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2008-05-01T18:50:00.001-07:00

Breaking the Chains and Cracking the Whip

2008-05-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

By Michael Ronan

Members of the Break the Chains Alliance gathered April 24 in Foley Square to protest the controversial Immigration Reform and Control Act. The Break the Chains Alliance, a coalition of several ethnic and labor organizations, argued in an open letter to presidential candidates that these sanctions are a “road to disaster.”

The protest continued the dialogue started in that letter while also publicizing the group's May 1 walk to protest IRCA. With posters saying “Repeal IRCA Now!” behind them, speakers explained how IRCA divides documented and undocumented workers from joining together, resulting in worsening working conditions.

IRCA was originally put into place in 1989 in efforts to answer the country’s immigration problems. The act made it illegal for employers to knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but also gave amnesty to illegal immigrants who had come to the country before 1982.

As New York University politics professor Lawrence Mead said, “IRCA was a huge liberal victory.” However, several problems arose since IRCA’s installation, the largest of which was an increase in illegal immigration. “IRCA is an open door,” said Mead, explaining that after IRCA, “illegals all went out and bought fake documents.”

He said, “IRCA is a chameleon. The right sees it as a tremendous sellout to the left and the left sees it as creating a second class.”

John J. Crogan Jr., organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World, expressed this belief, calling IRCA, “a slave law to keep underclass workers.”

While acting on the behalf of both documented and undocumented workers, the Break the Chains alliance is not indicative of the country as a whole. “Most people are ambivalent [about the issue]," said Mead. “They do not like it when people break the law, but are sympathetic on an individual level.”

Mead also explained that the calls for change made at the April protest can be attributed to a “close connection to the illegal workers themselves,” as well as a fear against the recent “movement of tightening up” of immigration restrictions by the current administration.

For those reasons, speakers made a call on presidential candidates in an open letter to end what they called divisive immigration policies. Immigration has been a hot button issue that candidates have somewhat avoided during the election because how it divides voters. The immigration stance of the current government, however, as moved toward the right.

Mead explained this saying, “homeland security is beginning to crack the whip, but the whip is not IRCA.” The “whip” is the backlash from the failings of IRCA, as the government becomes more diligent in checking for illegal immigrants. Because of this backlash, Thursday’s event attacked the perceived root of the problem; IRCA.

“We are not going to wait till next year,” said one protestor. “That’s why we are marching on May 1.” May 1 marks International Workers’ Day, a day where workers had united in the past for the betterment of the working class.

Unity among workers, both documented and undocumented, is one of the ways the Break the Chains Alliance hopes to achieve better conditions for the working class. “Employers are using the laws to divide documented workers and undocumented workers,” said Adolfo Lopez, a member of the National Organization against Sweat Shops.

Stanley Mark, senior staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, added, “The law makes it foreign born versus native born people.”

Lopez used personal examples to illustrate this divisive policy in action. He recalled how, as an undocumented worker, he only made $15 a day while documented workers made substantially more. When Lopez asked his boss why he was making less money than the documented workers although he worker longer hours, he said it was because they had papers. Employers are “using the law to separate us [documented and undocumented workers] so we cannot fight together.”

For that reason, Lopez, and other members of the Break the Chains Alliance invited, “all workers, documented and undocumented to come to the march.” As Gustavo Mejias, member of the Million Worker March said, “They cannot divide us, black, Latino, Chinese. They cannot divide us.”

While stories like that of Lopez may make employers seem like the quintessential bad guys, as Mead explained, the issue is more complex. “Employers are not necessarily in the driver’s seat,” he said. Mead added that they are having trouble filling jobs that no one will do.

But doing the jobs no one else is willing to do has left undocumented workers with a desire for a better life and a clearer path toward citizenship. Jei Fong, an organizer with the Chinese Staff & Worker’s Association said Thursday’s protest was “not a call for guest workers, not a call for legislation that will criminalize good workers.” She said, “We are going to demand that all immigrants have a path to citizenship and won’t have to live in the shadows.

“We need to take control of our lives, take control of our work,” she urged.

“We all lose out big time,” said Harlem Tenant council head Nellie Bailey, explaining why action is needed. “Not only workers but the community.” Bailey then called on the unity of worker of all ethnicities saying repealing IRCA is “deserving of all the voices of the community across this city.”

Repealing the IRCA could be in the near future explained professor Mead. He said, “I think IRCA will be consigned to the scrap heap. The likelier outcome is no new law but a tightening up of restrictions.”

This is exactly what the members of the Break the Chains Alliance wish to avoid, demonstrated by their open letter. Tosh Anderson on behalf of the Break the Chains Alliance wrote that tighter restrictions “will just result in new means of circumventing those measures that will push undocumented workers even further underground and worsen the working conditions for all workers.” But unfortunately for them, this seems to be direction the country is heading.

Columbia University Students Remember Palestinian Exodus

2008-05-01T07:03:00.001-07:00

By: Kimberly Anglin

New Yorkers Going Green at Gardening Festival in Union Square

2008-05-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

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By Alexandra Beggs

New Yorkers can’t seem to get enough green. Going green—from composting, to green roofs, to year-round container gardening—was the focus of a festival for National Garden Month in Union Square on Sunday.

The festival, NYC Grows, was a celebration of gardening in the city where backyards are on rooftops, and choosing what to plant is a strategy against shade, wind, and ruthless winters. But the festival was also an opportunity for new, ecologically-conscious horticulturalists and business owners to inform the public about new ways to live greenly.

Martha Desbiens, a principal landscape architect for VertNY, designs green roofs and urban gardens.

“In the city you have to be more creative to be green,” she said. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC has tax incentives for people with green roofs, which Desbiens said has sparked the interest of many New Yorkers.

The gardens cost more, she said, but they last a long time, reduce water run-off by 50 percent, and reduce heating and cooling costs. The ecological designs have been utilized by many apartment tenants, as well as larger companies such as the Lichtenstein Foundation.

Kristi Stromberg Wright, also a principal designer at VertNY, does not think green roofs will be a transient public interest.

“Chicago is good example because they have amazing tax breaks for green roofs, so many people do it; it won’t be a fad because the environmental benefits are so great.”

Alex Feleppa, Director of Horticulture at The Horticultural Society of New York, described the society’s mission to foster the community and improve life through horticulture. Feleppa said the society has several programs of community outreach, even an interning program at Rikers Island, where inmates learn skills such as woodworking and horticulture in order to help them find job placement after they leave.

“It’s really gratifying getting people empowered and excited about doing it themselves,” said Feleppa. He noted that more visitors are posing questions on his blog, and visiting the society’s library with inquiries about becoming greener.

“[The Horticultural Society] is like the glue for all the green groups in the city,” he said, because the society offers resources and basic knowledge of horticulture, which then leads to ideas ranging from conservation to composting.

The subject of composting brought many curious visitors to the booth of the Composting Council of Canada.

Doug Hill, the General Manager of the Environmental Division, explained the process of composting.

“With a backyard composter, you put your kitchen scraps in the machine and it grinds them up. Then you can use it for your flowers, vegetables, whatever you’re growing.” He also pointed out that the curbside composter, a specially designed trashcan that many Canadians use is another way to compost. The contents are picked up in the same way the trash is, but instead of going to a landfill, they are turned into compost.
Hill noted that in Toronto, 92 percent of the citizens have curbside composting. In the United States, citizens in California and parts of Minnesota are also growing in participation.

“But because the curbside composting is not very profitable, it becomes a question of political will,” Hill said. Many visitors to his booth were eager to receive a compost bucket, which is for the scraps that are taken to composting locations.

Con Edison has also taken an active stance in reducing carbon emissions in the city. Bob McGee, a spokesperson for the company, said that “vampire electricity” is a new way New Yorkers can realize, and take efforts to reduce their energy usage.

“Vampire electricity is when common things in your home, such as computers and handheld devices, use power even when you’re not using them,” McGee said. Con Edison has proposed several summer energy efficiency programs, including a lighting program that installs Energy Star fluorescent lights in homes and an incentive program for homes with Energy Star heating and cooling systems.

Presenters at the festival also tried to spread the word about the differences individuals can make by changing small aspects of their lifestyle, such as buying groceries locally.

Chef Colin Alevras from The Tasting Room, a wine bar and café, brought his family to help him discuss the benefits of buying from local farmers while he tossed a salad of greens purchased at the Union Square Green Market.

“We find ourselves in unchartered water with these ingredients,” Alevras said about the often unfamiliar produce at the market. He held up a leaf and laughed, “I bought this the other day and I have no idea what it is.”

“It’s important for me to stay regional,” he added, encouraging the audience that buying from farmers’ markets stimulates the local economy and helps the community.
Joanne Wessel is a part of a community garden, Dias y Flores, which is located on the Lower East Side.

“Most people don’t know much about gardening” at the garden, “but once it becomes a part of your routine, it becomes a part of yourself,” she said. “[Gardening] rooted me spatially in the community, especially in New York because people are so territorial, I’ve become more open.” Many of these gardens make up a larger coalition of public gardens in the city, where volunteers dedicate their time for the upkeep of the gardens.

In regards to the Green Movement, Wessel expressed amazement at the growth of organic grocery chains and her own visitation to the Green Market.

“Now 14th Street is a Mecca for foodies! I come to the market at least twice a week and religiously on Saturdays,” she said. She added that she visits the market “to support the community, it’s vital, you eat better, and you’re preserving a way of life.”

Bloomingdale's Workers and Management Reach Tentative Agreement After Rally for a Fair Contract

2008-05-01T06:41:00.001-07:00

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by Lisa Bonarrigo

Bloomingdale’s workers and management reached a tentative contract agreement Wednesday, April 30, avoiding the intended strike declared by the leaders of Local 3, a union representing Bloomingdale’s workers under the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). A strike would affect over 2,000 workers and close the Bloomingdale’s 59th St. store indefinitely.

The old contract expired Wednesday night, implementing a new 4-year contract which addresses all but the workers’ desired health care plan. Before the contract is ratified, an additional two weeks has been allotted for discussion of this and the general wage increase demanded by the workers.

Workers at the Bloomingdale’s 59th St. store sent a message to management Thursday, April 24 when they voted to strike for a better contract, ultimately generating the tentative agreement. This decision came after Local 3 rallied outside the 59th St. store on Tuesday, April 22.

Local 3 members repeated chants such as “What do we want? Contract. When do we want it? Now” and “Who are we? Local 3” at the demonstration, which lasted a little over an hour. Yellow fliers were distributed reading “Bloomingdale’s workers are demonstrating today as part of a Union effort to convince Management and Macy’s Inc, the parent company, to be fair and just.”

Immediately following the demonstration, Local 3 representatives and Bloomingdale’s management met to continue contract discussions which began on Feb. 14. The workers’ demands for a general wage increase and a better health care plan were not met at that time.

RWDSU Local 3 President Ida Torres expressed her concern for the workers at the rally. “At this point, we’re looking for a living wage. A wage that ensures our workers can put food on the table for their families; we want them to have the health benefits they need to survive,” Torres said.

According to Torres, under the most recent contract workers at Bloomingdale’s are being paid as little as the $8 an hour minimum wage in New York City. Another category of workers are paid by straight commission. “They don’t know what they’re making, it depends on what they sell,” Torres said.

The health benefits under the most recent contract do not meet the demands of the workers in order to ensure a decent standard of living, according to Torres.

Torres mentioned the National Labor Relations Board, which was created by Congress under the Wagner Act in 1935 to guarantee employees the right to organize and negotiate with their employers. “With a union, the boss has to deal with the voices of the workers,” Torres said.

Cassandra Berrocal, Secretary Treasurer of RWDSU Local 3, similarly noted the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, also known as the Labor-Management Relations Act. This act made union organization laws more specific, such as more clearly defining unfair labor practices.

At the time of the rally Berrocal was positive about the pending negotiations with the company. “Our intention is to settle by May 1,” she said. The workers’ contract originally expired on March 1, but an automatic 60 day extension was implemented.
Berrocal stressed the amount of workers represented by Local 3, and how many are discouraged with the current contract. “Our local union represents workers from all divisions of operation in the 59th St. store – the selling division, the non-selling division, housekeeping, and so on,” Berrocal said.

Sal Leibowitz has worked in the Advertising Department of Bloomingdale’s 59th St. store for 40 years. He said he’s witnessed a couple of demonstrations similar to the one on April 22, but did not believe a strike was necessary. “This isn’t the worst, but it’s pretty bad,” Leibowitz said.

Leibowitz said he’s stayed with the company for so many years because of the security of having a job. “I like the people here and I enjoy the work, but I’ve got to survive also,” he said.

Harriet Farmah, a sales associate at the 59th St. store for past two years, was also concerned about security. She said that the workers are being treated unfairly due to a lack of respect from the company. “We are not appreciated at all. We bring the store millions of dollars every year and it’s not appreciated,” Farmah said.

The Bloomingdale’s workers received support from many union workers around New York City who joined them to picket. “We have the support of the RWDSU and local unions from the Central Labor Council – which represents 1.5 million workers,” Berrocal said.

RWDSU represents union workers throughout New York City. President of the RWDSU, Stuart Appelbaum, was at the demonstration and said that he was concerned for the workers at Bloomingdale’s. He agreed with Farmah, saying that the workers deserve respect from the management. “We have workers here that have made this company successful throughout the years. They demand dignity and respect,” Appelbaum said.
He also went on to explain how both the workers and their families are affected by the contract negotiations. “They want to know they won’t have to worry how they’re going to survive or how their families are going to have the healthcare they deserve,” Appelbaum said.

Ruben Fort, Vice President of Local 377, another union within New York City represented by RWDSU, said that what happens to one union can often affect others. “That’s why we’re here in solidarity with Local 3 today,” Fort said.

Daniel J. Walkowitz is Director of Experiential Learning with a particular interest in labor at New York University’s Metropolitan Studies Department. He said that union workers rally to build public support, draw attention to their cause, and educate consumers as an alternative to a strike, which deprives them of wages.

Walkowitz also mentioned why negotiations are necessary with pending strikes. “Some owners, usually the more intractable ones, prefer to negotiate and recognize unions as a way to create labor peace, and have organized spokespersons that can discipline the labor force and avoid wildcat strikes. Strikes cast workers wages in the short term, but they cost owners profits that can not be recouped,” Walkowitz said.

Jack the Dripper's Killer Exhibit at the Jewish Museum

2008-05-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

by Walter Ancarrow

The Jewish Museum previewed its newest exhibition, Action/Abstraction: Pollock, De Kooning, and Postwar American Art, 1940-1976 on Tuesday, the first U.S. showcase of Abstract Expressionism in 20 years.

The exhibition, which begins May 4, spotlights the works of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, with smaller focus on painters like Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Arshile Gorky.

Also displayed are the writings of Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg, two influential art critics of the post-war era.

The exhibition aims to give fresh perspective to Abstract Expressionism by providing the audience with works of the painters and the critics, and the historical background necessary to put the movement in cultural context.

“Different art critics and writers have interpreted the art in many different ways,” said Norman Kleeblatt, head curator of Action/Abstraction. “They shape the way we still think about the art.”

Kleeblatt alludes to Greenberg and Rosenberg, who were notorious for their clashing beliefs. Their philosophy on art is summed up in the exhibition’s sly title.

Rosenberg endorsed action, or the physical way of making art, as exemplified by Pollock’s “drip” technique – the method used to make his iconic splattered paint pieces. Greenberg believed in the abstraction of the piece, or the overall look, feel, and design of the work.

Kleeblatt hopes the showcase gives the audience a launching point of comparison between the different ways Rosenberg and Greenberg viewed the art, mixed with the painters’ ideas behind the works, and the audience’s own opinion.

“It’s terrific!” exclaimed one woman who hadn’t yet seen the paintings.

“I don’t know exactly what [the artist] wants to say,” said Eva Sas, a freelance journalist from Hungary who admitted to not having very much knowledge on Abstract Expressionism. “I’ve read a few things about Pollock, that’s it.”

But that didn’t prevent her from enjoying the exhibition.

“It’s a mixture of reality, imagination, and feelings,” she said.

Abstract Expression began in the late 1940’s as one of the many movements that sprang from the New York art scene. It gained acceptance after WWII and helped propel the United States, particularly New York City, into the avant-garde spotlight, taking the attention away from Paris.

“Here you have [the United States] coming off WWII and struggling,” said Maurice Berger, curator of the exhibition’s three “context rooms” designed to help place the movement in social perspective. “This is really the only period in American art that was on the same trajectory – it too was struggling.”

Berger said that this parallel is what makes the art important.

“Over the years, art critics have begun to focus on the relation between art in the cultural and social contexts,” he explained.

His “context rooms” display newspaper clips, magazine articles, and gallery pamphlets organized in neat little rows against the wall. TVs play snips of documentaries featuring interviews with art critics of the time, Greenberg and Rosenberg included. Berger wants the audience to rethink Abstract Expressionism by providing historic framework.

Art movements like Abstract Expressionism were new ways of reflecting upon a world of radical social change – McCarthyism, the looming Cold War, civil rights, and feminist movements. The exhibition includes what Berger calls “blind spot” artists like Lee Krasner, Pollock’s wife, and Norman Lewis, one of the few African American Abstract Expressionist artists. The rise of minority artists was one social outcome of the art movement.

“Many of the important artists were immigrants or children of immigrants,” said Kleeblatt.

De Kooning emigrated from the Netherlands, while a large number of Jewish artists and critics, like Rothko, Philip Guston, and Michael Goldberg, became a force in the art world.

“Synagogues were some of the first institutions to commission abstract artists,” said Berger, citing this as one of the reasons the Jewish Museum hosted the exhibition.

“I’m glad [the curators] are tying it into being Jewish,” said Alex Schatzberg, an NYU sophomore who plans on attending the exhibition when it opens to the public. “It’s not something I normally think as being Jewish.”

Perhaps the exhibition’s biggest link to Jewish culture comes from Greenberg and Rosenberg, who helped make Abstract Expressionism mainstream. Kleeblatt believes the two critics are still influencing art admirers today.

But for some viewers, it’s about the look of the piece and not its critical analysis.
Liz Bowen, a student at Fordham and one of the few young people at the exhibition, said that, while she knows about the art movements and the ideas behind them, it’s her personal interaction with them that’s important.

“A lot of [the art’s] neat because it’s like looking into a space you’ve never seen before. It swallows you up,” she said.

Her personal favorite wasn’t exhibition headliners Pollock or de Kooning.

“I really liked the inclusion of Barnett Newman because his stuff is a lot more minimal compared to Jackson Pollock. It’s a completely different rendering of the same principals,” she said.

Overall, she was excited for the collection. “This seems like a really rare thing… to see [the art] put together in one place. It’s cool to see them all teamed up.”

Others, like Molly Zimmelman, an art student at the New School, can’t wait for the exhibition to start.

“You go to the MoMa or the [Metropolitan Museum of Art] and you see the same stuff so I’m excited for some new art,” she said. “And Pollock happens to be really interesting.”

The Jewish Museum’s Action/Abstraction exhibition runs May 4 to September 21 and features Pollock’s famous “Convergence” and de Kooning’s masterpiece “Gotham News” as well as other Abstract Expressionist works. The exhibition will travel to St. Louis and Buffalo later this year.

People and Pets Fight Animal Cruelty

2008-05-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

By Piper Wallingford

On April 10, the New York chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals observed its third annual ASPCA Day. Supporters dressed in orange to tell New York that pets are as important as people are, and every animal deserves a loving home.

Many people went “orange for animals,” dressing themselves, and even their pets, in the color of the ASPCA. At 8 p.m., the lights on the Empire State Building glowed orange, promoting awareness of animal abuse.

New York University student Megan Wang was there to support the event because she thinks the ASPCA truly cares about animal welfare. “Animals have no one to help them, and they can’t tell anyone what’s wrong,” she said. “It’s difficult to get people to care because they don’t think animals matter as much.”

Wang was a volunteer at a cat shelter, Ali’s Place, when a fire broke out at the center. “The firefighters wouldn’t go check on the animals,” Wang said. “They kept saying that they didn’t do that for animals, only for people. But when you show that you care about animals, you show that you care about people too.”

Phil Arkow is chair of the Latham Foundation, which examines the link between animal abuse and domestic violence. “People treat animals like they treat other people,” he said. “But very few [police] jurisdictions screen for animal abuse because officers are trained to deal with human issues, not animals. There aren’t even any statistics about animal cruelty.”

Arkow believes that events like ASPCA Day will encourage people to fight against animal cruelty and recognize the importance of pets. “If there’s more awareness, and more training, and more people thinking about it, then there’s going to be more programs that fight animal abuse.”

New York City law enforcement agencies have already taken important steps towards eliminating animal abuse, said volunteer Noel Dowling. Animal abuse is a felony in New York, she said, adding that New York also has humane law enforcement officers who investigate animal cruelty.

More people need to get involved to change existing animal abuse policies, said ASPCA employee Laura Meece. “People need to know that they can help and can make a difference,” said Meece.

ASPCA Day started three years ago in order to educate more people about animal cruelty. “This event has a lot of impact because it draws in so many people who don’t know what’s going on,” said Meece. “People are walking in the park or coming out of the subways. They see people in orange and the bright colors and come over.”

Dowling hopes that the event will encourage people to learn more about the prevention of animal abuse “It’s an event for people who don’t know anything – they’ve never seen the website, or talked to an officer,” she said. “Any kind of information that we can get out there, through volunteers or adoption, is important, even if we just reach someone who insists on buying a purebred dog.”

Many dogs at the event sported orange bandanas and sweaters, while some of their owners had even dyed their hair. Volunteers handed out free calendars, dog treats, and even orange cotton candy to draw in people. Some of the tents were informational, like the ASPCA enforcement officer, or the veterinarian who was answering questions about pet nutrition. Other tents were just for fun, like the artist drawing caricatures of dogs.

But the tent that drew the biggest crowd was the one that held rescued animals that were available for adoption. Crowds of people packed around cages housing rescued animals wearing “Please adopt me” vests. Cats and dogs peeked through the wire cages, and event organizers scrambled to keep order as people pushed forward for a closer look.

Wang believes that adopting rescued animals is an important way to fight animal abuse. While volunteering at an ASPCA shelter, she often saw the results of animal cruelty first hand. “A lot of animals at the shelter had been abused and were missing ears or limbs or had eye problems,” said Wang. “My favorite cat, Bobby, had a permanent ring around his neck from a choke collar.”

For Wang, ASPCA Day is an opportunity to find families for animals that have never had loving homes. “Bobby was adopted and went to a home where people care about him. Other abused animals can be adopted here, and it’s important to encourage that love between owners and pets.”

Danielle Ramos-Castro wanted to see every animal go to a new home. “I like seeing animals and knowing that that they all have a chance to be adopted,” she said.

Danielle’s mother, Susanna Ramos, thought that having adoptable animals on site was a great way to raise awareness. “Animals have a greater opportunity to be adopted at events like this because everyone wants a cute kitten or puppy,” she said.

