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(03/31/05 12:00am)
Author: ERICA GOODMAN Behold the power of mud.I wonder if the football team would consider running a few spring practices at my house. Instead of hitting the weight room in the off-season, the Panther football squad should hire out their brawn to help those less fortunate who are...stuck in the mud. You know the old saying - people in glass houses should not throw stones. Well, people who live on dirt roads should not attempt to drive their cars from March until Memorial Day. Nobody lives around here very long without getting some contraption stuck in the mud. You see, recently, my family, like many in Vermont, has found itself in a sticky situation. It's that time of the year when dirt roads and driveways, famished after spending months under ice and snow, open their hungry mouths to vulnerable vehicles. Our driveway has become the black hole of mud season, sucking in the tires of any moving objects that dare to enter. The ruts and divots created by numerous mud mishaps have even taken on the look of the Rocky Mountains in miniature.Farmers must be especially careful when venturing into their fields to till the soil. When it comes to tractors, the bigger they are, the harder they are to un-stick, and an even larger piece of machinery is needed to pull it free (or I suppose more football pusher-outers are necessary).But can't we make the most of the spring thaw? It seems to me that the brown muck deserves a bit more respect. In her battle versus the machine, Mother Nature is putting up quite a fight. Anything that can pull a tractor or a SUV off the road and keep it there deserves some admiration. Or perhaps it is mechanical natural selection - a survival of the fittest for automobiles.Mud not only stops the progress of transportation, but possibly also that of time. Fancy spas claim that the natural goo hydrates the skin and reverses the signs of aging. Mud season also brings with it a unique rebirth of fashion. Rubber boots have made a strong comeback and for once I might be ahead of the trend - I have worn tall black or yellow galoshes to navigate the cow barn for as long as I can remember. (Of course, these shoes protect my toes from more than just mud - you can use your imagination). Now stores such as Neiman Marcus are dishing out waders in bright pastels and patterns, from baby animals to Burberry. I wonder how many farmers today are trying to look cute by sporting high-rubber boots with little yellow duckies.Spring is a beautiful time of year - lambs bouncing through the fields, birds returning north, trees budding with new life. The snow is slowly disappearing and the Green Mountains are taking on their true form as the grass slowly comes to life. But as spring rain continues to slosh up the sidewalks, drivers beware. You just might get stuck in the mud.
(03/31/05 12:00am)
Author: Caroline Vial Heavy, verbose and arrogant, such is Charles Moore's view of the newly installed European Constitution, the set of laws that must be followed as a fundamental political principle by the European Union's (E.U.) affiliated governments. Moore, also known as a British "Eurosceptic" - that is, the supporter of a nation's independence from the E.U. - declared to The Daily Telegraph last week that the creation of a common set of laws for such a diverse conglomeration of nations ran against the true implications of a constitution. Moore compared the American notion of a "constitution," light at 21 pages, to Europe's 511-page "tile-sized" document. "One can understand that the word 'constitution' rings softly to the ears of Americans," claimed Moore. "By going to bed at his usual hour of nine-thirty, [President] Bush would be able to browse it from end to end before ten o'clock rings on the presidential clock." The same could not be said concerning the hefty European Constitution. According to Moore, by dedicating a minimum of 20 minutes to the European document, even the American president would realize that it does not constitute what one normally calls a constitution. Far from limiting itself to the distribution of powers - head of state, parliament, judicial system, central and local administrations - the European Constitution elaborates at length on the manner in which people must think and behave.For instance, this new founding text supports positive discrimination, banishes the death penalty in all circumstances and is in favor of elevated public expenditure. The European Constitution is also installing a mandatory consultation between unions on the problems of employment. Moore continued, "It promotes the 'exchange of young workers,' 'light breakfasts,' 'long-distance education' and 'the physical and moral integrity of athletes' (find the error). And it imposes all of that to countries which each possess one elected government."The document holds a wide array of dispositions on questions as diverse as abortion in Malta, two types of hot rolling-mills at a Czech steel factory and the relatively frightening state of a Slovak nuclear power plant, to name a few. "Such a text could not constitute a constitution," said Moore. "Or in any case a constitution that is supposed to be understood by those who are concerned." If he was to draw the attention of President Bush to two aspects of the treaty, Moore would first mention article 1-16 that engages all member-States to support the "foreign policy of common security." The member-States, as it can be read, "actively endorse and without reserve, the Union's foreign policy of common security, in a spirit of loyalty and of mutual solidarity and respect the actions of the Union in that domain." Moore said that this article is a clear attempt to prevent Great Britain - or any other member-State - to act once again, unilaterally, in a military or political alliance with the United States. President Bush recently warned against using the E.U. as an instrument of world power, which would be susceptible of dethroning NATO - "that is precisely what the European Constitution is seeking to do," said the Eurosceptic. The difference in the spirits that animate the two constitutions can be revealed in their respective first words, according to Moore. The American document begins with "We, the people," while the European text begins with "Its majesty the king of Belgians." For such reasons, Moore believes that "it belongs to the Americans, and not to the Europeans, to decide whether they are willing to encourage the birth of a superpower whose ambition it is to become a world rival of the United States." The British as a people, can only claim not to have anything to gain in a European Constitution, according to Moore. Those who are against the constitution in Europe demand that an copy of the Constitution be sent to each household. The government, on the other hand, remains evasive on the subject. But Moore asked, "What can one truly object to, other than the fact that such a distribution might damage the spines of our mail staff?" His suggestion is to include in the mailing a copy of the U.S. Constitution: "The parcel will be scarcely heavier and we will have the clearest object of comparison."
(03/17/05 12:00am)
Author: Dave Barker MADRID - There exist slices of America here in Madrid. Homesick students can catch an English movie, watch college basketball at an Irish pub or visit Taste of America, where maple syrup and brownie mix fill in the gaps of the simple and meat-filled Spanish diet. I try to avoid these experiences like I do the Casa de Campo Park at night, home to Madrid's legal and bustling prostitution industry. I prefer being a looker to finding a hooker. Looking in the windows of the countless tapas bars and delicatessens, that is. One of the best ways to probe into the culture and feel Spanish is to cook Spanish. I enjoy nothing more than strolling from my apartment in the center of Madrid past curing hams, sheep's milk cheeses and Spanish tortilla. After indulging my eyes, I head straight for the San Miguel market near Plaza Mayor to please the palate. I first tackled paella.The risotto-like rice dish is as Spanish as the mournful stomp of a flamenco dancer. For the first paella go-around, I followed the step-by-step directions to a "quick and easy chicken and chorizo (sausage) paella." I took a shortcut by using three paella Valenciana seasoning packets instead of buying each spice individually. Forgive me, Julia Child, for I have sinned. Nonetheless, the final product was tasty. In the following weeks, I related my paella exploits to several Spaniards who proceeded to tell me about their grandmothers' delectable paellas. Conversations over paella have allowed me to improve my shaky Spanish and have given me new culinary ideas. Recently, I took a plunge. At San Miguel, a walk past the butcher's case recalls past dissections of various animal parts in an eighth grade science class. I told two butchers that I needed some chicken and rabbit for paella. For traditional paella, you need to stray away from traditional poultry. With the introduction of rabbit, I was graduating, getting deeper into the culture.Instead of getting a few chunks of rabbit, the butcher grabbed one of the skinned creatures on ice and gave me half. Later in the afternoon, after pondering the preparation of the rabbit in my sociology class, I confronted the little bundle wrapped in paper, armed with a frying pan and a bottle of olive oil. Maybe it was the garlic that masked the smell, but after throwing everything together in the wok, I enjoyed one of the most delicious meals I've had here, save the delicacy of the Middle Eastern kebab. I suppose I'm ready for a trip to the seafood stand at San Miguel, where the real paellas are constructed. Shrimp, mussels, and the end of seasoning packets await. For now, my paella sure beats brownie mix.
