8 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(05/07/15 2:56am)
On Sunday, May 3, the Community Theater’s version of Spamalot came to a close. The show had been running since April 23 at 8 p.m. on Thursdays through Saturdays, and 2pm on Sundays.
Spamalot is a musical comedy adapted from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The title itself, as explained by one of the musical’s creators Eric Idle, comes from a line in the movie, “We eat ham, and jam and Spam a lot.” The name, like its content, suggests the playfulness of the theater show. The show is less about the Arthurian Legend than an irreverent parody of it, as King Arthur travels his country with his only servant Patsy, who bangs two coconut shells to make the sound of a horse’s hooves as the King “rides” an imaginary horse before him.
Despite the monstrous commitment required for the show, many community theater enthusiasts, students and even a professional wrestler, who is the actor of King Arthur, gathered in the Town Hall Theater and work wholeheartedly to make this major production happen. Spamalot is arguably the biggest production the Middlebury Community Players have ever done. Over 110 different costumes were made for the show and 300 individual pieces were made for the show to happen. That single component of the production speaks a lot about the efforts of the production team and the quality of the show. The rich variety made the show a visual feast.
Timothy Fraser ’16, who played Sir Robin, one of the six major roles in the musical comedy, explains the reason he got involved with the show.
“It was the second week of J-term. I got an email from Brainerd Commons, it was their regular weekly email about opportunities, and it included Spamalot auditions for the Community Theater. Spamalot is one of my favorite musicals. I went down to auditions, and it turned out that singing in the College Choir with Jeff Whitner, doing the Swing Dance Club on campus give me a little bit experience with singing and dancing. And things work out,” Fraser said.
After joining the crew, Fraser began to commit time and hard work to this major production along with 30 strong cast members and production members. He started practicing and rehearsing from late January to last Sunday, when the show drops the curtain. He talked about the challenges he faced after he fit this exciting yet demanding project into his schedule.
Fraser said he was, “going to 6-hour rehearsals from two weeks before the show opens and then I came back home to write my papers till late in the morning.”
Ultimately however, Fraser found his experience very rewarding.
“But it is really worthwhile” Fraser said. “I had a wonderful time. I would definitely encourage Middlebury students to get involved in a theater production outside of the College because it introduces me a whole host of new people, 30 people now who thinks of each other as really knowing each other well, people in their 40s, in their 50s and in their 30s and teenagers.”
Fraser was not the only Middlebury student who participated in the show. Ashley Fink ’18 also acted in the show as a Laker Girl and singer.
What’s more extraordinary about this quality production is that every member of the cast and crew essentially volunteered to join the show. “Nobody gets paid.” The Director of Spamalot and the President of the Middlebury Community Players Dora Greven said, “It must be the love for the theater.”
Agreeing that the commitment from the cast and crew must be simply for the love of the theater, Greven said emphatically, “Yes, it must be.”
(03/18/15 5:43pm)
Earlier last week, a series of anonymous graffiti paintings appeared across campus, sparking debate and concern. The graffiti pieces were found at BiHall, Forest Lounge, the Center for the Arts, Virtue Field House, Warner, Hillcrest, Ross and Munroe, according to Facilities Services and student sources.
At BiHall, one stencil spray-painting depicted a riot police officer holding a baton, with the words “TOO MANY COPS, TOO LITTLE JUSTICE.” The stencil appeared next to a large sprayed security camera and the words “NO CAMERAS.” At the entrance of Ross dining hall, a graffiti work read “BLACK POWER MATTERS”.
A stenciled rat in a suit appeared in multiple locations: Warner, the Field House and a trashcan at the entrance of CFA.
Another, on the exterior wall of the CFA entrance, read “THIEF,” which is stylistically different from the others. “It does not make any sense, unlike the stencil ones, which are better done. I think they are trying to say something but just not in the right way,” said Elyse Barnard ’15, who saw the isolated one at the CFA and a few at Ross.
The appearance of the graffiti coincides with a wave of campus events focusing on street art. Most notably, the exhibition held at the College Museum of Art, “Outside In: Art of the Street,” which launched on Feb. 13. Other events included the completion of a new Museum façade and a museum piece commenting on Andy Warhol both painted by British street artist Ben Eine over Winter Break and a documentary screening of “Style Wars” by the co-producer and photographer Henry Chalfant.