The Ramos’s dog, Nina, was rescued, and Ramos considers her a part of the family. “We dressed in orange and came today so everyone can be aware of how important animals are in our lives.”

Jessi Santiago adopted her Pomeranian, Teddy, at the first ASPCA Day three years ago. “We adopted Teddy from ASPCA because they’re the only people who stick up for animals,” she said. “We have two other pets, two cats, and they’re all absolutely spoiled. Every animal needs a chance to be loved.”

Having volunteered for the ASPCA for more than 20 years, Dowling said that loving an animal is one of the greatest joys anyone can know. “The love between pets and people, you can’t explain it to non-animal people, and you don’t have to explain it to people with pets,” she said.

ASPCA Day gave many people the opportunity to start understanding the love between people and animals, as well as other benefits of having a pet. “Pets teach you how to relax, and they keep you happy,” Dowling said. “They do so much, there’s absolutely no question we love our pets.”

Revolutionary Activists Speak Out Against Religion

2008-05-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

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Tanya Burnett

NEW YORK—“We have reached an era where a leap to totalitarianism is possible,” said revolutionary activist Sunsara Taylor on Wednesday night at Cooper Union’s Wollman Auditorium.

Taylor’s statements came during a debate on the provocative topic of “Atheism, God, and Morality in a Time of Imperialism and Rising Fundamentalism,” which also included former New York Times Middle East correspondent Chris Hedges.

In front of an audience of more than 200 people, Taylor criticized the religious base in America, which she believes is the cause for war and economic inequality around the world, while Hedges expressed that radicalism on either end of the spectrum—whether atheist or Christian—will only lead to destruction.

Although it seemed like a balanced debate, the audience—on the other hand—was mostly comprised of atheist individuals like Taylor, most of who are active members of radical organizations such as the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Harlem Revolutionary Club.

With over 50 communist organizations currently active in the U.S, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) is the most known out of such organizations. Its objectives are to speak out against U.S imperialism and urge people to liberate themselves through communist political revolution.

The party was formed in 1975 and led by elected National Chairman and primary spokesperson Bob Avakian. His most recent work Away With All Gods: Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World is one of the many books in which Avakian challenges religion, which he deems to be a strong force behind imperialism.

“What we want to do is forge a classless communist world, in which the power of the ruling class of white men is broken down. All we have in America, and other nations, in which the U.S. government has forced so-called democracy onto, is a handful of rich exploiters and we need to put power back into the hands of the people,” said co-founder of the RCP, Carl Dix.

Dix stated that the biggest obstacle to the “classless world” is religion. “Religion obscures reality,” he said.

Religion, as Dix put it, does not make people individually responsible for their actions. Christianity preaches that all of the corruption in the world can be attributed to the concept of original sin, which demonstrates that the human race is automatically inclined to be sinful due to the sin of giving into temptation committed by the biblical figures Adam and Eve.

“The problems in this world are created by people and the operation of exploitation, not by some mythical figure. We have the ability to change greed,” Dix said.

Clarence Williams, a member of the Harlem Revolutionary Club and author of the book Truth, agreed that religion impaired individual responsibility and self-empowerment.

As a man who grew up in a Pentecostal church, Williams stated that he always felt that “the church preached ignorance and complacency rather than knowledge and activism.”

This idea, however, was rejected by Hedges during his presentation at the debate. As he stood in front of the podium in the hot and humid auditorium, Hedges claimed that humans are innately irrational and the idea that humans can evolve morally—an idea held by many atheists—is false.

“Religion is an attempt to deal with the non-rational forces that make us human beings—love, grief, the search for meaning, death, annihilation, and so on,” he said.

Hedges also criticized the radical mindset of atheists, like Taylor, who rage
against religion and faith.

He stated: “Radical atheists have managed to replicate what the Christian Fundamentalists have said, but only in a secular language.”

Christian Fundamentalism is characterized as an aggressive and religious movement that seeks to combat what they regard to be the liberal takeover of the state, family and church. Christian Fundamentalists have also spread their influence in politics. They have formed alliances with conservative political forces and, with groups like Christian Coalition and Family Research Council helped the Republican Party to gain control of the White House, both houses of Congress, and a more conservative Supreme Court by the mid-1990s.

Evangelical Christians make up 20 percent of the population, but Distinguished Professor of Anthropology of the City University of New York (CUNY) and author of the book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey says that although their numbers are small, “the alliance between big business and conservative Christians backed by the neoconservatives steadily consolidated, eventually eradicating all liberal elements from the Republican Party, particularly after 1990, and turned it into the relatively homogenous right-wing electoral force of today.”

But before the conservative rise to power, leftist organizations were prominent and influential in political and economic affairs.

“Communist and social parties were gaining ground, if not taking power. Across much of Europe and even the U.S., popular forces were agitating for widespread reforms and state interventions,” Harvey stated.

According to Harvey, “In the U.S, the share of the national income taken by the top 1 percent of income earners fell from a pre-war high of 16 percent to less than 8 percent by the end of World War II, and stayed close to that level for nearly three decades.” But when “the stable share of an increasing pie” collapsed in the 1970s when real interest rates went negative among other things, the upper classes clamored to “protect themselves from political and economic annihilation.”

“Right now, we have a shrinking middle class, a growing lower class and a small stagnant upper class, which is back by Christian conservatives who continue to subtly enforce economic and social inequality for their sole benefit,” said Harlem Revolutionary Club activist Noche Lares.

Lares explained that the Republican Party, under the influence of Christian conservatives, is responsible for the war in Iraq and the crippling of the economies of developing countries.

“They have told [Americans] that they want to spread democracy and free markets, or they need to find terrorists. When all they’re really doing is implementing the same economic and social inequalities that they have instituted in America, but to a more severe degree.”

Lighting the Path to a Greener You

2008-05-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

By Cory Carroll

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How many light bulbs do you have to replace to help the world?

Osram Sylvania unveiled the Sylvania micro-mini Twist at the annual Light Congress in New York City on Earth Day. The Twist is currently the smallest CFL (compact fluorescent light bulb) on the market. Sylvania’s bulb is a replacement for incandescent light bulbs regularly used in consumers’ homes and one of the initiatives for a creating a more eco-friendly environment.

The Twist is the newest product in Sylvania’s Ecologic line of environmentally friendly lighting products and part of the growing trend of creating eco-friendly lighting. According to Bob Ponzini, commercial engineer at Osram Sylvania, the current trend is to make “efficient, longer-life products that minimize hazardous materials going into the light,” and to help minimize “manufacture packaging.”

The Twist (available at local hardware and grocery stores as a 2-pack for $9.99), for example, can be used to replace 60, 75, or 100-watt (W) incandescent light bulbs without compromising the light’s functionality. This product is 30 percent smaller than a standard CFL and can last for about 11 years. In contrast, a standard 75-watt clear incandescent light bulb has an average life span of about 63 days.

While Ponzini says there is “no perfect light source,” he says the goal of Sylvania and their products is “to be at the forefront to meet the needs of customers and legislation.”

Sylvania has also been working to decrease hazardous materials in the bulbs, like mercury and lead. While mercury, for example, cannot completely be eliminated from lighting systems because it increases the efficiency of the lamps, Sylvania has “reduced the amount of mercury used in many of [their] lamps by up to 92 percent” (according to Sylvania’s “A Guide to Sustainable Lighting Sources”).

In addition to improving efficiency and removing harmful products, Osram Sylvania has changed the packaging of their products. “Space is key for packaging,” says Ponzini. By packaging more efficiently and minimizing space used, Sylvania has looked beyond their products for innovative ways to conserve resources. “The more lamps in a truck cuts down on diesel fuel for trucks to transport,” says Ponzini. In addition, as more lamps can be transported, fewer trucks are needed to transfer the product.

Helping to unveil the Twist was “Gossip Girl” actress Kelly Rutherford. In a press release Rutherford says, “I replaced a number of the incandescent light bulbs in my house with the Sylvania micro-mini CFL and now I won’t have to think about them for another decade!” Rutherford is one of many eco-conscious celebrities, including Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, working to bring awareness on how to go green.

On the horizon for the development of energy efficient lighting is the possibility of the European Union’s (EU) Directive RoHS being placed in effect in the United States, according to Greg McCord, Sylvania’s application engineer. RoHS stands for “the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment” (rohs.gov.uk) and became effective on July 1, 2006 in the EU. This Directive is based on corporate and residential compliances dealing with “disposal factors” and “a change in the manufacturing process that has no lead or mercury base,” says McCord. The RoHS Directive is just beginning to come into effect in parts of the U.S., including “California RoHS” which began on January 1, 2007.

In addition to the creation of eco-friendly products, the global green initiative is being put to use by companies, universities, and personal consumers across the U.S.

The New 42nd Street in NYC, for example, recently finished energy efficient plans that were devised in 2003. The New 42nd Street includes the New 42nd Street Studios, a state-of-the-art, ten-story building of performing arts rehearsal space, and The New Victory Theater on 42nd Street. Working with grants from NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) and Con Edison, the New 42nd Streets’ director of production, Dave Jensen, and director of facilities, Benno Van Noort, began with changes to the studio building’s façade.

According to Jensen, “The façade cost about $60,000 a year to light.” Jensen says he “came up with the idea to work with the new technology to balance the new power units in the façade” and replaced the existing lights with LED (colored lighting found in traffic signals). With this change, the façade’s “usage dropped 95% without any change in the artistic fixture,” says Jensen, and “after six years the cost of the work on the façade will pay back.”

At the university setting, NYC’s New York University has developed a campus-wide sustainability task force and recycling department, ranks as the largest university buyer of wind energy in the U.S. and created a cogeneration power plant project. According to Jonah “Cecil” Scheib, director of Energy and Sustainability at NYU, the school “works in conjunction with NYSERDA for rebate and funding opportunities whenever possible.” While the costs of the programs initiated vary, he says “paybacks can be as short as 4-6 weeks (for instance, the replacement in dorms of incandescent bulbs with CFL) or as long as 2-5 years for more expensive projects.”

From a university that covers “over 5 million square feet of interior space” (according to NYU’s official site) to a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx, individuals are recognizing the benefits of energy efficiency too.

Marcus Lofthouse, a dual resident of a studio in Manhattan’s Financial District and a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx neighborhood Highbridge, brought lessons he learned from his alma mater, Oberlin College in Ohio, to the Big Apple. Since moving to NYC in 2005, Lofthouse says he “replaced all of the lighting in the main area of the studio with energy efficient bulbs and lamps.” With the simple changes he made (some in lamps he purchased in Ohio), he says, “Some of the bulbs I have only replaced once in five years.”

Further down south in Auburn, Alabama, Kristen Murphy says she implemented changes around her home over a year ago beginning with all of the canister lights in her kitchen. Murphy says she and her husband, John, are very conservative, and she learned about the eco-friendly effects of changing their lighting from their neighbor who is in charge of green projects at the University of Auburn.

Regardless of whether a celebrity or an eco-conscious neighbor galvanizes you, or whether you change a light bulb or create one, each person involved is helping to conserve energy and protect the troubled planet. By switching to eco-friendly light bulbs, you can save energy and money. So how many light bulbs do you have to replace to help the world? The answer: one.

Brain Tumor Association in the Money with Record $700,000 Fundraiser

2008-05-01T06:30:00.001-07:00

by Damon Beres

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Over 5,000 people braved the cool lakefront temperatures and cutting winds last Saturday to support the American Brain Tumor Association’s third annual Path to Progress, a 5K run and walk that raised nearly $700,000, a $300,000 increase from last year’s event. 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of ABTA, commemorated by a Path to Progress turnout that trounced last year’s by 1,000 people.

“It’s great to have people come together, even though our weather is awful,” said Stephanie Melone, from the Gray Matters Team, so-named for the region in the brain that forms a key part of the central nervous system. “To have everybody raise money is amazing… We found out how we could turn something negative into something positive.”

The walk, held at Chicago’s Montrose Harbor, generated funds to advance brain tumor treatments, develop insights into the cause of brain tumors, and work towards a cure. Leading the fundraising effort this year with just over $47,000 was Team Survivor: Chicago, comprised of more than 200 Northwestern Memorial Hospital Brain Tumor Support Group members and their friends and family. Team Hope claimed second with $25,000, almost $18,000 of which was raised by top individual fundraiser Juliana Schafer.

“This was a bigger event than last year and the year before,” said Naomi Berkowitz, Executive Director of ABTA, adding that the figures from the Path to Progress will only continue to grow over the coming months through further donations and matching gifts. “Preliminary revenue figures are approaching three-quarters of $1 million.”

Already off to a strong start, ABTA hopes to reach new heights this year by raising $2.5 million. Though not the only brain tumor foundation in America, ABTA is unique in that it is an independent organization that awards research grants to scientists throughout the United States and Canada. A group of over 20 scientific advisers, ranging from a doctor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School to a molecular oncologist at Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, makes recommendations to the board of directors, which then decides where to allocate funds for its Fellowship Awards and Translational Research Grants. Over $2 million is awarded by ABTA each year for brain tumor research across North America.

With 120 kinds of brain tumors, however, even that much money can seem like a drop in the bucket.

“We need more help to raise more money,” said Dr. Jeffrey Raizer, a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Raizer is currently working on developing new treatments, including Avastin, a medication that blocks vessel formation using a derivative of scorpion toxin, which binds selectively to tumor cells.

Though ABTA and new therapies like Avastin are making headway on the brain tumor treatment front, it is still simply not enough. Raizer stresses that for most, brain tumors can be considered death sentences, and though he personally worked with a couple hundred brain tumor patients last year, most people know of brain tumors “only what they glean off the internet.”

“I didn’t know a single thing,” said Melone. She became involved with ABTA only after teammate Mark Averson received a brain tumor diagnosis.

With the Path to Progress’s growing numbers, however, it’s clear that awareness is spreading rapidly. Melone assembled her team only a month before the walk, but still raised over $3,000. “We were pretty surprised - pleasantly surprised. We’re hoping to make it an annual event.”

ABTA gives each team and its individual members web pages from which donations can be solicited. It’s easy to get others involved, which explains how Melone’s team grew to 40 people in such a small amount of time. While research and treatments like Avastin are clear goals for ABTA, spreading awareness and increasing participation are vital in keeping the organization going. As involvement grew so much from last year, things are clearly heading in the right direction for the Path to Progress.

Participants in this year’s walk reflected this optimism. Despite overcast skies for much of the morning, a fitting reflection of the gray matter on everyone’s minds, walkers and runners joined for food and festivities on Montrose Field surrounded by upbeat rock music from WTMX-FM. By the time the 5K started, the sun even began to shine. For fundraisers, the Path to Progress was cause for celebration, not sorrow.

“Personally, I was extremely touched by the showing displayed on Saturday,” said Carolyn Licata, a walker and fundraiser. “People weren't crying as they walked, they were having fun. I met a group who traveled from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio just to show their support… If they aren't sad about the things they see on a daily basis, then there certainly must be hope.”

Pat Hurley, the head of Team Hurley, which placed eighth in the top fundraising teams with $12,435, was similarly upbeat. Chatting loudly with friends and family, Hurley appeared to be in tiptop shape and ready to walk. It would be impossible to tell from looking at him that he’s recovering from a year’s worth of treatments for astrocytoma, a type of tumor that manifests in the central nervous system.

“They got it,” said Hurley. “They did surgery, radiation and five days out of the month, chemo, so it’s not bad at all.”

While not every brain tumor patient is as lucky as Hurley, the Path to Progress is lined with hope. Records set this year are expected to be exceeded with the next walk, and donations will continue to roll in throughout the year. With optimistic participants in for the long haul, ABTA surely has much to look forward to.

“I think that it's something that a lot of people see as fatal and there is no hope,” said Danae McDuffee, a walker. “I think it's great to support this cause as a sign of hope for those affected so it doesn't need to be a death sentence.”

Hard Rock is Honored with Hendrix Guitar

2008-05-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

By Mike Sobiloff

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The Times Square Hard Rock Café received a classic guitar owned by Jimi Hendrix, as a reward for exemplary service, Tuesday.

The guitar, owned by, Hendrix, the legendary guitarist and singer of the Jimi Hendrix Experience is part of the “Top of the Rock” awards program. The award is a global effort by the Hard Rock Café to reward exemplary branches of the restaurant. A Café that is awarded must show strong ties to the community, while having unique sales accomplishments and drawing top performance artists. It is granted to six company owned and six franchise Hard Rock Cafés each year.

The New York café is a leader for the company’s “Save the Planet” motto. The restaurant uses recycled paper products, energy efficient lighting, and environmentally safe cleaning products, while donating cooking grease to Tri-State Bio Diesel. Over the past few years, the café has hosted a live television broadcast of the CBS Early Show with the Jonas Brothers, the Musicians on Call benefit concert with singer Seal, and many different national touring acts.

“This is a great honor for us,” said David Miller, the director of operations at the New York Hard Rock. “We are committed to serving the community as well as doing our part to help the environment and setting a standard for all Hard Rock Cafes. We will proudly display this guitar in the heart of our restaurant.”

The guitar was played by Hendrix on the Dick Cavett Show in 1969, and will be on display at the restaurant for the next two months. The signature white Gibson SG is accompanied by a plaque explaining its significance, and detailing the many places it has traveled since 1969. Before making its way to New York, it was on display at the Hard Rock in Paris. It will remain in the restaurant for two months.

“This is one of the most valuable items that travels around Hard Rocks, and receiving it is a great honor,” said Kristen Hauser, the assistant account executive working with the Hard Rock Café. “Along with the original Eric Clapton guitar, which was the first piece of memorabilia that the Hard Rock Café received, and Ace Frehley’s smoking Gibson Les Paul from the 1996 KISS reunion tour, this guitar is the most prestigious.”

The Hard Rock New York will also be inducted in the company’s “Performance Hall of Fame” next month. All recipients of the “Top of the Rock” award are inducted in the corporate offices in Orlando. The branch will receive 300 limited-edition pins modeled after the Hall of Fame trophy. Those pins will be sold in store in the restaurant.

DHL delivers all “Top of the Rock” pieces around the world, as per a special agreement with the Hard Rock Cafe. “DHL has taken the utmost care with this guitar, and all of the “Top of the Rock” pieces,” explained Richard Coppola, a sales manager with DHL. “Because of its value to DHL, the Hard Rock Café, and the general public, it was given top priority as it was shipped in, and it will continue to be guarded closely as long as it is in our care Obviously, Jimi Hendrix is an icon, and so this is a great honor for both DHL and for the Hard Rock Café.”

The guitar was sealed in a metal case, with a plexiglas screen so that it may be viewed. It will stay in the case for the duration of its stay in New York. DHL handled all of the documentation for the guitar, until it reached the restaurant where Miller signed for it.

Fans lined up at the Hard Rock to see this guitar, and its symbolic delivery. Adrian Villalobos, a musician from New Jersey said “Hendrix was and will always be an icon. Getting to see this guitar means a lot to me and anyone who is serious about music. The things that he did with it changed the world forever, and having it in New York makes me very proud.”

Others were excited to catch an unplanned glimpse when they arrived to have lunch. Kaoru Ayabe, a student from Philadelphia did not know that the guitar would be there, but was excited to see it when he arrived. “I was blown away when I walked in and saw all this press huddled around a guitar. When I found out what it was, I couldn’t believe it. I’m really lucky that I decided to come in here today of all days.”

“Not only is this special because it’s a guitar that Hendrix played, but it’s special because it’s an SG,” explained John Shmergel, who operates a popular music networking site C3.tv. “Hendrix almost exclusively played Fender Stratocasters, but somehow, someone found a Gibson SG that he actually had in rotation. That’s like having the shoes Alice Cooper uses to go golfing, but much, much better.” Shmergel continued to explain that Hendrix made a lasting mark on the music world saying “Any guitar of his is as important to rock music as anything. The Hard Rock Café should be honored to have it.”

Hendrix became popular in the 1960s when he wrote songs like “Purple Haze,” “All Along the Watchtower,” and “Foxy Lady.” He was known for his flamboyant stage presence and his wild onstage antics. Often, he would play his guitar with his teeth or behind his head, and on occasion, he would light it on fire, right in front of the audience. He died tragically in 1970, of drug-related problems, at the age of 27.

Next month, a franchise will be awarded “Top of the Rock” and will display the Ace Frehley signature guitar.

What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

2008-05-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

by Jessica Kramer

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America has failed – failed in protecting its citizens against terrorism, spending the budget wisely, coping with outside threats, and much more, as decided by a panel of authors and politicians, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, at New York University’s Law School Monday, April 28, 2008.

The afternoon event held in the Tishman Auditorium was the second in a series of Cohen-Nunn Dialogues featuring William Cohen, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense, and former U.S. Senator (R-Maine) and Sam Nunn, Chairman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Board of Trustees and former U.S. Senator (D-Ga.) as the hosts. This was called Preserve, Protect, and Defend: The Challenges to America’s Homeland Security, and this time, Bloomberg, Stephen Flynn, author of America the Vulnerable, and Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God, were the discussants.

NYU President John Sexton opened the night saying, "According to recent surveys, nearly 70 percent of Americans believe that our nation is headed in the wrong direction … Civil discourse seems to have collapsed into talking points. The panel will attempt to elevate the discourse [and] help drive public policy into a better place.”

David Berman, Associate Director at the Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response at NYU, started organizing the event with NYU over a month ago. Berman helped host the event and organize the telecast on CNN.com, the NYU webpage and the CCPR website. He said the 400 seats were at capacity.

Admiral James Loy, Former Deputy Security of the Department of Homeland Security, introduced the event. “The panel will focus its discussion around three basic points: the terrorist threat itself – understanding it, defining it, comprehending it; second, protecting Americans against that threat; and lastly, responding to catastrophes if and when that must be the case.”

Debbie Boylan, who works for the Howard Gilman Foundation who sponsored the event and help select the panelists, said they started planning for the event two or three months ago. “The organizers got together [looking for the] best venue in New York.” Last month the first dialogue was held at George Washington University. The intention is to have them at colleges and get youth involved. “I think it was very successful. [There was a] very high level panel and great questions from the audience.”

The professionals had much to consider. Cohen said the first obligation of the government is to remain secure physically, fiscally, economically, and environmentally. We should evaluate our threats: what have we done, what have we failed to do, where do we go from here?

Nunn asked, “What does winning mean in terms of the fight against terrorism? Does it mean getting down to zero risk? I don’t think so.”

Flynn mentioned this “exclamation point” of a fact: the total GDP of Iran is just under $600 billion last year, which is about 15 to 20 percent less than our defense budget.

“We need to be very mindful of the current terrorist threat … but as a society come to broader grips with the fact that confronted power increasingly is going to have this civil, economic component to it,” he said, “and is going to require a far different strategy than the hunt and destroy missions around the planet for anybody who may pose as a threat.”

Stern has talked extensively with jihadists, and said the term is not always correct as many “are not completely committed to the mission they do.”