(03/17/05 12:00am)
Author: Caitlin Taylor Imagine your name is Jorge. You come from the highlands of Guatemala where, although the civil war has ended, violence is still occurring. Your home, along with many others, was burned when the military suspected that there were Communists living in your village. You left for the city where the living conditions were terrible. You slept in huts made of cardboard, old car doors or anything you could find until a few years ago when you and your neighbors received a small loan to start a tiny carpentry workshop. Jorge was only one of the hundreds of "global personalities" featured at The Oxfam Hunger Banquet that took place at Ross Dining Hall on Friday, March 11. The Banquet was advertised as a fundraiser for the sustainable hunger relief organization Heifer International. The dinner banquet aimed to "simulate the imbalance in food distribution in the world" in order to increase awareness and understanding of the pervasive problem of worldwide hunger today. After contributing a suggested donation to Heifer International, each student picked, at random, a "global personality," which determined the income level of the student's personality, thus indicating the student's portion for the night. If a student picked a low-income personality, he or she was to sit on the small space of floor in the front of the dining hall, which soon became crowded with the majority of the students. A student who picked a middle-income personality was allowed to sit in one of the chairs lined up behind the floor space. The wealthiest income group, high-income, were placed at table-clothed tables complete with silverware, glasses and napkins - luxuries that the lower income groups could not afford. The meals consisted of a small portion of rice for the low-income students, rice and beans for the middle-income students and a healthy meal of salmon and side dishes for the high-income students. The proportions of different global income groups in the simulation added up to 60 percent of low-income groups, 25 percent middle-income and 15 percent high-income, which were meant to be representative of the actual percentages in the world today. This Hunger Banquet was the second to occur at Middlebury. The student leader of the banquet, Sarah Lauing '07, explained, "I was inspired by last year's banquet but also saw places to improve it. By changing the venue, inviting community members, and adding more local examples, I hoped to make the banquet more applicable to Middlebury students." The Hunger Banquet seemed to be a success, but Lauing hopes that it is merely the first sign of a larger outpouring of support. She explained, "While turnout was not as large as I had hoped, the students seemed to react well to the content of the banquet, and I'm hoping the symposium will just be the beginning of a larger response by the College community to the issues of hunger and poverty."Middlebury will continue to increase awareness of global poverty and hunger through more events and activities on and around campus. Further events include an April 8 Benefit Concert by the Bluegrass Gospel Project, whose proceeds will also go to Heifer International and a food drive in April. Lauing also organized a letter-signing campaign outside the dining halls in January to call attention to the issue of global hunger. The Hunger Banquet coincided with the week-long Poverty Symposium and the Community Summit on Poverty, organized by Sarah Johnson in the Alliance for Civic Engagement - a conference for the community members to discuss and gain awareness of both the poverty and hunger issue.The hunger banquet raised about $590 for Heifer International, an organization renowned for its innovative approach to hunger relief - they purchase livestock and send it to needy communities around the world while also giving the communities the resources to use the animals to create a sustainable lifestyle and help other needy communities. The ultimate goal is to raise $5000 to purchase a "Noah's Ark" for Heifer International - a package that includes two of every animal - a move that would represent an enormous contribution to the organization.
(03/10/05 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] To the Editor:I would like to send a letter of praise for the weekly music review column "Blowin' Indie Wind." It is consistently the most hilarious section of the entire paper. Never before have I seen such a brilliant lampoon of snobby, elitist, super-intellectual independent music writing. Everything from the positive review of a 40-year-old album to showing the reviewer's mainstream tastes to the weekly trashing of "The O.C." leaves me rolling on the floor and gripping my sides in laughter. Mr. Lawless clearly has his fingers pressed to the beating pulse of modern satire. Keep up the good work!Sincerely,Benjamin Golze '06 To the Editor:Much is in a name. Ours, Vermonters for Safe Hunting and Wildlife Diversity, says we are Vermonters. This means we live here and pay our taxes and that is all that is necessary for us to be eligible to express our opinion.Our name says we are for safe hunting, not against hunting, not against coyote hunting, but instead, for hunting that is responsible and overseen by the Fish and Wildlife Department. Specifically, we ask that the oversight take the following form: first, establish a coyote season with bag limits; second, prohibit the use of dogs in the hunting of coyotes; third, ban any lottery or bounty hunting of animals; and finally, confine all hunting to daylight hours.Our name also says we are proponents of wildlife diversity. That means we believe no species deserves to be vilified, or made a pariah as the current lack of regulation of coyote hunting implies and encourages. Most who read this letter will realize this is not a radical agenda. What we want is who we are, not how others try to paint us.Sincerely,Vermonters for Safe Hunting and Wildlife Diversity To the Editor:In response to J.S. Woodward's submission, I would like to challenge the point that recruiters who cannot abide by the College's non-discrimination policy be barred from campus. We should welcome opportunities to inform the College community about discriminatory practices that are going on in this country and abroad. You can bet the Marines wouldn't have spoken at Middlebury if they didn't have the opportunity to recruit here, and in the end, the meeting turned out to bolster support against the policy and inform the uninformed. Controversy incites dialogue. Let's not forget that without that dialogue, Middlebury students might unwittingly join a discriminatory group without fully realizing the gravity of the practice because discriminators are rarely forthcoming when not forced to be. Though Mr. Woodward and I agree that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy" is abhorrent and poorly reasoned at best, I believe that the presence of unpopular views, even those that go against this institution's principles, is a healthy way to inform and engage the community.Sincerely,Jason Siegel '06
(03/10/05 12:00am)
Author: Megan O'Keefe Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will speak at the graduation of the Middlebury College class of 2005 on May 22. Giuliani will also receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. The prominent Republican, who was honored as Time magazine's 2001 Person of the Year, is best known for his leadership following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Donald Sutherland, Charles Houston, Mary Patterson McPherson and Robert P. Moses will also be awarded honorary degrees during the commencement celebration.Giuliani's selection as speaker is intended in part to recognize the centrality of the Sept. 11 attacks to the collegiate experience of the class of 2005, who matriculated in September 2001. "One reason his Commencement speech will be especially meaningful to students in the Class of 2005 is that the September 11 attacks took place on what was the second day of classes for the current seniors - many of you will never forget what you were doing on that Tuesday morning three and a half years ago when you first heard that airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center towers," said Secretary of the College Eric Davis, who acts as the administrative liaison to the ad-hoc Honorary Degree Committee.Prior to his election as mayor, Giuliani served in a number of positions in the federal government, including United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Giuliani was elected the 107th mayor of the City of New York in 1993 after an unsuccessful bid for the position in 1989. In 1997, he was re-elected by a wide margin. When Giuliani entered the job, more than a million New Yorkers were on welfare and violent crime and crack cocaine had devastated entire neighborhoods. During Giuliani's eight years as mayor, New York City's crime rate fell by 57 percent, and the FBI designated New York as America's safest large city. Whole neighborhoods were redeveloped and 691,000 people were moved off of welfare.It was on Sept. 11, 2001, however, that Giuliani became New York City's icon and an American hero. After hearing that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers, Giuliani rushed to the scene only to be nearly trapped in a command center as the second tower exploded. Leading a group of city officials and reporters away from the fallen towers through a torrent of dust and debris, Giuliani set up a makeshift command center in a firehouse where he made hundreds of rapid-fire decisions to coordinate the city's emergency relief efforts. Giuliani's commanding leadership and steady, reassuring presence on television held New York City together through its darkest hour. After manning the city's emergency command center around-the-clock for three days, the mayor attended dozens of funerals across the city in the weeks after the attacks, consoling grieving families and leading congregations in raucous standing ovations for their fallen heroes."The world during our entire college career has been more or less defined by the events of that day and the ongoing aftermath," said Brian Vickery '05, member of the Honorary Degree committee. "We are very fortunate that Mr. Giuliani has agreed to speak, given that he was such an important figure to the entire nation at the time of the events."Davis stressed that Giuliani is being honored for his leadership prior to Sept. 11, as well. "By awarding him an honorary degree, we recognize his leadership as Mayor of the City of New York, especially but not limited to his actions following the Sept. 11 attacks," he said. "Even if Sept. 11 had not happened, Giuliani would be recognized as one of New York's most successful mayors of the past century, for all that he did to improve New York's economic and cultural standing, and make both residents and visitors feel proud about New York." Giuliani left office at the end of 2001, and has since become president of Giuliani Partners, a New York-based consulting firm specializing in security, preparedness and crisis-management.Giuliani, and the four other honorary degree recipients were selected, according to Davis, because as a group they "typify the range of human excellence that it is most appropriate for Middlebury to recognize at Commencement."Donald Sutherland, who will receive an honorary Doctor of Arts degree, is an actor who has appeared in more than 100 films during his distinguished 40-year career. Sutherland is the father of Angus Sutherland '05, a member of the graduating class. Sutherland is noted for creating the role of Dr. Hawkeye Pierce in the 1970 film "MASH." Among his other films are "The Dirty Dozen," "Klute," "Ordinary People," "Cold Mountain" and "Animal House." Davis noted, "We are most pleased to be able to recognize his contribution to motion picture art at the same time that his son Angus graduates from Middlebury." Sutherland was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1978, and later the French government made him an officer of the Ordres des Artes et Lettres.Mary Patterson McPherson, vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. McPherson currently oversees Mellon's liberal arts college program. The foundation has previously made several substantial grants to Middlebury College, including funding for the Center for Educational Technology (CET) and other programs that have introduced technology into the liberal arts curriculum. McPherson was made acting President of Bryn Mawr College in 1976 and was its president from 1978-1997. She has served on numerous boards of directors, is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Charles Houston, now 91-years-old and a resident of Burlington, Vt., will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree. An emeritus professor of epidemiology and environmental medicine at the University of Vermont, Houston is an authority on high altitude medicine and an accomplished physician who pioneered a forerunner to the Jarvick artificial heart. Houston is also a skilled mountaineer who helped plot routes that were used by the first teams to successfully summit K-2 and Mount Everest. Additionally, Houston once led the first Peace Corps project in India.Robert Moses, who is being recognized for his work as a civil rights leader in the South in the 1960s and his more recent efforts as the founder and head of the Algebra Project, will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. From 1964 to 1965, Moses led efforts in Alabama and Mississippi that ultimately won passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Today, Moses' work with Project Algebra encourages African-American high school students to study mathematics and science, while developing innovative ways of teaching mathematics, particularly in schools with large African-American student populations.
