The Week in Brief

New group advocates abortion rights

R.A.L.Y is an official affiliate of Planned Parenthood and already counts an active membership of 20 in addition to an e-mail list of over 100 students. Besides supporting abortion, the group has been working to register and educate voters over the course of the semester. It has registered over 150 voters. Future priorities include educating students about abortion and birth control, especially Yale's policies regarding access and availability.

The organization is also working to interact with the Pro-Life League on campus. A debate between the two groups is scheduled for next week and a series of speakers co-sponsored by both groups will allow the two sides to present their opinions. Jeffrey Dorough, TC '01, who heads Yale's Pro-Life League, said his group was eager to participate. The league had felt the need to form because it represented a minority opinion on campus. "It certainly makes it easier for us to open up a dialogue if their group is better organized, " he said. Barber expressed high hopes for her own league. "We hope to create an active and vibrant organization that will maintain a powerful effect on campus," she said.

—Rachel Sussman

Crime stats go online for first time

The record, which includes homicide, manslaughter, sexual offenses, robbery, assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, and arson, is meant to create better awareness of campus environments for students and parents. "When you get online in two minutes and do a comparison of a handful of schools, you'll have more students who are informed," Mark Goodman, the executive director of the Student Press Law Center, an organization representing student newspapers, said.

But some questions remain about the new online statistics. Yale Police Chief James Perrotti said that while the website is helpful, it does not provide the full picture. The Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs) Yale has provided the FBI since the 1980s, he said, offers relevant information left off of the site. "The most frequent crimes affecting college campuses are larcenies, yet you won't see this on the website, while UCRs require this information," Perrotti said. The UCRs, however, only apply to Yale property—for off-campus issues, the information must be found in New Haven's UCR. The new website, in comparison, combines numbers for both on-campus and relevant off-campus areas.

Still, Perrotti feels that it will take a few years for the website to establish "a clear understanding" of what the numbers mean. The website, for example, currenly gives numbers for 1998 only over a three-month period, while the 1999 numbers are for a full year. The information therefore gives the impression of an increase in crime from 1998 to 1999, which is misleading.

So how does Yale stack up? According to Chief Perrotti, "It is just as safe as any other college." For specific numbers to support his claim, students can take a look themselves at www.ope.ed.gov/security.

—Ron Vaccaro

Beinecke acquires papers of beloved poet

The poet, whose work has been translated into over 30 languages, was a frequent presence on the Yale campus and a friend to several members of the faculty, among them professors Barbara and Benjamin Harshav, GRD '60, who were the chief English-speaking translators of his work. Just weeks before his passing, Amichai arranged to bequeath his papers to Beinecke Library. The papers include manuscripts, video and audio recordings, letters of correspondence, as well as many personal writings. At the ceremony, Benjamin Harshav spoke briefly about Amichai as both a friend and a great mind. He was joined by University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, and Rabbi James Ponet, Director of the Slifka Center. Harshav characterized Amichai as the most universal Israeli poet. "He's so popular because he's so accessible," he said. "He uses this disarmingly sweet-sounding speech that breaks down the boundaries between the spiritual and the mundane." According to Rabbi Ponet, "Very few of the world's cultures have had a `best poet' in the way that Israel did when it had Amichai. Hebrew was resurrected as a spoken language 100 years ago, but it was not until Amichai that it once again became the language of a people." Following the brief eulogies, several students and faculty members read from Amichai's work.

According to Beinecke curator Vincent Giroud, Amichai's papers will be catalogued and then made available on the Internet.

—Jamie Collins

REBECCA ROSENTHAL/YH Sam Waterston, DC '62, star of NBC's 'Law and Order,' spoke at a Pierson Master's Tea on Mon., Oct. 23 about his life in show business.

HEARD

"There were no boner problems in Eden." —Lee Patterson, Human Nature and the Natural World in the Middle Ages "The French have done nothing—they're just sitting and eating their foie gras. And Henry V declares war on them." —Ramie Targoff, Shakespeare: Histories and Tragedies "Tell me about the oral thing again? I want to explain it to my wife." —Michael Roemer, The Language of Film Workshop

IVY LEAGUE NOTEBOOK

Harvard

The bright yellow crane towering over the renovations of Widener Library for the past two years will finally be removed this weekend. For many Harvard students, the crane, which has been adorned with Christmas lights and flags in the past few years, is as much of a campus fixture as the statue of John Harvard on the Yard. "I'm sad to see it go," one Harvard coed said. "It's the closest thing I've seen to a penis in my four years here."

Brown

The Brown Corporation recently called on the university to start offering need-blind admission to prospective students within the next eight years. Brown is currently the only Ivy League institution that admits to considering applicants' financial resources when making admissions decisions. In protest, several members of Brown's vibrant Eurotrash community have threatened to give up their Prada bags and Porsches for an entire day.

Dartmouth

Prompted by reports of potentially dangerous athletic initiations at universities across the country (excluding their own, of course), Dartmouth is in the process of rewriting its hazing policy. The college handbook defines hazing as an act of coercion or intimidation that would be "perceived by a reasonable person as likely to cause physical or psychological injury to any person." These so-called reasonable people at Dartmouth do not include drunken fraternity brothers or varsity athletes.

—Compiled by the Cardshark and his Dealer Wench from the Harvard Crimson, the Brown Daily Herald, and the Dartmouth.

YALE INDEX
1. Days until Alaska votes on whether or not to legalize marijuana	10
2. Days until The Game	22
3. Incease in heart rate after smoking pot, in beats per minute	29
4. Decrease in heart rate during a typical lecture, in beats per minute	29
5. States with medical marijuana laws	7
6. States with Yales	1
7. Number of people who undergo addiction treatment for pot	120,000
8. Likelihood a Yale graduate will re-enroll	None
9. Age of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, in years	30
10. Age of The Game, in years	117
11. Percentage of 12th graders who have used pot	49.7
12. Percentage of 12th graders who will go to Yale	less than 1
13. Fine for less than 4 oz. of marijuana in Conn.	$1,000
14. Cost of Yale	$120,000
15. Prison term for less than 4 oz., in years	0-1
16. Duration of a Yale education, in years	4
17. Pot use difference in those who completed DARE, in percentage points	0
18. Intelligence difference between Yalies and everyone else	0

—Compiled by Kushal Dave

1,2,12,14,16) Counting on my fingers; 3) Taking my pulse last night; 4) Taking my pulse this morning; 5) Road trip; 7) Dr. Nick Riviera; 8,18) Reality; 9) natlnorml.org; 10) Dansome Han; 11,17) Those darned kids; 13,15) My roommate

Back to News...