But some are. One young member of the Mujahideen told Stern something she said she would never forget. “The same way you’re addicted to writing, I am addicted to jihad,” he had told her.

She said we should make it clear that “the main victims of … jihadi terrorism are the Muslims themselves.”

Things we might think are related to terrorism, such as lack of education, are not risk factors for it, she said. And what’s more, studies show that people who support terrorism may be slightly better educated than those who do not, but nobody has looked at the content of that education. Lack of democracy is also not a factor. “In fact, autocracy is a better bulwark against terrorism than democracy,” she said.

As to whether Osama Bin Laden hates us for who we are (with our freedoms) or where we are (involved in the Middle East), Stern quoted the man himself. “I am not opposed to … liberal democracy,” he had said. “If I were I’d be attacking Sweden.”

Youssef Cohen, an associate professor of politics at NYU, has somewhat contradictory views of our protection. He thinks we should have the surveillance and security currently in place to protect us from terrorism, yet he also believes everyone in the country should be legalized and given legal papers.

Elizabeth O’Callahan, who is currently unemployed, came to the event because she would like to work in disaster services, and said, “I was hopeful in the beginning [with] Senator Cohen talking about four different areas he’s concerned with.” But he only focused on two of those, she said, the physical and environmental, and he didn’t talk to the degree she hoped for with the latter. “It was more or less what I expected, not necessarily what I hoped for,” she said.

A CAS freshman, Heather Hodder, attended the event because she was covering it for WSN and because she wanted to see the mayor. “I think they addressed the topics well … [and] answered the audience questions well,” she said. “It wasn’t totally dry, political debate. Every time Bloomberg spoke people clapped in the audience. I thought that was really interesting.”

Patrice Fyffe, an after school drama teacher and student advocate at Harlem Children's zone, came because she wanted to hear what the politicians had to say, and thought it was great. “There were a few points I wasn’t aware of [such as] how much we’re spending on the military,” she said. But she noticed there were pressing questions that didn’t get answered by far more people who had their hands raised.

Responding to a question on what the Bush administration has done correctly, Cohen explained, “There hasn’t been an effort on our part to try to identify what the administration’s done right or wrong, to pin the tail on the donkey so to speak – or the elephant, in this particular case,” he added with a smile.

Cohen explained the motivations of the dialogue and the current political climate. “We’re doing this because we’re concerned that the political process today is defeating the other party, … we need to get back to the center … If you watch the political processes unfolding, you’ve got a focus on something that’s quite trivial compared to what we need to find out: how are the candidates … going to bring the country together? What’s going to be required in terms of leadership?”

He reiterated some of Flynn’s earlier statements, saying we should be mobilizing the American people. “Not to appeal to fear,” he explained, “but to build a resilient society that can cope with anything that Mother Nature throws at us, or what the jihadists or others may throw at us.”

German Consul General Announces Bronx-Germany Exchange to End Ignorance

2008-05-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

by Cathryn Horwitz

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The German consul general announced the four Bronx high school students selected to participate in an exchange program created to end ignorance among Germans and African-Americans.

The U.N. consul general to the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Heimsoeth, made the announcement on the morning of Friday, April 11 in the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice (LGJ).

The two week program will be an exchange between two students from LGJ with two students from the Eagle Academy for Young Men in the Bronx, and four German students from Gymnasium Runge FF, a public high school in Oranienburg.

An incident of a German military instructor using racist training techniques that circulated in a video online and in the media motivated Heimsoeth and administrators of LGJ and the Eagle Academy to create the program.

The video showed the instructor telling his trainee to imagine he was in the Bronx and a group of African-American men approached him and said insulted his mother. He then ordered the soldier to shoot while screaming an obscenity.

The German consulate in New York had responded within days of the video’s airing.

“Let’s make this an opportunity for growth in the relationship with the African-American community in the Bronx,” Heimsoeth said to describe his initial reaction.

Heimsoeth explained that the program’s intention is to improve relations and alleviate ignorance on both sides.

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin and his wife and chief of staff, Kennedy Benjamin, were integral to the program and the selection of the students.

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin narrowed 12 final applicants to four: two freshman boys from the Eagle Academy—Isaiah Horstoa, 15, and Durrell Noel, 14—and two senior girls from LGJ—Angela Donkor and Nasais Veloz, both 17.

Donkor and Veloz are competing for valedictorian, Mrs. Benjamin said.

Michael Benjamin introduced his wife as “the brains behind this [the exchange’s] operation.” He explained that the incident occurred about a year ago. On April 27, 2007, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin met with the German ambassador and Heimsoeth to discuss German relations.

“We’re all the same people,” Mr. Benjamin said. “We’re all made by the same God.”

Kennedy Benjamin said she is “a person [who is] big on heart” as she introduced Gabriel Rohde, a German woman who organized many of the logistics of the trip, including finding host families for the American students traveling to Oranienburg.

“Your kids are in great hands,” she said to the parents regarding Rohde, whose cheeks were covered with tears.

When Rohde was in New York last October, Dr. Sabina Margalit of the Goethe Institute alerted her to the incident and the program the consulate was organizing, urging her to go to the consulate and get involved.

Rohde explained that Oranienburg is about a 20-mile train ride north of Berlin. She said the students will attend school in the mornings, and travel in the afternoons, including visiting Berlin, seeing former concentration camps and visiting the German parliament—the Bundestag. They will spend weekend with their host families, because Rohde said it was important that the students be involved in German family life.

Noel and Horstoa, the two participating students present at the announcement, said they were thrilled.

“I expect to meet new friends [and] live their life,” Horstoa said. He said he was excited at the opportunity to travel the world and meet new people.

Noel said he wants to connect with the world and experience the life of another.

The selection process for the students involved multiple interviews. The students wrote essays to explain their interest in the program, and Mr. Benjamin insisted on a question that asked the students to demonstrate their knowledge of the differences between American and German political systems.

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin interviewed the students, and Heimsoeth met with a smaller group of applicants as well before the final four were selected.

Kennedy Benjamin explained that, though the four participants are not aware of this yet, their obligation upon their return is to educate their community and begin to break down the ignorance between Germans and African-Americans.

“The requirement …is that he’s got to come back…with a full report,” Kennedy explained to Horstoa’s mother, Sandra Singleton. “He’s our eyes. The other students’ eyes.”

Dr. Mary Nolan, a German history professor at New York University who has published two books on 20th century German history and has worked extensively on American-German perceptions and relationships, said in an interview that she was not surprised by the incident of the video.

“This is a part of what is so corrosive about military culture…that you are taught to see people not as human beings with any kind of humanity and complexity but as kind of dehumanized others,” Nolan said. She explained that racism like that in the video is not just present in German military, but military culture in general, including in the United States.

“I’m sure the German army has had its share of other epithets it might use in basic training,” she said. “I think it’s not so surprising that a training exercise would have something like, ‘Imagine you’re in the Bronx…’”

But from where does this invocation of African-Americans in the Bronx stem? Nolan theorized the source was the spread of American culture, including media and movies.

In response to LGJ and the Eagle Academy’s exchange program, Nolan said, “I think the more exchanges that go on, the better.”

Students from Alexandria, Ind. visiting LGJ as part of an exchange between Alexandria, the Bronx and Oranienburg also attended the announcement.

Kennedy Benjamin explained that the high schools chosen for the program were chosen specifically by their past record with exchange programs. Mrs. Benjamin named Eagle Academy specifically as a school with which she and Mr. Benjamin were familiar, with their reputable record and history of such programs.

The two week program will begin April 23 and run through May 3. Chaperones from the Bronx and Oranienburg will accompany the students from each side of the exchange.

Redefining Public Space with New Library Exhibit

2008-05-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

By Mary Jane Weedman

MAY 1, 2008 The New York Public Library will introduce this week a new exhibit on public space as it relates to photography. The collection of photographs features the works of five artists.

“Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City” documents those artists’ travels around the city. The exhibit, located in the Gottesman Exhibition Hall in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, will be on display throughout the summer.

Stephen Pinson is the curator of the exhibit. He said he thinks a major theme of the included photography is the changing nature of the public and private spaces of the city.

“The concept of eminent domain is used as a lens or a filter to raise questions that hopefully resonate…about the shifting of public and private space,” said Pinson.

Pinson suggested that photography could help to define the borders between public and private space, but New York University photography professor Mark Jenkinson questioned the connection.

“What does any of that have to do with photography?” he said.

But NYU freshman and Washington Square News photography editor Christine Lockerby finds a tie between public space and photography, even if it is not identical to the tie Pinson sees.

“A photograph can relate to a public space in that you take a picture of something and you can share it with other people…maybe it was like a quiet moment or a scene that only you saw and you can show it to other people so they can enjoy it and see its beauty,” said Lockerby.

She explained that she thought public areas were similar to photographs in the way we share them. A picture allows us to share a beautiful moment we experienced; an open, public park allows us all to share beautiful time in that park.

Regardless of whether or not the connection is present, each artist in the exhibit invested months of effort into documenting a part of the city. Sometimes that meant spending nights and days with a young Chinese family living in New York. Other times it found an artist taking a photograph of Manhattan from the same location every day for 11 years.

For contributing photographer and part-time NYU professor Bettina Johae, the exhibit meant spending three years biking around the edges of each of New York’s boroughs, and then photographing and investigating what she saw there.

“[She is] taking on a different view of the cities in which she’s living….[and] making literal the public spaces of the city,” said Pinson.

Johae agreed that she thinks her photographs show a side of the city many New Yorkers rarely see. How often do Brooklyn residents find themselves biking along the edge of Staten Island? That’s precisely what Johae did, however.

In conjunction with her exhibit, Johae is offering bicycle tours along some of the paths that she photographed. By doing so, she said she hopes to bring people to a place where the city is very different from what those people expected.

Johae encouraged students who long for fresh air and green grass to explore places she discovered in her biking—like the large park spaces in the Bronx.

“People should get out of their dorm rooms, get out of Washington Square Park,” said Johae.

Pinson also discussed Washington Square Park, though for a different reason. For Pinson, many of the photographs in the exhibit speak about the privatization of public space. One of his examples of a public space being privatized was the park.

CAS freshman Steph Wells said that she doesn’t think the park has been privatized by any group or organization.

“I don’t think NYU is really taking over Washington Square Park, even though we technically surround it,” said Wells. “It’s still a public park. It’s still a public space.”

CAS senior Roger Almeida said he would support an NYU privatization of the park, even if it meant closing the park off to the general public, because it could result in a better campus for NYU.

Tisch freshman Greg Karlin agreed with Pinson that the park has become privatized in a sense, but not due to NYU’s presence.

“I think it’s the million dollar brownstones in front of the park. Greenwich Village destroyed itself, it got too popular and richer people moved in,” said Karlin. To Karlin, all of that private ownership surrounding the park means a more privately owned ‘feel’ of the park.

Perhaps the artists’ photographs themselves can offer their own commentary about this conflict. Interested readers can visit the exhibit for free beginning Friday, May 2 until it closes August 29.

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JP Morgan Chase Announces its Partnership with the Star Learning Center

2008-05-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

by, Jamie Letica

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One of the best aspects of the Star Learning Center, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is that it is always bustling with kids. Your eye is drawn immediately to the precisely laid out cups of orange juice, and packages of some sort of children’s snack depending on the day. The kids, although a little rowdy because they have just come from a long day at school, settle in to learn anything from telling time and making change to Calculus. They are all united by the common goal of succeeding in school, but each child has a unique reason for attending STAR as their afterschool activity certain days a week.
JP Morgan Chase presented the Star Learning Center with a ceremonial check for 15,000 dollars late on Monday afternoon. The Star center is the bank’s newest undertaking. Jenny Low, a manager at Chase, decides which community organizations the bank will sponsor in New York City, below 96th street. Her group has a three-focus area in looking for organizations: community, arts and culture, and serving the community in a more holistic way. Low also works closely with pre-collegiate education and public schools to improve the quality of the teachers as well as public education.
The Star Center, in partnership with United Way of New York City, and St. Matthews/St. Timothy’s Neighborhood Center, is a school-year tutoring service that is geared towards children who cannot afford private tutoring. While there is an initial registration fee, there is no charge for each individual tutoring session and all of the tutors are volunteers.
The Star Center is one of 200 programs that JP Morgan Chase helps to sponsor below 96th street in New York City. While Low believes that “programs like this should help fewer and fewer children if the school system is serving its purpose,” she supports the Star center because of its excellence in tutoring. To which Dena Hellman, the director of Star Learning Center replied, “we are happy to fall under your umbrella.” Low believes the center has a strong impact on the community they serve, which has grown significantly since its start 50 years ago.
Hellman says while the majority of the children used to be just the “neighborhood kids,” the students now come from all five boroughs. She even has one family from Pennsylvania. Although the parents work in the city, Pennsylvania was the only affordable place to buy a house. Therefore the parents drive into the city each day, drop their kids off at school, then at the Star Center, and they finally “make the long commute back home at the end of the day,” sais Hellman.
Hellman stressed the idea that “if you come with a need, all I need to do is find a volunteer. “ She says they very rarely turn a child away and finding the volunteers is her biggest challenge. “We even have a request for Latin,” she exclaimed.
There is no criterion for a child. The program is meant for low-income families, but Hellman and her team never ask for a profile on the family or the school that the child attends. However, each child is tested with the center’s own diagnostic test that is then used to match the child up with a tutor.
There is no limit on how long a child can be tutored for. The majority of the children stay for a full school year, however there are also a number of children who remain at the center for many years. Hellman pointed to one special case in which a young boy began coming to the Star Center for tutoring when he was in second grade. He is now 11th grade, and still comes regularly to be tutored by the same tutor he has always had. He also tutors young children to “give back to his community,” said Hellman.
Lillian Robles, the Director of St. Matthews and St. Timothy’s, says the center “never advertizes for a child.” She is proud of the recent partnership with the Star Learning Center and stresses the importance of being involved in every aspect of a child’s school life. Each child is asked to bring in his or her current report card, and letters are sent to the child’s teachers to let them know what is being accomplished during tutoring. She says the center works closely with a child’s family and “is always willing to contact a child’s school and teachers if the family does not feel comfortable.”
While Stephan Russo, the executive director of the Goddard Community Center, an affiliate of the Star Learning Center, says they do not actively try to get involved in the non-academic aspects of a child’s life, “if a child comes to us with a problem, we are going to try our best to help them solve it, no matter what it may be.” The center now has the advantage of Goddard’s social workers to help the children, as well as the resources that St. Matthews and St. Timothy’s offer.
Hellman piggybacked Russo’s statement, by saying, “we don’t advertize that, but if we can help a family, we will.”
Kendall Frank, a former tutor at the Star Center, says her experience working with the children was uplifting. Frank worked with two different children while she was there. She says that Star is definitely worthy of JP Morgan Chase’s support. “It is so nice to see a small neighborhood organization grow, because it is benefiting so many children,” she says.
Frank, like many of the center’s volunteers, worked at the Star Learning Center for more than merely one year. Kate Maxwell, the outreach coordinator, works closely with Hellman to make sure their volunteers maintain this loyalty. It is the feeling of the tight-knit atmosphere, and the willingness of the children to succeed in their endeavors that attached me to the Star Learning Center, as a volunteer for my final two years of high school.
The Star Learning center is truly a special place, and it seemed as if the center and JP Morgan Chase are just beginning the start of a great friendship. ###

Kenya Lures Back Tourists Following Political Unrest

2008-05-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

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By Nicholas Luckenbaugh

In the wake of Kenya’s post-election conflict, the Kenya Tourist Board launched the first phase of its campaign to bolster the country’s injured economy last month, flying over 200 foreign journalists into Kenya.

The journalists’ itineraries showcased the beauty spots across Kenya, emphasizing the nation’s attractions. Board officials hope that this endeavor will help counter the negative publicity that the country has received in the global media since outbreaks of violence following the December election.

“We wanted them to touch Kenya. We wanted them to smell Kenya. We wanted them to feel Kenya,” said Rose Kwena, public relations manager at the Kenya Tourist Board office in Nairobi.

Kwena stressed the positive experiences had by the invited media, hoping that they would “go out and testify” against the unsafe image Kenya has acquired during the past four months.

Last month’s media itineraries took journalists across Kenya, including areas that have been considered dangerous, said Fred Okeyo, North American regional manager of the Kenya Tourist Board.

“The world has only received a portion of the story of Kenya since the election last year,” said Okeyo.

Following the announcement of the presidential election results on December 30, 2007, media outlets around the world reported outbreaks of violence in Kenya relating to the election’s disputed results.

“The crisis brought Kenya right into the living rooms of America,” said Kwena.

“People are scared to go [to Kenya] because of what happened, and understandably so,” said Peace Corps volunteer Katie Moore, 24.

Moore was stationed as a deaf education volunteer in Litein, a small town outside of Nairobi, when the violence began.

“The day after the results, I started hearing gun shots and people rioting,” said Moore. For a week, Moore went into hiding until she could be evacuated from the country via helicopter. Since the post-election conflict, the Peace Corps program in Kenya has been temporarily disbanded.

Despite the violence, Kenya Ambassador Peter N.R.O. Ogego insists that the country is “back on the path to peace.”

“We are well on our way to resolving our post-election controversies,” said Ogego.
Ogego stressed Kenya’s reliance on tourism, saying that the decline of tourists following the eruption of violence has hurt the country’s economy immeasurably.

Tourism, Kenya’s largest industry, was on a record-breaking high in late December, surpassing the million-arrivals mark for 2007. The largest challenge Kenyan tourism faced in December was trying to improve and grow its infrastructure without putting its renowned wildlife and culture at risk.

But since strife broke out for the first few weeks of 2008 over claims that the presidential election was rigged from both sides, tourism to Kenya has suffered a severe blow. During the four months following the post-election crisis, the number of tourists has declined 73 percent compared to 2007 figures, costing the country one billion dollars in revenue each month.

“When the economy went to a standstill, the entire country went on its knees,” said Kwena.

Following its April outreach to media outlets worldwide, the Kenya Tourist Board launched the second phase of its recovery campaign. Beginning mid-April, the Board initiated a series of U.S. press conferences, alerting the media and travel agencies to the nation’s effort to promote tourism while marketing Kenya as a major world destination.

“We need to educate everyone who is traveling in Africa,” said Maisa Fernandez, public relations manager of the Kenya Tourist Board. “It is our job. We’re not going to sleep until this is over and those numbers are up.”

At its press conference in New York on April 21, the Kenya Tourist Board reaffirmed its continuing efforts to bolster tourism. The Board announced that it would sponsor a Travel Agent Familiarization Tour, hosting U.S. and Canadian travel agents in Kenya throughout the summer months, the nation’s peak travel time.

“Word of mouth is huge for us,” said Fernandez, hoping that the press conferences would generate a “buzz across the country.”

The recovery plan will culminate in a massive consumer promotion campaign, including a North American fall road show and various partnerships with non-tourism industries in the United States.

“We are hoping to work with you to present this beautiful destination,” said Okeyo. “We are getting there, we are committed and we are on the move.”

Despite these efforts to improve Kenyan tourism, some travel agents invested in the industry, like Hema Shah, are skeptical of the Kenya Tourist Board’s approach. Shah works with United Travel Group, a travel agency that specializes in safaris.

“It’s definitely possible to bounce back from this, but they’re focusing too much on the wrong things,” said Shah. She wishes that the Kenya Tourist Board would address the travel advisory that the United States has placed on international travel to Kenya.

After a 2002 terrorist attack in Kenya, the U.S. Department of State has maintained a travel advisory for the country. In spite of the warning, tourist numbers have climbed since then.

“People got used to it,” said Shah.

In January, the United States placed a heightened travel warning on Kenyan travel in response to the post-election conflict. Although Department of State officials lightened the language of the warning after the political situation improved in March, the travel advisory still remains in effect.

“We can’t sort of shove it off and say its just another sort of advisory,” said Shah. “We need to address it and make it go away.”

Moore is also wary of the travel advisory.

“I’m hopeful that people will start going back soon, but I have my doubts,” said Moore.

But the advisory is little more than an “irritant” to Ambassador Ogego.

“We are back on our feet,” said Ogego.

Ogego and the Kenya Tourist Board plan to continue with the recovery campaign throughout the year, confident that it will bring tourists to Kenya.

“We need your support to get people to come back to Kenya,” said Kwena. “Forget Disney World. Kenya is the original home of the safari.”

Multimedia Slideshows

2008-04-28T20:40:00.001-07:00

Bald Men Take A Shine to Speed Dating

2008-04-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

By Lisa Bonarrigo

When Spring Jones’ good friend Christopher Toner suggested the two go to a speed dating event together, she was initially hesitant. It wasn’t until he told her the event was exclusive to bald men that she cheerily replied, “I’m there!”

The event to which Toner was referring was aptly titled “Speed Dating for Bald Men,” and was hosted by HurryDate, a speed and online dating company. Although speed dating can seem like a daunting practice, some find the events put on by companies like HurryDate to be just another night out. For both seasoned speed daters and beginners to the practice, in some cases it can alleviate the pressure that comes with regular dating – and in this case, dating bald men in particular.

HurryDate offers specific speed dating events based on factors such as ethnicity, height, and religious affiliation. For HurryDate’s exclusive night of dating for bald men, HeadBlade, a company that creates and distributes razors specifically designed for shaving heads, took the opportunity to sponsor the event.

A first-time speed dater, Heidi Sadowski, 39, admitted she was a little nervous, but liked the new perspective on dating. “I’ve done internet dating before, but this is another route, an alternative,” Sadowski said. A resident of Manhattan, she also added that meeting and dating people in the city can be tough. “It’s always nice to talk to new people, in whatever capacity,” she said.

In addition to her curiosity in trying speed dating, Sadowski said she was mainly interested in the bald factor. “There was a real hook in it being strictly bald men. My past two boyfriends were bald,” she said.

Kaiser Mojica, 23, also speed dating for the first time, agreed with Sadowski, saying that it’s hard to find a date in the city. A friend introduced him to the event in light of his bald head, and Mojica had a carefree attitude about the experience. “It was something to do. I shave my head anyway, so I figured, why not?” he said.

Jones, 40, admitted to being nervous as well. This was her first speed dating experience, and like Sadowski, what drew her in was the fact that it was exclusive to bald men. “I love bald men,” Jones said.

Toner, 39, is a HurryDate member, and said he’s been speed dating “about five times, give or take a couple.” He said that the experience is generally fun, and that he wasn’t really nervous. He compared speed dating to a “no-huddle offense” in a football game, saying that you can’t really plan anything going into it, it just happens.

Peter Anderson, 41, is also a HurryDate member. He said that he goes to the company’s speed dating events “two or three times a year, depending on if it’s a success or not.” He said he enjoys speed dating because it takes a lot of the pressure off, and this event attracted him for the simple reason that it was for bald men. “I’m one of the least shy people – except I guess when it comes to people I’m interested in romantically. Speed dating breaks the ice a little bit,” Anderson said.