The College exhibition contrasts with the black and white graffiti that appeared outside the CFA and on College buildings. The juxtaposition reveals not only the different level of artistic expression, but also the divergent destinies of the works by famous graffiti artists and the ones that appeared on campus.
Many current social issues are at play in the messages inherent to the graffiti. Joanne Wu ’15 commented on the display outside of Ross Dining Hall, which read “BLACK POWER MATTERS.”
She said, “I think damaging public property in any form is irresponsible, in part because we are in this living space together. There are many non-destructive ways to get out your message that are equally, if not less, impactful. I do not agree with it. But I do agree that it has a high impact factor because it gets people’s notice.”
On the effectiveness of the message, Wu mentioned the installation in the Davis Family Library focusing on the issues of Mexican immigration and mistreatment of Mexican labor.
She points out the deficiency of context of the campus graffiti and compares it to the more academic way of putting an installation in the library, which goes through the bureaucracy. “I think they have a very provocative display in the library. That also attracts attention,” she said.
However, not everyone knew as much about the graffiti pieces that appeared. Professor of American Studies Timothy Spears saw the graffiti at the Athletic Complex and heard about others, but could not speculate about their purpose or origin. Many people, like Nika Fehmiu ’17, did not hear about it at all partly because the Facilities Services were called in promptly to remove the graffiti works.
Director of Facilities Services Michael Moser explained the cleaning process in an email response to the Campus. He said, “A solvent is used to remove graffiti on painted surfaces, then these surfaces will be repainted when weather allows. For stone surfaces we use a special paste to extract the graffiti. Both of these methods are effective, and are labor intensive.”
Moser and Spears confirmed that this is not the first time graffiti has appeared on campus. According to the College archives, numerous incidents of graffiti have occurred at the College, from basic desk inscriptions in 1966 to political messages on the cement canisters outside Weybridge in 1979. From 2006-2008, Lower Forest almost became a studio and gallery for student graffiti, murals and stenciling until the room was painted over in 2012. At the same time, homophobic graffiti appeared in Ross and prompted the then Ross Commons Heads Steve and Katy Smith Abbott and the administration to resolutely step in. These incidents and the most recent all point to a long history of active and passionate students with a desire to be heard.
(01/14/15 11:50pm)
This past Tuesday, Jan. 13, award-winning New York Times columnist and best-selling author William C. Rhoden addressed the College community as the keynote speaker for the 17th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration.
Rhoden has been a sports writer for The New York Times since March 1983. Before joining The Times as a sports columnist, he worked for various print media companies including Ebony Magazine, The Baltimore Sun and the Sunday Week. Rhoden graduated from Morgan State University, and during his time there he played football and acted as the assistant sports information director for some time.
Rhoden has dedicated much of his life to playing and covering sporting events. He is the author of best-selling book 40 Million Dollar Slaves and Third and a Mile: The Trials and Triumphs of The Black Quarterback. He also wrote the Emmy-winning sports documentary Breaking the Huddle: The Integration of College Football.
Rhoden has worked hard to incorporate his passion for sports with a number of outreach programs. He created a sports-oriented program for young kids in Harlem that provides a variety of activities such as basketball, ping-pong and video games, for local kids aged 7 to 14. The program works to integrate these students into the community and has events at places such as Yankee Stadium and local museums. The program is funded in part by Rhoden but also through contributions from friends who share his passion for outreach.
The program began six years ago with about 10-15 kids and has grown every year since – now, 50-60 kids participate in the program. The program is held at the Church of the Intercession in Harlem, where Rhoden has an office and does his work there when he is not on the road.
Rhoden was chosen as the keynote speaker for the MLK Celebration because of his dedication to his work and his community. Rhoden spoke once before at the College in January 2007.
Associate Professor of Writing Hector Vila helped to bring back Rhoden to campus.
“If you look at Rhoden’s career, at The Times and his books, as well as in the community, you see that Rhoden is a model of King’s ‘I have a dream.’ Rhoden always speaks truth to power; he, as King says, is always working on the inside, inside an institution, and in the community – Harlem, where he still lives – he has built a boys’ club to help the youth use sports as a way to learn about very important principles, such as fairness and collaboration, hard work and diligence, and the most important: education. That’s why he’s a good MLK lecturer,” said Vila.
For Vila’s J-term class, Media, Sports and Identity, 40 Million Dollar Slaves is required reading for all students.
