The Week in Brief

Have shovel, will travel

Police in Rio de Janeiro found an 80-yard tunnel on Mon., Jan. 22 stretching from the basement of a house toward the Bangu III maximum security prison. This passageway, flanked with concrete pillars and electric lighting, was to be used in a planned jailbreak. A man was digging the half-complete passageway when police walked through the tunnel and arrested him. The Bangu III prison lies on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and houses hundreds of dangerous criminals.

Age times 50 equals IQ

At age seven, Celestine Chua of Singapore has emerged as one of the youngest children to join Mensa. Chua was first admitted when she was three, but her parents have tried to keep her genius from the public eye—until now. Celestine scored off the charts for a standardized test with a maximum IQ of 158, adjusted for her age.

"Mensa accepts children or adults who have scored in the top two percentile of any recognized standardized psychological and IQ test," Marina Tay, president of Mensa Singapore, said. The society has more than 100,000 members in 100 countries, including Celestine's father and older brother, who was admitted at age five.

Double hand transplant patient applauds operation

One year after receiving the world's first double hand transplant, Denis Chatelier of Lyon, France, can now make a phone call, hold a tooth brush, and scratch himself.

"Above all, I can play ball with my children and hug them," Chatelier said at a news conference on Thurs., Jan. 18, which was called to mark the first anniversary of his ground-breaking operation.

Chatelier, 34, lost his forearms in 1996 when an amateur rocket he made with his nephews exploded as he was preparing it for launch. An international team of eight surgeons took 17 hours to complete the transplant. —Compiled by Carol Huang from Yahoo! News

New Haven protests president-elect

While many people stayed inside to watch the inauguration of George W. Bush, DC '68, on television on Sat., Jan 20, 60 New Haven residents endured icy weather to rally on the steps of the New Haven Federal Courthouse in a protest of the transfer of power. Bush was "not elected, but selected," according to Al Marder, chairman of the New Haven Peace Council and organizer of the protest.

Marder said the intent was to "express outrage" at an election "not held by the people, [but] by five conservative members of the Supreme Court."

New Haven native Greg Yolen, SY '04, predicted that the next four years will be a "battleground." Bush's leadership is no longer the issue for Yolen because "legitimate or not, he is our president." But for him that acceptance need not be passive. "Democracy was made a mockery of [in the election] and people do not have to stand for it," Yolen said.

Yolen argues that Bush is not the "uniting" force he said he would be, and that Democrats should therefore not apologize for their own partisanship. When asked why he chose to protest in New Haven rather than in Washington, D.C., Yolen said that this small protest "sends a localized message" to area politicians not to sacrifice their Democratic ideals: "Hey Joe [Lieberman, JE '67], Hey Chris [Dodd], stick to your guns!"

Marder also insisted that "bipartisanship is meaningless" in this situation. He stressed, "The election was a right-wing capture...[in which] the Voting Rights Act was negated by legalisms." He stressed the importance of convincing the majority of Americans to "oppose the policies that [Bush] appointees would intend to impose," stating, "There should be no bipartisanship—no rallying behind the flag." —Andrea Panchok-Berry

Fictitious virus plagues Yale-New Haven

I Love You.

Do these sinister words ring a bell? How about the Klingerman virus, a virus that targets you instead of your hard drive?

A prank e-mail alert warning against this fictitious virus has been circulating across the country since April 2000. According to the message, this vicious new bug is contained in sponges that arrive via snail mail as unsolicited blue packages marked, "A gift for you from the Klingerman Foundation." The message also claims that the virus has caused 23 people to be hospitalized with severe dysentery, seven of whom have died.

The latest variant of this hoax proclaims to be "from Schwab corporate headquarters—so it's no joke!" No joke indeed, as Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH) would agree. The hoax has been plaguing the institution since October of last year, when Sandra Dee McNair-Boyd, a secretary in the hospital's Department of Social Work, forwarded an e-mail warning of the virus to her acquaintances, unaware that it would retain her signature.