Anderson, a marine biologist, also mentioned that although speed dating is enjoyable, not all encounters meet expectations. “It’s a two-fold thing. Sometimes the expectations of others are too high. It seems like everyone wants ‘Mr. Big’ from “Sex And The City.” But not everyone is ‘Mr. Big.’” Despite this, he said speed dating makes the prospects more legitimate. “At a bar, you don’t know if the person you’re speaking to is eligible, so to speak,” he said.

Dan Perlowitz, spokesperson for HeadBlade, a company that creates and distributes razors specifically designed for shaving heads which sponsored the event, said that the event fell right into place with the recent trends in exclusivity of speed dating. He mentioned a recent event in which “cougars,” older women who date younger men, were paired with attractive young men.

Mojica said he’d like to see HurryDate put together an event for both men and women with shaved heads, just to “shake it up.”

Perlowitz thought the event was quite a success. “Anytime you see your brand associated with an environment of social activity, especially with men that are bald or shave their heads, you’re building awareness and creating recognition for the participants in the form of a gift bag.

Toner was just as pleased with the event. “It’s a nice night out on a nice evening,” he said.

A Long Goodbye for Shea

2008-04-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

By Mike Sobiloff

Fifty-two year old Michael Kirshner boarded a plane in San Francisco late Monday April 7 feeling a little bit nervous, a little bit upset, and very excited. He was making the three thousand mile trek to Queens, NY for a baseball game.

To most, it would probably seem wildly excessive to make such a long trip to see the New York Mets play. Kirshner has been to hundreds of games since he was a child in New York, and for even the most dedicated fan, three-thousand miles is a long way to come for one game. But this was not any ordinary game. It was, in fact, the final home opener at Shea Stadium, where the Mets have played for nearly half a decade, and this was a chance for him to be a part of a living history.

This sort of story was not uncommon last Tuesday at Shea, where a sold-out stadium was filled with anxious fans. For the past forty-five years, Mets fans have shown up at Shea in early April, to kick off a new season, and for one last time, they came in droves. Last Tuesday was their last chance to see the first home game of the season at Shea, as next year, the Mets are moving into a brand new stadium, Citi Field. For fans, the day was a bittersweet reminder of years of memories, both good and bad.

Rationalizing his trip, Kirshner explained, “I’m going to miss Shea. I used to go to ball games almost every weekend when I was a kid. But I think we’re ready to move into the new stadium for a new era.” And he was not alone in this sentiment.

Fans came from all over the country to see this game, against the Philadelphia Phillies. Dennis Alfieri traveled in from Georgia to see his hometown team play. For him, seeing his Mets play one last home opener was an important way to end a long career as a Mets fan at Shea. He said “I’ve seen I-don’t-know-how-many games here, but you bet I wasn’t gonna miss this one. This is history.”

Other fans felt the same, and most were very aware of the fact that this was the beginning of the end for Shea Stadium. Steve Griffith, a Queens resident, said, “I pass this stadium almost every day, and when it’s gone, I’m gonna miss the hell out of it.”

But the light at the end of the tunnel for these fans is a new, state of the art stadium, situated just beyond center field of the old one. Aware of the impact that a new stadium can bring, Griffith added, “I’m excited as hell for the new stadium though. It looks beautiful. I almost got a little teary-eyed when I came out of the train today, and saw us all walking by it to get to Shea”

Even still, some fans are excited to move on from Shea, a stadium that is notorious for being one of the more shoddy ballparks in baseball, and which has only seen two World Series wins. Carl Aued, a season ticket holder from New Jersey said, “I can’t wait to get out of Shea. I’ve been coming for years, and I love being here, but this place is a dump, and it’s time to move.”

As a special treat for these fans, who collectively are facing some unsure times, the MTA ran the special “Nostalgia Train” on the seven line to Shea. The Nostalgia Train features vintage cars, on loan from the New York City Transit Museum, which are lined with classic advertisements from the 1960s and earlier. For the much older fans, it included an original “Bluebird Car,” which ran when the Stadium opened in 1964.

Marty Griffel, a Long Island lawyer, and his son Sam rode in together on the Nostalgia Train. “This was special for both of us,” Griffel said, “I used to ride to on a train like this when I went to Mets games as a kid, and I’m glad my son got to see it.”

The Mets ended up losing the game that day, but fans knew it was only the first of many home games in this historic season. And never discouraged, the Mets fans pushed through it. As one explained before the game, “It doesn’t matter if they win or lose. I’m just happy to be here for the last home opener baby,” adding, “LETS GO METS!”

Bringing Awareness Closer to Home on World Autism Awareness Day

2008-04-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

By Piper Wallingford

Christina Torres does not usually bring her son, Daniel, to storytime at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble. But April 2 is different because the day’s story promotes awareness and acceptance of autism, a neurological disorder that affects a person's ability to communicate and relate to others.

In the sunny conference room, Torres plops her son next to a young man sitting on a pillow. The two boys slurp apple juice and munch on animal crackers while waiting for the story.

“Daniel this is Raymond. Raymond, this is Daniel,” says Torres.

“Hi Daniel, I’m 13,” says Raymond Reyes. “How old are you?”

Despite being autistic, Raymond is articulate and mature. Like Raymond, many autistic children learn to cope with autism and can overcome behaviors associated with the disorder. Torres has brought her son to meet Raymond because she wants him to learn that autism children are the same as he is. .

Many people do not understand what autism is or the challenges that families affected by autism face. But the United Nations declared April 2 the first World Autism Awareness Day in the hopes of promoting acceptance and understanding. Daniel and Raymond met at an autism storytime event, hosted by Barnes & Noble and Autism Speaks, the world’s largest autism advocacy group. According to Autism Speaks Executive Vice President Peter Bell, awareness is the first step toward eliminating autism, a disorder with no known prevention methods, treatments, or cures.

The program’s goal was to raise autism awareness among children by providing a comfortable setting where autistic and non-autistic children could interact.

“It’s important for children to understand that some people are different, but too often only the differences are talked about,” said Bell. “Children should understand the similarities they have with autistic children as well. The reality is almost everything is the same.”

Barnes & Noble and Autism Speaks organized the storytime, where actress Kim Raver read “Since We’re Friends,” by Celeste Shally. Like Raymond and Daniel, the book tells the story of two friends, one of whom is autistic.

“It’s a story about people with autism and people without autism,” said Barnes & Noble’s Creative Director Glen Kaplan.

Autism Speaks recommended the book because children could easily understand the message of acceptance and aid.

Raver, who appears in ABC’s “Lipstick Jungle,” brought her son Luke to the event. “It’s good that he’s being exposed to people who are different,” said Raver, adding that the event was important because it taught acceptance to children.

Luke, 6, thought that helping others, even if they are different, was important. “It’s a good story because the boy helps his other friend,” he said.

After the United Nations created World Autism Awareness Day on November 27, 2007, Autism Speaks contacted Barnes & Noble. According to Barnes & Noble employee Carolyn Brown, Kaplan and Bell both have autistic sons, which is one reason that the program came together. “Autism awareness is obviously very important to Glen,” said Brown. “Because he’s passionate about the issue, everything came together as an organic whole.”

Bell wanted to work with Barnes & Noble because families affected by autism would feel comfortable at bookstores. “Bookstores are popular among autistic families because of the availability of books that are easy to understand,” explained Bell. He added that his 15-year-old son will stay in a bookstore reading Dr. Seuss books for hours.

Because bookstores are a place where autistic and non-autistic people interact, they are also the perfect place to raise awareness.

“Anytime people come together, it’s going to help bring awareness. You never know who you are going to touch next,” said Bell. “It could be the parent who brought her children, or the man sitting outside who sees something going on and sticks his head in.”

For Bell, awareness is important because autism can affect any family. “Autism isn’t a disease with cultural boundaries,” said Bell. “It’s a global disease and needs global recognition. Once people are aware of autism, they can start to help.”

Torres, who works at the National Institute for People with Disabilities, sees the event as a sign of progress. “I’ve worked at the institute for six years,” said Torres. “When I asked people ‘What is autism?’ They would say ‘what’s that?’”

That is why it is important to teach awareness to children, said Torres, because they will be the ones who stop autism. “If we understand what causes autism, how to cure it, then there never has to be another event like this,” she said.

Going Gandhi

2008-04-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

By Michael Ronan

“Growing up, I had two role models, Gandhi and Cher,” said peace educator Liz Gannon Graydon, standing in front of a monument to Gandhi. "I wanted to change the world but do it dressed like Cher."

Graydon was one of many speakers at the April 6 launch of the Satya Graha Forum in Union Square Park, a month-long initiative promoting the messages of Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Although Gandhi, Dr. King, and Cher could not be present, Gandhi and Dr. King’s legacy was.

Speakers ranging from peace activists to religious leaders addressed a diverse crowd at Sunday’s event. From the middle-aged, to teenagers, from the elderly, to young children standing with their parents, everyone gathered together on this cloudy afternoon to hear one message. And what was that message?

In a word, satyagraha. Meaning “truth force” in Sanskrit, this word was used by Mahatma Gandhi to describe his movement of nonviolent social change. As writer Mark Kurlansky said unclear if he was there when he said it or not, Gandhi drew upon ancient traditions following nonviolence, “yet there was no word for it. The only word we have for it is nonviolence which is abhorrent because it doesn’t tell you what it is, it tells you what it is not.” For this reason Gandhi invented the word satyagraha.

Speakers applied Gandhi’s message of satyagraha in response to the violence. Philip Glass, writer of the opera “Satyagraha” said he saw how fitting Gandhi’s message is today. He said, “When I did the opera I saw the world in so such a violent state I didn’t think it could get any worse. In retrospect it seems the opera was written a little too early with the genocides in Iraq and Tibet.”

Tibetan Master Gelek Rinpoche also spoke on satyagraha’s application in Tibet. “Nonviolence is coming out of compassion, compassion is coming out of care,” said Rinpoche,. “If you don’t care, then you don’t care who dies.” Rinpoche stressed how important Gandhi’s path is to healing the world today. “We need compassion to yourself, compassion to others, compassion to the world,” he said.

The members of the Satya Graha Forum explained how the compassion involved in satyagraha is the only way to bring the world out of darkness. “It is springtime,” shouted author and political activist, the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou. “It is springtime because though we may be in darkness it will never have the last laugh.”

The Rev. Sekou reminded the crowd how nonviolence worked in the past, calling to mind stories of the civil rights movements and Dr. King. Reminiscent of Dr. King through his speech’s words and powerful delivery, the Rev. Sekou urged the crowd to let our light shine in these dark times as it had before. “When you put your body on the line for that story, then it is springtime in America,” he said.

While the cynic in us may ask what kind of change will an event like this bring, Graydon answers saying the change is already happening. She said, “Peace skills are meeting people where they are. Peace studies are not just anti-war. It is a solution to differences and a way to work together.”

The theme of acting together ran throughout the event, if not in the words of the presenters, in the actions of those in the crowd. Before the event, volunteers walked around Union Square Park with holding up quotes from Gandhi on large, white, cardboard signs. They also participated in a traditional pedal ceremony where they tossed flowers onto the plaque in front of the Gandhi statue in honor of his memory and legacy. They were also invited to sing along with Indian vocalist Falu as she sang the Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, a traditional Hindu devotional song that Gandhi sang on his famous Salt March to Dandi.

While Gandhi and Dr. King may have died in Aprils past, the Satya Graha Forum members are keeping their legacy of nonviolent social change alive. Events on Gandhi’s message will be held throughout the city this month furthering the dialogue started here.

“It is springtime,” the Rev. Sekou said. And as strange as it sounds, by the cloud-filled day, it seemed like the sun would finally come out, if only for a moment.

Multimedia Slideshows

2008-04-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

Packages

2008-04-21T21:41:00.001-07:00

Mary Jane Weedman

Earth Day
Profile:
A great profile would be one on religious organizations that encourage the members of their congregations to not believe in global warming, or teach that it's not a real problem.

News Item/Visual:
On Tuesday, there is an Earth Day event in the Military Triangle at Times Square. It's for Keep America Beautiful's Great American Cleanup campaign. Keep America Beautiful is a large organization and should be able to produce an exciting event that will have great photographs.

Investigation:
I think a piece on who each of the three major contenders would hire as environmentally related advisers if they were elected. This would present the environment-and-the-election beat in a new light.

The Pope
Profile:
I would love to do a profile on all of the hundreds of police officers who had to stand around guarding the areas where the Pope was. It would be interesting to hear what they think about spending their days doing essentially nothing.

News Item/Visual:
I know this has been said before, but I think that the Pope's mass at Yankee Stadium will provide the best photo opportunity and news event. Another interesting photo opportunity might be his visit to the Park East Synagogue. These would be more actively interesting photographs (and stories) than, say, an address at the U.N.

Investigation:
One interesting take on the Pope's visit would be the amount of money the City of New York spent on his visit. Signage, advertisement, security officers...the cost adds up. Does the income brought in from tourists wanting to see the Pope?

UPS Can't Deliver These Packages

2008-04-17T06:39:00.001-07:00

by Walter Ancarrow

How to Turn Earth Day into Mirth Day

profile:
Earth Day got you down? Samantha Burns proposes Anti-Earth Hour to counteract Earth Hour, where cities across Canada, and possibly other countries, turn off their lights for an entire hour. Burns is planning on turning everything on during that time and she’s got followers.

News Item/Visual:
Just play re-runs of the Brave Little Toaster. No, but seriously, although that movie is really great, the cameramen would get more use going to the Earth Day Rally in Iowa City… and guess who’s going to be there? Presidential hopeful Barack Obama!

Investigation:
With all the talk about global warming, we’re all wondering if it’s true. Is there sufficient proof to back up the claims? I’m ready to snuff out the rumors.

No Fashion Faux-Pas fo' Po'

Profile:
Stephen Fendler, president of CM Almy -- the company designing the Pope’s popedrobe for his visit to Yankee Stadium on Sunday, April 20. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know what requirements go into dressing the Pope? What size is he? (Has he been eating too many popesicles?) What are some of his favorite things to wear?

News Item/Visual:
Send the camera crew to Yankee Stadium while the Pope conducts Mass. Various close ups of Pope’s dress in vogue-y camera angles. Maybe a black-and-white one while he dishes out the Holy Water. Bonus points for pictures that include some absurd element to slyly mock the ridiculous nature of editorial fashion shoots.

Investigation:
Investigation into who sews the Pope’s draggage. Sweat shop scandal? Who knows, but our investigative reporters will find out.

Planet Pope (or, How to Save the Earth -- and Your Soul -- In One Week)

2008-04-17T06:33:00.000-07:00

By Mike Sobiloff

Earth Day
Profile: Dennis Hayes was the coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970, and is a prominent activist for environmental change. He has twice served as the international chairman for Earth Day. He has worked with many environmental organizations and various universities, and has been awarded numerous awards for his work.

News item with visuals: Earth Day Network/Green Apple Festival Free Lineup . A free music festival on the National Mall in D.C., to generate excitement for Earth Day and to create awareness about global climate issues. Happening worldwide, but performing in D.C. The Roots, Gov’t Mule, OAR and more. Ed Begley, Chevy Chase, Ed Norton, Russell Simmons and others will speak.

Investigative Story: Donald Trump is trying to build a series of communities and golf courses on the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Meanwhile, the new Xanadu project, an enormous indoor theme park is being built. Environmental cleanups of the site have been long ongoing and largely ineffective. It seems that this area just is not safe to build on. Trump continues to build however. I’d like to send someone in to find out what’s going on there.

Papal Visit
Profile: Kaitlin Karcher and Christopher Jordan, an 8th and 5th grader, respectively, will meet the Pope upon his arrival to NY to give him some flowers. I think this could make a cute story on how they were selected and what the experience was like.

News item with visuals: The Pope’s visit to ground zero should turn up some pretty inspiring pictures. Sept 11 is a topic that is still very serious and real for Americans, and the thought of the Pope standing in the middle of the action just seems very compelling and interesting.

Investigative story: The Westboro Baptist Church, which is infamous for picketing the funerals of soldiers, will be following the Pope around the East Coast, picketing and being a general annoyance, as they usually are. Sending someone in as a potential convert might be illuminating.

Pope Visit and Earth Day 2008

2008-04-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

by Jessica Kramer

Pope Visit

Profile: Cardinal Francis George, the Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He introduced the pope in his speech at the White House Wednesday night. He told the pope the church is “troubled by ideological differences that weaken not only our witness to the world but the life of faith itself.” He said the priest sexual abuse scandal was poorly handled, as later said by the pope (it was “sometimes very badly handled by the bishops"). The cardinal said the problem has made “the personal faith of some Catholics and the public life of the church herself more problematic.” Cardinal George let Rev. Daniel McCormack remain at his post even though allegations surfaced that McCormack had repeatedly engaged in sexual abuse of two boys. He apologized for not letting him go earlier even though he did not attempt to contact the police, violating the church’s protocol.

News Event with Visuals: Mass at Yankees Stadium Sunday or visit to Ground Zero Friday

Enterprise Story : further investigation into the sexual abuse scandal and what role officials had in keeping people on their posts even though allegations had surfaced or was known to be true.

Earth Day

Profile: Ed Begley, Jr., noted actor and environmentalist who had a TV show, Living With Ed, trying to about making his home more environmentally friendly.

News Event with Visuals: EarthFair in New York City April 18-19, a free event with organic food, clean fuels, music, exhibits, and kids' activities.

Enterprise Story: investigative piece about the electric car – conspiracies and facts behind its death and what can be done to revive it.

The Holy See and Must-See Earth Day Events

2008-04-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

Piper Wallingford

Diggin' up the Dirt on Earth Day:

1. Profile: Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg is a former environmentalist and member of Greenpeace, but is now "skeptical" of the environmental movement. He disagrees with scientists about the real state of the world, which is “getting better.” He recently released a book about global warming, “Cool It,” in which he says global warming is anthropogenic, but will not harm the planet. Scientists have accused him of manipulating and disregarding data.

2. News Item with Visuals: “Muse on Earth” Art Party at Creative Pier. Attendees create their own works of art that symbolize he Earth and help give back, such as birdhouses. The event promotes artistic creation for artists and non-artists. The informal atmosphere is great for children, and the art will provide great visuals.

3. Enterprise story: PETA Celebrates Earth Day. According to PETA, you should celebrate Earth day every Day. “You aren’t an environmentalist until you start eating green.” Outrageous acts in the past promote vegetarianism, such as in London where naked pregnant women sat in a cage for mother’s day. But PETA employees kill more than 97% of the animals in their care. Ironically, dead animals are stored in a giant walk-in freezer, a meat locker.

The See in the City

1. Profile: Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago. He is the current President of the US Bishops Conference and greeted the Pope at Andrews Air Force Base. He has a similar history of conservatism, such as when he denied Eucharist to protesters wearing rainbow-colored flags. The Pope has talked about George’s comments on the sexual abuse scandal, which George said was "very badly handled."

2. News Item with Visuals: Pope Gives Mass at the Yankee Stadium. This will be the last mass in the stadium before the Yankees move. More than 550 priests will be present to distribute communion. The event also celebrates the bi-centennial of the creation of the four U.S. archdioceses.

3. Enterprise story: Pope at Ground Zero to call for terrorists to convert to Christianity. When the Pope repeated words of 14th century Byzantine emperor, it created an alienation between the Christian and Muslim communities. During the Pope's visit to Ground Zero, he will ask for terrorists to convert to Christianity. This could heighten outrage in Muslim communities.

Conservative Catholicism to Eco-Friendly Fashion

2008-04-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

By Cory Carroll

Ideals and Prada for Conservative Catholics

Profile: Mary Ann Glendon; she is the United States ambassador to the Vatican. In addition to her diplomatic post, Glendon is a professor of law at Harvard and recipient of the 2005 National Humanities Medal. Glendon would be an interesting profile because it could be an introduction to her and her work to her fellow Americans.

News Item with Visuals: April 19th—Blessing of Youth with Disabilities at St. Joseph Seminary in New York.

Enterprise: Liberal Catholic groups are continously advocating against the Conservative ideals of the Pope. Groups like Dignity/USA are trying to bring equality between the LGBT Catholic community and the Catholic church. Are the Pope's Conservative ideals enough to turn gay Catholics from the church?

Eco-Friendly Fashion

Profile: Routa Segal; a creative arts therapist at Creative Pier who co-founded “Muse on Earth”—an Earth Day event that provides various arts events for individuals to find the inner meaning of the day and make it part of their everyday lives.

News Items with Visuals: “Queens is Green Fashion Show” in Astoria on April 22nd. A competitive fashion show featuring local designers. The clothing and accessories are created from recycled and reusable products.

Enterprise: "Fashion uses more water than any industry other than agriculture," according to Earthpledge.org. As the fashion industry is one of the most un-eco-friendly industries in the world, what measures are designers taking or going to have to begin to take in order to save Earth's resources? Groups like FutureFashion are beginning to take a stand on trying to make the fashion world more eco-friendly.

Earth Day / Papal Visit Packet Proposals

2008-04-17T06:17:00.001-07:00

by Damon Beres

Earth Day
Profile piece: Christina Salvi, organizer in Recycle This! (which freegan.info describes as “a grassroots waste reduction & recycling activist group that works throughout the five boroughs of New York City to help New Yorkers rethink garbage and work towards a more sustainable city”), and a coordinator for Freecycle New York City; discussing what she does for the environment and waste-management, as well as providing more details on the two organizations she belongs to, would allow this profile to easily fit the bill as an Earth Day piece. Bill Nye the Science Guy, who is in a competition with next door neighbor Ed Begley for “greenest house,” would make an interesting profile for obvious reasons (Bill Nye!) but might also be used to show others how they could live greener.

News piece with a focus on good photos: “Project Earth Day” (April 24th at the Teknion Showroom), the culmination of a fashion design competition where “entrants will be judged on aesthetics, execution of design, and the incorporation of one or more "ecological design" principles, such as eco-labeling, or dyes and water consumption.” The “Queens is Green Fashion Show” (“Attend a free fashion competition that highlights clothing and accessories from local designers that not only look good, but are good for the planet”) would also probably be good. What could possibly make for better photos than fashion models adorned in, what, leaves and recycled cardboard?

Enterprise story: Another, more in-depth piece on freegans (can't escape them!) could probably fit the Earth Day bill, but there are a number of other issues that present themselves with the holiday; a look at how top companies, schools, etcetera handle the environment, for instance. The freegans piece might be nice because it's edgy and hip; young people eating out of the trash, squatting, and making free bicycles? It's Earth Day taken to the max!

Papal Visit
Profile piece: Rabbi Arthur Schneier, senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue and Holocaust survivor, who the pope will meet during his New York City visit. His Excellency Archbishop Celestino Migliore, who blessed an ambulance for the pope’s motorcade but is also Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, which Benedict will visit during his stay in New York. Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishop Accountability (a website that documents sexual abuse in the church), might make for a good profile if the piece was to somehow relate to the pope’s stance on child abuse in the Catholic church.

