11/8 Phoenix

VOL. 136, ISSUE 10 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012 SWARTHMOREPHOENIX.COM

TODAY: Party cloudy. Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High 45, Low 31.

TOMORROW: Chance of rain, wind.High 51, Low 38.

SPORTSVOLLEYBALL ADVANCES TO ECAC TOURNAMENTAfter a loss in the Centennial semi-finals to Johns Hopkins on Satur-day, volleyball earns a place and third seed in the eight-team ECAC South Region tournament — their fourth consecutive time. 7

OPINIONSOBAMA WINS CLOSE REELCTIONTyler mourns Governor Romney’s failure to win the Presidency and expresses concern that the 2012 campaign season set a new standard for negative campaigning and divi-siveness. Page 15

LIVING & ARTS‘WHY WRITE’ ... AND WHY ATTEND LECTURES?Zadie Smith’s lecture is just one of many offered in the Tri-Co featur-ing renowned authors, poets, and essayists. So why did “Why Write” draw the largest crowd last night? Page 9

NEWSEARLY DECISION JUST A WEEK AWAYThe Admissions Office is preparing for the November 15th Early Deci-sion deadline, which will bring sev-eral hundred college applications of students whose first choice is Swarthmore. Page 3

The PhoenixThe Official Campus Newspaper of Swarthmore

College Since 1881

Sandy Devastates Swattie’s Homes

Students Unite Across Campus Tuesday Evening to Watch Election Coverage

By SARAH COE-ODESSNews Writer

Continued on Page 4

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

ADRIANA OBIOLS/PHOENIX STAFFStudents streamed election coverage from their dorms Tuesday night (above), while others watched the results from a campus location, such as the third floor of Trotter Hall (below).

FOUR MORE YEARS

Most Americans and people worldwide have depended on devastating photos, videos, and news stories to know the details of last week’s Hurricane Sandy. Many Swarthmore students have used the campus’ 18-hour power outage and the anomaly of two-day class cancellation as proof that the hurricane affected the Col-lege. For several unfortunate students, though, the effects of Hur-ricane Sandy extend beyond its impact on campus.

Nicole Vanchieri ’13, a New York resident from the Rocka-ways, is among the students whose families were hurt significant-ly by the hurricane.

“The hurricane hit everybody in my neighborhood very hard,” she said. “Our house, like every other house in the neighborhood, had the entire basement flooded to the point where everything will need to be removed and thrown out. Our sliding glass door and front door blew into the house early on in the storm, which resulted in a lot of debris and broken glass to fill the first floor.”

Vanchieri’s parents did not evacuate, although they were fully prepared with clothes and documents in case of an emergency. Despite the damage done to her house, Vanchieri’s family was lucky compared to the majority of her neighborhood; several houses only a block away from hers burned down.

Michaela Shuchman ’16, whose family lives in Philadelphia but has a house in Longport, New Jersey, also experienced the physical effects of Hurricane Sandy. While her house in Phila-delphia incurred similar inconveniences to what Swarthmore experienced, the ocean water ruined her shore house’s deck and furniture. Shuchman predicts it will be years before the town fully recovers from the hurricane.

“I didn’t think that seeing pictures of a house pretty much de-stroyed that I had grown up in would affect me very much, but then I remember the memories and how it won’t ever look like that again,” she said. “This summer definitely will not be the same as other summers. Some of our friends’ houses are wrecks so we probably won’t see them down there for a while, and the whole ‘look’ of the town is different. It’s unclear whether we’ll even be able to live in the house, if there still is a house, this summer.”

By CHI ZHANGNews Writer

Alumni Join MJ Efforts

Continued on Page 3

As of today, about 100 alumni of varying class years have signed the Alumni Petition for Fossil Fuel Divestment. Start-ed by Swarthmore Mountain Justice, a student organization working on ending various forms of fossil fuel extraction, es-pecially mountaintop removal coal mining, the petition aims to persuade the College to divest from the fossil fuel industry, a goal that the group pursued for the last two years.

This is the first time Mountain Justice has reached out to alumni, but they believe that the “Alumni Petition is a simple, but powerful way for Swarthmore alumni to show that they care about how Swarthmore’s endowment is invested, and that they would like to see that money supporting environmentally responsible causes,” said Patrick Walsh ’14, a member of the group. The petition started on September 5 of this year and is still welcoming Swarthmore alumni to sign it.

NY and NJ Students’ Families Affected By Hurricane

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012PAGE 2

ZHENGLONG ZHOU/PHOENIX STAFF

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NewsInstitute for the Liberal Arts: Swarth-more Secures Funding For � e Institute’s First Two YearsAlmost a year a� er the strategic plan to implement an Institute for the Liberal Arts was announced, Swarth-more has secured two years’ worth of funding for the project. PAGE 5

Living & Arts � e Dramaturg and the Director: Inside “� e Intense Fragility” and “� e Impor-tance of Being Earnest”� eater guru Jeanette Leopold previews this week-end’s student performances written by Oscar Wilde and Kari Olmon ’13, respectively. PAGE 7Tom Uttech: Art without An ArtistArts columnist Deborah Kriegar reviews exhibitions at the List Gallery and McCabe by Tom Uttech, an photographer and painter who claims that he’s not an artist. PAGE 8 A Letter To A FriendColumnist Vianca Masucci writes to X with words of

support a� er leaving an abusive relationship. PAGE 10Dear NestorNestor responds to a reader who feels to compelled to cheat on her romantic partners. How do you get others’ forgiveness when you can’t seem to forgive yourself? PAGE 10 Bibliobabble: Pulitzer Prize 2010Literature lover Lanie Schlessinger disagrees with the committee’s decision to award “Tinkers” the accolade two years ago. PAGE 12Can You Dig It?: Tattoo TalkEVS Technician David Toland reminds students that “there’s fun to be had” and that the best moment for living your bucket list is now. PAGE 12

OpinonsSta� EditorialPresident Obama narrowly but decisively wins reelection; the Phoenix o� ers him recommendations for how to approach his second term. PAGE 14Tuesday Night a Victory for Individual LibertyAaron Kroeber commends voters in states across the nation for approving ballot initiatives to legalize

marijuana and same-sex marriage, arguing that these are important steps toward greater individual liberty. PAGE 15

SportsBeing A Fan About More � an Winning ChampionshipsJamie Ivey doesn’t get why supporting a smaller team means you are a hipster; if anything, it’s better than being a fairweather fan attracted by championships. PAGE 18Men’s Soccer Stumbles in Conference FinalSwarthmore advanced to the Centennial � nal with a chance for an NCAA tournament spot, but earned an at-large bid despite its loss. PAGE 19Field Hockey Earns Surprise Playo� Berth� e Garnet make the ECAC South Region tourna-ment despite a 9-8 regular season record, falling to Stevens in the opening round. PAGE 20

Swimming Makes Big Splash in Season Opener | Page 16

NewsEarly Decision a Week Away

One week from today, several hundred high school students from across the globe who are set on Swarthmore will click “sub-mit” on the Common Application. They will begin this year’s admissions process at Swarthmore as the college’s first round of early decision applicants.

For those who have forgotten, Swarth-more College, like most small, selective, liberal arts colleges, offers two ways for po-tential students to apply: early decision or regular decision. Early decision is recom-mended for students who feel that Swarth-more is their clear first choice. It binds a student to attend if admitted (barring fi-nancial reasons), but also statistically in-creases the likelihood that they will get in.

Jim Bock, the dean of admissions, ex-plained that having early decision is helpful to both the college and students. “We com-pete with some really great schools, and we want to give students the advantage of hav-ing a first choice. But, if they have that, we want them to commit to Swarthmore,” he said, adding that it gives the college a com-petitive advantage, especially considering that as an applicant pool, the students who apply early decision are often the strongest applicants the college receives. “Early de-cision works in the college’s favor,” Bock said. “It helps us build a class.”

