increased 140 percent in the last 30 years, 40,000 jobs have been eliminated. Opposition to coal mining both for environmental and labor reasons, has been going on for decades. According to the RAMPS website, this summer's protest was part of a series of events called "Summer of Solidarity Against Extraction," a series of events and protests from many environmental organizations against extracting fossil fuel, either from coal mining or otherwise. Brandeis alum Rachel Soule '12 also participated in the action, although she did not risk arrest. In an email to the Justice, Soule describes that one of the reasons she chose to participate is because of coal's impact on climate change. She said that because of climate change, "People are boiling in their homes across the country, their crops are dying of thirst because of the droughts, and their back yards are torched by wildfires." Prior to the event, the activists participated in trainings to prepare and organize. On the morning of July 28, one group from RAMPS, including Soule, rallied at Kanawha State Forest to distract the police so the other activists could lock themselves to the truck at the mine site, according to Soule. Williams and the others climbed up a large truck at the Hobet mine site and locked themselves to railings using bike locks, chains and pipes. The police arrived after they were set up. The police then arrested the protesters and brought them to a processing center to take fingerprints and check each arrestee's identification. There, Williams said that "several of the arrestees who continued to be non-compliant ... were met with police brutality," saying that the violence she witnessed was one of the scariest parts of the whole experience. She saw the police dragging an arrestee across the gravel by his feet, tearing his shirt and skin, and eventually hitting his head on a door frame. "Witnessing physical violence is nothing like seeing it on TV...I felt as though the breath had been knocked out of me," she said. Williams and the other arrestees were brought to Western Virginia Regional Jail and kept in holding overnight, which was "not one of the most comfortable experiences of my life," Williams said. "We were all glad when they gave us those classic orange jumpsuits and let us go to bed, even if it was on the concrete." While in jail, support in the form of letters and phone calls from friends and family kept her spirits high, she said. She was in the same pod as the other ten female arrestees from the action, as well as other inmates who showed them the ropes, played cards with them, and lent them books. "Small kindnesses in foreign places can mean the world," said Williams. At her court hearing on July 31, she was released with the other remaining arrestees after the prosecutors representing West Virginia dropped the obstruction charge on the condition that she does not set foot on mine sites for a year. "What Dorian did was amazing," said Soule. "She really gets the crisis we are in and she does not compromise one bit what needs to be done and what is easy." Soule described counter-protesters, mostly miners, speaking out against RAMPS from an organization called Friends of Coal. According to the FOC website, coal in West Virginia pumps more than $26 billion into the economy annually, including more than $3.2 billion in wages, and employs more than 60,000 people. FOC says that mountain top removal "is unfairly singled out ... as somehow harmful and immoral," and that "the mining industry is committed to environmental stewardship." FOC did not respond by press time. Soule said that these arguments "made me feel for them, because it is obviously a difficult situation that they are in. However, my reasons for opposing coal extraction are stronger; millions of people's lives are at risk from coal use and climate effects."
(03/05/12 5:00am)
It's been a while since we checked in on my girl Lindsay Lohan. The last time she graced this column with her presence was back in November 2011, when she was heading to court to deal with theft charges and parole violations. But it seems like Lohan may have genuinely gotten herself back on the straight and narrow in the past few weeks, beginning with her grabbing the role of Elizabeth Taylor in Lifetime's upcoming production (it probably won't win her any Oscars, but it's a start!) and culminating with her hosting Saturday Night Live last weekend. This was Lohan's fourth time hosting the show. Her last appearance as host was in 2006, when she was on the verge of her spiral into drug addiction. Since then, she has been in and out of jail and rehab multiple times, and the show has had no trouble making fun of her for it. But Lohan didn't seem to have any hard feelings and began the show with an opening monologue during which other cast members approached her to tell her how pleased they were that she was hosting—while humorously checking to see if Lohan would really make it through the whole gig. Kristen Wiig gave Lohan a long hug that soon turned into a frisking, Kenan Thompson checked to see if she was high by shining a flashlight in her eyes and SNL alum Jimmy Fallon popped in to tell Lohan that Mad Men's Jon Hamm was on call if she flaked out during the show. Lohan took it all in stride and with good humor. Later in the show, Lohan popped into the recurring "Scared Straight" sketch, playing herself as she and Thompson attempted to scare a few young men caught stealing a bicycle with ominous tales about the consequences of theft, a path that Lindsay said ends "in Malibu in rehab." Lohan also appeared in a sketch mocking the Real Housewives series, in which she played Rapunzel in Real Housewives of Disney. Sadly, there were no musical numbers. While Lohan is still a far cry from where she was at the height of her career, her hosting gig marked the beginning of what I hope is an upward swing for her. As much as I love to make fun of her, she got a second chance (well, really a fifth or sixth), and I hope this time she uses it well.