"Unfortunately, the hospital's name may have given the hoax message more credibility than it deserves," a disclaimer posted on the hospital website stated. The hospital has been inundated with concerned calls and e-mails.

"At one time we were getting about 100 calls a day," Jan Taylor of YNHH Marketing and Communications said. "It is the first time for us to be involved at this kind of level and have to quell concerns for something that has been passed around by e-mail."

H. Morrow Long, Yale Information Security officer, advised, "You should take every e-mail you receive over the Internet with a grain of salt," Unless people start doing this, it looks as if Klingerman will be clinging to the 'Net for a while yet. —Emiko Sheard

Recording studio to turn Morsels into musicians

Aspiring Yale musicians have gained a valuable resource in the upgraded Morse recording studio. The studio was created in 1994 through the gift of Philip C. Clark, MC '95, and coordinators recently installed software and hardware equipment to expand opportunities available to musicians.

"It's a very different approach that offers you a lot more variety and precision," Birkir Gunnarsson, MC '02, a guitarist who has used the studio, said.

Prior to the renovation, the equipment could record only eight tracks of audio. Now, the studio features Apple G4 hardware as well as ProTools 24-track software. With enhanced editing abilities, the system allows special effects such as reverb, flange, and chords to be added in real time while the recording is playing. Additionally, a new high-quality microphone was purchased and acoustic foam was added to the walls.

"Before the renovation, the recording studio sounded like a squash court," Trygve Bakken, MC '01, sound engineer of the studio, said.

Bakken, along with fellow coordinators Matt Croasmun, MC '01, and Josh Penman, MC '01, installed the equipment last semester but are planning a grand opening on Tues., Jan. 30. Use of the recording studio is free for Morse students and open to the rest of the Yale community for a fee.

"This is the only student-run studio on campus, and with this upgrade it is much more powerful and flexible," Bakken said. "Anyone affiliated with Yale can benefit from the changes."

—Luke Habberstad

YUAG art donorformer Nazi

The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) might be in possesion of a stolen work of art from the Nazi/World War II era (1933-45), according to a claim of ownership recently filed by the son of the late Josephine Weinmann, a Jewish citizen who left Germany to flee Nazi persecution.

This recent action taken by the Weinmann family exemplifies a growing national trend of compensating those who lost valuable art objects to the Nazis during the war.

In a recent article, the Boston Globe chided Yale for not conducting better research into the donor's personal background. Dr. Herbert Schaefer, "the painting's owner," according to a recent press release from Yale University, is alleged to have been a member of the Nazi party.

Some museums, such as one at Harvard University, have made it a priority to research questions of provenance in order to correct past wrongs and restore just property rights to the slighted refugees of World War II. —Nicholas Zamiska

Heard

"Charlie Chaplin's films, from a baby's point of view, are epics of problems with gravity."

—John MacKay, Issues in Contemporary Film Theory

"This is what I want you to do: put it in there. Do it harder and faster."

—Christy Anderson,Western Art from the Renaissance to the Present

"There's a time in the life of every God when He needs George Lucas."

—George Fayen, English 125

Yale Index

1. Number of Super Bowls being played this weekend: 1
2. Number of bowls that are super: 1
3. Percent of supers who bowl: 83.6
4. Number of players on the Giants' roster: 62
5. Number of players on the Giants' roster named Andre: 1
6. Number of Andre the Giants on the Giants' roster: 0
7. Number of Giants on the Giants' roster more giant than Andre the Giant: 0
8. Number of Ravens it takes to eat a Giant during the Super Bowl: 83.6
9. Number of Edgar Allen Poe poems named "The Raven": 1
10. Number of players on the Ravens named Edgar: 0
11. Percent of children named Edgar too frail and quiet to play football: 83.6
12. Number of Yale undergrads named Edgar: 2
13. Number of reasons to console someone named Edgar today: 83.6

—Compiled by Aaron Jakes and David Huyssen

1, 2, 6, 7, 9) Common knowledge; 4, 5) www.nygiants.com; 10) www.ravenszone.net; 12) Yale Herald directory; 3, 8, 11, 13) Pure fabrication

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