While the Admissions Office is not yet sure how many students will submit early applications at the end of next week, they do not expect any major changes from past years. “Hopefully, we’ll get several hun-dred, which is what we normally get,” Bock said.

Swarthmore, like most peer institutions, has two rounds of early decision. Students who want to be in the first, and larger pool must submit their application by Novem-ber 15th, while those applying through winter early decision must apply by January 1st, along with regular decision applicants. Bock said that the reason the school has two rounds of early decision is that some people who have selected Swarthmore as their first choice may not feel ready or be able to apply by November 15th.

“It’s an access question,” he said. “Many students who might find us as a first choice college may or may not have the ability to

get together an application by November 15th, or to put their best foot forward, so it is better to submit by January 1st.” There are students who use early decision two as a means of furthering their admissions odds after getting rejected from another school early decision one, something Bock says the office is aware of. But Bock says that does not affect the admissions calculus. “We have no way of knowing that,” he said.

Still, more November early decision ap-plicants are admitted than those applying for the second round. “Typically, we take more than a third fall early decision appli-cants and roughly 20% of our winter early decision candidates,” said Bock. This com-pared to the approximately 13% admitted regular decision for the class of 2016, which yielded an overall admit rate of fourteen percent. But Bock credits the difference in part to the relative strength of the applicant pools, especially when accounting for the the discrepancy between the Fall and Janu-ary early decision rates. “Our fall early de-cision pool is typically quantitatively stron-ger,” said Bock. “There is no disadvantage

to applying Fall early or Winter early. It’s just a different deadline,” he emphasized.

This year, as a result of Hurricane San-dy, many schools have pushed back their early decision deadline. Swarthmore, how-ever, has opted not to. As Bock explained, most of the schools who have pushed back their early decision deadline originally had it on November 1st, not November 15th, which the admissions office felt gave stu-dents enough time without an extension. “I don’t want to encourage people not to meet the deadline,” Bock added. He did say, however, that the school would work on a case-by-case basis with students who are having difficulty meeting the deadline as a result of the storm.

Some schools, unlike Swarthmore, have early action applications in place of early decision. Early action, like early decision, allows students to get an early response from the college. But unlike early decision, it is nonbinding.

Patrick Trainor ’16, applied to Swarth-more early decision and early action to the University of Chicago. “Chicago and

Swarthmore were my top two,” Trainor ex-plained. I really wanted to know if I could get into Chicago, and I wanted to know right away if Swat didn’t work out.”

Trainor was admitted to both, an expe-rience that he found, at first, frustrating. “I was upset because I had already made a de-cision,” he said. But eventually, he decided applying early decision was the right move. “After I rationalized a little bit, I realized I was happy with Swat, and I would have picked it over Chicago again.”

“I really want to know who is commit-ted to Swarthmore early, so I make it a binding commitment,” said Bock, explain-ing why Swarthmore has early decision and not early action. “You’re finding out early, but it’s creating a lot of applications from folks who may not truly be interested.”

In addition, it is a size trend. “Most small schools have early decision. Most large schools have early action,” he said.

The early decision process attracts can-didates with a variety of different extracur-ricular activities and skills. But athletic re-cruits are among the applicants who most frequently take advantage of Swarthmore’s early decision process. Adam Hertz, the di-rector of athletics, estimated that roughly half of recruits apply early. “I’d say right now it’s an even split,” he said.

Bock agreed, although he added that it “depends on the year.” He cited coaches as the reason that recruits are more likely than others to apply early. “They have an advo-cate in the system,” he said.

Hertz said that, provided a student has decided that Swarthmore is their first choice, the athletic department might en-courage them to apply early. “We let them know the early decision option might be something they want to consider.”

But he added that early decision was not used as a means of tying down potential athletes. “I don’t think we want to put pres-sure on anybody who hasn’t decided they want to be here.”

Regardless of being recruited, Hertz added, athletes applying to Swarthmore do it for more than sports-related reasons. “Students want to come to Swarthmore be-cause of its academic reputation and their intellectual curiosity.”

Bock agreed, and felt that is true for all applicants. “Most people don’t apply to Swarthmore on a whim, and I think that’s doubly true with early decision.”

The PhoenixPAGE 3THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012

Admissions Office Prepares to Receive Hundreds of ApplicationsBy DAN BLOCK

News Writer

As of today, about 100 alumni of varying class years have signed the Alumni Petition for Fossil Fuel Divest-ment. Started by Swarthmore Mountain Justice, a student organization working on ending various forms of fossil fuel extraction, especially mountaintop removal coal min-ing, the petition aims to persuade the College to divest from the fossil fuel industry, a goal that the group pursued for the last two years.

This is the first time Mountain Justice has reached out to alumni, but they believe that the “Alumni Petition is a simple, but powerful way for Swarthmore alumni to show that they care about how Swarthmore’s endowment is invested, and that they would like to see that money sup-porting environmentally responsible causes,” said Patrick Walsh ’14, a member of the group. The petition started on September 5 of this year and is still welcoming Swarthmore alumni to sign it.

Swarthmore has invested in a list of “Sordid Sixteen” domestic fossil fuel companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Arch Coal, Halliburton, Patriot Coal and others. “We would like the college to take its money out of sixteen of the worst coal, oil and gas extraction companies,” Walsh said.

“A mass divestment movement can both harm these corporations’ bottom lines, and delegitimize them in the court of public opinion, aiding local communities’ efforts to reclaim their land, health, and economies,” reads the pe-tition.

“These investments are unconscionable,” Ken Hechler ‘35, who served nine terms in Congress, four terms as Sec-retary of State of West Virginia, and is a leader in the anti-mountaintop removal movement, wrote in a supporting letter, “One just has to look at the damage of hydrofracking in Western Pennsylvania, mountaintop removal mining in Southern West Virginia and the oil spill in the Gulf. Some of these areas are home to Swarthmore students and their

families.”In the letter, Hechler urges the College to take actions.

“I am writing to tell you it cannot be the sole job of students to advocate for the common good,” Hechler wrote, “To truly be a social justice institution, Swarthmore must prac-tice what it preaches: it is time for President Chopp and the Board of Managers to live up to Swarthmore’s founding ideals and historic principles by ending its investments in unjust and harmful fossil fuel companies.”

“We have a number of supporters who would write similar letters,” said Hannah Jones ’12, a former member of Mountain Justice. According to the petition, the di-vestment movement can “both harm these corporations’ bottom lines, and delegitimize them in the court of public opinion, aiding local communities’ efforts to reclaim their land, health, and economies.”

“As a member of the community, and as a potential do-nor to the college, I want to make sure that my donation is not getting invested in companies that are poisoning our air and water, fueling climate change, and corrupting our political system,” said Jones.

Mountain Justice plans to reach out to alumni who have signed the petition and figure out other ways for them to support this divestment campaign. One possible option, according to Walsh, is “to have interested alumni writing personal letters to President Chopp.”

Jones hopes the petition can demonstrate to the admin-istration that it’s not just students, but a range of people from the Swarthmore community that worry about this is-sue. “I am hoping that alumni voices will be particularly powerful because it is they that supply much of the money in the first place. They should have a say in how that money is invested,” Jones said.

“The fossil fuel industry’s stranglehold on politicians will not yield unless we speak with our dollars,” said Jones. “We have the hottest summer on record, a devastating hurricane, and Greenland is melting away.” However, the presidential race, during which climate change was barely mentioned, makes Jones feel that “nothing will happen to

combat climate change in the political sphere unless we demonstrate that we have financial pull.”