(03/03/05 12:00am)
Author: ERICA GOODMAN Coydog: [ k dôg , -d g ] n. offspring of a coyote and a dogFrom the moment of birth, mothers thrive on worrying about their children. What results is a long list of demands to ensure that their greatest fears do not lead to the demise of their offspring. My mother, of course, is no exception. Always wear your seatbelt. Don't forget the sunscreen. And finally, don't go running without your pepper spray! A strange request, one might think. My relatives live in all of the houses along my running route. The chances are very slim that an irate aunt or uncle will jump out of their house in a panty-hose mask to steal my wallet. But the root of my mother's concern is the villainous predator inhabiting the woods of North America - the coydog. They are a mangy beast whose soulful, child-like cry echoes through the mountains on many a starry evening. The coydog's hunting strategies range from sheer predatorial to scavenger. He will dabble into a garden as well, sneaking vegetables when the urge strikes. The problem lies when our furry friend decides to specialize his taste. Whereas many Middlebury students are reluctant to eat anything other than Proctor fare, a coydog will sometimes choose to only feast on a single type of animal. Wyle E. Coyote chased the road runner but in the Northeast kingdom, a coydog often chooses an easier bait - domesticated livestock, deer and, according to my mother, 20-year-old joggers. The picky eating habits of the woodsy meat-eater become problematic when he steals chicken dinners and fresh steak from local farmers on a regular basis. If you follow any local news, you know that the widespread presence of the coydog and his pureblooded cousin, the coyote, has been a topic of hot debate. For some, the solution is clear. Addison County hunters have been organizing coyote hunting parties to reduce the state's coyote population and protect the deer. Hunting is part of the area's culture, a practice that has bonded Vermonters for centuries and bolstered businesses too. Reducing the coydog and coyote population would protect the animals and the livelihood of area farmers. Uproar from the opposition surrounds sentiments that the practice is unethical - hunting one innocent species to stop it from hunting another hardly seems fair - and ultimately inefficient, since the nature of this beast is to procreate in proportion to their population threat. The question of controlling a wild population is difficult to answer. Sure, mother may sleep better at night knowing her daughter will not have to ever try to outrun a coydog. Yet, she would also lose one of her favorite summer activities - sitting on the porch in the quiet of twilight and listening to the heart-breaking moans of the wild dogs as they embrace the darkness.
(03/03/05 12:00am)
Author: Amanda Brickell '08 Every February, I feel a twinge of giddy excitement as Oscar night approaches. I have watched the Academy Awards ever since I was a little girl - this year's show served a double purpose as it would help me with the transition from the excitement of Winter Carnival to this week's line-up of classes and midterms. The pre-show began as usual - enthusiastic commentators interviewed the actors on the red carpet, women gleamed in their glorious satin gowns of all shades and even the most slovenly actors were dressed smartly in dapper ties and shining shoes. The actors, the media and viewers like myself were all prepared for a special and widely broadcasted event that would honor Hollywood's most talented men and women. Comedian Chris Rock, host of this year's Academy Awards, began the ceremony with a few opening jokes. As he began speaking, however, his humor was far from what I expected would be included on such an elegant occasion. Rock told the audience, who was giving him a standing ovation, to "sit your asses down." He then poked fun at Michael Moore's weight, President Bush's policies and the types of films that were targeted at African Americans. He compared the war in Iraq to a squabble between Gap and Banana Republic, where soldiers stained Gap khakis with their blood after giving up their lives over Banana Republic's supposed creation of "toxic tank tops."Rock proceeded to introduce one of the presenters, Renee Zellweger, by commenting on the weight she gained for her role in "Bridget Jones' Diary." Robin Williams, another presenter, cracked jokes about gay cartoon characters, plastic surgery and nipples, and how animation was like a bottle of Viagra. Even Mike Myers contributed to the innapropriate humor with his line about his favorite scene in Shrek 2, where Shrek "farts in the mud."I was both appalled and surprised by the tastelessness of the choreographed jokes. One would think that some of the most well paid writers in the country were clever enough to create a script that could amuse viewers without bathroom humor and crude lines like "Kiss my black ass." The jokes were both disrespectful and distracting - I found it difficult to concentrate on who was being honored throughout the show. Perhaps Hollywood was trying to broaden its viewership by dumbing down the ceremony's comedic aspects and making the affair less uptight. But do these actors and actresses need to be pointed out and insulted by the host just to gain more viewers? Surely, there must be some other way to attract a wider audience. Foreigners already stereotype the United States of America as being a country without any culture.The lack of courtesy and graciousness shown by the hosts and presenters certainly corroborates this kind of claim. Perhaps Americans, particularly those in Hollywood who would like put forth a better face to the international world, will be more mindful of their projected image the next time around.