“In 40 Million Dollar Slaves, Rhoden lays out several important themes: that professional sports are based on a plantation model – a master and hired hands, and that these hired hands have very limited power, never the power of ownership, for instance; that every time the black athlete gains some success, rules are changed, more obstacles are placed in his/her face; that the popular – and successful – black athlete has a responsibility to the communities from which s/he comes,” Vila said.
“This last piece is very important because, in Rhoden’s work, many athletes – Michael Jordan comes to mind – have turned away from their communities, instead of helping and educating. LeBron James, for instance, totally the opposite of MJ, embodies these principles, including working against the plantation model (he runs his own show). The Williams sisters, in tennis, embody Rhoden’s ideas as well,” he concluded.
Kyle Dudley, Assistant Coach of the men’s basketball team, is also Rhoden’s nephew and was instrumental in bringing Rhoden back to campus. Dudley remarked that Rhoden had a strong influence in his decision to play sports in college and then to become a basketball coach at Middlebury.
Vila added, “As a columnist, Rhoden looks to find the story that’s not on the surface, thus working against the way most media operates, which is focusing on the surface structure; he is not scared to provoke and challenge, whether it’s a player or ownership.”
(11/13/14 5:06am)
In late September, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced its plan to divest its money from investments in fossil fuels. The fund, with nearly $860 million in assets, announced that it would divest roughly seven percent of its funds currently invested in fossil fuels.
The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, established by Rockefeller heirs in 1940, is a smaller organization in assets than the better-known Rockefeller Foundation. The fund’s announcement of divestment, a small amount of money when compared to the vast amount of capital in the fossil fuel industry, attracted great attention.
The announcement, part of a broader initiative, was timed to follow several large environmental marches around the world, and to precede the United Nations climate change summit in New York City.
At the College, the announcement triggered discussion and reinvigorated the divestment movement that had started. The move by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is of particular interest to the College because it is divesting its investment from Investure, the money manager the college entrusted its endowment to. Students from two campus organizations, the Sunday Night Group and Socially Responsible Investment Club, gathered last Sunday to discuss their plans to carry the current momentum to campus and push for change.
Greta Neubauer ’14.5, a leader of the divestment movement at the College, stressed the importance of the movement. “I think divestment is important is because of the power we have as an institution to shift the narrative around the fossil fuel industry... I believe Middlebury has responsibility to use its social capital and its real capital to make a statement that is in alignment with its mission by divesting from fossil fuels,” she said.
She added, “The movement is saying that we need to take this part of our orbit into consideration. What happens on campus is not all that happens. Our institution actually has an impact in other places and we cannot be actively funding the extraction of fossil fuels.”
The College’s one billion dollar endowment is currently in a collective fund that has around three percent of its money in the fossil fuel industry.
Talking about her motivation to join the movement, Taylor Cook ’18 said that she was shocked by the fact that the College, a symbol of sustainable environmental practice, is invested in fossil fuels. She wants to join the movement to push the College to a higher standard.
Sophie Vaughan ’17 talked about her motivation to join the movement. She said, “If we don’t help push for a sustainable planet, who is? Because if you look historically, a lot of movements have been powered by students.”
The primary obstacle for divestment comes from the outstanding performance of Investure and its close business relationship with the College.
Neubauer commented on this complication in the process. “The board doesn’t want to leave Investure. Investure has done really well for the College, especially in the recession, and since the college has worked with them, they have gotten really good returns for the College, done better than peer groups, peer financial managers... We think that there is a way the College can divest that won’t hurt the endowment,” she said.
Neubauer talked about the long-term risk of fossil fuel investment in the context of the worsening climate crisis and emerging renewable energy prospects. She said that it seems that either Investure has to change or the College has to leave for the divestment to happen. Good investment return is not good enough, she claimed.
Last month, Governor of Vermont Peter Shumlin, responded to questions regarding the divestment of Vermont’s pension fund from fossil fuels during the governor’s debate. “It is not the sharpest tool in the drawer,” he said. He stressed his effort spent on the renewable energy implementation in the state.
“Peter Shumlin, as governor of Vermont, has a lot of tools in his toolbox. And I would like him to use some of them,” Jeannie Bartlett ’15 said in response to the governor’s opinion. Neubauer agrees that the state should use some of its tools more effectively than it does now.