The Alumni Petition is just one of the many parts of Mountain Justice’s efforts to encourage the College’s di-vestment from the fossil fuel industry. There is a student petition, which received over 700 signatures this spring, still open to students. Next Sunday, November 17, the group will be speaking at an event in Philadelphia and Swarthmore students can attend at no cost. At the event, Bill McKibben, an environmentalist, author and journalist, will talk about the environmental movement and the need for colleges like Swarthmore to divest.

The group also brought many powerful voices to cam-pus, including speakers such as the late Larry Gibson, who opposes mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in Ap-palachia, and a panel discussion about divestment that in-cluded Ellen Dorsey, the executive director of the Wallace Global Fund, whose mission is to promote socially respon-sible actions to protect the environment.

Recently, Mountain Justice held a “Speak-Out” rally with other three Swarthmore student organizations: Stu-dents for Peace and Justice in Palestine, Swarthmore Labor Action Project, and Swatties for a DREAM. “Students can do a lot to promote divestment,” said Walsh, “One very simple thing students can do is to talk to their friends about fossil fuel divestment, and to spread the word.”

Walsh suggested students can also write letters to Presi-dent Chopp or members of the Board of Managers and talk to their parents about divestment and encourage them to write letters to the College as well. “If students are uncom-fortable with emailing the group as a whole, I encourage people to talk individually to a member of Mountain Jus-tice they know, or if you don’t know any of them, email or talk to me,” said Walsh.

Jones is currently helping other schools in the area start their own divestment campaigns. “The more colleges that join, the more powerful this movement will be,” said Jones, “There are already 50 schools pushing for divestment, and this is just the beginning.”

RAISA REYES/PHOENIX STAFF

Dean of Admissions Jim Bock reviews paperwork in his office.

‘Alums Join MJ’, continued from page 1

NewsPAGE 4

The PhoenixTHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012

‘Hurricane Sandy,’ continued from page 1

TCNJ | Leads the Way

Graduate Studies

It’s your move.

Find out more by visiting

www.tcnj.edu/gs

Or call 609.771.2300

Long Island resident Ian Lukaszewicz ’15 is another student whose memories will be af-fected by the destruction of Hurricane Sandy. With no chimney, one room ruined, and a di-sheveled backyard, his house still lacks power and, consequently, heat. This made it difficult for him to contact his family directly after the storm. It could be several more days before his family regains power. Similar to Vanch-ieri’s home, Lukaszewicz’s house did not en-counter as much damage as many people he knew who lived close by.

“It’s weird to see pictures of my friend’s house and know that I’ve been there a lot,” he said. “One of my friends lost his backyard, and that’s where we hang out every summer.”

Dominic Rizzo ’15 and Emma Madarasz ’15, both New Jersey residents whose families were lucky enough not to experience any seri-ous hurricane effects, are still without power and heat as well.

“Fortunately, though we lost a few trees that damaged some property, my family was generally prepared for the storm because of Irene [and] the snowstorm last year,” Mada-rasz said. “We had gotten all our dead trees removed since there was so much damage during those last two storms.”

Although Madarasz’s house was not dras-tically affected, Hurricane Sandy still impacts her family; her two younger sisters have been

out of school for over a week, and her parents can-not go to work because of poor road conditions. Rizzo’s younger sister, too, has been out of school for a week. Three blocks adjacent to the Rizzos’ vaca-tion house were evacuated, but their block was not. While Rizzo’s family did not see the worst of the

hurricane, the natural disaster still impacted him emotionally.

“The destruction my family described has been unfathomable,” he said. “I didn’t real-

ize how bad the storm was at first because we weren’t really affected here at Swat. The hor-ror stories of children being swept out of the arms of their mothers by the water and entire neighborhoods being obliterated obviously hit hard anytime, but have a special impact when the tragedy happens close to home.”

Rizzo is not the only student who was af-fected emotionally.

“I feel so blessed that none of my fam-ily or any of my friends down there were in the town during the storm, but just think-ing about ‘what if ’ is scary,” Shuchman said. “Houses, streets and foliage can be replaced, but people cannot.”

In response to the hurricane, Vanchieri decided to take action. She has collected clothes, cleaning supplies, batteries, and other

materials, which she plans to donate to those in need. She spent this past weekend in New York, giving supplies to friends who lost their homes.

“I was motivated to collect donations be-cause every single house and family I know from my neighborhood has sustained ex-treme damages,” she said. “Each person must get rid of their entire basement. People are in great need now, and I feel a personal responsi-bility to give back to the community that gave me such a wonderful childhood.”

Although Vanchieri is grateful to everyone who has already helped her, she still encour-ages everyone to help and donate supplies and money to charities such as the American Red Cross. Visit http://www.redcross.org/pa/philadelphia/donate to contribute.

COURTESY OF NYDAILYNEWS.COM

A closeup of fire damage in the Rockaways.

COURTESY OF ABCNEWS.COM

An aerial view of the Rockaways in New York, where a fire destroyed dozens of houses in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. High winds and flooding damaged the home of Michaela Shuchman ‘16.

I feel so blessed that none of my family or any of my friends

down there were in the town during the storm ... Houses,

streets and foliage can be replaced, but people cannot.Michaela Shuchman ’16

NewsThe Phoenix

PAGE 5THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012

YENNY CHEUNG/PHOENIX STAFFSwaTango hosted its first milonga of the year in Upper Tarble.

Institute For The Liberal Arts Secures Funding

By NEHMAT KAURNews Writer

In keeping with its reputation as a lead-ing liberal arts college, Swarthmore an-nounced its intention to create a new Insti-tute for the Liberal Arts in its strategic plan, which came out in December 2011. Barely a year later, the college has secured a grant of $250,000 from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to see the Institute through its first two years.

One of the three stated goals of the Institute shows its aim is to keep the lib-eral arts education relevant and expand it at Swarthmore, in the United States and around the world in general. Philip Jeffer-son, Centennial Professor of Economics and a Committee Member of the Institute spoke about the need for such an institute, saying “The Institute will meet the need of having an advocate for the liberal arts. In recent years there has been a stress on instrumental learning and the role of lib-eral learning has been called into question. Having a place that will allow Swarthmore to project the values of a liberal arts educa-tion is extremely important.”

Jefferson spoke about the process of going from having a stated goal to actu-ally procuring the grant. President Rebecca Chopp spoke to the Foundation and invited representatives to spend a day on campus, where they met and interacted with faculty and administrators alike. The visit included a dinner, during which attendees discussed the College and Foundation’s plans for the Institute’s future. Among the attendees were the Institute’s Committee members.

Jefferson also added that President Chopp deserved a great deal of credit for identifying the grant as a potential resource and acting on the opportunity quickly; he also commended the excellence of the col-lege community that induced the Founda-tion to provide the grant.

As the Institute is starting up, it’s firing up the faculty and students with new offer-ings.

Jefferson described the experiences of the faculty: “It’s a very exciting venture which promises to enthuse the faculty in discussions that go across disciplinary boundaries. We’ve already started work-shops and reading groups and there’s an energy that’s invigorating the community. The expectation is that this energy will con-tinue to grow.” He expects the faculty’s ex-periences to inform the way that professors structure and teach their courses, directly impacting student life at Swarthmore.

The economics professor outlined the intended and expected impact on students. Besides providing more ways for students to work more closely with alumni, the Institution will allow for more non-tradi-tional interactions with faculty, including extended opportunities for research and internships. He added that student learn-ing would expand beyond the classroom and facilitate a way of learning that will be more suited to how people learn in the real world.

As part of this, the Institute has already hosted the Second Student Science Cafe, a symposium about Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind,” and interdisciplinary research on the financial crisis of 2008, among other initiatives.