(03/05/12 5:00am)
A few weeks ago in Kitchener, Ontario, a 26-year-old father named Jessie Sansone was surprised to find himself being arrested when he went to pick up his three young children from Forest Hill Public School.
(03/05/12 5:00am)
It was at the height of the civil rights movement, in 1963, that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his "Letter From Birmingham Jail". Within the confines of his prison cell, he wrote of the white moderate—a person who was not racist and who understood the injustice being done, but at the same time failed to speak up to the gross discrimination being perpetrated throughout the United States. What the civil rights movement needed, he said, was support from those white moderates.
(03/05/12 5:00am)
It's apparently the new trend in higher education to build satellite campuses in non-Western countries around the world. New York University is planning a degree-granting campus in Shanghai and already built one in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Yale University is working on a campus in Singapore in partnership with the National University of Singapore (although that campus would grant NUS degrees instead of Yale degrees) and Carnegie Mellon intends to open a graduate school in Rwanda. However, this international development into China, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Rwanda isn't really as great as it sounds. Universities that are expanding into these countries are enabling their poor human rights records and have their silence bought with the external funding of the new campuses. Administrators have failed to fully consider the implications of working in countries with questionable laws. The UAE does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and will not allow individuals using Israeli passports to enter the country. I imagine that, of the over 7,000 international students and scholars at NYU, some are of Israeli nationality and, because of that, are unable to visit or participate in the activities of this new campus. Yale's campus in Singapore will have to abide by Singaporean law, which effectively outlaws homosexuality and utilizes capital punishment in cases of drug abuse. One Yale professor, Christopher Miller, pointed out these two laws in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education in which he describes how he would have trouble visiting the new campus because he is gay. Further, if any Yale student is caught abusing drugs in Singapore, he or she could potentially have to face the death penalty-a harsher punishment than any penalty from Yale's Executive Committee in New Haven, Conn. Several countries also have histories of censorship, which would limit the academic freedom of students and faculty. China has a record of Internet censorship, especially with Google search results. Rwanda has been recently criticized by Human Rights Watch for jailing opposition members, journalists and other critics for speaking out against the government, even if the critic was solely expressing his opinion without prior intent. In the UAE, an economics professor at the Abu Dhabi campus of the Universit?(c) Paris-Sorbonne was arrested after signing an online petition for the government to become more democratic. He was originally given a two-year prison sentence but was then pardoned by UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan. According to the article by Miller, the Sorbonne failed to mention the professor's arrest on their website nor did NYU Abu Dhabi demonstrate any type of protest in response. Miller also describes the censorship present in Singapore, where an author who published a book criticizing the Singaporean government was fined and jailed. The provost of Yale apparently was "not surprised" by the government's actions, explaining that the author violated Singapore's law against criticizing public institutions. It is surprising that Yale's provost is so tolerant of Singapore's censorship when that same policy goes against the basic mission of a university to critically analyze society, and, to that end, speak out against human rights violations. American universities have clearly viewed this international expansion as financially beneficial because the bill for the construction and maintenance of these new campuses is handed to either the host government or a third party. Carnegie Mellon's campus in Rwanda is funded by the African Development Bank, NYU Abu Dhabi is paid for by the "government of Abu Dhabi," as indicated on their website and, according to an article in Bloomberg, Yale-NUS will be paid for by NUS and Singapore's government. The payment for these new campuses by foreign countries or organizations puts the American universities in an awkward position, as it isn't in their best interest to accuse their primary funding sources of compromising freedom of speech. Universities have put themselves at the mercy of foreign governments and organizations as they accept funding for their new campuses and are thus more likely to turn a blind eye to human rights' abuses. Furthermore, the programs in these countries will compromise academic liberty and limit freedom of expression due to the host country's laws. Those characteristics are not at all conducive to the operation of a first-class university. Study abroad programs do not face these challenges to the same degree, as the university is not making the same type of investment in the host country. A study abroad program in China is merely encouraging the exchange of students and scholars, whereas the permanent establishment of a degree-granting campus reflects a substantial investment in China and misplaced confidence in China's attitude toward free speech. It is in the best interest of universities to be cautious of where they establish new international campuses so that the laws of the host country will not interfere with the daily activities of the university. I believe Yale, NYU and Carnegie Mellon are making big mistakes that will threaten their schools' academic integrity.
