The Week in Brief

The "excessive" $700 driver's fee that they had to pay each month to Metro, and their belief that they could provide more reliable service to customers, were the two reasons Kolinsky and Misuralo started their business. EZ One is currently working with the Board of Aldermen to get more cab licenses, and Kolinsky is enthusiastic about the "good acceptance" they have received from satisfied customers so far.

Kolinsky feels there is always room for reliable service, despite the fact that his business will compete against Metro's near monopoly of the area taxi traffic—Metro has 110 licensed drivers, while all its competitors combined have fewer than 30, he said.

What sets EZ One apart, Kolinsky maintained, is its policy of always giving a pick-up time to customers, and then contacting them if the driver is running late. With this customer-friendly approach, Kolinsky hopes to carve out a niche for the new service. "Everybody has a horror story with Metro, and we're trying to avoid that," he said.

—Nishant Kumar

Yalies attend Nader protest rally

Music Professor John Halle led the Yale delegation to Nader's fourth "super rally" where the candidate discussed progressive issues including universal health care and environmental protection. He also criticized the pernicious influence of corporate greed and multinational corporations and ridiculed Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush, DC '68, deriding their "unethical attempts" to bar him from the scheduled Presidential debates.

"It is incredibly undemocratic that Mr. Nader is not being included in the debates," Tom Adkins, Assistant Press Secretary for the Nader campaign, told the Herald.

The bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates did not invite Nader and Patrick Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate, because neither had the support of an average of at least 15 percent of those polled in five national surveys.

Adkins claims that 64 percent of those surveyed in a recent Fox News poll said that both Nader and Buchanan should be included in the debates. "What these rallies do is reflect how biased this Commission [on Presidential Debates] is," Adkins said. He also pointed out that Nader attracted 12,000 supporters to the rally despite the $10 entrance fee. "I'd love to see Bush or Gore get that many people to pay to see them speak."

—Matthew Ferarro

Davenport master is third to resign

Thomas decided to leave this year because it marks the end of his second term as Davenport master. "We have five-year terms, and two five-year terms seemed to be a good number," he said. "We've enjoyed it immensely."

Though he plans to travel, write, and spend time with family and friends, Thomas may remain an active member of the Yale community. "[The administrators] have asked me to continue seminars, and I'm considering doing that," he said.

Thomas' resignation comes in the wake of Berkeley Master Harry Stout, Berkeley Dean Laurence Winnie, and Morse Master Stanton Wheeler's departure announcements. Thomas attributes the multiple resignations to the five-year length of each term. "I think it is just the way the time cycles are running," he said.

Assistant to the President Nina Glickson said in an e-mail that it is "normal" for a college master to resign after two terms. She added that President Richard Levin, GRD '74, will appoint a committee of students and Fellows in Davenport to look for possible replacements and discuss the needs of the college.

—Amsalu Dabela

SLAC helps Hospital Unionization

"This semester's students will be asking the University to remain neutral on the issue of unionization at the hospital," Arthur Liou, SM '01, a member of SLAC, said. The University should be urged to follow a policy of non-intervention, he said. "The issue is between the hospital and its employees."

Calls for a union began two years ago when Yale-New Haven hospital restructured its lower-level staff, resulting in the replacement of a number of lower-level nurse positions with workers allegedly poorly qualified for the work. These employees are now demanding appropriate training to accompany the restructuring moves.

Members of Local 1199 appreciate the help of Yale activists. "It's great that the students are working together with the workers to make sure that the workers have a say in their working conditions," according to Anthony Dugdale, GRD '99, a representative from Federation of Hospital and University Employees.

—Sahm Adrangi

MICHAEL ETTANNANI/YH While the effectiveness of Yale students' protest on Wed. Oct. 4 against police efforts to get Annette off the streets can be questioned, charges against Annette were eventually dropped.

HEARD

"Who is grading our midterms?" "God." —Federico Varese The State and Organized Crime "In the `General Prologue,' it says the Pardoner has a beard like a goat. And of course a goat's a pretty sexy animal in the Middle Ages." —Jessica Brantley, Major English Poets "Does anyone here read Freud? You're clearly too repressed to raise your hands." —Howard Bloch, Human Nature and the Natural World in the Middle Ages

Around the Globe

Musical lawnmowers

People with loud, party-going neighbors can now fight back. A New Zealand man has created a CD with over an hour of lawnmower noise, which features sounds like pebbles bouncing off blades and a loud motor that never stops churning. Over 4,000 of the 5,000 available CDs on the market have already been sold. It turns out most of them came right to New Haven—mostly to Yale students with problematic roommates and to people living near the SAE house on High Street.

Tweety bird gets dangerous

A sixth grader in Atlanta was given a two-week suspension for bringing her Tweety Bird wallet to school. High-ranking officials at the school noted that Smith's wallet was attached to a ten-inch-long key chain, which, under county policy, falls into the same category as B.B. guns, swords, and similar sharp objects. "A chain like the one in question can become a very dangerous weapon," a school official said. With a similar policy looming for Yale, students will be asked not to bring their "tweety birds" to class—on a chain or off.

A new contraceptive

Movies are more popular than sex in Germany, according to a recent survey. The magazine Fokus conducted a poll in which 621 people with cellular phones were questioned. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed switched off their "handys," the name Germans use for cellular phones, in movie theater while only 48 percent did so during sex. Even more leave their phones on during masturbation—after all, two "handies" are better than one.

—Complied by Vanessa Janowski and Kushal Dave from Yahoo! News

YALE INDEX
1. Number of students in the Class of 2004:	1,352
2. Percent of freshmen from New York:	16.9
3. Number of streets a freshman crosses between Old Campus and Yorkside:	2
4. Number of streets a freshman crosses between Old Campus and Naples:	2
5. Number of freshmen who prefer Naples:	1,352
6. Number of freshmen from Naples, Italy:	0
7. Number of freshmen skipping to class across Old Campus Friday morning:	0
8. Number of freshmen who prefer playing Frisbee on Old Campus to skipping rope Friday afternoon:	1,352
9. Number of Frisbees distributed to freshmen by Yale:	1,352
10. Length of halftime of Ultimate Frisbee, in minutes:	10
11. Length of sleep per night required by most teenagers, in hours:	14
12. Number of Yale freshmen who meet this requirement:	0
13. Percent of Yale Frisbees that prefer sleep to getting played with:	66.6
14. Percent of Yale freshmen who prefer sleep to getting play:	0

1,2) Yale Bulletin; 3,4,5) empirical evidence; 6) freshman facebook; 7,8,9,12) common sense; 10) UPA Rules of Ultimate; 11) webmd.com; 13) independent Frisbee poll; 14) educated guess

—Compiled by Diana Aleman

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