Craig Earley ’16, who attended the sec-ond installment of the symposium this past Sunday, shared his thoughts about the In-stitute and the symposium. “The way I’ve always understood it, a liberal arts educa-tion is about genuinely learning rather than just consuming. The symposium this week helped to explore the ideas of Haidt’s book rather than just take them in. It gave me an idea of how to think about ideas criti-cally, so that we can understand them and their broader context. The subject was fas-cinating enough, and hearing the panelists’ perspective on it was quite enlightening to me.”

On a concluding note, Jefferson voiced his and the other Committee members’ hopes for the new Institute, saying it will lead to new ways of learning, thinking and serving.ZHENGLONG ZHOU/PHOENIX STAFF

Swatties head to Sharples for the Halloween party last Saturday in full costume.

SADIE RITTMAN/PHOENIX STAFFDancer Kyle Abraham offered a master class to Swatties Tuesday afternoon in the LPAC Troy Dance Studio.

CHRISTOPHER CAPRON FOR THE PHOENIXPhoenix staffers being creative with newspapers, as usual.

Week in Pictures

Living & ArtsThe Phoenix


OUTSIDE BUBBLEthe

First Person Arts FestivalNow–November 17Various locations in PhiladelphiaFirst Person Arts continues its mission of empowering the storyteller within everyone. In its 11th year, the festival, which runs from Nov. 7–17 showcases personal stories and the power of storytelling through theater, writing, � lm, visual art, dance, stand-up storytelling and more. Through interactive arts programs and

workshops, the public is able to hear and perform art. First Person Arts will host StorySlams, modeled a� er poetry slams, and writ-ing workshops, as well as events with art celebrities. Philadelphia’s Poet Laure-

ate Sonia Sanchez will host a memoir writing workshop

for women on Sunday Nov. 11. For a full list of events, as well as ticket prices, please visit http://www.� rstpersonarts.org.

COURTESY OF BLOGS.PHILADELPHIAWEEKLY.COM

As media analysts from Karl Rove to James Fallows predicted, the outcome of Tuesday’s election has already had a profound impact on the American economy.

� e Bureau of Labor Statistics has re-ported one of the sharpest spikes in un-employment in history, with the overall unemployment rate jumping from 7.9 percent on election day to more than 9 percent two days later. A spokesperson suggested that the increase, the largest two-day spike since the federal govern-ment began collecting data, has come from the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the media industry.

“What do we even talk about any-more?” said David Brooks, a former columnist for the New York Times. “I wrote articles about liking moder-ate Mitt Romney, I wrote articles about disliking an ultra-

conservative Romney, and I wrote ar-ticles about writing articles about the election — what can possibly be more fascinating?”

“Is it too soon to cover Clinton 2016?” added Brooks.

On Wednesday evening, President Obama announced a new stimulus package that will disperse around $2 bil-lion over the next year to those hardest hit by the post-election recession: pun-dits and journalists.

“In 2009, I tried a $825 billion stimu-lus that seemed to work but nobody really liked,” said a tired-sounding Obama. “� is year, [Mitt Romney and I] collectively spent less than 1 percent of that, but everyone in the country has been talking about Tuesday’s election for months.”

“I’m hereby asking Congress to pass the 2012 Election Relief Act, which will mandate a general election each

November, every year, by law,” said the President, who added that, “� is de� -nitely isn’t a bribe.”

Meanwhile, former Republican pres-idential nominee Mitt Romney issued a statement declaring that, “President Obama continues to pursue unsound economic policies that run-up the de� -cit and ship pundits’ jobs to China.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Romney campaign sta� er noted that, “if we’re forced to have an election every year instead of every four, Mitt’s going to run out of money a lot sooner than we thought.”

At Swarthmore, the a� ermath of what was for many their � rst time voting le� many students feeling listless about what the future holds.

Sources suggest that the end of elec-tion season has already taken its toll on social life at Swarthmore.

At Sharples, students reported hav-ing to think of new topics of conversa-tion. “It’s not as easy to get everyone at the table to agree with you just by saying that Romney scares you,” said a junior.

“It’s not even cool to casually refer-ence [statistician] Nate Silver’s ‘538’ blog anymore,” she added.

� e Phoenix and the Daily Gazette have not been immune to the pundit re-cession sweeping the nation as a whole.

A Phoenix news story that attempted to connect a complaint that Swatties had to wait “for at least � ve minutes” at the polls to national issues of voter disen-franchisement was ignored by editors in favor of a column imagining the inner lives of cats, while an opinion piece that predicted a radical shi� in the Republi-can party failed even to attract the inter-est of the writer’s parents.

As this paper went to press, the lat-est reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that political satirists are among those hardest hit by the elec-tion recession. To make a donation or to suggest fresh material, please visit www.

Campaign Coverage:

“Beyond Crossover” Performance by David KrakauerNovember 9 at 8 p.m.� omas Great Hall, Bryn Mawr College

Clarinetist David Krakauer will perform for Bryn Mawr’s Performing Arts Series this Friday, Nov.

9 at 8 p.m. Krakauer will be joined by pianist Kathleen Tagg and accordionist Will Hols-houser in a performance of “Beyond Cross-over,” a recital that will features composi-tions by classical composers Leos Janácek, Johannes Brahms, Olivier Messiaen, Steve Reich and Claude Debussy. Kraukauer will also perform traditional klezmer mu-

sic (musical tradition of dance and instru-mental pieces of Ashkenazic Jews), includ-

ing “Doina,” “Der Gasn Nign,” and “Der Heyser Bulgar.” Tickets are $10 for stu-dents and $20 for general admission.

� e performance will be held in the � omas Great Hall.

Philadelphia Asian American Film FestivalNow–November 17

Various locations in Philadelphia

COURTESY OF DGUIDES.COM

� e Philadelphia Asian American Film & Filmmak-ers organization is hosting their � � h annual � lm festival, present a rich array of � lms and short � lms that “celebrate and elevate the Asian American ex-perience.” Founded in 2008, the PAAFF aims at highlighting Asian American � lmmakers, actors and artists, as well as exposing the Philadelphia area to the art and culture about Asian Ameri-cans. From Nov. 7–17, PAAFF will be featuring over 20 � lms, documentaries and short � lms, as well as events and parties. � is Saturday, Nov. 10 is the Asian Americans in Hollywood event, hosted at the International House of Philadelphia. � e free event features a panel discussion with Asian Ameri-can � lmmaers and actors working in the industry, including Booboo Stewart (“Twilight Saga”), Sarovar Banka (“A Decent Arrangement”) and BD Wong (“Law & Order: SVU”). Wong will also be honored at the event. For a full list of � lms, descriptions, ticket and location information, visit http://www.phillyasian� lmfest.org.

By CAMI RYDER

Post-Election, America Confronted By the Unknown

STEVENHAZEL

� e Squashed Tomato

Clarinetist David Krakauer will perform for Bryn Mawr’s Performing Arts Series this Friday, Nov.

9 at 8 p.m. Krakauer will be joined by pianist Kathleen Tagg and accordionist Will Hols-houser in a performance of “Beyond Cross-over,” a recital that will features composi-

will also perform traditional klezmer mu-sic (musical tradition of dance and instru-

mental pieces of Ashkenazic Jews), includ-

COURTESY OF ABRAHAMICMUSIC.COM

HURRICANE SANDY: COMIC BY RENU NADKARNI



The Director

Senior Kari Olmon’s dramaturgy thesis project, a staged reading of her original play, “The Intense Fragility,” will be performed Friday, November 9 and Saturday, November 10 at 7 p.m. in the LPAC Frear.