(03/03/05 12:00am)
Author: Polly Johnson If you've ever wanted to meet someone who is the General Manager of a soap store and a beekeeper in his spare time, look no further than Ross Conrad of Middlebury, the acting general manager of Vermont Soap, a company located in town on Exchange St. The company specializes in the production of organic soaps, bath and shower gels, pet shampoo, organic household products and cleaning supplies. Conrad became involved in the company in 2001 when he met the owner and founder of Vermont Soap at a conference. He began working for the sales and marketing team and eventually worked his way up to General Manager. Raised in Manhattan, Conrad decided that New York was just not for him, and moved to Vermont in 1988. He found work and has been living here ever since. But how did he become involved with beekeeping? "During the winter of 1990-1991, I started to do a lot of soul-searching about my life, what I was doing with it and where I wanted to go", explained Conrad. After spending time with the Bear Tribe Medicine Society, he had a "religious experience" where he became "aware of the fact that there is more to this world than what we are able to see, hear, feel, smell and taste." During a specific ceremonial ritual with the tribe, called a Vision Quest, he had his first encounter with a honeybee. "I remember observing many yellow jackets and wasps, but no honeybees. Anyway, this honeybee seemed to be trying to tell me something. It spent several minutes flying around me and landing on various parts of my body before it flew off." Six months after his experience with the tribe, Conrad returned to Middlebury, where he was offered a job as a beekeeper by a local beekeeper he knew at the Champlain Valley Apiaries, Bill Mraz. Mraz's father, Charles, who died in 1999, was a "world-renowned beekeeper and apitherapist" and it was from observing Bill, Charles and the bees that Conrad received the best beekeeping education he could get. Charles Mraz was one of the early pioneers of beekeeping in the Champlain Valley. He founded the Champlain Valley Apiaries in 1931 and wrote a book entitled "Health and the Honeybee," which advocated the use of bee venom therapy. Since his death, beekeeping has continued to flourish in the Champlain Valley.After spending many years learning the ropes of beekeeping, Conrad has become an established beekeeper who sells the honey he bottles at the Natural Food Co-op here in town. But there is quite an extensive process that comes before the bottling and selling. Beekeeping entails "a lot of hard work and the constant threat of being stung," although Conrad noted that "honeybees are a lot easier to work with than most people." Not to mention that the "primary risk in keeping bees is financial," and that there is the "possibility of throwing out your back lifting the supers full of honey." Like any other job, beekeeping requires specific conditions and proper care. "Like other agricultural endeavors, beekeeping is very reliant on the weather. Too much rain, too little rain, extremely hot or cold weather will all have an impact on a hive. In Vermont the average honey harvest is usually between 30 and 40 pounds of honey per hive per year," Conrad explained. And in order to be most prolific, "honeybees typically need temperatures of at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit in order for it to be warm enough for them to fly and gather nectar. Flower nectar is basically diluted sugar water." Beekeeping also needs to be practiced in the ideal climate. "During the winter months," Conrad explained, "the honeybees become inactive due to the cold. When temperatures drop below 50 degrees, the bees will form a cluster. They basically snuggle together and use their body heat to keep themselves warm. As long as they have honey to eat they can flex their wing muscles and generate heat. In Vermont, bees typically need about 80 pounds of stored honey in their hive in order to get them through the dearth of fresh nectar over the winter."Once these conditions are met, and the hive of bees has been established, what comes next? "The beekeeper just lets them live out their lives collecting nectar and making honey in the hopes that they will store more than they will need to get them through the winter. The beekeeper then harvests the excess honey. Of course the conscientious beekeeper will take the time to regularly inspect the bees to make sure they are healthy and disease and parasite free." Conrad is clearly one of these "conscientious beekeepers" - not just in the way he cares for them, but in the way he allows them to be a part of his life. The bees "have taught me many lessons," he said. For one, "they are one of the few creatures in nature that has a tendency to make more honey than they need. Of course what happens to this excess honey is that the beekeeper will come along and take it from the bees. From this I have learned not to hoard and take more than I really need."Additionally, Conrad noted, "The honeybee is the only higher form of animal life I know of that does not harm a single living thing as it goes about its life. All the bee requires from the world outside the hive is fresh air, sunshine, water, pollen, nectar from flowers and some plant resins to keep healthy. In this way the honeybee actually makes the world a better place, simply by taking what it needs to survive. This is a wonderful lesson that I continually work to incorporate into my life - how to take from the world what I need to live my life, and do it in a way that leave the world better than how I found it. When I imagine what this planet might be like if all people endeavored to live this way, I envision a very different world."
(02/24/05 12:00am)
Author: Ben Gore '05 I am outraged by what's going on at Harvard and on the Op-Ed pages of the major national newspapers right now. The president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, meant to suggest a seemingly benign idea last month - maybe men and women's brains are different. He bumbled it and ended up seeming as if he believed this were fact. He also seemed to be justifying Harvard's dismal record of hiring women in mathematics and physics because of this. Here's the thing that makes me steamed though - even if he had said this clearly he would have gotten the same nausea and threats of swoons from female professors (looking for an anti-feminist stereotype?) there and the hot lead in the rectum from the ostrich-head pundits in the media. This is not about political correctness, academic freedom or feminism. This is an environmental issue. And if you can't understand how this relates to organic gardening, well, dive down the rabbit hole with me.The reigning myth of our time, one of the fundamental truths of the anti-intellectual black hole that is postmodernism, is that the human mind is a product of society's imagination. The prevailing view is that socialization and self-determination construct what you are. This is perhaps one of the most dangerous things we could believe. If the human being is governed entirely by society and not by biology, we are no longer animals and our connection with the rest of the world that is not us, is dead. Furthermore, this position is a cop out. Our society is built on manipulating our minds into wanting things that are not only unnecessary but contrary to our nature, like women with eight perecent body fat. Our so-called communities are built in a way so that all interaction is between two individuals or between an individual and the masses. The conventional wisdom of our day is that we can construct a healthy personality in response to this or any environment.Just look at the sales of legal, not to mention illegal, drugs for a refutation of that. Anti-depressants are where the money is at these days along with the anti-impotence drugs. At this point one in five people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with a serious mental illness in their lifetime. Hordes of small children are given amphetamines. And let's not kid here - this is stuff that is one step away from crystal meth. Someone moving from a less developed area of a less developed country, say a rural Salvadoran immigrant to suburban D.C., increases their risk of mental illness, including schizophrenia, six times. Oh and in those same suburbs there were just two huge riots over a basketball game our team won. We are talking tear gas and broken legs and burning buildings kinds of riots. And 6 kids from a dead end suburb just burned down 30 houses for no reason. Something is clearly wrong here.For us to correct this problem, we would have to acknowledge it. But acknowledging it means acknowledging that there are proper and improper ways of relating to each other and to the world. That reality is a set of constraints that cannot be superceded. This is what theologians mean when they say that real freedom lies in accepting God's laws. When a tree hugger like me advocates organic gardening, it is because the food makes our bodies function better, the process creates human happiness and the alternative is both alienating and carcinogenic. That is to say that though our current lifestyle is convenient, it does not and cannot work because it denies nature. And by nature I don't mean bunny rabbits and such, I mean the laws of reality.Part of this dilemma is that if we are still animals, which we are, then obviously there are evolutionary limits to what we can do and differences between the male and the female of the species. Does this mean we need to explicitly draw the boundaries? No. We don't know where the lines are. But we need to be actively seeking them out because crossing them brings mental and physical disease.The problem with this approach and why our liberating liberal society has abolished it, is that it has been used in the past for pernicious and oppressive purposes. It's quite clear that the assumption that women couldn't seriously do math, which is certainly completely false, is the main reason there are less women in that discipline. But why are there fewer girls who, at age 10, have rediscovered differential equations and multivariable calculus even though they can barely speak to other people?More importantly, why is clinical depression such a major cause of lost productivity? Could it be that our minds don't want to produce something that has no meaning and no value? The upshot of this whole situation is that Larry Summers is a jerk and so his idea, however poorly phrased, is getting stuck down with his poor people skills. The uproar is not so much about him being sexist, though, as much as it is about him suggesting that perhaps the conventional wisdom by which we justify our sick society is actually an illusion. And that, for even the casual environmentalists out there, is serious cause for concern.