(03/05/12 5:00am)
Pippin Ross, a broadcast journalist who had been hired as a professor for the Journalism department this semester, was found intoxicated and unresponsive in her vehicle on campus Feb. 27, according to that day's police log. University Police placed Ross in protective custody and transported Ross to the Waltham Police Department. Dean of Arts and Sciences Susan Birren terminated Ross' employment at the University the next day. Ross' criminal background, according to her blog as well as multiple newspapers, includes numerous convictions for operating a vehicle under the influence, conspiracy to aid an escape from jail and conspiracy in attempting an escape from jail. On Feb. 28, the day after she was placed in protective custody in Waltham, she was arrested for operating under the influence and operating a vehicle after her license was revoked for drunk driving, according to the Barnstable Police Department. The Barnstable Police Department confirmed that Ross has been convicted of OUI more than four times; under Massachusetts law, that many convictions requires a lifetime suspension of the involved individual's driver's license. Conflicting accounts In an interview with the Justice, Ross' husband, Philip Austin, said that he drove Ross to Brandeis on Feb. 27. Austin said that Ross was incorrectly taken into protective custody on Feb. 27 and she should have been offered medical care for a neurological condition instead of taken to the Waltham Police Department. According to the police log, BEMCo was dispatched when officers arrived at Tower Lot after receiving a report that Ross was unresponsive in her car; however, there is no note in the police log of Ross receiving or refusing treatment. "She seems to have some sort of neurological problem that they're trying to diagnose which may have something to do with [why] she was disoriented on Monday," Austin said of Ross, who he says is currently at a hospital in Nantucket undergoing neurological tests and so was unavailable for comment on this article. "I got a phone call from the police department and went up there and rescued her, but she was there for almost six hours in a cell." Austin said that Ross was not intoxicated that day and she was given neither a breathalyzer nor a sobriety test before she was taken into protective custody. According to Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan, unless it is thought that an individual is about to operate or is in the process of operating a car, a breathalyzer test is not necessary. He added that police officers use their discretion based on experience, education and training to determine if an individual is intoxicated. "The [U]niversity stands by the Public Safety report on this incident," wrote Senior Vice President of Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully in a statement to the Justice. The Waltham Police Department confirmed that if an individual is suspected of being intoxicated but is able to walk, the individual can be taken into protective custody and transported to a police department, hospital or home until he or she is picked up by another person or able to transport him or herself safely. Ross' original account of the afternoon, however, conflicts with both that of the University and her husband. The night the accident took place, Ross sent the students in her course an email that read in part, "At about 11:00 a.m. I had a seemingly benevolent car crash on the Brandeis campus! I wasn't even driving! I got knocked out. Word is—a concussion. It's (strangely) a good plot, we'll talk about it." When asked about the email, Austin was unclear about its content but said that Ross was in a "neurological hallucinating zone" at the time and that she could have "misspoken." Austin said that "there will be an investigation and legal inquiries made about ... the University's handling of basically a professor who was having a medical issue," continuing that no lawyers had yet been in touch with the University legal team. Unknown background Despite the fact that information about Ross' arrests is publicly available through her blog, Google searches and public records, nobody at the University knew about her criminal history before hiring her, according to multiple University officials. Ross, who was hired this semester to take over the Journalism 15A "Writing for Broadcast Media Journalism" course, a requirement for the Journalism minor, was an emergency hire, according to chair of the Journalism program Prof. Maura Jane Farrelly (AMST). Ross filled the position left vacant by Margo Melnicove, who had previously taught the class for 14 years but had to be replaced due to a medical emergency in her family. According to Farrelly, Ross was hired after Farrelly listened to Ross' work on the National Public Radio website and contacted her for two phone interviews over the winter break. Farrelly learned of Ross from Ross' former colleague who currently works for New Hampshire Public Radio; that colleague served as Ross' reference for this position. After the two phone interviews, Farrelly recommended Ross for the job to Birren.Farrelly said that she did not know of Ross' criminal past before she recommended that the University employ Ross. According to an email to the Justice from Senior Vice President for Communications and External Affairs Andrew Gully, "Farrelly was following a standard process for hiring adjuncts" and "was unaware of Ross's criminal record when she was hired." Background checks, formal or informal, are not required for faculty positions at the University, according to an email to the Justice from Birren. The Faculty Handbook states that the requirements for the hiring of a normal faculty members—which include review by a committee of professors—are different for "associate