Jeannette Leopold: Kari, would you give a synopsis of your play?Kari Olmon: I’ll give you my Facebook summary: In January of 1919, celebrat-ed Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky gives his final ballet performance and begins the diary that will chronicle his descent into madness. In 1936 St. Louis, Rose Williams — beloved sister to renowned playwright Tennessee Williams — dis-covers Nijinsky’s diary and dreams of escaping into his world. Separated by every possible spatial, temporal and social barrier, the virtuosic dancer and the secluded sister have one thing in common: both are suspected of a pecu-liar and precocious dementia that terri-fies and repulses their families who will do anything — anything — to contain them. A play about desire, madness, and the legacy of art, “The Intense Fra-gility” imagines an encounter outside the slipstream of history that brings two people together in the realm of the subjunctive where anything is possible and fantasy becomes reality. JL: So, what is dramaturgy?KO: I consider the dramaturg sort of the interpreter of the play, the person who is a go-between for the director and the playwright. The dramaturg’s primary task is to do the text the great-est possible justice while assisting the director in achieving his or her vision to the greatest possible extent. JL: How does a dramaturgy thesis work?KO: In the case of this particular proj-ect, I needed to adapt a non-theatrical text into a theatrical text. JL: How is a dramaturgy thesis dif-ferent from a playwriting or directing

thesis?KO: The genesis is different from a playwriting thesis in that I had to start with a non-theatrical text. However, the result should appear similar in that my goal was to create a text that stands alone, guided by research but not de-pendant on it. In contrast to a direct-ing or acting thesis, the production elements in a dramaturgy thesis are downplayed, because the emphasis is supposed to be on the words. My goal is for the words to be heard and under-stood as clearly as possible, whereas in a directing thesis the aim is a unified whole that privileges other jobs, such as design and acting, just as much as the writing. JL: Why did you choose Williams and Nijinsky?KO: Honestly, it was sort of an acci-dent. I was scoping out a wide range of potential course texts, and I stumbled across a bizarre one-act by Williams. It was a play that dramatized an encoun-ter between a disturbed young woman and the apparition of Nijinsky. With a little research, I discovered many simi-larities that the young woman had to Williams’ sister. JL: How many hours do you think you’ve put into this project?KO: I’ve been working on it for a little under a year now. I started research last winter break, then spent all of the spring semester writing a first draft. Over the summer and through the fall rehearsal process I’ve been working on that draft. I’m currently on my eighth draft, and there will be a new one by Friday. I can’t estimate how many hours exactly — a lot. JL: Why should students come to see this?KO: It’s an exciting opportunity to be part of the process of developing new theater. Even though this is the final component of my thesis work, I expect to keep revising it after this bench-mark. The audience can look at this as a laboratory environment where any feedback will help me develop my work for the future.

By JEANNETTE LEOPOLDLiving & Arts Writer

Patrick Ross on “The Importance of Being Earnest”

The DramaturgKari Olmon on

“The Intense Fragility” By JEANNETTE LEOPOLD

Living & Arts Writer

Patrick Ross is directing “The Impor-tance of Being Earnest,” by Oscar Wilde; the play will be performed this Saturday, No-vember 10 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and at 2 p.m. on Sunday in Bond. Jeannette Leopold: Patrick, could you summarize “The Importance of Being Earnest?”Patrick Ross: The play is about Jack Worthing (Caroline Batten ’14) and his struggle with identity, which is demon-strated literally in his confusion with his name. Everyone is under the impression that his name is Ernest, hence the title, and all of the comedy is derived from that. JL: So, it’s a comedy, then?PR: Definitely. Yesterday I found myself laughing so loudly that I had to leave the room while I was directing. I’ve been working with it for a couple of months, so the fact that I still find it that funny is a testament to the playwright. JL: Is there any meaning in the play aside from humor? Not that there has to be.PR: The short answer is — yes. If there is meaning to be derived from any theater, and of course there is. Mostly it’s a lot of self-discovery, but it’s done in a hilarious,

farcical way. So that you don’t know that it’s profound. JL: Why did you decide to do the show in Bond?PR: Lots of it was logistics. What space could we get that we didn’t have to share. The aesthetics of it are also very appropri-ate to the show, which is set in Victorian England. JL: You mentioned that Caroline Batten is playing Jack Worthing. Why did you choose to cross-gender cast?PR: Mostly, it was that there were three la-dies who I really wanted to play Cecily and Gwendolen, the female leads, and I didn’t know how to compromise that. I didn’t want to exclude any of them because they auditioned extremely well. I picked Caro-line because I knew she could do it, and because I knew it would be a fun chal-lenge. Plus, since the play is about iden-tity, it adds another layer to this man not knowing who he is. JL: Has she risen to the challenge?PR: Absolutely. She needs man pants to do it — that’s what we call them. They’re just shorts. I’m very pleased. JL: Other than the reasons you’ve men-tioned, why will Swarthmore students en-joy this production? PR: There are two gay make-outs and a 6’6” guy in a maid’s outfit.

COURTESY OF PATRICK ROSSCaroline Batten, Cole Turner, Sasha Rojavin, Michelle Johnson, Allison McKinnon and Preston Cooper rehearse in Bond Hall.

ALL PHOTOS BY ZHENGLONG ZHOU/PHOENIX STAFF

COSTUME CONTESTSubmit your photos to the Phoenix’s First Annual Halloween Costume Contest! Alternatively, embarass your friends by submitting their photos. We’ll publish our top three picks in next wEek’s issue. Applicants will be evaluated on their creativity, facial symmetry and intoxication level. Please blot out any and all open beverage containers.



Confidential To A Friend

I was very upset when I received your letter this week, X. I had no idea that this was what you’ve been going through for the last two years. I apologize for not being a more attentive friend; I truly was clueless. But, now that you’ve ended this volatile re-lationship, I want to assure you that you are doing the right thing.

You were dating an emotionally abusive guy. The way he isolated you from your friends and constantly degraded and belit-tled you is indicative of that. His intention was to make you emotionally dependent on him and ruin your self-esteem. Why did he do it? Because he was afraid you would leave him and he wanted you to feel like you could never do that. Because you are a won-derful person who everyone loves/wants/wants to be and it made him insecure about himself. Because he wanted to make you

just as vulnerable as he is. Because he’s a dick. Whatever his reasons are, they were his own and they had nothing to do with you. In fact, his insecurity was de-veloped long before he

met you and he’ll probably carry it long af-ter you.

No one should ever say the things he’s said to you or do the things he’s done to you. No one should ever scream at you, threaten you, or intimidate you with dem-onstrations of his physical strength. He may have never physically harmed you but he has caused you some severe psychological damage with this behavior. He’s made you question your abilities, doubt your beauty, and lose faith in yourself. This is one of highest forms of betrayal from a lover. We live in a society in which fat cats profit from the insecurities of women with their multi-billion dollar industries that sell us a whole bunch of shit that promises to make us bet-ter. More desirable, more physically appeal-ing, closer to a ridiculous standard of beau-ty. You lover should be your salvation from all these things. He should make you feel beautiful, should reinforce your strengths, and encourage you to overcome your in-securities. If he doesn’t, you are much bet-ter alone. We women have enough people trying to put us down, tell us what to be, look like, what to want. You sure as hell don’t need to have the ‘closest person to our heart’ do the same.

X, you are undoubtedly one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. When I’m around you, I can’t help but smile because you are happiness incarnate. I’m envious of how amazingly intelligent and talented you are. I love your creative eye because you imagine the world in such a fanciful way. I aspire to be as “I don’t give a shit” as you. I heart your clothes. And most of all, I fancy the way that you can make a sincere connection with everyone you talk to—like that random guy at subway station that had a following of cats. Remember? You have the ability of arousing the loveliest of feelings from people because your heart is good and your intentions are always pure. People feel that positive energy radiating from you and the generosity of your soul. Basically, you’re the bee’s knees and anyone who says otherwise sucks at life. No, sucks at existence.

