The Week in Brief

Chair of Af-Am Studies resigns in protest

She explained in the letter how the comments confirmed what she had heard while traveling around the country—that Levin has been trying to bring Gates to Yale to aid an African-American Studies program that he feels is not as good as Harvard's.

"If you are `jealous' of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard, why do you not support us with resources that are commensurate with our collective achievements and equal to theirs?" she wrote, claiming that Levin has ignored the recent successes of her department.

—Kushal Dave

No new answers, leads in Jovin case

Van de Velde, still an official suspect in the case, is no longer employed by the University. As Thomas Conroy, deputy director of public affairs, explained, "Van de Velde was hired to teach for the 1998-99 academic year, not beyond, and his employment at Yale ended when that year ended."The New Haven Register reported that Jovin's parents, who earlier this month called on Van de Velde to take a polygraph, are complaining that their daughter's murder was left out of an annual campus security report. Yale maintains it was not required to report the crime since it was not on campus.

As the Jovin case drags on, New Haven Police Chief Melvin Wearing has encouraged Van de Velde to take a lie detector test. Van de Velde's lawyer, David T. Grudberg, TC '82, recently requested that State Attorney Michael Dearington pass the investigation to Chief State Attorney John M. Bailey, in hopes that the case will be assigned to the cold-case squad, which mainly focuses on old and unsolved murder cases. Grudberg's request was rejected.

—Orianne Dutka

Mystery solved: Class Day speaker set

Woodward is best known for exposing the infamous Watergate scandal that sank the Nixon presidency in 1974 with Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein. He has also written several books, including All the President's Men and The Agenda. His most recent work, last summer's Shadow, examined the legacy of Watergate on the five presidential administrations that have followed. Woodward is currently an assistant managing editor at the Post.

The announcement came as a surprise to seniors since class officials stated publicly last week that the committee would not reveal the speaker until reading period. But according to Class Day Co-Chair Matt Obernauer, DC '00, the committee "had never set a firm annoucement date."

Seniors seemed pleased by Woodward's selection. "It was definitely a surprise, but a good surprise," Adam Gordon, BR '00, said."He has a unique role in history."

—David Altschuler

STARC-bucks invasion irks Starbucks

The Starbucks protest resulted in some hostile reactions from the employees. "I think it's unfortunate that [one of the employees] was so antagonistic because the protesters were not being antagonistic," Tyler Hudson, BK '01, said. Terra Lawson-Remer, MC '00, an organizer of Fair Trade Week at Yale, described the protest as "an action to ask Starbucks to stop adding to the exploitation of coffee pickers in Latin America."

—Abbi Phillips

Class Day: cloudy with a chance of...ponchos

The Commencement Office, however, ran into difficulties when the company from which they ordered unexpectedly burned to the ground last fall. Lauralee Field, the Commencement Coordinator, said, "[The accident] really put us in a difficult situation." She explained that she wanted to order from an American poncho company, but instead had to order from a foreign contractee. Fortunately, on Wed., Feb. 9, Field confirmed that she will get a full shipment of ponchos. Despite the difficulty of ordering the ponchos, Field "hopes not to have to use a single one of them."

—Orianne Dutka

DAVID GEST/YH When I said I wanted to score at Winter Ball, this was not what I meant.

Words

"In the case of Spence and Short, their conclusions seem uneasily close to the Chinese Communist Party's own verdict, delivered in 1981, in which Mao was deemed to have committed `gross mistakes' but to have had merits that outweighed his errors."

—Reporter John Burns, in The New York Times Book Review, on history Professor Jonathan Spence's, SY '61, GRD '65, new book, Mao.

Around The Globe

Bookbonking
An advertisement for British online bookseller BOL, which pictures a naked woman straddling a naked man, has provoked complaints. But the couple in the ad is not fornicating—they are too busy reading books. A survey by BOL's advertising agency found that people "thought the ad was witty, light-hearted and a tongue-in-cheek reference to readers' love of books." However, agency representatives were hard-pressed to explain the tongue-in-cheek part—the oral sex ad is not running until next month.

Beachboys
Environmentalists are complaining that the makers of the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Beach, destroyed a beach in Maya Bay, Thailand, where they filmed the movie. Their modifications of the pristine beach, including planting non-indigenous trees and bulldozing the sand, led to erosion and other tragic consequences. "I always knew Leonardo was a son of a beach," one official said.

Brokenboyballs
A student who got in a disagreement on a New Haven bus and pulled out a gun ended up shooting himself in the crotch. He is now in stable condition. He reportedly said, "Ow."

—Compiled by Kushal Dave from the Associated Press, Reuters, and The New Haven Register

CR/D/F

YALE INDEX
1. Radius of a YUDH chicken patty, in centimeters	8
2. Height of a YUDH chicken patty, in centimeters	0.8
3. Volume of a YUDH chicken patty, in cubic centimeters	62.8
4. Number of years since Yalies invented the frisbee	129
5. Approximate weight of Yale Ultimate Frisbee Team Frisbee, in grams	135
6. Volume of a beer, in cubic centimeters	355
7. Approximate volume of a Frisbee, in beers	4.5
8. Volume of a beer, in YUDH chicken patties	5.65
9. Number of possible simultaneous basketball games in Lanman Center	8
10. Number of possible simultaneous winter balls in Lanman Center	1
11. Longest Frisbee throw, in centimeters	17890
12. Longest YUDH Chicken Patty Throw, in centimeters	3764

—Compiled by Cornelius Kaestner and Daniel Serviansky

Sources: 1, 2) Measurements in Commons, by Daniel Serviansky; 3) Water displacement; 4) Frisbie Pie Company (RIP), Bridgeport, Conn.; 5, 7) Cady Scott, BK '00; 6) Our fridge; 8) Math; 9, 10) Personal observation; 11) The Internet; 12); Cornelius Kaestner's fourth trial, International Chicken Patty Competition, Thurs., Feb. 10, 2:45 a.m.

Back to News...