News piece with a focus on good photos: Obvious answers would be the Mass at Yankee Stadium or the visit to Ground Zero. The actual meeting with Rabbi Schneier would also likely be worth photographing.

Enterprise story: A lot more could probably be said of the child abuse situation in the church. The pope explicitly commented on it on his way here, so a solid investigative piece (a stunt piece might be difficult, but would likely be an amusing read) that could provide hard facts on the history of the situation along with the church’s traditional stance would be worth reading; a lot of people might be surprised to learn that while self-mutilation automatically makes one ineligible for priesthood, there isn't much said about child abuse.

Package Stories for Papal Visit and Earth Day

2008-04-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Luckenbaugh

Papal Visit:
• PROFILE: Father John McGuire, Pastor at St. Joseph’s Parish Church in the Village is doing much of the planning for the pope’s prayer service this week. He has been working with the pope’s coordination team, NYU faculty and students and New York City and Greenwich Village officials and representatives to make the service smooth and successful. Father McGuire would make an excellent profile.
• NEWS EVENT WITH VISUALS: The Westboro Baptist Church is planning protests at all major papal events, including the pope’s visit to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and St. Joseph’s Parish Church in the Village. The protests would provide excellent pictures and extremely interesting and potentially colorful quotes, giving insight into an aspect of the papal visit that is not well-covered in the media.
• ENTERPRISE STORY: A slow return to the Latin Mass, initiated by Pope Benedict XVI, is causing controversy among American Catholics, even with priests. While the Catholic Church and Vatican promotes unity and heirarchy, this dissention in individual dioceses could be a sign of the Vatican's loss of control over American parishes. The piece will investigate individual parish practices in relation to the ordinances handed down by the Vatican and individual dioceses. The piece is timely considering the pope’s visit to the United States.

Earth Day:
• PROFILE: A sidewalk promoter for Greenpeace, particularly one that is slotted to work at the EarthFair in New York City would make an excellent profile. The promoter is always ignored on New York sidewalks and would have great stories, strong environmental convictions and pertinent information regarding Earth Day and the EarthFair.
• NEWS EVENT WITH VISUALS: EarthNight, April 22 from 6 p.m. to midnight, is a social networking party and eco-fashion show at The Park, 118 Tenth Avenue at 18th Street. The event, which receives significantly less coverage than New York City’s EarthFair, would provide excellent pictures and interesting quotes.
• ENTERPRISE PIECE: How environmentally friendly are organizations such as the EPA, Greenpeace and Lower East Side Ecology Center that claim to promote conservation? This piece would track the recycling habits of the New York offices of these and similar organizations, investigating how seriously they take their recycling habits.

Earth Day 2008 and the Pope's Visit to the U.S.

2008-04-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

Lisa Bonarrigo

EARTH DAY
Profile: Kathleen Rogers, President of the Earth Day Network - she has worked more than 15 years as an environmental attorney and advocate, and is now heading up the Earth Day Network - her thoughts on this year's events and her background involvement would be interesting

News item with visuals: Central Park, where the Green Apple Festival is hosting its New York concert event on April 20, featuring many bands, including the Bacon Brothers - video and photos of the concerts and the crowds would demonstrate the amount of people coming together for an event to raise awareness

Investigative piece on whether or not members of Congress act in response to the thousands of calls they will receive on Tuesday, April 22, what some are calling the largest campaign ever to bring about action on the issue of global warming - both sides and what Congress members haven't done which prompted such a large campaign

POPE VISITS
Profile: one of the five Americans traveling with the pope, such as Cardinal William J. Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to get perspective on bringing the Pope to the U.S. from an American insider involved in the papacy

News item with visuals: Concert for Hope and Public Solemn Pontifical Mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, April 20 - There will be thousands there and it would be interesting to track the uplifting concert followed by a quiet mass in a usually loud and rowdy location

Investigative piece: I've heard volunteers for the Pope's visit here say that they're shocked at how unorganized the operation is (no one is kept track of, and people are tossed in different locations with no warning) – juxtapose that to the high security planned for every location the Pope will be in the entire weekend

The Pope vs. The Earth: April just isn't Big Enough For the Two of Them

2008-04-17T06:15:00.001-07:00

By Michael Ronan

Package Stories

The Pope’s visit to NYC:
Profile story: Profile on Mark G. Ackerman who is executive director of the archdiocesan office of the Papal visit. The reason I would profile him is because he is the man behind the scenes in the Pope’s visit. He is in charge with planning where the Pope visits.
Event to go to: I would send a news team to cover the Pope’s visit to 5th Ave. to 72nd St. at 1:15 p.m. on April 19. Here the Pope will be traveling in the pope mobile and people will be in the streets trying to get his blessing, making for great photo opportunities not unlike when the Giants won the Superbowl.
Enterprise story: The Pope has called on a return to fundamental Christian values, arguing against the rise of secularism in modern society. Why was their this secularism, in the first place, and how will the Pope’s argument for this return affect Christian voters in the upcoming election, especially with issues like that of Obama and his ties to pastor? A reporter could also infiltrate a politically minded Christian organization such as Moral Majority, or the Christian Coalition.

Earth Day
Profile story: Members of the SCA, the Student Conservation Association, who will be celebrating Earth Day by helping to build a greenhouse at Alemany Farm. This takes place April 19th in San Francisco.
Event to go to: The event I would send a news crew to would be the Earth Day fair. It takes place on April 18, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and April 19 from noon to 7 p.m. on Vanderbilt Ave. This would make for good pictures because the festival incorporates musical events, non-profit organizations, as well as kids activities.
Enterprise story: An investigative piece on how, despite celebrating Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been prohibited from acting for environmental conservation. This would lead into an investigation on the responsiveness of the government on a state and federal level to Earth Day and environmental activists.

The Popemobile: Is it eco-friendly? The Pope's Visit and Earth Day

2008-04-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Alexandra Beggs

Pope's Visit:
1. Profile: Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York and Cardinal of Roman Catholic Church in United States, opinion on Pope's visit to New York and his role in the visit.

2. News item with visuals: Pope’s Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (New York), Sat. April 19

3. Investigative piece: What is the cost of the pope's visit? Would it be cheaper if Americans visited Rome instead? The Roman Catholic Church funds his visit, yet not many people actually get to see the Pope in person. The cost of organizing the events and security is incredibly high, do most people think it's worth it? What are the real benefits of the Pope's visit.

Earth Day:
1. Profile: John Mackey, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Whole Foods Market, concerning Whole Foods’ involvement on Earth Day and elimination of plastic bags.

2. News item with visuals: Go Green Expo at the Hilton New York (53rd and 6th Ave.) April 26 10-6 or April 27 10-3. Event inspired by film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” aims to teach how consumers and business owners can make communities greener; events such as speakers, eco-fashion show, green marketplace, over 200 booths/exhibits, demonstrations/hands on activities.

3. Investigative piece: How businesses go green for Earth Day, but keep wasting the next day. The impact of Earth Day fades after the holiday; ways in which businesses, schools, individuals waste the most.

Papal Visit in NYC 2008 and Earth Day 2008

2008-04-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

Cathryn Horwitz

Papal Visit to NYC, 2008

1. Profile: Peter Isely is a national board member of the Survivors Network of those Abused. Isely was sexually abused for three years in his Catholic school in Wisconsin, starting when he was 13 years old. He began his fight to bring the abuse out into the open and to pursue the matter legally 10 years ago. Profiling Isely would provide a different angle on the papal visit, highlighting the negativity simmering beneath the excitement about the visit. Pope Benedict XVI has only recently become vocal over the issue of sexual abuse by priests.

2. News Item: The papal visit to Park East Synagogue where he will meet Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a Holocaust survivor. A camera crew could capture the juxtaposition of the head of the Catholic church inside a synagogue, and the meeting of a Catholic and Jewish leader.

3. Enterprise piece: Before he was elected Pope in 2005, John Paul II appointed him, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as a prefect in Rome of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Holy Office and before that known as the Holy Inquistion. According to its profile its purpose is to protect the church from heresy, but it’s previous name including “inquisition” brings to mind other events, specifically the Catholic Inquisition in Spain. John Paul II was an extremely popular pope among Jewish citizens (in the United States and all over the world), but what disparity does this logical connection create between Jews and Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church of today. This can be connected to the news item on the papal visit to Park East and meeting with Rabbi Schneier.

Earth Day 2008

1. Profile: Robert Repetto and Seth Binder are the contacts for a website set up by Yale University to analyze the economic factors in reduction of carbon emissions. Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is responsible for the site.

2. News Item: Earth Week at Grand Central Terminal includes Giant Earth Images—which show Earth-related art, photographs, quotations and messages—and EarthFair—a two-day music and education festival in Vanderbilt Hall with earth-friendly exhibitions.

3. Enterprise Story: The EarthFair in Central Park will be an event focused on climate change and will involve several speakers and performers speaking out for immediate action against global warming. But such an event requires an enormous amount of electricity, produces litter by way of a large audience, and the venue--Central Park--and the animals residing there may be disturbed by the excess commotion and noise. A large amount of media coverage involves equipment, paper for broadcast scrips, helicopters and other potential pollutants. Will the EarthFair damage more than it helps and educates?

Earth Day & Pope Packet

2008-04-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Tanya Burnett

EARTH DAY

Profile: Pamela Lippe, green consultant and director of Earth Day New York. Lippe has 30 years of experience with environmental projects in New York.

News Item w/ Visuals: Earth Fair at Grand Central (Friday April 18th 12-7pm & Saturday April 19th 11-5pm)

Investigative Piece: How Green is Mayor Bloomberg? His proposed Congestion Pricing Plan to increase environmental intiatives will cost cars traveling in the city during the workday $8 and $21 for trucks. Does Mayor Bloomberg, contribute to congestion?

POPE VISITS THE U.S.

Profile: Vatican Ambassador to the USA Pietro Sambi or Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuel. It would be interesting to see exactly what relations the ambassador and archbishop would have with such a secular nation as the U.S.

News Item w/ Visual: The Pope's Day in New York April 18-20th(taking pictures of the places that the Pope visits and things that he does while NY. Maybe he'll eat a hot dog.)

Investigative Piece: Why is the vatican so important historically and how did it become an icon for Christianity?

2008-04-17T06:04:00.001-07:00

Packaging the Pope and Earth Day

2008-04-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

By, Jamie Letica

Profile: Jennifer Pascual. She is the music director at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. She is in charge of coordinating the music for the majority of the Pope's events during his stay in New York.

News Item: The march to Ground Zero with the Pope and some of the 9/11 victims' families.

Enterprise Story: The pope is highly praises the tradition of religious tolerance in America. However, there was a lot of religious intolerance in America and probably still is around the country.

Earth Day 2008
Profile: Peter Bross. He is on the Board of Directors of Earthday.net, and therefore helps to plan a lot of the Earth Day activities. He contributes to a lot of environmental organizations on a regular basis as well. However, he is the only person on the Board of Directors who does not have an education in environmental studies, and does not work for an environmental agency. He is a doctor.

News Item: Central Park's Green Apple Festival. It is the third year this festival is taking place. The event boasts "Free Valet Bike Parking." It will have live bands, planting and mulching activities, tree care and composting demonstrations, arts and crafts with recycled materials, tree tours, face painting, a green mural project, and Greenmarket Vendors.

Enterprise Story:

2008-04-17T05:37:00.000-07:00

By: Kim Anglin

Move Over Christmas, Earth Day is Set to Be the Next Big Commercial Holiday

Profile:
Chevy Chase: Why, because he’s high profile celebrity and because he founded The Center for Environmental Education Online.

“This year The Center for Environmental Education Online celebrates its seventeenth year as a national resource center and clearinghouse for environmental education. Founded by Jayni and Chevy Chase, the non-profit organization grew out of their long-held belief that if understanding and change are going to occur, it must begin with the education of our children.” ~charitybuzz.com

News Item with Visuals:
It would be best to send cameras to the Earth Day Flagship Event on the National mall in Washington D.C. It's the center of it all. There will also be a number of A-list celebrities in attendance, which would invite readers.

" In Washington, DC we will be rocking out with Jordin Sparks, The Roots, O.A.R., Toots and the Maytals, and Warren Haynes. Speakers scheduled to appear are Ed Norton, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Rep. Ed Markey, Rep. Jane Harman, Tom Friedman, Russell Simmons and many more." ~earthday.net

Investigative:
Is Earth Day just another commercial holiday for companies? Is Earth Day just a trend?
http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2007/04/23/retailers-see-green-on-earth-day.aspx

Devout Followers or Celebrity Spotters: Why Did You Line Up to See the Pope?

Profie:
DC Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl. Why, because he spoke About the Pope in an online Q&A session for the www.washingtonpost.com propr to the visit.

News Item with Visuals:
Pennsylvania avenue, where crowds gathered as the pope passed in the “Popemobile.”
Possible Shot of the President with the Pope.

Investigative:
Are Catholics lining up to see the Pope for religious reasons, or are they just starstruck. With the advent of celebrity promotion, is religion becoming a trend? Scientology, anyone? Investigators will delve into the world of a number of religious groups and organizations and examine their motives. Are these groups centered around faith or societal status? Are their messages different from established religions like Christianity? And finally, could they replace their predecessors?

Swami’s Stress Relief Tips Fail Students Who Need Real Help

2008-04-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

by Jessica Kramer

Listen to this podcast

If you’re feeling stressed out and are looking for laughter, a self-described swami’s teachings may be a diverting but ultimately fruitless use of your time.

Students who are feeling pressure due to midterms and major papers may feel like they have few options to deal with their anxiety. But many dorms offer various stress relief activities that are supposed to expose students to novel ways to cope with life’s frustrations. One such activity this week was the reprisal of a Welcome Week program that attempts to teach students how to use laughter as a tool to lift their spirits and relax.

Titled “Laughter: The Best Medicine,” the event promising music, meditation, and laughter was held in the Hayden Library Tuesday at 8 p.m. Laraaji Nadananda led the hour-long session of 12 people, surrounded by the quiet atmosphere of tables, chairs, and books in the large room.

Nadananda, who is also a musician, tried to find the best words to describe himself. Some call him teacher, others a “laugh master.” Still others call him a “workshop facilitator.” But, he said, perhaps “swami” could best “sum it up and explain why I do what I do.”

The night began with plenty of mirth, both in the exercises taught as well as the leader’s unique sense of humor. Nadananda showed everyone various ways to practice laughter on their own and how to best enhance their sensation of delight. The pituitary gland in our brain was said to be a tool they could use to laugh, and the swami made fun of his speech when he turned it into a mock slogan you could use: “Touch your pituitary today!”

While they were doing exercises, he was dispensing advice. “You can’t take a laugh pill like you can take a headache pill,” he said. He told them, “Laughter is energy work.”

Tamara Whitehouse, a CAS freshman who attended the program, said that her current greatest source of stress is school. She said she was skeptical of the methods at first, but that it was really cool. Though she enjoyed the program and said it was helpful at the moment, she doesn’t think she’ll use the techniques shown in the future. “I’m not going to laugh by myself,” she explained.

While everyone was practicing exercises, Nadananda joked, “Don’t you think of yourselves as yummy? You could walk around after this saying, ‘I’m in a yummy body!’”

Other advice he gave people included grounding themselves. “Have you ever heard the saying ‘get grounded’?” he asked them. “It’s like when someone is in a bad neighborhood and then pulls out his wallet full of money,” he explained. “Someone will come up to him and say ‘GET GROUNDED!’ You need to become aware of the situation."

He also told them a “therapeutic smile” can lift their spirits. They rated theirs on a scale of 1-10 and practiced varying degrees of smiling and they then unwound with some relaxation activities where they laid down and closed their eyes, to the sound of an accompanying gong and gentle sounds.

The event was organized by Lindsay Tadych, a Hayden RA and nursing student graduating in spring 2008. She is currently most stressed about graduating in May, and everything that comes with that, including getting a job and apartment. Even with this stress, Tadych said she doesn’t use the techniques shown at the program that often.

Normally the laughter event is just during Welcome Week, Tadych said. But she brought it back.

All of this started when, in 1985, Nadananda read a meditation book, The Orange Book: The Meditation Techniques of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (aka Osho), that suggested laughter meditation. He tried it on himself and liked it. Then he shared it with his concert audience (he described his music as “ambient inspirational non-traditional sound music”) for about five minutes at a time, and then it “mushroomed into its own workshop.”

He explained, “I developed techniques [with] people sharing observations.” Osho was a “spiritual teacher” for him.

The laugh master is not without stress. His greatest stress now is musically “performing with someone whose technique is not fluid or spontaneous.”

“I have to cover them,” he elaborated. “I have to stay present in a certain way.” Another big stress for him is going through the airport check-in.

As for using his own techniques on himself, he said, “I do it myself, inwardly,” in places like car rides before a performance.

“I touch into it briefly during the day,” he said. “I find I can get the results by just dipping back into it.” He also participates in “laughing fits” with a group, making laughter more therapeutic, incorporating his own practice into it.

He’s currently trying to develop laughter as a performance art, and have it be an “infectious energy moving experience.”

The stress event itself could be classified as that. The RAs always try to have some kind of stress-relief activity during exam weeks, Tadych said. There was a similar stress relief event last week, a Peer Educator organized workshop on the eighth floor of Hayden. It included meditation and smoothies for “stress-free midterms.”

Gallatin freshman Brianna Sahagian attended that program and said she learned deep breathing techniques she now practices for stress relief.

“[T]his past week I’ve had a lot of papers and tests and stuff, so I’ve been really stressed,” she explained. “I haven’t been doing as well coping with stress this semester.”

The meditation and breath control are now part of her newfound coping process, along with muscle relaxation techniques, listening to music, and dancing in her room when no one’s around.

While the meditation workshop techniques are put to use, the laughter ones are not. Both attendee Whitehouse and organizer Tadych said they won't use them much in the future. If there's any point to the event, it’s to have a secluded time to let loose instead of any genuine, constructive methods to “de-stress,” as was advertised.

At the laughter event’s end, the participants repeated the phrase “play is the spontaneous exploration of sensation,” and ended the session with a rousing trip around the room skipping and declaring their various body parts “happy.”

Nadananda then proclaimed everyone “radiant yum yum[s].”

And really, if that isn’t helpful, what is?

Hard to Veg Out at NYU

2008-04-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

By Piper Wallingford

Listen!

Fluorescent lights flicker above wilted lettuce and oozing tomatoes at New York University’s Rubin Dining Hall. A student stops at the shabby salad bar to get dinner – a handful of carrot sticks and hummus smeared across a wrap. While this meal would leave most stomachs grumbling, these scraps of subsistence are all vegans and vegetarians can eat at NYU.

The university champions its vegan and vegetarian dining programs, earning recognition from PETA as one of the nation’s Most Vegetarian-Friendly Colleges. But vegans and vegetarians at NYU think that dining halls lack sufficient protein alternatives. The limited variety frustrates students trying to eat meat-free, balanced meals.

While vegetarians do not eat meat, vegans avoid animal by-products of any kind, including dairy and even honey. Because of their dietary restrictions, vegans and vegetarians find little variety at NYU. They often eat the same meals throughout the week, simply because there are no other options.

Hannah Hodel, a sophomore, is a vegan who was required to have a meal plan her freshman year. Hodel felt limited by what she could eat at NYU. “You get stuck with a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and salads,” she said. “You’re just going to eat broccoli for every meal.”

As a freshman Alex Neinast, a vegan, also ate at NYU dining halls. “I got tired of eating carrot sticks, hummus and salads, which is pretty much all I could eat,” she said.

With the opening of Hayden Dining Hall, NYU has tried to present a more welcoming attitude to vegan and vegetarian diners. Hayden offers three vegan options a day and they rotate each week. Students who do not enjoy Veggie Indian Curry, Asian Sesame Pasta, or Stir-Fried Tofu can eat a soy burger or a salad.

In other residence dining halls, these few options are not available. Junior Lauren Dunivant, a vegetarian, lived at Rubin as a freshman and felt that the school catered to meat-eaters. NYU’s monthly Vegan Night and weekly Vegetarian Night offered a wide variety of meat dishes, said Dunivant. NYU Dining canceled both events last year, while weekly events like Steak Night and Seafood Night continue, offering only a salad for those who do not eat meat.

“Seafood Night at Rubin smelled horrible,” said Dunivant. “It’s probably cool for some people, but I’m definitely not a fan.”

But Owen Moore, the Director of Dining Services at NYU, said that every dining hall has vegetarian and vegan options for all three meals of the day. According to Moore, NYU still has vegetarian and vegan nights, which is not obvious from an online menu. Entrees for this week at Hayden are Beef Stroganoff, Rotisserie Chicken, and Roast Lamb. Hayden’s traditional vegan night offers the very un-vegan Baked Ham, with the bone still in.

Moore said that vegetarian and vegan options are readily available and easily recognizable. Students can always speak to a staff member, and signs identify vegan and vegetarian options. “Some are obvious like the salad bar,” said Moore.

Not quite so obvious, according to Neinast. At the salad bar, Neinast has seen students use the same scoop for vegetables and bacon or cheese. Not all foods marketed as vegan really are, like the vegan pancakes, which cooks make next to regular buttermilk pancakes. Neinast has also had her soy burger grilled next to hamburgers. “I’m forced to get something I hope is vaguely vegan,” she said.

Neinast eats vegan, and saves money, by eating off campus or making her own meals. “Eight dollars on campus gets a salad and a water bottle,” she said. “It’s cheaper to go to Whole Foods and load up at the salad bar.”

Some students cannot afford to eat off campus, however. Sophomore Kelly Sielert, who is vegetarian, also lived at Rubin, but could not afford to eat off campus. “I didn’t have a job and pretty much stuck to my meal plan and eating at dining halls,” she said. Sielert did not mind eating at NYU and felt that there were enough vegetarian options, although she opted out of a meal plan this year. “Some days I still eat on campus,” said Sielert. “It’s not so bad when you don’t have to eat there every day, three meals a day. You just get sick of eating dorm food.”

For some students, they got sick from eating dorm food because they were not getting necessary nutrients. For vegans, the lack of alternative sources of protein can be dangerous to students’ health. When Hodel ate at NYU, she could not find enough sources of fatty proteins. “I didn’t go off campus, I just tried to get by,” she said. “I had trouble with my health. Over the summer, I was finally able to get the nutrients that I needed.”

Moore says that the campus dining halls offer the nutrition needed by vegan and vegetarian students. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t be getting the nutrition they need,” said Moore. “There are plenty of proteins and B12s in fruit.”

Besides B12 vitamins, vegans and vegetarians need to make sure they consume the recommended amounts of protein, iron, and calcium, said junior Chi-Ser Tran. As a peer educator, Tran informs NYU students about the best ways to get their nutritional needs. According to Tran, the first step is to make existing options more vegan and vegetarian friendly. “Separate vegan-only stations, with sterilized serving utensils, would make sure students can eat without worrying about what they’re eating,” said Tran. “Another option would be to list food ingredients on the on-line menu.”