It’s a good thing that you’ve dumped that moronic tool. Trust me. You may feel as though you ‘sunk’ two years into this relationship and nothing has come of it. However, realize that you’ve gained very valuable experience from this. You were able to notice this behavior pattern of his that was harmful and free yourself from it. Many people in your position blame them-

selves—this type of treatment conditions them to do that—and don’t leave a rela-tionship like this until every shred of self-esteem they have is gone. Your inclination to ‘make it work’ because of the amount of time you’ve put into the relationship and the fact that you ‘love him’ is normal. In fact, many researchers have proven that ro-mantic love has similar effects on the brain as a drug addiction. This is what’s causing your desire to give it another try. Kick the habit and ignore these feelings. I know, easier said than done. The best thing you can do is distract yourself as much as pos-sible. Do anything that you like, that makes you smile, that you’re somewhat interested in. And, in those times when you can’t help but think about it, talk to someone. Get it out of your head and bounce your ideas off of someone. This will be useful in two ways. Firstly, it will help you get everything off of your chest. Nothing is worse than in-ternalizing the negative and, most likely, self-harming thoughts that you are having. Secondly, it will give you a second person’s perspective on the situation which is some-thing that I think you really need right now.

I know you said that you’re ‘ashamed’ to talk to your friends. Know that you can always talk to me or find some campus re-sources that are a little less close to home. You could always go to CAPS, talk to a student from Speak to Swatties, or get ev-erything out in a journal. However, I don’t want you to feel ashamed. I want you to understand that this situation of yours is

one that many others have faced as well. What you’ve experienced for the past two years is, unfortunately, not uncommon and I wanted to print this for you so that you know that you’re not having experiencing this in isolation. I want you to be able to casually ask someone what they thought of this article or overhear someone talk-ing about it. Just listen to what that person has to say. I assure you it will make you feel loads better to listen to their rant about how much of a bitchface-jerk they think the guy in this situation is. At the very least, you’ll see just how many people would defend you in this situation or can empathize with what is happening to you. As one of my professors said in class the other day, a lot college relationships a bit twisted. It’s hard to find yourself and date at the same time. Hell, these things are individually difficult, nevermind together.

Be strong now and realize that you are making the best damned decision you can right now. As our hero Elly says, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Don’t give it to him, love. Know that you are beautiful, courageous, and a lot better off without him.

Rebuilding Confidence, Self-Love After an Abusive Relationship

We live in a society in which fat cats profit from the insecurities of women with their multi-billion

dollar industries that sell us a whole bunch of shit that promises to make us better... Your lover should be your salvation from all

these things.

Relationship Reflections: Columnists Answer All

Dear Nestor

Dear Nestor,I’m a perpetual cheater. The first time it happened, I thought it was a one-time

thing, but I keep finding myself in the same situation. It’s not that I’m unhappy with the people I’m with, it’s just that with that happiness is still a wanting and a sadness. I think it might have something to do with the perfect relationships we read about and see on TV: real life just doesn’t seem satisfying.

The problem is, beyond the obvious cheating itself, is that I honestly dislike who I am as a person because of it. In my head, I’m unbreakable -- I’ve been hurt before, as we all have, and I don’t fear feeling that same hurt again. In my head I’m immune to feelings of guilt and regret. In reality, I have difficulty even feeling worthy of liking someone, and the thought of being open about my past is incomprehensible.

I have trouble considering myself a good person anymore, and this distinction has always defined me. I feel lost and undeserving, but also used and undesir-able. I want to be able to move past this and feel ready to form relationships with people, whether platonic or romantic, but keeping such a big part of my past a secret dissuades me from attempting honesty at all. I feel guarded, prob-ably because I’m guarding these secrets, and probably because despite our typical perceptions of cheaters and their agency in relationships, I’ve been hurt badly by the people I’ve been with and people I’ve trusted with my past. I’m also afraid of the cycle repeating.

How do I move on from all of it and learn to like myself again?Cheating Chester

Dear Chester:Thank you for this personal anecdote. At first, I was thinking about responding and analyzing your behavior, but

then it dawned on me: “Why should we continue to tread up the past?” The analogy that keeps popping through my head right now is a pair of

knotted earphones. Sometimes, they can be so absolutely frustrating to un-tangle. But if we really want to listen to our music, we have to untangle it: whether it is for the quality of the sound, the length of the chord, or simply for aesthetics. I don’t think I am in the minority in thinking: “Wouldn’t it be great to just throw these earphones away, and magically have a new set of untangled earphones appear?” Unfortunately, most of the time we don’t have the ability to do so, with money and/or time constraints to get a new pair. However, the beauty about our behavior is that we can completely change how we conduct ourselves. We can say goodbye to our past behavior and say hello to the new “earphones.”

I say start afresh! From this moment on, all of that is behind you. Now what you have to do is to find ways to overcome new hurdles in our life, I always believe that people can start anew, no matter how many times they screwed up.

There are three foreseeable hurdles that I see reoccurring in starting anew, but I now think you can take them on.

1. Even though you will change your behavior, unfortunately people will still remember how you treated them in the past. In this case, I would suggest you apologize for the pain you have caused them, and assure them that you no longer act in such ways. You may want to go in depth about your road to changing, perhaps what you felt after hurting those around you. This is totally up to you. Trust takes time build. So no matter what, you will have to assume that it will take time for their wounds to heal.

2. You have to first accept the fact that people will hurt you, whether it is a significant other or friend. It is how you deal with that pain that matters. You have no control over how the people around you will treat us. What you do have control over is yourself. Depending on how they have hurt you, you will have to decide whether they deserve to have a place in your life. You are a human, and deserve to be treated with the utmost respect. Do not tolerate any behavior that will bring you down. Oftentimes, their actions are more of a reflection on them, rather than yourself. Ultimately, we all go through hard-ship and pain. Remember, what it feels like, and ask yourself: “Would I want to put that onto someone else?”

3. You have to accept yourself: trust yourself, allow yourself to make mis-takes, and praise yourself for all your positive attributes (most of us don’t do this, and it is actually incredibly important). One thing that I would just like to compliment you on is your self-awareness. You really appear to know yourself well. This will be very rewarding in the future.

I also want to comment on your use of “good.” Oftentimes, I hear people being called “good or bad.” It seems as if society chooses to place individuals in these artificial boxes. However, we are people, not objects. And even if some-thing or someone were to be considered “bad,” it is so subjective. No one is “good or bad.” There may be actions that are considered to be “bad,” but by us-ing that word you are putting a label on not only your actions, but also yourself. And we are not labels; we are people composed of many different emotions, thoughts, feelings, and capabilities. You are you!

Ultimately, don’t be afraid to share your past with future friends and signifi-cant others. We all have made mistakes. If they judge, it is again more of a re-flection on them. If anything, a sharing of your flaws will strengthen your ties.

While breaking this cycle may be hard, in doing so, you will be embarking on a new path. People will begin to appreciate your change, and you will see it in their behavior. Therefore, you will begin to feel better about yourself. And upwards the cycle goes…..

Hope this helps!Best,

Nestor

“Cheating Chester” Wants to Change

VIANCAMASUCCI

Missing Parts



Why Write? ... And Why Read?

Zadie Smith had her audience pegged from her first moment at the podium in Lang Performing Arts Center at last night’s lecture, “Why Write?” The acclaimed novel-ist, whose works largely center on themes of identity, had no trouble in relating to the Swarthmore students filling the seats and blocking the upper aisles: written for her own “schizophrenic” students, she sought to deliver a lecture which answered her self-posed question without superficial gran-deur or undue humility.

The large attendance at Smith’s lecture is not always the rule at literary events spon-sored by this small-but-vibrant branch of the English Literature Department. Fic-tion writer Daniel Torday, Director of Bryn Mawr’s Creative Writing Program, greeted roughly twenty bodies in the Scheurer Room for his reading last Thursday, of whom professors and Bryn Mawr students contributed a notable volume.

