Week in Brief

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE: New York-based writer and renowned samba expert Alma Guillermoprieto gave a dramatic account of her time in Brazil learning the dance.

Ivy League Notebook

Princeton music historian Peter Jeffery has been given a rude reminder that today's music differs from his phonograph favorites. He is suing the Smashing Pumpkins for the partial hearing loss he suffered at their concert at the New Haven Coliseum. Despite Jeffery's expertise in the field, he had never before attended a rock concert. Surprisingly, he found out that Billy Corgan is no Tommy Dorsey.

Also cited in the lawsuit is a complaint of temporary blindness suffered from the glare off Corgan's head. The singer could not be reached for comment, but a New Haven Police spokesman vowed to crack down on "these noisy frat parties."

Cornell

As part of an ongoing campaign to emulate junior high schools across the country, the Cornell University administration is holding forums on whether dissection should continue to be mandatory in biology labs. Future steps to be taken include introducing detentions, lunch periods, awkward sex ed classes, and vice principals.

The current debate has centered on whether it's fair for Cornell's students to have to smell like formaldehyde when it's hard enough for them to get dates anyway. The current program, however, has fueled fears that braces and acne will run rampant throughout the student body, and those students fortunate enough to go to dances will have to maintain a 73-foot space between partners.

Brown

In attempting to avenge its recent ECAC hockey playoff loss to Clarkson, Brown University is going farther than simply whining about the officiating; the school is training its band to ice skate. Ostensibly trying simply to help "be loud about Brown," the skating instrumentalists may lead their school to next year's title.

Regular players are reportedly concerned for their positions but too dazed and confused to consider transferring. A few, however, have responded by taking sousaphone lessons.

--Compiled by Dave Oppenheim from CNN, The Cornell Daily Sun, and The Brown Daily Herald.

New Haven gets federal AIDS research grant

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH TO THE RESCUE: New funds will help groups like the Yale AIDS Program help HIV and AIDS patients.

Big Brother is looking out for the Elm City. On Mon., Mar. 15, the federal goverment's Ryan White Title I program awarded New Haven $6 million to fight AIDS across southwestern Connecticut.

The grant is the largest sum the region has ever received. The New Haven Health Department plans to divide it among 27 agencies in New Haven County and Fairfield County. An estimated 6,000 people in this region are currently infected with either HIV or AIDS.

According to Thomas Butcher, the director of the Ryan White funds at the New Haven Health Department, the money will allow the city to buy life-prolonging but expensive medications, such as the protease inhibitors known as "cocktails." These drugs cost $15,000 to $18,000 a year.

The grant will be used for other purposes as well. "The funds will do more than pay for medications--they will create an entire system of AIDS care throughout two counties, providing services such as case management, transportation, and alternative therapies," Butcher said.

Allan Brown, a director at the APT Foundation, which specializes in helping mothers and children with AIDS, is enthusiastic about the grant. "AIDS is clearly one of the major contemporary health issues that needs to be addressed, and we certainly feel that [the government] needs to support the community," Brown said.

--Sue Tuddenham

Former Costa Rican prez dicusses globalism

"As beneficiaries of this fine university, you must embrace the responsibility of privilege," Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990, told students gathered in Luce Hall on Wed., Mar. 23. "The real question that students should be asking themselves is, will your action and your example bolster the efforts of those fighting for justice and security?"

This challenge was issued at the conclusion of a fiery speech delivered by the 1987 Nobel laureate as part of the Chubb Fellowship lecture series. Sanchez's lecture focused primarily on the increase in globalization and militarism. His impassioned speech included numerous attacks on American foreign policy.

"The U.S. has often only protected narrow national self-interest," Sanchez said. "It is a moral crime for industrialized countries to give arms to sub-Saharan Africa." Sanchez went on to criticize President Bill Clinton's, LAW '73, plan to dramatically increase defense spending, saying that it sent the wrong message to other countries.

Sanchez also spoke about his latest project, the "International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers," which would prevent democracies from selling arms to non-democratic countries.

--Nancy Levy

Rowland PILOT proposal upsets city officials

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, Jr., is not happy about Connecticut Governor John Rowland's new state budget proposal. On Fri., Mar. 19, he lashed out against the part of the proposal that reduces the rate the state gives the city for payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) for its tax-exempt property. According to DeStefano, Rowland's PILOT proposal would represent a $9 million drop in PILOT revenue for city coffers.

Last year's budget surplus enabled the state to boost PILOT payments to 77 percent for college and hospital taxes and 45 percent for state-owned property; Rowland's budget proposal for the year 2000 reduces these rates to 60 and 20 percent, respectively. According to city officials, a higher PILOT rate means lower property taxes for homeowners and businesses.

"As PILOT has increased, the city has used the funding almost exclusively to cut property taxes," DeStefano spokesperson Michael Kuczkowski said. "We have cut taxes 12 percent over the last two years."

--Kate Feather

Surgeon General speaks about health challeges

On Wed., Mar. 24, United States Surgeon General David Satcher discussed the past, present, and future of health care at the Yale School of Medicine.

Satcher opened by expressing his admiration for past Surgeons General and considering his role. "I want to be remembered as a Surgeon General who not only spoke to the American public, but listened to the American public," he said. He went on to list the major health problems plaguing America: infant mortality, HIV and AIDS, childhood immunizations, and cardiac diseases.

He proposed two health goals for the future: to improve life quality and span, and to eliminate disparities among races in these categories. He ended by stressing that to address these concerns, public health needs to be a global concern.

--Kris Siriratsivawong

Yale joins new factory monitoring association After protests, sit-ins, and a Yale "knit-in," 17 universities including Yale formed the Fair Labor Assocation (FLA) on Tues., Mar. 16, to establish a code of conduct for university-licensed apparel. All eight Ivy League schools have joined the FLA.

"It is very unlikely that universities would have taken any stand on sweatshops without student protests," Students Against Sweatshops (SAS) Coordinator Jess Champagne, BK '01, said.

But SAS does not consider this a victory. "There are numerous flaws in the FLA, and because of these flaws the FLA could serve as a cover-up rather than a way to reduce labor abuses," Champagne said. SAS is still urging Yale to commit to full public disclosure of factory locations, monitoring by non-profit organizations, and student participation.

--Liz Oliner

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