Adding more options would also benefit the entire NYU dining community, said Tran. “It would be great to see more nuts and avocados or meat alternatives like tempeh or seitan,” said Tran. “Eating the right amounts of protein-rich foods isn’t only for vegans, it’s just good nutrition.”

In 2007, PETA ranked NYU No. 7 in its top-ten list of the Most Vegetarian-Friendly Colleges, considering the university’s proximity to off-campus restaurants and canceled programs, but not nutritional value. “Not only does NYU have the benefit of being close to many of the nation’s best vegetarian restaurants, it also promotes Weekly Vegetarian Nights and Monthly All Vegan Meals,” the organization’s website said.

Sielert agrees with PETA’s ranking, but points out that NYU could work harder to support vegan and vegetarian students. “Other schools don’t pay as much attention to vegetarians, but that only says how bad other schools are, not how good NYU is.”

Even students like Sielert who do not mind eating at NYU still want to see variety in the dining halls. Until NYU addresses students’ frustration, vegans and vegetarians will be opting out of a meal plan instead of vegging out in a dining hall.

NYU Students Frustrated with Core Curriculum

2008-04-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

NYU Students Frustrated with Core Curriculum
Mary Jane Weedman

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"Our adherence to the difficult testifies to why we are here."

That's what NYU expository writing professor Bruce Bromley says to students who complain about the difficulty of Morse Academic Plan (MAP) courses.

Still, some students say that difficulty isn't the problem with most MAP classes. They often complain that the writing styles professors teach aren't always applicable to later writing courses, or that the classes just shouldn’t be required. And it's not just an isolated complaint here and there: MAP curriculum revision was a hot topic at a recent CAS town hall, when some students sharply criticized the class.

CAS freshman Kari Lindegren is one student who is struggling to find a way to use what she’s learned in Writing the Essay outside of the class.

“I think it is pointless,” said Lindegren. “It would be better to write essays that we will have to write for other classes.”

Some students are frustrated that MAP courses are a requirement at all. Stern junior Henry Yonge said he thinks having a structured curriculum only hurts a person’s individuality.

“I hate map courses and map requirements and I think they're stupid,” said Yonge.

Still, said Bromley, MAP courses are worthwhile because they expose students to writing in various essayistic forms that can help them build and develop original thinking.

He said he believes most students can learn to appreciate MAP courses.

“Even for those of my students who have complained, early on, about being obliged to take MAP courses, at the end of the term they tell me that our difficult work has enriched them,” said Bromley.

And many students say they already do. Steinhardt freshman Briana Santiago said she thinks work overload may be a problem with Writing the Essay, but overall, the class experience has been a good one.

“I know a lot of people complain about it. But for the most part, I think we learn helpful writing techniques. The course just seems too intense…for a basic level class,” said Santiago.

Bromley said he believes students should challenge themselves, even if they don’t find MAP courses interesting or meaningful.

“How, precisely, can you judge here if, at 17 or 18, you simply haven’t read enough or experienced the thing you deem unworthy of your time?” said Bromley.

While Bromley has some student supporters, enough students are upset for the coursework to be evaluated for change. Should the curriculum change, perhaps undergraduates in the class of 2012 and beyond will be satisfied with their introductory classes.

The Real Cost of Attending New York University

2008-04-08T06:43:00.001-07:00

By: Kimberly Anglin

The Real Cost of Attending NYU

A chilly Friday evening air greeted Kimberly Ballinger as she made her way down the hipster-ridden streets of St. Mark’s Place. As was her habit at the end of every week, she made her way down rows of seedy tattoo parlors and hole-in-the-wall eateries in search of a great place to unwind that night. “We should have sushi tonight. That should be a cheap dinner,” she said to a friend accompanying her that evening, as the two ducked into an unsuspecting Japanese restaurant. That night the girls spent a whopping $30 on appetizers and refreshments alone.

A bill of this size is not uncommon at restaurants in New York City’s Greenwich Village, the neighborhood that serves as a backdrop for New York University. For many students, unexpected expenses like the cost of a night out are just another financial sacrifice they must endure during their time spent in the city. Savvy students, however, are finding ways to deal with these steep costs. With a little planning and a lot of penny pinching these students are finding ways to enjoy the city without breaking the bank.

The average tuition per semester for an undergraduate in the College of Arts & Science is around $17,000 before adding room and board, meal plans, and other registration fees. After that, a semester at NYU can cost over $25,000.After incurring all of these costs, there is little money left at a student’s disposal to enjoy his or her time in New York City, noted by many as one of the most exciting and most expensive cities in the world.

The high cost of living in New York comes as more of an annoyance than a shock to most students. Many had an idea of what it would cost when they applied to the university. “I kind of expected it was going to be expensive. It’s New York!” said freshman Joanna Lau, a native of Singapore. Many students note that if the cost of living were cheaper, they would feel inclined to do a lot more “I would go to a lot more theaters and museums. A lot of museums are really interesting, but you always have to pay for the best ones,” said sophomore Alyssa Lapan, an art student.
Though some might be unaware of it, there are many activities that students can enjoy for free in the city. A quick internet search provides a number of websites that list plenty of great activities for students at little or no cost. One website in particular, http://www.freenyc.net, frequently posts low-cost activities going on at locations around the city. “There are so many things you can do for cheap, you just have to look for them,” said Kimberly, a college sophomore and native New Yorker.

Students also have the option of planning ahead by using guides like the annual Zagat Survey. The Survey rates New York City restaurants, theater, nightlife and shopping, among other things, on a point scale, and evaluates tastes, décor and prices. The Survey’s website notes that the guide is the world’s “leading provider of consumer survey-based information on where to Eat, Drink, Stay and Play worldwide.” Its reviews are based on those of over 300,000 surveyors from all over the world. For about $16, students can have their own personal guide to the city. At that price, the Zagat Survey may seem like yet another expense, but students should consider it a wise investment, as students often use the Survey as a tool for saving time and money, their most valuable commodities.
Some students have devised a clever strategy when dining out, choosing to share meals, a habit that tends to bring down costs. “The last restaurant I went to was Carmine’s in Times Square. It was family style, so it was cheaper. It [cost] about $25, but the plate fed three of us, so it wasn’t that bad,” said sophomore Brittany Gischner.

Another useful opportunity that students are taking advantage of is using “Declining Dollars” to pay for food at participating dining establishments on campus, such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. When any New York University student purchases a meal plan, he or she is allotted a varying amount of credit, called “Declining Dollars,” which can be redeemed at dining halls and participating eateries. Thought this program sometimes limited to out-of-the-way locations and the lines tend to be long, due to the amount of students taking advantage of the program, using declining dollars had a number of cost. Most notably, students are able to use the credits they have already received from purchasing their meal plans. This strategy can save a student upwards of a hundred dollars a semester. Similar practices are spreading among universities and according to David Puner, a representative for Dunkin’ Donuts, many of the brands franchisees work independently with colleges and universities to establish similar plans for students.

Though the cost of city living may seem steep at first glance, a little bit of know-how and a watchful eye for bargains can save a student a lot of time, stress, and money when planning a city outing.
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NYU's General Studies Program Leads to Transfer Woes

2008-04-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

By Cathryn Horwitz

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Twenty-two year old Lael Laderman said she plans on applying to veterinary school. Having excelled at New York University for four years, leaving the General Studies Program for the College of Arts and Science with great enthusiasm for her major, Laderman hoped to be in vet school now.

But somewhere between GSP and CAS, someone missed a beat.

Laderman is taking her final required class as a fifth year senior.

NYU’s General Studies Program—a two year liberal arts core curriculum—gives its students an associate’s degree, after which they transfer to the school housing their intended major. However, some students have been encountering obstacles, from changing major requirements to poor communication with advising—whether GSP’s or their chosen school’s. Students have been left hanging, unsure where to go next, as the semesters tick by. But these students’ complaints may be part of larger problems in organization and communication in GSP, and perhaps NYU.

Though GSP certainly has many important and useful resources for its students—a thorough curriculum, personalized advising and a favorably small instructor to student ratio—which the students appreciate, at times they are not enough to balance out the negative experiences.

Jennifer E. Gottlieb, 20, a Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies major in the CAS, made the transfer out of GSP when most do: spring of her sophomore year. The process, however, was difficult for her as she was studying abroad in London that same semester.

Gottlieb explained that a GSP student is supposed to talk to their intended major’s department head at NYU’s campus in Manhattan.

“I had to do it all by email and it was really hectic,” she said.

In the end, she successfully transferred, but trouble with the advising department brewed ahead.

CAS requires one math course for the Morse Academic Plan (MAP)—the core program of the College of Arts and Science. Gottlieb said she was concerned about fulfilling this Quantitative Reasoning requirement (QR) with NYU, because she struggled with math. As an alternative, she hoped to take a summer math course during at the University of Massachusetts and transfer the credits.

Gottlieb contacted both GSP and CAS advising, as she was still in GSP, but it was CAS’s math requirement. But Gottlieb only became more stressed, confused and frustrated.

She said GSP advisers told her they could not advise her on CAS requirements, only on internal issues with GSP.

Gottlieb did not yet have an official CAS adviser to inquire about the specifics of the QR requirement, so she attended walk-in advising hours and met with a CAS adviser, Jennifer Bell, from whom she said she didn’t get any information.

“She pretty much flat out told me she couldn’t help me,” Gottlieb said. Bell explained that there were too many variables involved in determining whether the math credits would transfer to CAS: which school, what professor, what the syllabus was like, and what her final grade was.

Caught in limbo for the summer, Gottlieb said she worked very hard to achieve an A in the class at UMass. Though the credits did transfer in the end, Gottlieb found the situation incredibly stressful and frustrating.

But meeting a school’s core requirements, such as the QR requirement, is not a problem that GSP students alone experience, said Fred S. Schwarzbach, 58, an associate dean at GSP.

He explained that if, for example, an intended English major took an easier QR course to fulfill the requirement with minimal stress, and then decided to switch majors to psychology, it is possible the QR course that student took will not fulfill the major’s QR requirement.

“So I’m sure in that case the student may feel that the quality of advising was poor,” Schwarzbach said, “but it’s not really an advising issue so much as there are lots of complex requirements, and a lot of them will change depending on the student’s course of study.”

Certain requirements are consistent within NYU’s schools. For example, CAS’s language requirement calls for four semesters of the same language to fulfill the core requirement.

Laderman’s adviser for her Medieval and Renaissance Studies major told her that she needed three semesters of a modern language and two semesters of an ancient language in order to graduate with her major degree. Laderman took three semesters of Hebrew as her modern language, and two semesters of Latin as her ancient language.

Senior year crept up on Laderman, and her adviser did not address the issue that CAS would require her to finish another semester of Hebrew in order to graduate.

When her adviser made her aware of the issue, Laderman was already past the point where she could register for Hebrew in her final semester of senior year. She did not graduate with the rest of her senior class.

After fighting the decision for a semester, insisting she had completed all other requirements, and had taken not four, but five semesters of languages, even if they were two different languages, she gave in. She is now taking Intermediate Hebrew II in her fifth year at NYU and is struggling to recall information from its prerequisite courses, now almost two years displaced.

Laderman said she felt that GSP prepared her very well for CAS from an academic standpoint—for classes, intensive writing and studying techniques.

“But to prepare me to go into CAS for what I needed to do to graduate, they didn’t tell me,” Laderman said. She said she there were no informational meetings for incoming CAS students advertised.

Laderman also cited that she did not have an assigned GSP adviser. “They just kind of sent me to whoever was free,” she said.

But with dozens of majors in CAS, where most GSP students transfer, GSP staff must deal with unique advising issues.

Schwarzbach explained that when he began his tenure at NYU three years ago, one of the largest departments within CAS, which he declined to name, had radically restructured its program and requirements. GSP students account for about 15 or 20 percent of the majors in that particular department, and because of the changes, GSP advisers had been telling their students incorrect information.

“Looking back it’s easy to say, well that department should have given us advance warning and easily could have done so,” he said. “But it requires people working hard to think about every step of the process and to recognize that things change and it changes for our students, too.”

Schwarzbach said GSP faculty is working on ways to improve communication flow between its advising and that of the other schools, primarily CAS, to avoid problems such as these.

“One of the things we’ve also done is that we’ve advanced the timing of our students’ sophomore admission,” Schwarzbach explained.

GSP students used to transfer by April 1, only a couple weeks before CAS advising or fall begins, but this year, students transferred by the end of February, giving them more time to seek departmental advising before mid-April registration.

Svetlana Keselman, 20, a CAS junior majoring in English and Italian-Linguistics, found the GSP program very personal and rewarding.

“If GSP was a four year thing I would just stay in GSP,” Keselman said.

Keselman spoke highly of her GSP adviser, Martin Reichert, and said she had classes with him twice. She explained with the small classes, the professors knew everyone’s name, and could get to know their students better.

Schwarzbach also emphasized the favorably small instructor to student ratio.

“It’s…important that GSP has its own faculty and we’re a teaching faculty,” Schwarzbach said. “Students don’t encounter graduate assistants in our classes. They’re taught by full time faculty, in small groups.”

However experiencing up to two years in a school where professors give individual attention carries its own detriments. Ilona A. Margiotta, 20, a Gender and Sexuality Studies major, said she almost chose Psychology as her major, but GSP’s small classes did not prepare her for the major’s 200 person or more lectures.

Margiotta selected her major based on a GSP elective she took first semester of her sophomore year, after which she transferred into CAS a semester early, because of extra high school credits.

While she valued the GSP experience, and is happy that she discovered her passion for her major within the program, Margiotta said she did not see a difference between CAS and GSP beyond the name.

“I know they [GSP] like to coddle you but I don’t think I would have sunk down into the floor of the ocean if I had gotten into [CAS instead of GSP],” Margiotta said.

Schwarzbach sees distinct differences between CAS and GSP.

“We’re both liberal arts programs,” he said, “but the MAP is really nothing like a core curriculum. There are really only two classes in the MAP that every student will take: expository writing and Conversations with the West. Other than that every student is choosing from fairly large lists of different courses.

“Our curriculum is one coherent program of study, and every single student in the program will do it,” he said, “and I feel that’s a pretty important difference.”

GSP will continue to make improvements, and Schwarzbach said the school is already better than it was even two years ago about communicating with the CAS advising staff and directors of undergraduate studies and many large departments at CAS.

In the meantime, GSP’s academics are putting students on track to be in stellar standing with their new schools. Schwarzbach says GSP’s writing intensive curriculum prepares the students for their major classes.

Gottlieb felt GSP prepared her in many ways. Like Margiotta, an elective course offered at GSP inspired her major—“Near Eastern Cultures”—and she received credit towards her major from the class. She felt GSP laid the foundations for her to continue studying in CAS.

“I think that it just, like most organizations, has a few [traps] that I fell through,” Gottlieb said, “and that I know other people have fallen through.”

A New School Student Doing Something Odd Is Not New

2008-04-08T06:38:00.000-07:00

by Walter Ancarrow

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In the future, everyone will be pleasured for $15. Until then, as one New School sophomore knows, it’s going to cost something closer to $1500, and that’s not for anything kinky.

Perry Gregoire, who chose her pseudonym to match her company’s French theme, works as personal assistant for the owner of an upscale New York city-based escort service. Gregoire doesn’t escort herself, but knows that, even when filing paperwork, her job is far from ordinary.

Traditionally, the collegiate crowd clamors for internships, or jobs as barista or salespeople. But some college students are taking a different path and snatching up unusual positions at odd jobs in order to stand out from the crowd and avoid cookie-cutter resumes.

For Gregoire, a typical day includes writing saucy bios about the escort (a personal favorite: “allow her legs to lead you for a night out, or let them keep you warm on a night in”), or doing background checks on clients, or interviewing people to find out what they can do with a prostate. While the whole thing has become second nature to Gregoire, starting in the business was a bit of a shock.

“As I went in I was like, ‘Am I really doing this?’ but eventually it was no big deal and [I] stopped thinking about it,” she said about her initial reaction.

But no matter how comfortable Gregoire gets with the job, the lives of escorts (and the men who love them) never get humdrum.

“One day a woman couldn’t do a photo shoot on the scheduled day because she had bruises all over from a wrestling match with one of the customers. And she just acted like it was no big deal,” recounted Gregoire.

She could go on and on with bizarre anecdotes and, in fact, she’s planning on writing a novel which does just that. A writing major, Gregoire knows her job gives her insights into a business most people know very little about. And that’s what makes her often times ridiculous job so valuable, Gregoire believes.

Cheryl Mazlen, an administrator at the Wasserman Center for Career Development at NYU, said that students looking for creative jobs might benefit from unusual experiences, as they help students stand out to employers.

“Take the transferable skills – the skills that could be marketed to the mainstream and put that on the resume,” she said.

As personal shopper for a 5-year old, Charlotte Simmonds hopes to somehow market her current job to future employers.

Simmonds, a sophomore at NYU, buys clothing for the girl, whose name Simmonds didn’t want to mention, approximately every month, though it’s usually less frequently. Because the girl’s parents work full-time and the girl’s nanny is older and foreign, Simmonds was hired to take care of the girl’s wardrobe. Simmonds is told how much she’s allowed to spend, but otherwise she’s free to make her own choices and bases her selections on personal tastes with an eye towards upcoming trends.

Simmonds would like a career in art, either as a curator or gallery owner, and believes her current job relies heavily on design.

“Basically, this job is about design and I’m designing an image for [the parent’s] child. The parents want the girl to project a certain image,” she said.

Although Simmonds loves what she does, she’s aware of the absurdity that comes with it.

“I find that kids have tendency to be really materialistic if they’re allowed. It’s such a naturally seductive thing for children. They don’t have a sense at all really of what it’s worth and why some people can have these things and others can’t,” she explained.

She added that some people might not agree with what she does.

Mazlen suggested leaving anything potentially controversial off the resume, instead, highlighting the good that comes with any job. However, before taking the job, students should decide for themselves if an odd job is beneficial by questioning their motives and considering the consequences.

Gregoire said she would stress the responsibility, multi-tasking, and people skills that come with her job and would just list “personal assistant” on her resume.

The stories about escorts will have to wait until her book.

Can't Afford NYU? Try Harvard

2008-04-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

Tanya Burnett

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As NYU gears toward consolidating its staff and departments and plans for international campus expansion—amidst major tuition increases, other schools, like Brown University, are working to make education more affordable for their students through the Academic Enrichment Plan.

Private universities are known for their academic excellence and pricey tuition. But today, universities like Brown, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Dartmouth are making an effort to lower the cost of private education for students who receive financial aid. The Academic Enrichment Plan, approved by Brown University, is one example of the many endeavors of these universities to increase financial aid. The plan will eliminate parental contributions from most families earning less than $60,000 and will eliminate all loan requirements for students from families earning less than $100,000 a year. It will also reduce loan burdens for all other students who receive university financial aid. Such projects are making it possible for undergraduate students to attend Ivy League colleges and graduate with little or no debt.

On the other hand, America’s No.1 dream school, NYU has raised its tuition 5.5 percent in the past five years and is believed to continue to increase in the near future. At the same time, NYU’s Executive Vice President Mike Alfano announced a plan to stop hiring administrative staff and consolidate school departments last month. These efforts are said to save NYU $25 million dollars a year, which Alfano said could go towards financial aid and funding for the international expansion of NYU’s campus. Although the university has not released any plans for financial aid, they have disclosed plans to open satellite campuses in other countries and branch out to Governor’s Island, Downtown Brooklyn, and Midtown Manhattan. The enormous increase in tuition should force the university to tackle this issue first and then discuss the costly plan of expansion. However, that has not been the case.

Ronald G. Ehrenberg, a professor at Cornell and author of Tuition Rising: Why College Costs So Much, explained that increasing financial aid has little to with the funds that NYU is currently raising through the administrative cuts. “Brown University has much larger endowments per student that NYU, which enables them to be so generous in financial aid.” The funds that Brown University receives from its alumni total close to $3 billion as opposed to NYU’s $2 billion. Ehrenberg also stated that Cornell has taken a similar approach to that of Alfano’s consolidation plan, which he believes will “make the non-academic side of the university more efficient.”

Others have their doubts. Steve Fletcher, a teaching assistant for the Concepts in Social and Cultural Analysis course and a graduate student who participated in the NYU graduate student strike three years ago, explained that Alfano’s plan to consolidate departments would greatly affect students. Fletcher stated, “Students rely on administrative staff for advice and help navigating their majors, their housing, their healthcare, and everything else that happens on campus. There’s no magic tech fix that can replace the high quality work and personalized attention students deserve, so the real result is to squeeze more work out of the already over-worked administrative staff that remain after the reorganization.” In addition, Fletcher is not convinced that any surplus of funds would actually go to financial aid. “It’s disingenuous for NYU to use its financial aid problem to justify spending cuts in administrative staff should bear the consequences of NYU’s failure of leadership on tuition and financial aid.”

While there has not been much pressure from students to further investigate NYU’s budget, they do express concern about their tuition and how their money is spent. A College of Arts and Sciences sophomore, Tenisha Cole, would like to know the “actual breakdown of NYU’s budget and how much of the endowment goes to tuition?” Cole’s financial aid package was covered mostly by her acceptance into the Higher Educational Opportunities Program (HEOP). HEOP is a state-funded program, which gives economical disadvantaged students the opportunity to attend and afford universities like NYU. This program, among other things, evaluated her mother’s financial status and covered a substantial amount of her tuition. Cole stated that NYU’s financial aid package was better than the other schools that she applied to, which included SUNY Albany and Binghamton, due to HEOP. However, Cole did not understand why there was such big disparity in the financial aid of both NYU and Brown. “Brown is also a private university like NYU. I do not understand why NYU cannot have a similar program to increase financial aid.” While Cole expressed that she had always dreamed of going to NYU, had she known about the financial aid plans of other schools she would have considered them. “It makes me sad because I am paying so much money to go to my dream school, when I could actually go to a better acclaimed school for less.”

Jewelle Bruce, a CAS sophomore, does not feel that NYU has been putting student’s tuition to good use. She said “You’d think that for the amount of money that I’m paying, books and meal plans would be cheaper, there would be a better quality of food in the dining halls, or even the residence halls would be nicer.” Furthermore, she felt that cuts in administration were not necessary to pump more money into financial aid. Bruce explained that the real culprit is NYU’s infatuation with expanding the campus which requires a large amount of funding.

Despite NYU’s costly tuition, the institution continues to get record numbers of applicants each year. Students are attracted to the constant action of NYU’s metropolitan campus. However, if the tuition continues to skyrocket, NYU will continue to be only a dream for many students.

Mind the Cultural Gap: Stereotyping International Students

2008-04-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

By Michael Ronan

As one student from India said, “People don’t realize India is not a land of snake charmers anymore.”

Even so, many people in NYU can still be surprised by what real Indian and Pakistani international students are like.