Perhaps this discrepancy in attendance is best explained by the profound identi-fication Smith described people develop-ing with the title “writer.” Perhaps it is ex-plained by Smith’s observations that less people seem to identify with the role of “reader” than they do with “author,” “poet” and “artist.” If, indeed, we are a generation of egocentric individuals standing on street corners, throwing our own claims to literary prowess into an ever-growing cacophony of “I am a writer! I am a writer!” positioning oneself within a community of readership may mark a step away from that strident in-dividualism and creative capacity.

However, the question “why write?” cannot be removed entirely from the ques-tion of “why read?”, both within the context of Smith’s lecture and larger logical para-digms that necessitate an audience for the multitudes vying for authorial recognition. If a novelist is not an artist, but an artisan, and a novel not a novel, but a functional ob-ject like a chair, then it seems critical that someone exist to sit in it.

Smith’s discussion of reading, while tan-gential to her larger focus, paints a rather dismal picture of college-aged textual con-sumers. Her graduate students forget words in the essays they submit to her because they fail to read their drafts. Students in general are forced to barrel through a novel a week — half as long a time as Smith claims it takes to read a work of the novel’s com-

plexity — in order to keep up with class-room syllabi. “Do they know how to read?” Smith (jokingly?) admitted to inquiring of her students.

Attendance at Smith’s lecture seems to imply that yes, we do still retain basic lit-eracy skills and an interest in the genre of the novel. Then again, if her initial profile of LPAC’s audience resonates as true — which, based on the delighted laughter that greeted each of her previous descriptions of writ-ers’ lectures (the assessment of the volume of notes, the staring at patterns in the floor titles) seems to be at least partly the case — then one can’t assume that the students fill-ing the seats and aisles of the not-so-drafty room have ever read her work, or read a work, of literature. “You’re a writer, I’m a writer,” she ventriloquized the crowd. And that’s why we all sat in attendance.

Based on interest in the English Depart-ment’s spring creative writing workshops, Smith’s supposition that we all strive to em-body the “culture figure of excellence” that the author and the poet symbolize appears to hold true for students on Swarthmore’s campus. This year’s submissions to Frost’s fiction-writing workshop have doubled from last year, at approximately 40 students. Applications to the poetry workshops saw an increase as well.

This increasing population of writers ac-tively underscores the importance of read-ing, both in the development of one’s own practice and for our society as a whole. “I don’t believe in the death of the novel,” Pro-fessor of English Literature Peter Schmidt said in his introduction to Smith’s lecture. “It’s the dearth of novel-readers that ought to worry us.”

If the size of our community of readers can be evaluated based on attendance at fic-tion and poetry readings, both on campus and in the Tri-Co, the right word, as Smith hunted for it in relation to one’s sitting down before a computer screen to begin a novel, is not “despair,” or “pointlessness,” but rather, “tolerable.” Or perhaps a phrase: “could be better,” “desiring improvement,” or a mere letter: “B” (no, anywhere else it wouldn’t be an A).

For writers in particular, readings — and their subsequent Q&A sessions — offer important insights into the processes un-derlying composition, and can inform their own entrance into the field of literature.

“It’s good to ask questions about how a writer arrived at elements of or a complete finished story,” Frost said. “We’re presented with a finished story, but we’re not seeing

anything in there of the process that the writer had to go through to create the sto-ry. [We don’t know] how many drafts they went through, how many times they got it wrong … how they found their characters and their story — so I think [Q&A’s are] re-ally useful, precisely to ask those questions.”

Readings themselves seem to produce more mixed feelings. Whereas commentary on process exists outside the realm of the written work, the oration of a story, poem or novel that readers have already experienced in their own internal voices can intrude on individualized interpretations of fiction. As Smith posited individuality as one of the central features of the modern movement to write, this subjugation to authorial intent may underlay resistance to readings.

“Poets read poems and novelists read novels where they almost completely change the meaning of the way I’d read it at first,” Professor of English Literature Ra-chel Buurma said. “Just from the section of the novel they focus on ... and how they emphasize sentences, you can get a different reading.”

“Some authors perform them,” Buurma added, on the way writers “act out” their se-lections, “and others, you wish they hadn’t.”

Buurma sees a more central feature of the public reading as collecting a commu-nity of readers around an author whose work connects them in ways they may not otherwise experience. In the same way that much of the audience identified as “writers” at last night’s lecture, readers of a particu-lar work — be it “Harry Potter” or “White Teeth” — come to see themselves as part of a larger amalgam of individuals who share the same reading interests.

“Even though reading is [imagined to be] a private activity, it’s never really pri-vate,” she said. “You know when holding a printed book — at least, [one written] in this historical moment — that lots of other people have it ... in its material form, it gives a message about the community that’s read-ing [it] and [that it is] written for. Readings help make that community or reanimate it in a different way — they give a cross-sec-tion of a bigger community of readers.”

It was a reliance on a community of readers that allowed Smith to structure her lecture around three writers that have contributed their own answers to the ques-tion of “why write?” From Alexander Pope’s assertion that one writes because one is, innately, a writer to George Orwell’s four listed motivations for writing (egoism, aes-thetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and

political purpose), Smith presents and cri-tiques theories of past authors to generate her own conclusion: that we write to see things as they are, to reconcile or explore the ambiguity central to the human experi-ence.

In the world she describes, the need to write — as a way to understand, to cap-ture the specificity of human experience in a society so globalized that an omniscient narrator is no longer possible — heralds a return to a smaller scaling, a reclaiming of agency lost in the delegation of the tasks of everyday life to third parties. Writing, un-der Smith’s description, becomes a hold on individuality in a society content to lump the public together under the umbrella heading of “consumer.”

“Writing looks like freedom,” she said, toeing the line of an earlier promise to re-strain from grand and “unnecessary truths” in discussing writing. “[It’s the] freedom not to express, but to escape from the par-tial, subjective reality in which I live.”

The features of our current age that modern writers must struggle against — the advent of the Internet, the crumbling of copyright laws, and the gradual break-down of the publishing industry — creates an opportunity for artists to connect with audiences without the go-between of third-party mediators, according to Smith, and the multiplicity of described human expe-rience offers opportunities to connect to characters that may not “look” like readers. Posing a series of statements and questions — “this is how I see the world: do you?” — she models the relation between reader and writer as an individualized and intimate ex-change.

For Kieran Reichert ‘13, Smith’s lecture inspired “a shift away from thinking about writing the next Great American Novel” to fulfilling his own artistic goals.

“[I want to focus on] making my writing compelling and relatable, and not focused on any arbiter of literary worth,” he said.

Her lecture — intricate, thoughtful and witty — resonated with students who de-scribed themselves as artists and those who didn’t.

“I think her talk was incredibly relevant to me — to anyone who makes anything, really,” Sarah Diamond ’13, an artist, said. “Mostly, [the main thing I took from it was]it’s always good to be reminded that you’re not alone, not only so you feel comforted, but [because it humbles] you ... it’s a pretty universal feeling — even if don’t identify as an artist.”

By ALI SHULTESAssistant Living & Arts Editor

ZHENGLONG ZHOU/ PHOENIX STAFFAuthor Zadie Smith spoke to a crowded LPAC yesterday evening.

Acclaimed Novelist Zadie Smith Explores the Evolving Drive to Write



Tom Uttech: Art Without an Artist

JULIA CARLETON /PHOENIX STAFFTom Uttech’s collection “Adisokewini” at the List Gallery from November 1st to December 16th explores Woodlands in Wisconsin and Ontario.