(02/24/05 12:00am)
Author: Andrea Glaessner Organized coyote hunts are cropping up all over Addison County with cash incentives for hauling in the "villainous predators." There have been three hunts scheduled in the past two months with over 600 enthusiastic gamesmen. But not everyone is strapping on their boots and cleaning out their guns. There is an intense scientific, political and moral debate brewing among hunters, environmentalists and politicians right here in Addison County. In this debate, everyone has an opinion fueled by a passion to protect what is right and true. For the hunters, organizing coyote hunts is the right thing to do in order to bolster the diminishing deer population. For the opposition, coyote hunts are an unethical, unsafe and inefficient practice for an end that is questionable in itself. Underneath it all, it is clear that this duel is not just about coyotes and deer, but rather a clash of two sides over man's relationship with nature. To examine the scientific aspect of the debate it must be asked if killing coyotes will truly be an effective means of boosting the deer population as the hunters ardently suggest. According to Mead Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Steve Trombulak, "From a scientific perspective the hunt is not really about deer." First, "the coyote has a reproductive biology such that when mortality is high there is increased reproduction," said Trombulak. Hence killing more coyotes triggers an instinctual response to reproduce more and at a faster rate. Second, there is no data to suggest that live deer are the coyote's main prey. Coyotes mainly eat deer carrion [road kill], as well as seeds, rodents and even woodpeckers. Running after a deer is too much work for the savvy descendent of the wolf. Coyotes are not actually native to Vermont. Trombulak explained, "Coyotes are in Vermont because humans extirpated the wolf - they emigrated through the Lake states in the 1950s because humans eliminated the top level carnivore - the wolf." Thus the coyote is actually an "exotic species." When exotic species are harmful to their habitat, they become "invasive exotics." According to Trombulak, "Invasive exotics cost millions in damage to the U.S. economy and are implicated in ecological problems as well. One might be able to argue that [the hunts] are okay because of an attempt to control an exotic. But this notion of exotic control isn't a motivation for the hunt as expressed by the hunters thus far." John Hall, who works for Vermont's Fish and Wildlife department, agreed with Trombulak's assertion that the coyote hunts will not help sustain the deer population. He explained, "When the hunters are holding these hunts what they don't realize is that in order to really remove coyote numbers you've got to remove 70 percent every year. There is no way in the world these [hunters] can do that. Coyotes are adept at avoiding people, even more than their relatives - the wolves of Canada. I'm sure [the hunts] make the hunters feel good. But in the long term they're not going to really make a difference at all. What we need to do is manage the deer population as precisely as we can. The diminishing deer population is far more dependent upon winter severity and habitat quality, not coyotes."As a result, "There is no data to support that coyotes reduce deer. If you completely eliminated the coyote there would be little effect on the deer population," said Hall. Hunters and animal lovers will never agree on issues regarding animal rights. But the issue in Addison County is about getting both sides to agree on a compromise. The Reverend Paul Bortz and his group of about 25 people known as "Vermonters for Safe Hunting and Wildlife Diversity" are fervently opposed to the hunts and have asked for a set coyote hunting season. Bortz claimed, "Since safety should be a concern for everyone, the public needs to know that these hunts, which employ the use of high-powered rifles, can be called at any time of the year with most of the general public being unaware of them - and that night hunting is permitted, unlike the regular November rifle deer season, when we are all prepared to wear orange. We question the safety of our children playing and skiing outside during these hunts, even the safety of our pet dogs." For Bortz, on the surface this conflict is about regulating hunting practices to secure the safety of the community. But on a personal level, Bortz is concerned with the ethicality of what he calls this "coyote slaughter." In response to Bortz's concern for safety, Hall commented , "There's never been a coyote hunting accident. It's rewarding to see that 35 years ago we were having as many as 30 accidents a year related to deer hunting. We're having fewer and fewer accidents as we go forward, in large part we believe due to a mandatory hunter education program. We're trying to teach [hunters] safety and ethics". Although the threat to safety is not a concern for the Fish and Wildlife Department in this case, the effect these hunts may have on hunting's reputation is. Hall commented, "We are urging people not to [organize these hunts]. The most important thing for [the hunters] should be about maintaining the image of the hunter, and these hunts are creating a poor image of hunting." Perhaps the hunters are mistaken in their scientific objective. If so, this issue becomes purely moral and political. Do they have the right to hunt coyotes without regulation? No matter if you're a hunter or a vegan, answering this question engages you in a debate that goes beyond Middlebury, Addison County, and even Vermont.
(02/24/05 12:00am)
Author: Lauren Smith Middlebury College's South Asia Club (SAC) filled the McCullough Social Space with the lively sounds of Bhangra Friday night as a dance and music troupe from Tufts University, performed to an animated audience. The performance, co-sponsored by SAC, the Office of Institutional Diversity and the College's Dance program, was free, but donations to the Tsunami Relief Fund were accepted at the door. A Bhangra workshop took place on Saturday in the Center for the Arts (CFA), allowing interested students to learn the traditional dance.Vani Sathisan '07, vice president of SAC, organized the concert along with Sumeet Srivastava '05 and Afifa Faisal '07, SAC president. According to Sathisan, the performers were brought to the College "to raise awareness of a different culture, to cherish the idea of being international and, above all, to celebrate diversity on campus." Sathisan added, "People have to learn more about other cultures and traditions if they want to lead creative and fulfilling lives and to function with efficacy in societies. This was an excellent opportunity for many people who are not from the South Asian region to learn about just one small aspect of the culture."Bhangra is a form of folk music and dance that originated in Punjab, a region of northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. Traditionally, the songs were made-up verses called boliyaans which covered a variety of topics, from love to drinking. People traditionally performed Bhangra when celebrating the harvest, though it is now performed throughout the world at occasions such as weddings, receptions or parties. Performances of the dance include the singing of Punjabi boliyaan lyrics while playing the dhol drum, the most important instrument in the dance; the tumbi, a one-stringed instrument; and the sarangi, a violin-like instrument.The 12 students who performed have earned a reputation as some of the top Bhangra dancers at a college or university in the United States. The group was founded five years ago and has since placed in the top five of two national Bhangra competitions. The performers were a mix of students directly from South Asia, students of South Asian descent and several Americans. The mix of nationalities within the group illustrated the "international" quality of the dance, something that was also illustrated by the fusion of modern club mixes and traditional Bhangra music throughout the performance.Bhangra, which is believed to have originated in the 1400s, has recently hit the mainstream dance world. It has become a popular style of music and dance for native and non-native performers. Universities and other organizations have begun in the last several years to sponsor annual Bhangra dance competitions in many cities across the United States, Canada and England.One notable aspect of the performance on Saturday was a collection at the door of donations that will go to the Tsunami Relief Fund. While the fundraising aspect was not originally planned, it was quickly added to the program after the tsunami occurred in South Asia. "The tsunami affected the South Asian region very badly," Sathisan said. "It devastated some countries' economies and wrecked peoples' lives. We had initially planned on organizing this concert to highlight an important dance of South Asia, though after the tsunami the South Asia Club decided to do our bit in helping the victims of the disaster. Thus, it became a charity event."
(02/10/05 12:00am)
Author: Erica Goodman Vermont is bursting with "alfalfa sprouts." You can see them in the produce section of Hannaford. But more likely, they will be calmly waiting in line behind you at the Co-op. A salad bar item out shopping? Not quite. Weary of life in the big city, sick of the skyscrapers and billboards, many an entrepreneur has resettled to the quiet life in rural Vermont. These "alfalfa sprouts" are part hippy flatlander, part eager business-person with an added dash of cultured outdoorsman. Ready to tackle the earth, these men and women add both character and complexity to Vermont rural life, and bring along some tasty treats.From a little scoop shop opened in Burlington in 1978 to chain stores throughout the United States and in 18 countries, Ben and Jerry's is perhaps the prime example of the successful sprout. The native Long Islanders took the rolling landscape as an opportunity to put their ideals into action and "inspire people with ice cream," promoting environmental and social initiatives with each mouth-watering pint. In a town just southeast of the capital - Montpelier -- another alfalfa seedling is, well, sprouting. One city folk who has immigrated to the Green Mountains is Tod Murphy, owner and operator of the Farmers Diner in Barre, Vermont. With a sleek brown ponytail leading down his back and sporting a pair of dusty jeans, Murphy spoke at an Environmental Studies department lecture last spring. When not digressing to stories about his animals - a characteristic of any farmer you meet - he outlined his thriving food business. His mission? Serve food made of almost entirely local products. Vegetables, dairy, meats, fruits, you name it. About 70 percent of the Diner's fare comes from small-time farmers from the Barre area. Additionally, Murphy is also working to create "scale-appropriate infrastructure" to process the food. The concept paddles against the current of our current global food systems. In Murphy's ideal, foods are processed locally; instead of shipping long distances to convert milk to cheese and then shipping it back home again, the fare is prepared within 50 miles of the farm from where it came. Pushing the middleman aside helps farmers earn decent money for their work while also decreasing the costs of pollution and environmental degradation by lessening shipping and travel needs. At a time when gasoline prices teeter on the brink of insanity, Murphy seems to have gotten it right. New York and Boston may have the competitive corporations and Starbuck's on every corner. However, Vermont has the peace and serenity to house the Ben and Jerry's and Tod Murphy's of America. It is a haven for the weary-eyed dreamers and spirited believers. No matter the season, the soil is always fertile and ready for the next "alfalfa sprout" to emerge, ready to change the world.