NYU has nearly 6400 international students. Despite these large numbers, international students can still encounter cultural friction. These students say they are sometimes offended when asked questions like how they learned English so well. Students from regions in and around India and Pakistan can be subjected to stereotypes even though the reality of who they are points otherwise.

While there can be ignorance from people outside the culture some of the most culturally ignorant can be NYU’s American-born ethnic students. When these students are from the India/Pakistan region they are referred to as ABCDs. ABCD is an acronym standing for American-born confused Desi, used to denote minority students with misconceptions on their own culture.

Aditi Khandelwal, a student from India, talked about the stereotyping that goes on from American-Indian students. She said that international students have the reputation of being rich white wannabes. “ABCDs say we watch English movies or listen to English music because we are trying to fit in,” she said.
Anvi Byani, another student from India, explained that ABCDs “have a preconceived notion of how Indians are…Some call us wannabe-whites…Just because I have Indian roots doesn’t mean I’m not modern.”

Similar stigmas can also be held against Pakistani students who do not fit in with stereotypes. Pakistani student Anum Shahnawaz explained that the two most common points of ignorance are clothing and language. “People think they understand us before we come but they really don’t know,” she said. “People back home wear what people here wear. It is not your dress that makes you a good girl; it’s how you project yourself.”

Bisma Ahmad, an international student from Pakistan, explained how clothing fit in with her religious views. “People see me wearing jeans and shirts without sleeves and, yeah, I know my religion is against it, but I pay attention to the more important aspects of being Muslim like how to be a better person. I don’t pay attention to the trivial things.”

Internationals students speaking English is another issue that American students can sometimes fail to grasp. In many countries like India and Pakistan, English is taught alongside of their native language. Because of this, international students come to NYU already knowing how to speak English fluently. Many American born students, however, are unaware of this fact. Students interviewed stated that how they learned English so well was one of the more frequently asked questions about their country.

Byani found this out when a friend of hers asked her this same question. Reflecting on the incident she said “People here don’t realize that English is like the second language of India. You get taught it all your life along with Hindi,” the native language of India.

Even though she knew English fluently, Khandelwal about how Indian accents are sometimes made fun of. She recalled being mocked of in NYU’s Bobst library because of her accent. According to her, an ABCD and his friend started making fun of the way she spoke, imitating her in a mock Indian accent.

Besides dealing with cultural friction, International students have also needed to make transitions to fit into American culture. One of these transitions was the relative acceptance of homosexuality. Homosexuality is a taboo subject in other countries. In countries like India, it is even outlawed as being unnatural. Coming to America, where homosexuals are more free to express themselves, many international students were forced to take a new look at being gay or lesbian. As one Pakistani student said, back home “if someone was to tell me he was gay I would be shocked. Here it is not such a big deal. I’m immune to it.”

Another transition was in understanding American religiousness. Byani said that before coming to NYU, she generally believed that Americans were not religious people. This changed, however, in meeting several devout Christians and Jews who keep up with their religious obligations.

Dr. David Benton Austell said it is this learning process on both sides that makes it important for international students to come to America. Dr. Austell is the Director of The Office of International Students and Scholars, OSIS. Besides returning home with the prestige of a degree, Dr. Austell mentioned the importance of learning about American culture. “It is important for nationals to learn about the culture of this country in this governmental experiment of democracy,” he said. Dr. Austell also mentioned how this learning process breaks down stereotypes on both sides. He said, “America is still seen as the land of opportunity but the downside is it is seen as godless, unethical and immoral.”

This images foreign nationals have, they can compare to what they see here and figure out what is stereotype and what is true.” The same went for American students learning about other cultures, he said. Dr. Austell explained that Americans are in many way isolated from the rest of the world. It is through bringing international students here that Americans can understand other cultures more fully.

Cultural friction can be seen as just the growing pains of a generation being exposed to the outside world. By allowing international students to study at NYU, both the international and American-born students partake in a learning experience that you will not see in a classroom. Even with the occasional bad experience, all international students interviewed said they were still happy with her decision to study in a different country. It is thanks to international students that NYU has such a high number of groups geared toward minorities. These groups can help build ties among students of similar backgrounds. So while NYU may not be completely tolerant, thanks to international students breaking down American isolation, perhaps it will be soon.

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Dumpster-Diving: Hobo Practice or Political Statement?

2008-04-08T06:26:00.002-07:00

By Damon Beres

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It’s 9:30 p.m. when dinner is served for Damian Leslie. A hunched old man labors to bring the massive feast to him and it takes several trips just to haul it all out. No, it’s not Thanksgiving, nor is Leslie about to devour a ten-course meal. In fact, he may not get to eat anything at all; the meal he’s waiting on is buried in heaps of garbage delivered to a street corner by an employee of Gristedes Supermarket in Manhattan.

Most people probably associate sifting through trash with the homeless or poor. But so-called “freegans” turn dumpster diving into a political movement. Eating discarded food items from groceries and restaurants has been turned into a demonstration for better waste management and environmental policies, complete with rallies, “trash tours,” and a website called Freegan.info to provide information and freegan networking.

“I’ve been doing it since ’98 or ’99,” said Leslie. “It facilitates a cheap lifestyle. I like to travel a lot throughout the U.S., hitchhiking or using free modes of transportation.”

For many college students, the thought of free meals probably seems appealing. Meal plans at any university take a big bite out of students’ already hurting wallets, and there are other environmental concerns to take into account, as NYU freshman Alex Hart describes.

“I think a large amount of food waste is generated by the dining halls, and I’d really like to see some system go into order to either reduce that or put it to use somehow,” said Hart. “I know they officially discourage people from taking more than they can eat in the dining halls but I’ve never really seen that enforced in any formal way.”

Nevertheless, the thought of turning to dumpsters and refuse for every meal may be difficult to choke down, especially at a school like NYU where there are 12 different locations to use the meal plan. But freegans can make an impact in other ways, and they don’t necessarily need to eat rotten eggs mixed in with used diapers to get a meal. Leslie works at a food co-op, a grocery store that gives its workers food instead of cash, which he says embodies the DIY, or “do-it-yourself,” spirit, “a cornerstone of freegans.”

Blair Ednie, a freegan from the New School, also integrates a host of waste-reducing, eco-friendly alternatives into his life that those too squeamish to dumpster dive might consider. “My goal as a freegan is to limit my destruction of the environment, which I take to mean the world as a whole,” said Ednie. “I do this by reducing my personal waste and the waste of others, and by boycotting as many products as possible, which removes the economic incentive for those who produce them, and by riding a bike instead of driving, using a handkerchief instead of disposable tissues, patching my pants instead of buying new ones.”

And a number of organizations exist to help any and all interested parties reduce their waste production. The Freegan Bike Workshop, for instance, offers a host of mechanics that assist people in repairing and constructing bicycles for no cost (“come out and get a free bicycle, anyone” the website proclaims). Meetings occur every Wednesday from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. and every Saturday from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Located at 123 Community Space in Brooklyn on 123 Tompkins, the bike workshop is seated in the heart of the freegan community, where an array of freegan-favorite grocery stores are also located. Leslie himself is from Brooklyn and says that many freegans congregate there.

However, there are also a number of locations in Manhattan and elsewhere that are sympathetic to the cause, like Bluestockings, a “radical bookstore” on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which has an organic café and stocks everything from books to “alternative menstrual products and other oddly hard-to-find good things.”

With a mounting garbage crisis in New York City and the popularization of “going green,” the freegan way is one worth considering. From baby steps like patching pants to the sheer glory of inhaling discarded fish bits, freeganism offers a variety of ways to better the urban jungle you live in. And for students, it may even offer a little peace of mind, as well.

“Being freegan helps me to feel like I am actually accomplishing something in my own way, and I don't have to make concessions,” said Ednie. “I don't have to despair at feeling one thing and doing another. I can live my beliefs.”

Think You Have a Crazy Roommate?

2008-04-08T06:26:00.001-07:00

By Alexandra Beggs

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A roommate who leaves their dishes in the sink for a month is one thing. A roommate who brings home a different girl every night, including a gold-toothed cafeteria worker, is another.

These horror stories are not a rarity on college campuses. In fact, it seems like every student has either had a “crazy roommate,” or knows someone who has. But students often take the passive route; when confrontation is necessary, they back away. When the problem becomes out of control, many students do not know which way to turn, and may end up living in a barely tolerable environment.

Danny Nelson, a junior at Texas A&M University, was a victim of fate in the lottery all college students dread—the roommate lottery. When he was a freshman at the University of Houston, Nelson’s roommate wasn’t a problem during the day. But, Nelson said, “At night, I would wake up to my roommate having sex with either his girlfriend, or some random girl he picked up.” When one of these women was a campus cafeteria worker with a gold tooth, Nelson said seeing her at the cafeteria made him lose his appetite.

Warning signs began on day one. Nelson asked his roommate, Aaron (whose name has been changed for privacy), a football player, why he wasn’t living in the athlete apartments. Aaron said he used to live there, but an ex-girlfriend, along with family members, did a drive-by shooting on the apartments, shooting the walls but not injuring anyone. The police investigated and when they found out he was linked to the shooting, Aaron was forced to move out. Although Nelson was hesitant to believe the story, and most of what Aaron said, it foreshadowed events to come.

After putting up with numerous nights of his roommate’s escapades, Nelson decided it was time for confrontation. But the only response he received from Aaron, Nelson said, “was inviting me to join, unless it was his girlfriend, or that I was welcome to watch.”

Realizing that the situation was not going to improve, Nelson feared another confrontation because he described Aaron as “a pretty violent guy.” According to Nelson, Aaron had frequented the court house about five times during their semester together. “He told me he was a convicted felon,” Nelson said, although again doubting the truth of the statement.

Aaron’s move-out day finally came. But he did not go gently. He failed to schedule a leaving appointment, turn in his key, and, “Destroyed his trashcan, tore up the furniture, and was fined around $500 for the damage.” Nelson said. But the storm had passed.

Susan Fee, author of “My Roommate is Driving Me Crazy,” says that sex in the room is “too far.” While students tolerate a lot from their roommates, she says, some behavior is unacceptable. When dealing with a problematic roommate, Fee advises that students “start early, and start small.” She says situations often go from bad to worse because students fail to talk to resident assistants or do not confront their roommates when the behavior is initiated.

The problem students have with confrontation is that they avoid speaking “face to face,” Fee says, which is usually the easiest solution. Often the problematic roommate has communication issues, such as having awkward confrontations through notes, email, or instant messages, when both students are in the same room.

She said these methods of avoidance are not helpful. Students need to speak to their roommates, but not in an accusatory tone. When talking about the issues, students should keep the focus on, “how is this going to work for both of us.” Fee says, “Do not wait until the student gets a clue, because they won’t.” Students assume that eventually their roommate will realize their fault, but instead the problems grow.

Fee recalled a male student who complained that his roommate was a strict environmentalist who refused to bathe in order to conserve water. He also rejected soap and deodorant for similar reasons, and the result was an unbearable odor. But Fee also notes that a lack of bathing is a possible (and common) sign of depression. She says, “Students need to recognize what’s a dangerous situation.” Those issues are especially crucial, and students should not hesitate to inform the proper resident counselors.

Many roommate issues are not as extreme as these, but they can become the topic of “whose roommate is crazier” contests. Jason Lang, a recent graduate of New York University, had a roommate who collected reptiles.

While Lang attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, he shared a house with three other students. Because one of the roommates was frightened by the collection of reptiles, the snakes were kept outside in a shed. Joe (whose name has also been changed), the roommate who owned the snakes, snuck one of his three-foot long snakes into the house and hid it under his bed because it was ill.

Lang recalled the scene, “His room also had a lot of junk in it, including his bass guitars, a refrigerator, a crazy stereo system, and all the little critters he fed his snakes. That end of the house frequently sounded like a rock concert and smelled like a petting zoo.”

One night the roommates decided to throw a house party, while the clandestine snake was still residing under Joe’s bed. A group of students found the snake, and somehow it was released into the party.

“I was in the kitchen at the time and suddenly all this screaming broke out from the one end of the house. I ran over and was eventually directed to the snake huddled in a ball behind a couch in the living room,” Lang said.

But the snake had caused a mass hysteria in the house, and Megan, the roommate who claimed that a traumatic event in her childhood had created her phobia of snakes, “panicked herself into such a fit that she immediately ran into an adjacent bathroom and threw up,” said Lang.

Lang said he would never forget that chaotic night, “Drunken college students and a loose snake in a party yields one hell of an eruption.”

While many students may not have such comic memories of roommate tribulations, each story sparks another. The universality of “roommate issues” is just one of the many new challenges that college students must face, endure, or embrace. The outrageous stories can be fodder for writing material, dinner conversation, or evidence in court. But when it seems like everyone has had at least one crazy roommate experience, there can only be one conclusion: college students, across the country, are all a little crazy.

NYU College Republicans: The Elephants in the Room

2008-04-08T06:26:00.000-07:00

By Lisa Bonarrigo

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Think you can find one Republican at New York University? You may not know any. But attend a College Republicans meeting, and you’ll find that they do, in fact, exist.

Conservatives at NYU are undoubtedly in the political minority, but their smaller number hasn’t stopped them from engaging in a dialogue with the Democrats. With a few primaries remaining and the general presidential election quickly approaching, the College Republicans haven’t lowered their voices.

Hampton Williams, President of the NYU College Republicans, says that he’s never found it difficult to voice his opinions at NYU, and that this year is no different. “Because it is an election year doesn’t mean that my beliefs and views are not challenged on a daily basis. I think I am more outspoken now,” Williams said.

He also stressed the importance of being able to discuss important issues with the Democrats. “I think that that kind of political discourse has been twisted to the point where we don’t even allow the opposition to talk. And that’s one thing that my club and many across the nation are very concerned about – that these political organizations and politically affiliated clubs are not engaging in an academic examination or discussion,” Williams said.

Professor of Sociology at NYU, Ed Lehman, says that dialogue is a “central feature of academic life.” “It’s good to be with people who share the same beliefs and values, but it can’t become so rigid that the dialogue and academic component disappears. This requires a considerable degree of tolerance and understanding,” he said.

Fraser Ridgely Dachille, Webmaster for the NYU College Republicans, says that although he doesn’t find it difficult to be a Republican on campus, he does find it hard at times for his point of view to be understood by others. “Most of the legitimate discussion is open-minded and genuine; however, there have been a few people who have just shut down upon hearing my opinion,” Dachille said.

Professor Lehman said that forming groups, such as the College Republicans and Democrats have done, “creates a common sense of identity and a level of support.” But, as Dachille has seen, this can also lead to isolation, Professor Lehman said. “The danger is that we simply become isolated in our islands…Sometimes we create tribes that see others as heretical and alien,” he said.

Others have found it to be rewarding to engage in friendly discussion on political matters. “A lot of my friends are Democrats. It’s nice to be with people who share such different political beliefs. A façade is down because you’re friends, so you get to really see what their views are,” Sports Coordinator and Intramural Captain of the NYU College Republicans, Rick Halmo, said.

Halmo agreed with Williams, saying that the Democratic dominance at NYU has not stopped the Republicans from sharing their thoughts during this election year. “A lot more people are involved this year. A lot of people feel like they have something to lose now – they’re more vocal, and it’s more interesting,” he said.

The NYU College Republicans seemed to be just as, if not more, vocal last year. They put together a notorious event last spring, titled “Find the Illegal Immigrant,” which was nationally covered by the news and stirred much controversy among students. Though the club hasn’t cowered from voicing their opinions this year, Rick Rossi, Social Chair for the club, said that the events they’ve hosted this year are more toned down.

Halmo explained that although the event last year was viewed by some as negative, it provided the necessary dialogue and debate discussed by Williams and Professor Lehman. “The illegal immigration event contained both civil and non-civil experiences. There was a six-on-one debate – obviously, I was the one…But it was actually fun. We welcomed the challenge…It’s important that we understand the fact that not only should we say what we feel, but we should deliver our message in a way that doesn’t alienate [the Democrats], but engages them in a dialogue that’s fruitful,” Halmo said.

Are You Safe On Campus?

2008-04-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

By Jamie Letica

A new ordinance that would allow concealed weapons on some college campuses has students questioning their safety.

The new legislation allows students older than 21 to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The legislation protects the safety of the students by allowing students to respond on their own to dangers that may arise. When passed in a certain state, the legislation allows the college and universities in that state to decide
whether they want to participate in the act. The ordinance has already passed on some campuses in Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Vermont, and Alaska, and is now being considered in Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Idaho, and Washington D.C. At the moment, Utah is the only state which allows students and professors to carry concealed guns at all of its public colleges.

Grace Lindvall, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, one of the states that is considering the ordinance, believes that students cannot be trusted with guns. “I think the people who want to carry guns on them daily want to use them, rarely for the right purposes.” Lindvall believes that allowing students to carry a concealed weapon makes a campus less safe. She suggests that this promotes an attitude of violence. “If protection is the purpose for this law then the state should take more protective action with police and campus safety, rather than allowing students to bring weapons just in case.”

Gabe Sirkman, also a sophomore at the University of Michigan, strongly agrees. “Someone with murderous intents but without a gun can’t act with the same speed and lack of consciousness that someone with a gun can.” Sirkman says he is scared because “at the click of a button someone can decide if someone else lives or dies.”

The University of Michigan prohibits weapons on campus, except in very specific circumstances. Diane Brown, a public safety information officer at the University of Michigan, says the university as a whole would be opposed to any law which counters their current policy on weapons.

Rick Appling, the president of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) strongly supports the bill. The SCCC is a group of 24,000 college students, college faculty members, parents of college students, and concerned citizens who support concealed carry on campuses. Appling strongly believes that trained, licensed people more than 21 years of age should be able to carry concealed weapons for protection. Nineteen of the thirty-two victims of the Virginia Tech. massacre were older than 21 (the legal age limit for obtaining a concealed handgun license in Virginia). Appling wants the ordinance to pass because he does not want students to have to count the seconds until the police arrive. “I don’t live my life in fear, I will not die on my knees” he said. Appling and the SCCC as a whole want to educate college campuses throughout the nation on the advantages of concealed weapons.

While, New York is one of the states that has no immediate intentions of passing the legislation, students at New York University, a campus that is not associated with SCCC, are beginning to grapple with this new idea plaguing their fellow students.

Rebecca Greenberg, a sophomore at New York University, does not believe in guns. “Who is to say that if you have a gun sitting around someone else may not steal it and use it to kill?” In almost all situations, Greenberg believes the presence of guns makes the situation more dangerous.

Rob Schlissel, a senior at New York University, is old enough to warrant a permit for concealed carry in some states. He feels strongly that concealed weapons on college campuses are productive in promoting violence, but counterproductive in promoting the peace the SCCC is looking for. In response to the idea of this ordinance ever being allowed on New York University’s campus, Schlissel said he is glad to be graduating. ###

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Abusing Prescription Drugs for the Grade

2008-04-08T06:21:00.000-07:00

By Cory Carroll

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It isn’t just Starbucks and Red Bull that are keeping studious students up at night.

College all-nighters used to be fueled by cheap coffee and Marlboro Lights. But students have uncovered a new way to cram for exams and compose papers. University students are now popping prescription pills to keep them energized and alert throughout the night. As students are now turning to ADD (attention deficit disorder) drugs, like Adderall, the youth generation is proving that ‘the kids aren’t alright.’

Adderall is a prescription drug prescribed to individuals with ADD to further their concentration and provide energy for endurance. Aside from using the drug for studying purposes, students are also bringing Adderall into their social life.

According to studies currently being conducted at the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) at the University of Maryland College Park, researchers have found that non-prescribed users “in college […] skipped classes more often, spent more time socializing, and spent less time studying.”

Led by Amelia M. Arria, Ph D., CESAR is doing a longitudinal study of college students, and have pointed out in their research the lack of information about abusing prescription drugs that is available and provided to students.

Jackie R., a CAS junior at NYU, said that she has never taken them because “they frankly scare me,” but said that she is aware of people that “have gotten addicted and it is usually to counteract any other pills they are abusing.”

While fear of the dangers of the pills detracts many from abusing prescription drugs, many believe that one can obtain better grades by being able to sustain concentration and stay awake longer as they have effects similar to that of speed.

According to CESAR’s “Nonmedical Use of Prescription Stimulants & Analgesics” they have found that “for college administrators, parents, and educators, the question of how nonmedical use might actually affect college students’ grades is of great interest, especially in light of the current perception that nonmedical use of prescription stimulants will improve academic performance.”

NYU senior Amanda D. said that she has used Adderall before just for fun, but stated that she has “friends who often use Adderall to stay up all night and study for their tests and finish papers.” She continued by saying that she finds it “interesting that people use the same drug to stay up all night to focus and study as they do to recreationally have a good time with their friends.”

As college students continuously face the pressure of succeeding in college and are turning to Adderall for help, more education on the matter is necessary to educate individuals on its dangerous effects and to bring awareness to the issue.

Cheap Digs a Scarcity at Pricey School

2008-04-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

By Nicholas Luckenbaugh

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When Jessica Golden told her parents three years ago that she wanted to transfer from the University of Maryland to New York University, they cringed. If their daughter transferred, they needed to slash high tuition costs. So under her parents’ instruction, Golden requested low-cost housing on her transfer application.

Golden, a senior at NYU’s College of Arts and Science, is dependent on the school’s low-cost housing, which saves her thousands of dollars on tuition costs. But low-cost housing is incorporated into the general housing lottery, making it available to all students, regardless of their financial situation. Students must battle their way through the lottery each spring, praying that their ideal low-cost room has not been snatched up already by students hungry for their own ideal housing assignment.

Libby Carlson, a sophomore at NYU’s Steinhardt School, worried that she had a terrible time slot in the housing lottery last year. But when she and her roommate were able to snag a low-cost studio at Water Street residence hall, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“We were both conscious [of the cost],” said Carlson. “Why would we make our parents spend more money for the same NYU experience? I feel bad making them pay.”

Faustyna Hariasz, a CAS freshman who lives in a low-cost room in Hayden, also depends on the cheaper housing to afford tuition.

“Every bit of money that I can save, I’ll take the opportunity,” said Hariasz.

The NYU housing office controls the placement of freshman and transfer students, giving them the opportunity to request low-cost housing. Only continuing upperclassmen use the lottery to secure housing.

Hariasz and her three suitemates are hoping for a room in 13th Street or Lafayette Street dorms next year. But NYU’s current policy is making her nervous.

“It’s not fair,” said Hariasz. “There should be a special low-cost housing lottery.”

Even though she has certain residence halls in mind, Hariasz doubts that she will secure her preferred locations. Certain low-cost dorms like 13th Street, Coral Towers and Lafayette, said Hariasz, get filled up immediately because of their desirable location. Hariasz feels that this leaves students that require low-cost housing at an automatic disadvantage even if they can secure a cheaper room through the lottery.