professors of the practice," the title Ross held. Vice President for Human Resources Scot Bemis wrote in an email to the Justice that Massachusetts law forbids the University from asking job applicants about their criminal backgrounds. However, Bemis added that "if asked, a candidate is required to disclose a criminal conviction. The affect [sic] of a conviction depends on the position being filled and the nature of the conviction." Ross was not asked about previous convictions. A Google search for "Pippin Ross" leads to an entry on her blog. The entry explains the content of the manuscript of the book she and her husband are co-writing, Crash Course: A Reporter's Journey Into Prison, which she describes as a "stark, often funny, hopefully intriguing examination of my lost and found years of rape, alcoholism, and eventually incarceration in our nation's oldest women's prison." The Future of JOUR 15A Farrelly explained that she was informed minutes before Ross' class on Feb. 27 that Ross would not be coming to class. Farrelly said she then had decided to fill in for Ross, and was relatively certain that she would be teaching the following week. "At this point, it is not completely clear as to what the instructor situation for the class is going to be," Farrelly said. "My inclination … is that I will take over the class and we will try to bring in a guest lecturer toward the end of the semester." Ross' employment at Brandeis was terminated the day after the on-campus incident, according to an email provided to the Justice by Austin. Ross was informed of the termination in a short email from Birren. Birren issued the decision after a conference with the parties involved, according to Farrelly. In the termination email, Birren wrote to Farrelly that "based on [Ross'] conduct on February 27, 2012," her appointment with the University was terminated effective immediately. Austin said that Ross was not consulted before her termination or contacted beyond Birren's email. According to the Faculty Handbook, "action to suspend or permanently dismiss a member of the faculty is initiated by the Provost." Furthermore, "the faculty member involved must be allowed to present his or her case to the Committee [of Faculty Rights and Responsibilities], in writing as well as in person, and to present pertinent individuals who will speak in his or her behalf." This process, according to the handbook, is followed for all faculty, and adjunct professors are listed in the handbook's definition of "faculty." In an email to the Justice, Birren wrote that "much of the Handbook does not apply to adjuncts because they are short-term, temporary faculty." —Sara Dejene, Rebecca Blady and Andrew Wingens contributed reporting.
(11/07/11 5:00am)
Last week, the Brandeis chapter of Colleges Against Cancer received the Leader of Hope award from the American Cancer Society for its efforts in raising funds and awareness of the fight against cancer through campus events. We recognize that the club went above and beyond the requirements for the award and we applaud its members' dedication to this cause. Furthermore, we encourage the organization to continue hosting events that involve the entire Brandeis community. Of these events was "Jail and Bail," held last week. For this event, students and staff, like Student Union President Herbie Rosen '12 and Associate Dean of Student Life Jamele Adams, were fictitiously locked up in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium, and spectators were given the opportunity to donate money to either release them or detain them further. The donations from the event are going to help fund the Relay for Life event in the spring semester. At the event, Colleges Against Cancer raised more than $1,400; an impressive sum given that the event lasted only two hours. The success of the "Jail and Bail" event was due largely to the widespread support from the student body, and University departments such as Dining Services and the Department of Public Safety. While the event generated interest because it was an entertaining and well-advertised idea, students may have been more willing to participate because they knew that the donations were going toward a worthy cause. Previous fundraisers by the organization have also been consistently prosperous. Last year, Relay for Life hosted Daffodil Days, raising over $2,214 for the American Cancer Society just by selling flowers. The actual overnight Relay for Life event raised nearly $65,000. Last Thursday, Colleges Against Cancer hosted a coffeehouse in Cholmondeley's, and this week Relay for Life will partner with International Club for the Rumba dance, further spreading the club's message. The substantial student involvement in these events shows our student body's potential for accomplishing tremendous feats if they invest their time and energy. Students should be even more inclined to participate knowing that money they donate to for these events will be going towards fighting cancer. We encourage Colleges Against Cancer to continue their work in bringing attention to its cause by involving students through interesting and innovative events.
(11/07/11 5:00am)
The Brandeis chapter of Colleges Against Cancer received the Leader of Hope award at the American Cancer Society's New England Division Relay for Life Collegiate Leadership Summit earlier this month.
(10/31/11 4:00am)
The sad reality is many people do not even recognize the inferior status of women in this country, as it has become a normalized aspect of quotidian life. Young girls are growing up in a culture where empowered, intelligent and influential women are underrepresented and girls are instead led to believe, based on the media's representation of women, that the most important aspect of a woman is her beauty.