(01/27/05 12:00am)
Author: Chris Grosso Pictures of surreal, Aztec-like encampments. Close-ups of vibrantly colored and silicone-preserved flowers. Snap shots of Claude Monet's water-lily park. Pin-hole prints of whooshing dandelions, and intimate, portraits of private estate backyards. Even images of the little planters from jailhouse grounds. Though varied in subject and perspective, these photographs all communicate the notion of the garden. To commence its 2005 program, the Middlebury College Museum of Art has offered the opportunity to explore the real and fictitious world of cultivated landscapes. At once mystical and serene, eerie and frightening, the myriad photographs present ethereal and contemplative views of natural terrain. Entitled "Contemporary Photography and the Garden - Deceits and Fantasies," the exhibition features 67 photographs from sixteen American and European artists, diverging in design, scale, and color scheme. The headline is derived from a 13th-century poem, Roman De La Rose.The first photographs in the exhibition represent the creative endeavors of Gregory Crewdson and set the reflective tone of the show. The untitled works materialize the imagination of Crewdson with fabricated spaces of flowers, butterflies, and hair braids. Colorful and lively just like the creatures that occupy the setting, Crewdson stages a fantastic garden, reminiscent of an Alice-in-Wonderland setting.On the adjacent wall, Marc Quinn's "Italian landscape" series feature images of an aquarium-like atmosphere. In documenting a large scale installation of a 1997 garden comprised of flowers frozen in silicone and preserved in a refrigerated, enclosed environment, Quinn generates a sensational scene in which the color is intensely animated.At the exhibition's crowded opening, on Thursday, Jan. 20, Tom Padon, the Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs of the American Federation of Arts, explained an inspiration for his second curatorial project. To renovate his quaint Berkshire house, Padon looked to landscaping as the means of re-inventing the standing structure. His creation of a garden compelled him to consider the subject and idea in a new perspective. It is with this mindset that Padon conceived his investigation into the beauty and rich metaphorical association of gardens. Some highlights of the exhibition include Sally Apfelbaum's mural-sized prints of Claude Monet's garden in France, Linda Hackett's trippy color-pinhole photographs of Long Island gardens, panoramic shots of the Villa Medici gardens by Geoffrey James, and Len Jenshel's fine-point photographs of gardens in California and South Carolina. A captivating series in the exhibition is the photographs of Sally Mann's study in Las Pozas in Mexico. Commissioned by the AFA, Mann explored Englishman Edward James' surrealist garden in the jungle of San Luis Potosí. The luscious and tropical paradise is detailed with tribal monuments, wooded structures and swimming holes. The fading and blurring of the black and white images enable Mann to evoke a feeling of a dreamlike playground. Throughout history, gardens have inspired artists. In the recent centuries, artists, however, have diverged from capturing the natural and focused on creating commentaries on urbanization and the decline of untainted land. In the exhibition's catalogue, Professor Robert Harrison of Stanford University theorized, "We belong to a gardenless era. These who can afford them may keep up their own private gardens, but the garden as a place of insight, as an ideal of self-cultivation, as a sanctuary from the excesses of history, or as a promise of happiness, no longer thrives in our midst." The garden itself is a dichotomy or rather a contradiction. It is a containment of nature - an issue that many of the photographers on display attempt to address. The installation of Peter Fischili and David Weiss demonstrates an original treatment of the conception of gardens. Over the course of a year, the two artists photographed various gardens at different times of the year in Switzerland. Presented as superimposed slides, the overlap of photographs creates unexpected juxtapositions of scale, form, and color. Mesmirizing, the cinematic experience parallels the progression or cycle of nature. The exhibition "Contemporary Photography and the Garden - Deceits and Fantasies" will be available for viewing until Sunday, April 17. The exhibition is made possible by a grant form the A.R. Brooks trusts and Founders Circle of the America Federation of Arts. At the College, the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Fund has provided support.The Middlebury installation marks the inauguration of the exhibition, which travel to five other venues in the United States. Among these are the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York; The Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, South Carolina; and the Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington. The gorgeous images are emotionally charged and stimulating. Evoking ideas of nature, civilization, beauty, and passion, the two-dimensional explorations give vision into the realm of gardens. The refreshing photographs invite the viewer to take a step inside and get lost within the garden world, and for a few moments, escape from the sub-zero, Vermont climate.
(01/27/05 12:00am)
Author: [no author name found] Will Cameras Provide Security?It is refreshing to see a Student Government Association (SGA) pass a bill on issues like the rising number of theft on campus. The bill calls for the installation of security cameras outside of the dining halls in hopes that thefts of backpacks and jackets left by diners would decrease and the "normal" atmosphere of complete safety and security at Middlebury College would be restored. How much of an affect will cameras have? The bill calls first for the installation of one camera outside of Proctor. After a four-month trial period, if the effectiveness of the system passes muster, then more cameras can be installed with a maximum of three. But remember that past drastic security measures have not always been the most effective. The dorm access system has not prevented miscreants from entering rooms - since its installation there have been multiple-intrusion reports. The installation of video cameras in very public places will be a drastic change from the Middlebury norm. Yes, there are already cameras installed on campus - one a live-feed camera outside of the health center to let 24-hour staff see midnight visitors, and the other in WRMC - but for people to have that reminder that something's wrong will likely be the only tangible affect. Instead, the cameras probably are not the best solution. It might end up more a waste of money than a good idea. Starting February door checkers will reappear at dining hall entrances, providing a measure of monitoring. More importantly, cameras won't fix the issue at hand - students have little choice but to leave bags outside of the dining halls, providing easy access for would-be looters. The real solution is to allow students to have a safe place to put their bags, cubbyholes inside dining halls for example. The fact is, anyone outside of Middlebury would look at the lifestyle here and think everyone is inviting theft. Few students lock their doors, most feel comfortable enough to leave computers and other valuables in the library. The SGA is doing its job to come up with a solution, but realistically there is only so much a camera can do. Maybe it's time for students to see Middlebury as the real world and not just an escape from. Instead of looking for outside agents to protect all from the harsh realities, take steps yourself. First-Years, Come Sign On!At the same meeting, the SGA also passed a bill that - if supported by the Community Council and then by President Liebowitz - would allow first-year students to rush social houses during their second semester. Currently, only students matriculating in February are allowed to do that. Supporters of the bill have many arguments as to why this bill should be put into action. Can anyone explain why the SGA putting their weight behind this Inter-house council (IHC) driven initiative? First, supporters claim allowing first-years to rush would equal out differences between "Febs" and "Regs," allowing both to rush after they have spent the same amount of time at Middlebury. But at the same time it will cause an even greater divide between the two when Regs are too busy pledging to meet their new classmates. Additionally, it would disrupt the dorm community, introducing yet another social pressure at a time when first-years form friends.Second, supporters highlight how the main exposure first-years have to the social houses is the large, open parties that are thrown. "Freshmen are largely unaware that the houses do so much more than host parties." If this is the case, than why is it all non-members associate social houses with partying? Maybe if the houses themselves took their minds off that aspect, others would see there's more to life as a brother than the "Animal House" ideal. Third and most important, the bill supposedly cuts down on the amount of "dangerous dorm room and off-campus activities." Honestly, no one is naive enough to expect underage students won't drink once they've joined a social house. Supporters claim that pledge and rush are 100 percent dry, and while formal pledge events might be this way, it does not prevent copious amounts of alcohol from being served at informal events. As well, rush ends halfway through the semester - the "dry" period is over. In fact, the bill writers have the audacity to say that "under the status quo, first-years ... often 'pregame' before going out to these parties, due to their inability to get drinks at the houses." If by "inability" they mean easy access to the free-flowing keg, then their claims would be correct, however to present a bill with such blatant misrepresentations is an insult to anyone in a position to pass judgment. To be fair, this bill does have some benefits - to the social houses - for instance first-years would increase the size of their pledge classes thus helping the houses fill beds. But for every one reason supporters give for why this bill should take effect, two or three counter arguments can be made. Perhaps instead of trying to work the system to their advantage, social houses should spend more effort on making membership appeal to the student body at large so when students become eligible to rush during their sophomore year, they decide that they want to.