Though the record of success of the movement is mixed, the momentum of the movement seems growing. Harvard and Yale both declined to divest. Stanford agreed to divest, but only from coal, while still invested in fossil fuels. However, in recent years, a huge number of individuals and organizations have pledged to sell assets tied to fossil fuel companies. The amount pledged by individuals and 180 institutions, including pension funds and local governments, is worth more than $50 billion.
“We want the College to divest in conjunction with carbon neutrality. We would love to see that the College divests by 2016, so that we are really, honestly and truly carbon neutral in all of our operations. And we also think that it would be really powerful for [President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz] to divest before he leaves the school. He is going to leave a legacy, and to leave a legacy of not divesting from fossil fuels when that is the direction of history is not the one that we think he should choose. So we are really hopeful that Liebowitz, who is committed to making Middlebury a climate leader, makes that choice,” Neubauer said.
(10/29/14 10:14pm)
This past Wednesday, Oct. 22, led by the student organization WOC (Women of Color), a group of students and faculty members held a silent March on campus against police brutality. Wednesday marked the National Day to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation.
“Basically we are just having a silent march in solidarity with what’s been happening over the summer, and what’s been happening throughout American history,” one of the student leaders, Ola Fadairo ’15, said as he introduced the event.
“It was mostly started by what was happening this summer in Ferguson with Mike Brown, [and] what happened in New York, and pretty much everywhere in the United States where men of color were gunned down by police officers for no reason. So we are just going to bring awareness. This is [going to be] a silent, peaceful march. And we are just trying to bring moreawareness to campus because it is something that should be talked about but not talked about enough,” Fadairo said.
Around 5:30 pm, more than fifty students and three faculty members gathered in front of Ross dining hall for the march. The march started outside of the Ross Dining Hall. Protesters then passed ADK and walked down the hill to the Davis Library, then passed Old Chapel and McCullough, and ended in front of Mead Chapel. The group made stops inside Ross Dining Hall, the library and in front of Mead Chapel, where different students made speeches to express their cause and promote awareness.
In Ross Dining Hall, after a short speech, a student speaker requested that students stand with them in silence. A few students went up first and then all the students in the dining hall stood up along with the marchers.
During the march, many students carried banners and posters which read “Solidarity with Ferguson”, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Sagging Pants is NOT Probable cause” and “Midd Divest from White Supremacy”, to name a few. The weather was cloudy with drizzle, the students walked in the rain with their posters and banners in hand, silently.
“For two generations, black and Latino youth have been shipped to prison in numbers never before seen anywhere else in the world,” President of Women of Color Jackie Park ’15 said.
“The U.S. has five percent of the world population, but 25 percent of the world prison population. More than 60 percent of those in U.S. prisons are black or Latino. How many debts will it take till we know that too many people have died? At least 215 people have been killed by cops in live enforcements since Mike Brown was killed by Darren Wilson in Ferguson. I am often viewed as a safe or non-threatening woman of color, but I am here in solidarity because I refuse to submit to white supremacy, and I also refuse to live in a society that allows incondolence and violence. I am an active member of WOC (Women of Color), the violence against women, especially queer, trans and gender-nonconforming women of color is at all-time high. And the lives and faces are not visible in the media or elsewhere. This violence against women is another way the police use brutal repression and violence to serve the heteronormative and misogynistic agenda of the state. It is so important to be in solidarity with and for one another and show up in struggle. No justice, no peace,” Park said in front of the marchers in the Davis Library atrium.
At the last stop in front of Mead Chapel, the group of students raised their hands in the air in silence and then lit candles while saying the slogan “No justice, no peace” to mark the moment of commemoration and solidarity.
One student participant talked about her objective in joining the march. “I stand for equality and justice for everyone to have the same opportunity that I was able to have, you know, growing up with the privilege I grow up with. Being here (at Middlebury), I really think everyone should have that opportunity.”
When asked about her seemingly broad objective, she said, “It is always more broad than this, but it is important to always have moments like this when the campus can really get together and you can get an intersection of group from all across campus together to remember that even though it’s easy to feel really isolated here, we are part of this broader ecosystem of injustice that has perpetuated.”
(10/09/14 2:48am)
A petition to ban drone-assisted hunting in Vermont is making its way through the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife. The state of Vermont could become the latest state to ban hunting with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles following Montana, Alaska, Colorado and New Mexico.