NYU currently offers low-cost housing to upperclassmen in 13th Street, 26th Street, Broome Street, Coral Towers, Lafayette Street, University Court and Water Street residence halls. Broome Street is only available to students participating in the Residential College program, which offers students in high academic standing the opportunity to live in a learning-centered environment. 13th Street and Coral Towers boast locations near NYU buildings, while many students praise Water Street and parts of Lafayette Street dorms for their spacious rooms. However, the 26th Street and University Court residence halls are criticized for the buildings’ conditions and distant locations from campus.

“If [26th Street residence hall] collapsed right now, I would not be surprised,” said Sutton Stewart, a Steinhardt junior living in a low-cost room in 26th Street. “I mean, I’d be upset because all my stuff is in there, but I would not be surprised.”

When Stewart entered the lottery last year, the only low-cost rooms that were available were four floors of 26th Street, most of University Court and a few single spaces in Lafayette Street.

“It suffices,” said Golden, commenting on the living conditions at 26th Street. Since transferring to NYU as a sophomore, Golden has lived in 26th Street every year. Golden would prefer a nicer dorm, but as long as she gets the low-cost housing that she needs, she will be happy enough.

Lynn Higinbotham, Director of Financial Aid, said that NYU tries to assist students with low incomes, noting that on-campus housing and its costs are often a concern of students who contact the financial aid office.

“This office accommodates students’ requests as best we can and adjusts award packages as eligibility allows,” said Higinbotham.

“Typically one’s loans are increased to meet the added housing costs,” said Higinbotham.

According to the NYU Department of Housing, NYU can also provide a student with more affordable accommodations after the lottery process is finished. If a student does not get a low-cost room through the lottery, the housing office is able to rectify this through post lottery changes.

But not all low-income students are aware of this post-lottery policy.

“I had no idea that you could switch into a low-cost room right after the lottery,” said Hariasz. “That makes me feel a little better.”

But Hariasz feels that even with the post-lottery policy, students pursuing low-cost housing are still at a disadvantage.

“The reality is that most if not all the unused low-cost spaces will be in 26th Street,” said Hariasz. “So that means low-cost students automatically get placed in the worst dorm because of their inability to pay the full housing cost.”

NYU should offer low-income students more options, said Hariasz, such as providing a set number of low-cost rooms in every residence hall or creating a special low-cost lottery. This would give more students pursuing a low-cost residence hall the chance to select their preferred dorm rather than having to resign themselves to their last choice, said Hariasz.

But determining an appropriate income range for low-cost housing is not so simple, said Higinbotham. Aside from yearly income, the financial aid office uses assets, family size and many other considerations to determine a student’s financial need. Because so much is incorporated into determining a student’s need, a need-based lottery is difficult to implement, leaving students seeking low-cost housing to contend with the standard lottery this spring.

NYU Dorms Don't Want to Let You In

2008-04-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

By Mike Sobiloff

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NYU sophomore Joe Coronna was looking forward to his Friday night. He was meeting his cousin, Aaron Coronna, who was traveling into Manhattan from Long Island, to sleep over. They spent the night out in New York, and returned to the Greenwich Hotel hoping to go to bed. But when they arrived, the security guard wouldn’t let Aaron in—his driver’s license had just expired, and according to NYU policy, he would have to wait outside. The cousins had to pass the time walking the streets of New York until ten A.M. the next morning to sign in and finally get some sleep, when the shifts changed, and a more sympathetic guard was on duty.

Getting in and out of NYU dorms has always been somewhat of a job for their residents. An extensive sign-in policy for guests, that trumps those of many other colleges, and a rule that requires students to present an ID upon entrance to their dorms, no matter how long they have lived there, seems excessive at times. This year, NYU installed a new system that allows all students who live in dorms to swipe themselves into any NYU dorm, but for many students, all this security makes living in the dorms feel impersonal. These students, who consider the dorms their homes, would like to move throughout them as if they were just that.

The new swipe-in system was created to reduce the flow of traffic in and out of dorms and to make it easier on the guards. And in many ways it has. Students living in dorms can swipe right into any other dorm, without problem. But students not living in housing, and non-NYU visitors still have to endure a lengthy sign-in (and out) procedure.

An NYU security guard, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that he likes the new system because it means less work for him. He no longer has to look at everyone’s ID to let them pass into the dorm. He also said however, that he knows everyone in the dorm, and would feel completely comfortable regulating who went in and out, without checking their IDs.

Many students however do not feel that the change was sufficient. Maureen Feeney, a sophomore who lives in the Lafayette dorm says that often, maneuvering in and out can be tiresome. Feeney explained that it would be nice if the guards were allowed to wave in students that they know. She said, “It’s nice to know that the guards are there...but I’m not sure that they need to be so stringent.” Signing in guests, she says, is just another pesky problem, that makes her envious of friends at other schools who do not have to deal with similar difficulties.

Nick Kostopoulos, a sophomore at Palladium agreed. He said that both the door to his suite and the one to his bedroom require a security code to unlock. According to Kostopoulos, “To break into my room, you’d have to know two codes. It’s like Mission Impossible.” Kostopoulos says that he feels extremely safe at Palladium, and doesn’t understand what all the security is for. He also admits however, that he is often able to slip past guards who aren’t paying attention, and walk right in.

Palladium and Lafayette are two of the largest dorms at NYU, each housing around 1000 people. This, Coronna says is why he was so outraged. The Greenwich Hotel has 320 residents, and Coronna says that as a result, the guards knew him well, and even liked him. He said, “I couldn’t understand why the guard wouldn’t let us in. He knows I live there, and he knows that I wouldn’t screw around.”

Some students feel that the system is too inhibiting and cold. As freshman Joe Shaftic explained, “I don’t see why I can’t just bring a guest in if I want to. That person is with me, and that’s where I live.”

This painstaking attention to security is not a factor at all colleges. Nicole D’Andrea, a sophomore at the College of New Jersey, just outside of Trenton, has had an entirely different experience. She says that getting in and out of dorms at TCNJ is never a problem. There is no guard on duty, just a student sitting behind a desk, and consequently, she and her friends are able to move freely through the dorm. This is despite the fact that she considers Trenton to be a “pretty dangerous” area.

After some thought, Coronna said, “After all, the purpose of having guards is to prevent outsiders from entering the building. If the guard knows full well I live there, shouldn’t he or she be able to let me, and anyone with me, in?”

At the end of the day, NYU has security guards to keep the students safe. But really, Joe Coronna probably would have been safer inside of the dorm, than out on the streets.

Snagging Cheap Digs in a Pricey Rental Market

2008-03-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

Finding low-cost housing is a matter of survival for many NYU students. Nicholas Luckenbaugh reports. Listen

NYU Waiting for Better Financial Aid Deals

2008-03-13T18:23:00.000-07:00

Tanya Burnett looks at how financial aid packages are expanding at other universities but not at NYU. Listen

Campus Conservatives Speak Out

2008-03-13T18:08:00.000-07:00

Republicans at NYU may be in the minority but manage to make their voices heard. Lisa Bonarrigo reports. Listen

Freegans Turn Dumpster Diving Into A Political Movement

2008-03-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

Damon Beres jumps into the political movement of freeganism. Listen

Not Your Grandma's Sudaphed

2008-03-13T16:56:00.000-07:00

Prescription drugs are being misused on campuses, particularly to pull all-nighters. Listen

Bureaucractic Snafus Vex GSP Students

2008-03-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

Cathryn Horwitz looks at the bureaucratic obstacles impeding many GSP student's academic careers. Listen

Did You Hear the One About the Swami?

2008-03-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

Jessica Kramer reports on how laughter and a certain swami's teachings can reduce stress on campus. Listen

Overkill At the Threshold

2008-03-13T16:23:00.000-07:00

Sign-in procedures at NYU dorms seem excessively strict to many. Michael Sobiloff reports. Listen

Guns on Campus

2008-03-13T15:54:00.001-07:00

Jamie Letica on new laws allowing college students to bear arms on campus. Listen

Changes to NYU's MAP program

2008-03-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

MaryJane Weedman maps out changes in NYU's MAP (Morse Academic Plan). Listen

Roommates From Hell

2008-03-13T14:53:00.001-07:00

Alexandra Beggs takes a comic look at atrocious roomies. Listen

Savings and The City

2008-03-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

Kimberly Anglin on how college students enjoy the city with limited funds. Listen

NYU Vegans Ask: Where's the Beef?

2008-03-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Piper Wallingford explores the surprisingly limited options at a campus lauded by PETA for its vegan friendliness. Listen

Oddest Jobs on Campus - Escorts and More

2008-03-10T19:06:00.000-07:00

Walter Ancarrow explores some of the odder jobs on campus.

Listen

2008-02-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

For Women, A Long-Awaited Primary Day
By Kimberly Anglin

The weather may have been overcast, but on Super Tuesday New York City’s women voters didn’t seem to mind. They found their way to polling centers to cast their ballots and let their voices be heard, even if they were only able to give a quick shout.

The earliest of the day’s women voters could stop only briefly to cast their ballots before running off to their jobs. “I’m already late for work,” said one woman expertly juggling two handbags while frantically checking her watch and hurrying down the street.

Women voters seemed well aware of the historic nature of this year’s primary: for the first time, two minorities, a woman and an African-American, had an equally strong chance of becoming the Democratic presidential candidate in the November -- and possibly the country’s next president.

For this reason, some women cited to a stronger bond with the candidates than in years past. Jennifer B., 48, who declined giving her full name, said she felt a “strong connection” to Democratic primary hopeful Sen. Barack Obama.

“I just feel that if he were my president and asked me to do something, I would do it,” she said.

Other female voters latched onto Sen. Hillary Clinton, expressing the belief it was time for another kind of minority, a woman, to hold office. Jean B., a 70-year-old music executive, who declined to give her full name, voted for Clinton because she felt was Clinton was “strong enough to fight the dirty tricks that Republicans use.”

In short, the 2008 primary allowed female voters to experience a palpably strong connection to the candidates, one that has been arguably missing in years past.

2008-02-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Close Democratic Race Spurs Many To Vote in their First Primary
By Alexandra Beggs

Super Tuesday began early this morning in New York City as voters trickled into polling sites. Fueled with espresso, this reporter stood 100 feet away from the door of a New York University dorm polling site to capture the excitement of the voters, and to figure out if the 2008 primaries were more “super” than past ones.

Many voters certainly thought so.

Terri Dieli, 55, who has been voting in the general elections in New York for 30 years, strongly supports Clinton, but this morning was her first primary vote. Dieli said that she voted for Clinton “not just because of what’s happening with the war, but because I’ve been following her throughout her career.”

Aidan Byrne, 27, has been voting for eight years, but this was also his first primary. He chose the candidate he did because, he said, he wanted “to see a different family in the White House.”

The close race between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was cited as the reason many voters felt this primary was more important than in 2004 – and that many turned out.

Voters have until 9 p.m. in New York to cast their ballots, which will bring to a close what The New York Times considers “what could be the most significant night of the 2008 campaign to date.” Increased voter turnout in New York and in the 23 other participating states may change the way the public regards primary elections in the future.

2008-02-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

Iraq War and Candidates’ Personalities Key Factors for Voters
By Jessica Kramer

Seventy five percent of those questioned at a New York City polling station named the war in Iraq as a primary concern that factored into their vote on Super Tuesday.

The same percentage of voters ranked the candidates’ personalities as equally important factors as well.

Voter Laurence O’Keefe said his concerns were three-fold: the war in Iraq, the “stretching of our military resources around the world,” and the environment. He said he believes Clinton, Obama and McCain have a “fairly equal chance of doing a good job on the economy."

Leonie Haimson said the war along with global warming were the most important national issues for her. She said she voted for her candidate because “he’s a stronger leader” than the other choices.

“It’s hard for me to separate confidence in a person’s leadership [from their] judgment,” she said.

For voter Linda Bennett the most important issues were the war in Iraq, the economy and healthcare. She believes her candidate has a “good stance” on these topics and she’s said she's done a good deal of research to support her convictions. The candidate’s personality did not factor into her voting.

Healthcare, however, was the primary concern for voter Martha Ackerman, who cast her ballot for Obama. She said she believed the candidates “have really different attitudes [on healthcare]. One really believes people can help themselves, and the other is paternalistic.” Ackerman quoted a Chinese proverb to illustrate her point: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

While it is uncertain whether these responses reflect the nation’s views, it appears traditional patterns of thinking about war and personality have prevailed once again in the voting booth.

2008-02-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

Few College Students Vote Early
By Damon Beres

The voter turnout at New York University’s Hayden Hall dormitory, a polling location for Tuesday’s primary, was something of an irony. At 8:30 a.m., the small, dimly lit room was full of people eager to cast their votes. The catch? Very few, if any of them, were students.

Instead, the voters were mostly business people voting on their way to work or older residents of the neighborhood. The majority of students who passed through shuttled off to class, headphones locked on tightly, ignoring the polling station altogether.

One exception was NYU freshman Brianna Sahagian, who stood across the street, holding a large blue Obama sign and stopping pedestrians for last-minute campaigning. She had already cast her vote.

“I was here at 7 a.m. in the cold,” Sahagian said. Though she voted before class, she noted that she would have missed class if absolutely necessary.

“[Skipping] one day of class could be worth it for four to eight years [of an Obama presidency],” she said, looking around for potential Obama followers.

But Sahagian found few her age. More typical were voters like Richard Morgan, a middle-age man who cast his ballot before going to work. He said he was eager to take part in what he described as an “important process” and declared his “desire for change.”

“I won’t be sad to see Bush go,” said Morgan.

Another voter, Hope Sloane, a local resident, was also in high spirits about the election.

“There’s only one day,” Sloane said. “You have the opportunity to vote.” She also added that even if faced with a line around the block or the possibility of missing work, it would be worth it to do her duty as a registered voter.

Yet, there was no line around the block, only a cluster of voters in the dorm commons room. As time passed, there was still a noticeable lack of students. Perhaps they had voted in their home states or were unable to muster Sloane’s energy; she’d been in the neighborhood since 5:30 a.m.

Standing outside Hayden Hall, cigarette in hand, Sloane expressed her opinion. “People complain, but you have this one day to make a difference.”

But no college students were nearby to hear.

2008-02-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

Take That, Madison Avenue
By MaryJane Weedman

Despite Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s large surge in advertising spending before today’s primaries and caucuses, many New York City voters said their decisions on Super Tuesday were unaffected by such ads.

Clinton and Obama reportedly spent a combined $19 million on advertising in the days before Feb. 5. But most New Yorkers voting at the 110 E. 14th St. polling place near Union Square said such publicity had little to no impact.

Isabel, 54, said she was “not at all” affected by candidates’ advertisements. Instead, the debates played a central role in her decision to vote for Obama.

“You’ve been voting for so many years…and you hear the same story over and over again. You look at the old school, and you go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ And then you hear somebody like Obama, who’s so smart, and so eloquent, and so calm about his message,” said Isabel.

Jim Venturi was also unaffected by the candidates’ advertising. Instead, he said, what most influenced his choice to vote for Obama was the candidate’s “personal qualities.” Venturi said he thought Obama was more electable, more genuine and had better judgment than the other candidates.

“And probably most importantly, I like him better,” said Venturi.
For some voters, the advertising was both ineffective and overwhelming. As one Manhattan office manager said, “I think it’s been too much, too early. It might have affected some people, but not me.”

Manhattan resident Kate Taylor said she did not even see any candidates’ advertisements. Her decision, she said, was influenced by reading newspapers and speaking with friends.

Reports have indicated that Romney and McCain had a “far more restrained advertising effort” than Clinton and Obama.

If the voters in Union Square are representative of the greater population, perhaps Republican candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain were right to not spend heavily on advertisements after all.

2008-02-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

Voters Reveal Their Reasoning
By Lisa Bonarrigo

On Tuesday, Feb. 5, polls for the 2008 presidential primary elections opened in more than 20 states across the nation. In New York City, early morning voters at the Carlyle Court polling station, inside an NYU dorm, said they felt torn between the Democratic candidates but revealed clear reasons behind their choices.

Some voted strategically, thinking ahead to November. “It was a tough decision between Hillary and Barack,” said Deevana Kumar, 33. “I think Barack has the cross-over characteristics that the Democrats need to beat the Republicans. I like Hillary, but she’s too polarizing.”

Barry Karpel, 45, had his eye on the national election, as well. “I made my decision based on who could beat the Republicans,” he said.

Others, however, chose based on the candidates’ voting records. Craig Warnky, 36, made the decision to vote in his first primary this year. He chose his candidate by reading the newspaper and researching online. His reasoning was clear. “This election is critical. It’s absolutely critical to our generation,” Warnky said.

Debbie Gilbert, 50, made her decision based on the candidates’ records but noted the historic nature of the choice: “I was excited this morning. I’ve been waiting my whole life to vote for a woman,” she said. “I’ve also been waiting my whole life to vote for an African American. So it was ironic that I had to choose between the two.”

2008-02-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

Students Celebrate Their New-Found Right to Vote
By Jamie Letica

One of the most important and thrilling aspects of turning 18 is being allowed to vote in a national election. The young voters stumbling out of one Union Square polling station early Super Tuesday morning were clearly a dedicated and jubilant group eager to make their opinions count before class.

The 14th St. area of Union Square had two voting sites inside NYU dorms. This “definitely encourages more people to vote and get involved because it is so easy for NYU students to vote. We just have to walk downstairs,” said Jessica Ulgenalp. She left the polls this morning feeling excited, she said, but still a little nervous because today is the first time she has been eligible to vote.

“It’s really important that young people vote,” said Ulgenalp.

Julia Fishman, 19, went to the polling station early this morning before her long day of college classes. She left feeling as if she had “fulfilled her role as an American citizen.”

“College students used to be one of the largest demographics at the polls,” said Fishman. “This is not the case today even though many of the issues directly affect us. … Only those who actually showed up to vote on Election Day deserve the right to complain about the government.”

Fishman said she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton because she believes Clinton deals with the social issues that concern her everyday life better than Sen. Barack Obama does, especially a woman’s right to choose.

Another student, Alexandra Bear, 19, said she believes it is her “civic duty to vote.” She lives in one of the NYU dorms where voting will take place all day, but elected to vote early this morning. Although she said she was “very tired,” Bear said that “when responsible parties know enough they should be voting.” She feels as if she is educated enough to vote and “had a say in today’s outcome, no matter how small it was.” Bear, unlike Ulgenalp and Fishman, has voted before - in a senatorial election in her home state of California. She believes voting in her new residence, New York City, is important because “New York is more of a swing state, and is more easily swayed than California.” Bear voted for Obama this morning because she denounces the idea of “two of the same families holding the United States presidency for 30 straight years,” which she considers an “oligarchy” or an “aristocracy.”

It is evident, even very early in the morning, how passionate many young people are about exercising the opportunity they have long awaited: voting in the presidential primaries and their first presidential election.

2008-02-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

Seeking Change in a Transforming Neighborhood
By Cory Carroll

Avenue C in New York’s East Village has changed significantly in the past few years. On any morning one can see both prim professionals catching cabs and shopkeepers washing late-night revelers’ debris from sidewalks. On Super Tuesday, both the gentrifiers and the gentrified went to the polls to vote for even more change.

Among them was East Village resident Cecilia Traini, eager to vote for the first time in a primary. She said she chose the candidate she thought would best address both national concerns and those prevalent in her neighborhood. “Things are so screw[ed] up,” Traini said. “The issues are war, reproductive rights and housing.”

Most voters interviewed at one polling station, the Barrier Free Living Center on 270 E. Second St., voiced similar concerns. Lizzie Seeman said her priority was health care.

What is needed is a better “universal, quality healthcare program,” she said, “instead of the clinics around here.”

Others voted for candidates who reflected their interest in a subject of particular importance to the East Village: development. “Building and economic development in the Lower East Side bring more professionals, like myself, into the neighborhood,” said Meredith Genova. While she also said her concerns that the development changes, such as a spate of new luxury hotels, were threatening “working class” people, she added that “with development comes opportunity.”

Avenue C is clearly part of a neighborhood both overwhelmed with change and begging for more.

2008-02-05T09:06:00.000-08:00

Change Appeals to the Middle-Aged and Elderly, Too
By Michael Ronan

On a dreary Tuesday morning, in the early hours of Super Tuesday, voters rushed to the polls, aiming for change. Change had been a major talking point for several candidates, including Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Both used the word to inspire a surge in youth votes.

But at East 10th St. and Broadway, in Lower Manhattan, it was clear that the middle-aged and the elderly were equally eager to effect change.

Renee Feinberg, 67, said she voted because she wanted to “to be a part of it,” referring not just to the election process, but to what she sees as an overwhelming shift of voters to the left. “The country has shifted against core conservative values.”

Middle-aged voters agreed.

“I hope [the Bush presidency] is viewed as the total disaster that it is,” said Eric Myers, a 53-year-old writer. Adam Nash, 44, said that President Bush would be remembered as “the President who alienated a country.”

While many older voters arrived early at the polls, only a lackluster number of young voters appeared, even though some polling stations were held inside NYU dorms. “We need the young person votes,” said Myers. “That’s the only way it can work.”

2008-02-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

New York's Little-Known Voting Leave Statute
By Nicholas Luckenbaugh

It was early in the morning and the streets were still damp from the night’s rain. Even so, masses of New Yorkers could not be deterred. Some plodded to work. Some rushed to beat the line at Whole Foods. Others voted.

“I’m an early roller. I like to get my vote in early,” said one retired woman.

“I seriously hate getting up this early,” said David Thompson, 25, a sales associate in Chelsea. “I almost didn’t vote; I was so tired this morning.”

But Thompson, like many voters interviewed, didn't know he could have slept in and, instead, left work to cast his ballot.

According to the New York State Board of Elections, an employee may receive up to two paid hours during a workday to vote. Eligible employees must have less than four consecutive non-working hours between their work shifts and the opening or closing of the polls.

“I’m not sure if I would have left work or not, but it would have been good to have known,” said Kiran Dinsa, 32.

Dinsa, a receptionist, works from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m., making her eligible for voting leave.

“I think it’s an excellent law, but I’ve just never felt the need to use it personally,” said jury analyst Samantha Cochran, 22. Cochran was informed of the voting leave law by her former employer.

The voting leave statute states that New York employers must post a notice regarding voting leave eligibility at least 10 working days before every election.

“That’s definitely not posted anywhere. I’d have seen it,” said Thompson.

Susan Cho, 40, works in the Theatre District. She had seen a sign about voting leave posted in her office.

“I’ve taken advantage of [the statute] in the past, just not this year,” she said. Cho said she used her vote as an excuse, convincing herself to get up early for a brisk morning stroll despite the gloomy weather.

Although the statute existed for many years, many people are not aware of it. Some people feel that their jobs receive first priority.

“I can’t [vote]. I have to work,” said one man in a maroon hat, hurrying past the polling station.

“I wish I had known before I got up this morning,” said Thompson.

“The opportunity definitely needs to be advertised more,” said Cochran. “I think it would convince more people to get out and vote.”