(01/13/05 12:00am)
Author: CLAIRE NIELSON AND LISIE MEHLMAN After a months-long hiatus, Middlebury's own beyond the bubble extraordinaires reemerged in the worn and slightly smelly Roo driving along Route 7. We had held, at one time, great hopes of snowshoeing and tellemarking and finding an outdoor adventure as stimulating and rewarding as "the tennis debacle" (see April 23, 2004 edition). Claire had only agreed to this on the condition that there would be no animal noises involved. However, we weren't feeling all too physical, and although tempted to revisit our little red-checked table at the restaurant formerly known as Baba's, instead, we just decided to hit up the Verizon store. Claire felt that a lack of cell phone was "salting her game," however, let's be honest, Claire has no game, and her phone doesn't really ring that often.Anyhow, to Verizon we went. Upon entering the somewhat barren and remarkably large Verizon Wireless (said in the deep and raspy voice of James Earl Jones which Lisie constantly attempts to imitate unsuccessfully), we were greeted by an over-eager salesperson who, although we were, in fact, the only ones in the store, insisted we put our names on a list for help. While getting rung up, Claire and Lisie brainstormed ideas for their wedding speeches. The guy behind the counter got a little too excited and felt the need to contribute. Apparently he makes quite a wedding cake. Claire felt judged when she shared with Jim her life long plan of having cheesecake. Apparently cheesecake doesn't stack well. The dejection was made worse when, after Claire dropped the pen, he asked if she was "violent much?" It's not an understatement to say we ran for the door. No, seriously, we ran.The only cure for Claire's wounded ego was a grande nonfat pumpkin spice latte, no foam, extra whip. Starbucks it was. Although getting out of the Roo proved somewhat difficult for Lisie. Apparently walking on ice isn't Lisie's forte. Her spill on the cold, cold cement not only cheered Claire's spirits but also reminded us of an adventure we can't believe we forgot to chronicle for our beloved audience (We think that the less than stellar articles at the beginning of the year may have led to a permanent decrease in readership. Thanks for your loyalty, though, Markandbar.) Of what are we speaking you might ask? Just a little incident that will go down in history as the day Lisie almost died.Lisie is what we like to call, politely, a novice skier. However, she decided to try her hand at the "big kids" chair lift and then a run down Proctor. With a name like that, she couldn't imagine it being anything but safe, warm, and non-judgemental. She was even hoping for some curtains. However, Proctor was closed, and somehow she ended up on Ross. It was cold, it was sterile, she almost died. In summary, Claire, who, thanks to Chris and Pris' direction and guidance on the slopes of Idaho, is an expert skier, aided Lisie in surviving her 45 minute trip down the mountain. The highlights of which included Lisie learning to falling leaf. Lisie claiming that she was going to take her skis off and walk. Claire telling Lisie to shut the hell up and turn. An impolite boy yelling "yardsale" when Lisie took one of the finer of her 14 spills. Claire responding with words that did not necessarily demonstrate her Charlotte from Sex and the City wannabe persona. NOONE would have judged Lisie with such vehemence on Proctor. Please. Lisie was overcome with relief upon making it down the mountain, and hearing that she had actually survived a black diamond trail did make her laugh, although not enough to convince her that staying off the slopes for a while was a good idea. She is hoping for an OC episode featuring a ski trip so that she can live vicariously through the gang, and also because we really want to see if Marissa can manage to make it down the hills drunk.
(11/20/03 12:00am)
Author: Chris Grosso My co-editor Abbie Beane and I love the global artistic community. Our mission has been to infuse your imaginations with some artistic vision. Her original column - Is It Art? - has become a staple of The Middlebury Campus. Each week she presents an alternative and minority art form in hopes of inspiring you, our reader, to create. To fill-in for her this week and satiate your creative juices, I have decided to showcase a new artist and do some P.R. for him in the college arena. He is a member of the new, contemporary breed of artists that are rapidly becoming an elite group and are now doing some kick-ass work worldwide. Our first studio visit is with the 32-year-old Jeremy Blake, who works primarily with digital media. Blake creates dreamlike, looping video artworks, often characterized as "time-based paintings," that combine elements of abstract painting, animation, photography and cinema. Bill Davenport raves that his work does what abstract paintings always wanted to, but better! Relieved of the weight of history and the clichÈd idealism of high art, his videos are the realization of Kandinsky's dreams - tales told in an abstract language of shapes and colors, free to express surreal mysticism, without the mundane literalness of representation. Blake's DVDs for plasma screens, C-prints (original abstract images of fictional settings), paintings and drawings present visual narratives that combine the representational and the abstract. His vocabulary of liquid blobs and blurs, pebbly surfaces and sampled photographs morph to generate an endless techno fantasyland.Since completing his M.F.A. at the California Institute of the Arts in 1995, Blake has infused the art scene with his techno-industrialized work. Blake's works typically play with vibrant colors and organic and geometric forms. He instills a sense of neo-modernist design and film-like attitude combining the representational and the abstract.Blake's most recent DVD, "Reading Ossie Clark," now being exhibited at the Feigen Contemporary Galley in N.Y., collages original film, drawing and still photography with painted and digital elements in a nine minute continuous loop. As a tribute to Swinging London's premier fashion designer Ossie Clark, the DVD presents his career from its prime in the late 60s, when he outfitted and entertained celebrities and socialites around the world, to its sad conclusion in 1996. Blake created animated forms inspired by Clark's colorful, stream-of-consciousness designs and his personal diary entries. With this piece, Blake pays respect to Clark's extraordinary fashion sense,and in the process, paints a dramatic, psychological portrait.Blake is represented in the collections of several museums worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2002 he was commissioned to create work for director Paul Thomas Anderson's films "Magnolia," and "Boogie Nights" and "Punch-Drunk Love."If you ever get the opportunity to turn on a Jeremy Blake "painting," be prepared for a unique transcendental experience that shifts you back and forth between the abstract and a stylized realism. His ambient, slowly moving abstractions will invoke a passive trancelike sensation and stir a pleasant, mild suspense that'll leave you wondering what's coming next.