Early this year, Eric Nuse of Orion, the Hunter’s Institute and Tovar Cerulli of the New England Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers submitted a petition to the board of Fish and Wildlife arguing that the use of drones to track or conduct reconnaissance leading up to a hunt violated the rules of fair chase and provided unfair advantage to the hunter. The board accepted the petition and began drafting a new rule to ban such practice.
Drone-assisted hunting has not become a problem in Vermont, but the board is nonetheless expected to implement the rule by the end of this year to ensure that it does not become a problem. A hearing, as part of the rule-making process, is scheduled for Oct. 21.
Fair chase is “the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild, native North American big game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals,” as defined by the Boone and Crockett Club. This club is a hunter-conservationist organization founded in the United States in 1887 by Theodore Roosevelt. It is named after two hunter-heroes of the day, Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, whom the club’s founders viewed as pioneers who hunted extensively while opening the frontier, but eventually realized the consequences of overharvesting game.
“Drones are just an overwhelming technology that have no place in hunting,” said Nuse, a former executive director and current board member of Orion, the Hunter’s Institute.
“Up until that point, the animal should be able to escape and be able to use all of its senses to survive,” Nuse said.
Hunters must rely primarily on their senses, too. “They have to be skillful, they have to be patient, and they have to put forth the effort. That’s what modern hunting is about.”
“Even though my ultimate goal might be to get freezer meat, we really do this for the enjoyment of the hunt,” he said.
“As states consider legislation, it is our position that manned and unmanned aircraft should be treated the same, focusing laws on the particular action in question, and not on the platform being used,” a statement from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International said, without specific mention of drones for hunting. According to the statement, drones do have many beneficial uses, such as assisting in search and rescue, helping to fight wildfires, monitoring crops for disease and surveying wildlife populations.
“We are just saying you can’t use this device for hunting and scouting and that’s just not consistent with Vermont hunting traditions,” said Catherine Gjessing, the General Counsel of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
(10/09/14 2:48am)
With the newly installed squash center green roof, the second one at the College after the 2004 installation at Atwater Dining Hall, the nine-court, 18,000-square-foot Squash Center has been awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) its highest level of certification, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum last month. This is the second time the College has won the platinum certification. The other LEED-certified building is the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest.
The Squash Center has nine courts arranged around a central corridor covered with a skylight. Connected to the southeast end of the Peterson Family Complex, the $7.8 million building replaces the now-defunct Bubble, which had five squash courts inside.
The Squash Center opened last October without the green roof, but with numerous other sustainable features aimed to boost its energy efficiency and lower its impact on the environment. The skylight design allows filtered, natural light into the building, providing enough light during the day to make electric lighting unnecessary.
“LEED Platinum certification says two things about the college,” said Director of the Office of Sustainability Integration Jack Byrne. “One is that we hold ourselves to a high standard of excellence in the way we design and construct our buildings. Second is that we value transparency and the opportunity that having a third party evaluation of the project affords us to learn from out efforts to make our buildings reflect our sustainability ethos.”
The building materials, from the green roof to the high-efficiency LED lights in the building point to a focus on low impact materials. Likewise, the project manager tried to extract materials from the local community, whenever possible.
“We try to stay local within reason,” said College Project Manager Mark Gleason last year before the opening of the Squash Center. “But in general that’s what we are trying to do: meet the 500-mile radius. For concrete and steel that’s easy to do. For siding, sometimes not as easy to do,” he continued.
One obstacle to the local commitment is the Athletics department’s demand of the use of ASB squash courts – a product only manufactured in Germany.
“The courts come from Germany and there’s no way around it,” Gleason explained. However, the reuse of five of the original squash courts from the Bubble seemed to help alleviate the issue.
Some other key sustainable features of the Squash Center excel in include its efficient ventilation and mechanical systems, which can monitor equipment use and functionality, its insulated building envelope and the use of low-emitting and environmentally friendly materials, which helps ensure the high quality of the indoor air.
The building also contains wood from forests certified as responsibly managed and the green covers the roof with thousands of living sedum plants.
In the Squash Center project’s LEED application, the project also received points for using renewable energy from its solar array and biomass plant, and for diverting away from landfills 97 percent of all construction waste and reusing the five original squash courts. Other small features, like high efficiency pumps, LED lighting and low VOC materials, reflect the College’s long-standing commitment to sustainability.