(11/13/03 12:00am)
Author: Abbie Beane Sure mom always told you not to play with your food, but most of you are in college now and that means it's time to move beyond all of those pre-packaged ideas - so to speak. The beef this week? Ground chuck meats art, and yes, that spelling error was intentional. Just when you thought it was bad enough that all of those "evil carnivores" were killing animals for their edible potential (an unnatural and newly developing phenomenon), now they're killing for "art" - or what they call art anyway. Surrealist sculptures, created with the help of thinly sliced beef, could be labeled as nothing less than "meat sculpture" and comprise what some artists declare a "proteinaceous genre" - an art form that lends a hand to talking about issues of sexuality and carnality in the unconscious mind. Often in vernacular or colloquial, "uncouth" language, people talk about others as "pieces of meat" to express a sexual concept, despite the negative connotations of this metaphor. Yet the analogy linking meat to carnality, meat artists claim, is undeniably significant. It was Georges Bataille who elucidated the underlying connection between eroticism and mortality or, in layman's terms, between sex and death, in "The Tears of Eros," published in 1989. Images of meat art take the connection between carnage and carnality to poetic heights, suggesting the link between flesh for gastronomic consumption and flesh intended for sexual consumption, awakening domains of reality normally pent up in the cages of political correctness. The sculptures stand as a "poetic rebellion" against an age of sexual repression - a chance for the unconscious mind to work in tandem with the conscious mind.And artists who mold beefy sculptures for meat art galleries are not the only ones thinking about the aesthetic value of animal flesh. John Wolfer, an assistant professor of art at the University of Cincinnati-Raymond Walters College, hosted a show at the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington from Feb. 28 to April 4 of this year titled, "Lean and Tasty." This was the first time that meat art earned a top billing at Carnegie. The artist made a name for himself by painting explicit portraits of thick steaks, pink ham and heaping pans of tender, ground beef. "Tons of people came in really curious," said Bill Seitz, Carnegie gallery director told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "And many who came weren't typical gallery patrons. They'd walk in and ask: Where are the meat paintings?" There were, however, minor confrontations with animal rights activists at the gallery. The question is, how did Wolfer cook this idea up? Well, he was first exposed to raw meat while working with his father, Don, at his Delhi butcher shop where he discovered his talent for painting his father at work, as well as chops, steak and sausages, which he also photographed quite frequently. His first still-life was a well-marbled porterhouse steak.His greatest influences include Rembrandt, Chaim, Soutine and Wayne Thiebaud who gained recognition for painting pies, cakes and other food in the 1960s. His next paintings will be based on Peter Bruegel, who did "quirky" paintings of peasants wandering around landscapes carrying birds as they returned from the hunt. Wolfer wants to depict the same situation, except he'll be carrying meat. "In my paintings, I'll be the one wandering around the landscapes," Wolfer told The Cincinnati Enquirer, "and I'll be carrying big cuts of meat, like a side of beef." Don't decide now - just chew on the idea for awhile, and if you find it too much to swallow, don't pick a bone with me. Its not my "art," which doesn't mean I wouldn't eat it, of course.
(11/13/03 12:00am)
Author: Charlie Goulding Who would have thought dividing four by two would be such a challenge? Last weekend, Middlebury College sent a team of competitors to a worldwide computing competition held by the Association of Computing Machinery at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team qualified for the regional competition after performing impressively at a preliminary tournament two weeks earlier. Though the team failed to qualify for the world competition - held this year in Prague - the competitors gave a strong showing and left feeling proud of their collective accomplishment.The competition consisted of six to eight problems of varying difficulty to be completed correctly within a five-hour time frame. The school completing the most problems within those five hours won the tournament. In the event that multiple teams finished the same number of problems, a winner was identified based on the time required to complete each question.Graeme Connell '05, one of Middlebury's three competitors, said, "The problem solving we had to do focused on the coding aspect more so than the theory."For each problem, the team had to submit both a general explanation of the idea of the problem and also provide lines of text that could serve as the code by which the problem could be solved.The type of problem presented in the competition may have been something as "simple" as writing a code that takes two numbers, divides them and then spits out the result. Of course, any human could divide four by two quickly. The challenge for the computer scientist is to find a way to abstract the general essence of a problem from a particular example. As problems become more complex, abstractions keep things simple. In only a few lines of code, an elegant program can extend the computational power of a programmer well beyond his own means.Without abstraction, a programmer would need to identify all "unique" or "hard" cases and address them individually. Depending on the size of the program, this could be a laborious, time-consuming task. With abstraction, however, even the extreme nuances of a problem are subsumed within the purview of the code, thus simplifying the task at hand and drastically reducing the burden on the programmer.In the example above, dividing four by two is easy to program, but what about four by zero? This is where the real thinking and competition begins.The challenges in the competition speak to the often misunderstood nature of computer science. "The big misunderstanding about computer science is that it has anything to do with computers," said Connell. "If you were to look it up in the dictionary, it would say something like, 'the study of algorithms for purposes of problem solving.' We look at how problems work - computers help us to solve them faster."The parameters that define and constrain computer science dramatically differ from those encasing other disciplines. Math defines certain abstract ideas, like what it means to be a circle, and develops theories and equations to flesh out the idea - to animate it. Art forms, like literature and paintings, take "truth" as their yardstick, presenting representations of the world to us as they are "in reality" or as they "ought" to be. On the other hand, while computer science employs abstraction, it is not itself guided and shaped by abstract goals. It aims to solve problems quickly, to find simple solutions that save both human time and machine memory. This is not to undercut the intellectual achievement of the discipline. Indeed, the revolutions in computation and data storage catalyzed by computer science have had monumental effects around the globe in the past half-century. Moreover, the discipline is far from finished. As Connell pointed out, "Computer science is still a relatively new subject and there's still a lot of growth left in it."Yunpeng Li '05 was proud of his team's performance. "I was quite glad we made it [past the preliminaries], and into the regionals. We finished in the middle of the pack, with five schools finishing ahead of us and four or five finishing behind us, but we finished at the top of the small colleges." MIT, the host of the competition, won the tournament. As computer science continues to grow, the success of Li, Connell and Carrick Detweiler '04 reflects impressive personal accomplishments as well as Middlebury's collective dedication to this burgeoning discipline.
(11/13/03 12:00am)
Author: Matthew Clark "Finding Nemo" is one of those animated movies you don't have to be a kid to enjoy. Watch it with your little brother, your college buddies or your folks, and I guarantee a good time. It's an animated epic. Through pink jelly tentacles, riding on a turtle's back on the EAC (East Atlantic Current) and even trapped in the belly of a whale, though aided by a little, blue amnesic fish named Dory, Marlin searches the vast blue for his only remaining child, Nemo. For me, "Finding Nemo" has the same effect as "Singing in the Rain" - I can't help feeling great after I'm through watching it. I was only a little bit disappointed with "Nemo" when I felt like Pixar was trying to give a lesson in parenting. Marlin is the overly involved father who is so concerned for his child's welfare that he won't let the kid try anything on his own. "Nemo's not a good swimmer, he's got a bad fin." "You can't do it Nemo!" says his father, followed by a curt "Nemo, come back here!" At one point in his search he laments to Dory that he promised Nemo he'd never let anything happen to him. Dory wisely replies, "But you have to, or else nothing would ever happen." And of course in the end, Marlin does trust Nemo and has become a model clown fish father."Nemo" does have enough humor and animated spectacles, however, to keep me interested and entertained through these slower "moral moments." Dory and Bruce meet three "nice" sharks and sit in on their "fish are friends" AA-type meeting where they introduce themselves and confess the last time they ate fish. Seagulls are brilliantly portrayed squawking in Australian accents, "Mine. Mine. Mine." And two "lobstahs" from Boston chime into the film with, "It's wicked daahk down here." The inhabitants of the dentist's fish tank, where Nemo is taken, observe the operations like Jerry and Kramer without the junior mints (a reference to an episode of "Seinfeld" where Kramer drops a junior mint into a patient being operated on in the emergency room), muscling for a better view. The list of sound bites could go on and on.I remember reading a high-brow review of "Nemo" this summer when it first came to theaters. The reviewer slammed the movie, talking about how no matter how good the animation or the jokes, the characters were just fish. The fish didn't bother me at all. It was a bit fishy, but Pixar, the animation studio where the movie was produced, makes the faces of sharks, turtles and pelicans come alive. No matter what form the characters take, they are still characters carrying human emotions and feelings. Do you have to look human to be internally complex, to be interesting? I was attached to everyone, even Dory, who provokes a similar feeling of annoyance, though not quite as intense as the annoyance felt by watching Jar-jar Binks, the character in the latest versions of Star Wars with the webbed feet and floppy ears, who is also terribley uncoordinated, flopping, stuttering and cracking bad jokes throughout the whole movie.Just relax, get over the fishiness, pop some Kettle Corn and have fun watching the movie. "Nemo" is not a film of deep philosophical insights, it is a movie to simply enjoy. And I figure that's why we watch movies anyway - for enjoyment. Sometimes profundity is important, yet sometimes it's unnecessary. I didn't need it from "Nemo." Like art, not all critics agree on quality, but what's important is the feeling that the piece provokes.