The green roof, which is the newest feature of the building, has more of a practical function than what its appearance first indicates, providing insulation and protecting the roof’s membrane. In a storm, the water percolates and saturates in the layer of the sedum-growing soil, preventing peak water run-off from possibly damaging the roof. The greenery and soil also naturally cool the building by absorbing sunlight, potentially reducing the cost of the air-conditioning of the building, while saving energy.
“Because it’s visible and tangible, it prompts conversations,” said Director of Athletics Erin Quinn in his response to the Campus last October. “Now we have a very prominently visual feature which prompts conversations that might not have been started otherwise.”
However, creating a building with extremely sustainable and innovative features does not come without a cost, a reality that is aggravated by the decision by the Board of Trustees to only construct buildings that are bankrolled by financial gifts.
“The upfront costs for designing and building a building of LEED platinum are certainly higher than had we not gone this way, but over the long term those added costs begin to pay off with less energy use, less maintenance and replacement of equipment and materials, and greater satisfaction in the use of the building,” Gleason said.
“At the start of any building project, the question needs to be asked if the college resources are being used for the best long-term goals of the college. In the squash building, given the needs of the squash program, the answer to that question is absolutely yes,” he added.
Byrne and other sustainability leaders on campus seem to emphasize that this certification is an indication of momentum that we are looking forward to continue with a commitment to sustainable building.
“Middlebury has a well-earned reputation as a leader in environmental stewardship and sustainability. But we can’t rest on that reputation. We need to keep thinking ahead about how to do better in our design and construction of buildings, the way we use and conserve energy, how we can use the vast intellectual power we have via students, faculty and staff to identify the causes of our sustainability dilemmas and to solve them,” Byrne concluded.
(09/24/14 8:40pm)
Peter Theo Curtis, a Middlebury alum who graduated in 1991 with a degree in literary studies, came to the spotlight in late August after he was released by a militant group affiliated with Al Qaeda. He was kept in captivity for more than 22 months in Syria by the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra or by splinter groups allied with Jabhat al-Nusra, according to his family.
An initial investigation by Curtis’ family and colleagues show that Curtis crossed the border into Syria with a guide that betrayed him and handed him to an extremist group Ahrar al-Sham, who later handed him to al-Nusra Front. (Jabhat al-Nusra).
At several points during his captivity, the militant group made several videos with Curtis, who asked for the immediate actions from the United States government to save his life. In the video, Curtis appeared to read from a script on the ground. In another video, Curtis stated that he is in good health while being kept there.
The release was made possible by the effort from the Qatari government. Relatives of Mr. Curtis said they felt as if an avenue of communication had been opened as soon as Qatar became involved. The Qatari government offered crucial information to Curtis’ family quickly after stepping in.
After getting introduced to the Qatar government by the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, the family was able to ask a proof-of-life question to Mr. Curtis, which was answered correctly. The question, “what is the subject of your Ph.D dissertation?” is one that only Curtis himself could have answered. (Answer: a museum started by the mother of the novelist Anthony Trollope.)
Qatar had successfully negotiated the release of multiple European citizens kidnapped by Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, before the U.S Ambassador, Samantha Power, introduced her Qatari counterpart to Curtis’ family.
Curtis’ family stated that the Qatari government told them no ransom was paid for the release of Curtis. The no-ransom principle was confirmed by the White House’s answer to questions regarding Curtis’ release.
Curtis’ release drew attention after the decapitation of the American journalist, James Foley. Foley’s murder prompted the U.S. to take further actions against ISIS. Several European nations have paid sums averaging multi-millions of dollars to secure the release of their citizens. Qatar played a role in successfully negotiating the release of numerous westerners for ransom.
Terrorist groups have collected tens of millions of dollars through the ransom payment. Holding hostages of westerners for ransom has become a popular conduct among militant groups ranging from Yemen in the Arabic peninsula to Mali in Africa. According to The New York Times, European nations have paid more than 125 million dollars in ransom to the direct affiliate of al Qaeda.
Curtis speaks fluent Arabic and French, and he also speaks German and Russian. He grew to love Syria a decade ago when he studied Arabic and Russian in Damascus.
Mr. Curtis has written two books. The first book, called My Life [Had] Stood a Loaded Gun, is about disaffected youth in the US while working as a teacher in the Vermont prison system. The second, Undercover Muslim, published in the U.K., discusses disaffected young men from the West coming to study Islam.