Paintings in List Gallery, Photographs in McCabe

For the next month and a half, Swarthmore College will be taken over by the nature-loving imagination of Tom Uttech, whose paintings and photographs are exhib-ited concurrently in the List Gallery and in the atrium of McCabe Library. The former show is titled “Adisokewini” and features his recent oil paintings, and the McCabe show exhibits some of Uttech’s photographic work. “Ad-isokewini” runs from Nov., 1 to Dec., 16, as does his pho-tographic exhibit, and the lively opening on the 1st was preceded by a truly fascinating and humorous talk given by the artist himself in LPAC Cinema wherein he dis-cussed his background and the ideas behind some of his

works, accompanied by truly radiant, glittering slides of his paintings.

Uttech, when speaking, warned the audience that he tends to ramble, yet he was a joy to listen to. He was refreshingly plain and human when speaking about his work. He is a rare

breed: the humble intellectual. He didn’t try to insist upon some grand deep meaning behind his work, and through-out the talk, he wryly insisted that he was not an artist. Throughout his career, he reminded the audience, he did not consider himself an artist, since he did not subscribe to the popular artistic movements of the time. Thus, if he wanted to paint nature at a time when the art world was simply gaga for conceptual art, so be it.

Uttech seemed almost amused when several audience members asked him if there was some deeper meaning behind the almost ubiquitous bear who often features in his nature scenes. They wondered: was he the bear? Ut-tech demurred, saying that if the viewer wanted him to be the bear, then he was the bear. Later in the talk, though,

Uttech demonstrated his own profound self-insights. He asked to bear with him (no pun intended) as he thought aloud about the intellectual side of his works, and then self-deprecatingly called his own self-analysis “bullshit”, to the protest of the audience. Uttech, evidently, does not want to be put into some high art intellectual box. He has extremely perceptive insight into his own work, but is grounded and wonderfully down-to-earth about his own abilities and his themes of choice.

His photographic exhibit, located in McCabe, features black-and-white nature shots that are a joy to behold. His love for the outdoors is apparent in the skill and detail with which he addresses his subject. They are a truly love-

ly addition to the library and provide an interesting visual complement to all the books and gray stone of McCabe.

Each of Uttech’s paintings is a little world. His paint-ing exhibit, located in the List Gallery, features oil paint-ings of various size and scale that are notable for their use

of color as well as each work’s carefully chosen unique frame. His works also reveal themselves to be a veri-table menagerie, populated not only by trees and plants and other flora but by birds of all species (all accurate for the location, of course), and squirrels, raccoons, and of course, the bear. The paintings seem naturalistic and realistic from a distance, but when upon closer inspec-tion, the chaos and spontaneity of his works are apparent. These works range from vigorous and energetic to more calm and meditative, and are suffused with Uttech’s love of his subject.

Overall both exhibits are excellent and complement one another well. My one quibble with the exhibits is with the lighting of the painting exhibit. During the art-ist’s presentation, I was completely blown away with the luminosity of the works he displayed on the screen. The paintings seemed to glimmer and glow from within, like stained glass. Shortly after, when I went to see the works in person in the gallery, they seemed flatter under the brighter lights in the room, their limpid colors dried out slightly. Perhaps an overall dimmer lighting with more di-rect lighting on the works themselves might have allowed the overall exhibit to maintain the wonder I felt looking at Uttech’s works during the presentation. This issue seems more related to the venue itself than to the actual quality of works. However, people who see the exhibit with fresh eyes will probably have a different experience than those people who first saw the works as slides in the darkened LPAC Cinema.

Overall, the two exhibits should not be missed. For many Swatties, the McCabe exhibit is near impossible to miss, but those art lovers among us should take the trip down to LPAC to see “Adisokewini.”

DEBORAHKRIEGER

I on the Arts [Tom Uttech] is a rare breed: the humble

intellectual. He didn’t try to insist upon some grand deep

meaning behind his work, and throughout the talk, he wryly insisted that he was

not an artist.



ALL PHOTOS BYTAYLOR HODGES/PHOENIX STAFF

Techno Legend Lights Up Electric Factory

When Richie Hawtin stepped up to the decks at 1 a.m., the ebullient crowd at Philadelphia’s Electric Factory con-cert hall did not restrain itself. The Ber-lin-based techno DJ is one of the most celebrated figures in the history of elec-tronic music, but he wasn’t there to pro-mote himself. Throughout the day lead-ing up to his Philadelphia performance, Hawtin maintained his light manner, preceding most sentences with a delicate brush of his bangs and his easy grin, but he knows there’s a lot of pressure on him these days and that untold eyes around the world are watching his every move.

Between his DJ sets, his revered tech-no label Minus, and his innovative live shows under his alias, Plastikman, Haw-tin’s every move has been chronicled intensely for over a decade now, but he’s recently put himself under a more intense gaze than ever by launching CNTRL, a month-long series of daytime lectures and late-night concerts in col-lege cities across the U.S. and Canada. This Friday brought Hawtin and his CNTRL crew to Philadelphia for a 5 p.m. panel at Drexel University’s main audi-torium followed by a 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. concert at the Electric Factory.

The tour was created in order to reach America’s puerile EDM generation – a set that looks to electronic music only for neon-colored synth anthems and dubstep’s barrages of distorted sub-bass

frequencies – and expand the culture’s narrow definition of electronic music.

“We’re not here to try and get people into a certain kind of music,” Hawtin said during Friday’s panel discussion at Drexel, “but to show how wide and varied the electronic music field is. For many of us, we’ve waited for this mo-ment in North America to accept what we do, but now we are concerned by the direction that the music is taking.”

Richie Hawtin is no stranger to North America. He was raised in Ontario, right across the border from Detroit, the birthplace of techno, before mov ing to Berlin less than a decade ago. Hawtin made frequent trips into Detroit, where he discovered electronic music and be-gan going to underground concerts. Years later, he established himself in the nineties as an unequaled producer of minimal techno and became a promi-nent part of the vibrant Detroit scene.

As a producer, his musical project has always seemed to be an experiment that asks how many elements can be re-moved while still producing a track that moves people both emotionally and on the dance floor.

The result is a bare bones form of techno that’s not as muscular or in-dustrial as the kind being exported en masse from Berlin today, but one that feels more cerebral. In the 90s, Hawitn’s innovative tracks gained him a large in-ternational following and his career has grown from there.

These days, Hawtin is a legend in

electronic music circles. For the past four years, he’s fallen within the top three spots of Resident Advisor’s Top 100 DJs list, coming in at number one in 2009. This year MixMag named him the number six dance artist of all time and last year the publication crowned Hawtin the number two DJ of all time, coming in second to mainstream favor-ite Tiësto.

It’d be easy for Hawtin to rest on his laurels and tour the world until his retire-ment, but instead he’s still pushing. The challenge now is to bring underground music culture to mainstream America. As with everything he does, he’s putting all his energy into his CNTRL tour.

“We want to represent our culture and show what we are doing,” Hawtin said at that day’s lecture. “The best way to do that is just to show what we do.”

Friday night, Hawtin and the tour’s other core DJs, Loco Dice and Ean Golden, each took their turn at the decks, spinning for an hour each. They were joined by Philadelphia native Josh Wink, who earned worldwide attention as a rave DJ in the nineties, and local DJ Rob Paine.

Each set was only an hour – a short time for a house or techno DJ to spin – but this allowed each of the artists to show the audience what they do and move on. By the time Hawtin stepped to the decks at 1 a.m. and dropped Gitech’s “What Is House What Is Techno,” the audience should have had a pretty good idea how to answer the question.

But then again, most in the audence seemed pretty familiar with the genres’ underground incarnations.

“I’ve seen Hawtin three times be-fore,” a 20-year-old student told me when I asked if he was familiar with the DJ. “He’s amazing.”

Most others told me they were al-ready familiar with Hawtin and were fans of his music.

However, there were many who ad-mitted that friends who knew the music had brought them along.

“I usually don’t listen to this kind of thing,” said a Temple University student in a short black dress and dangling gold earrings, “but this is pretty good.”

The set wasn’t one of Hawtin’s best, but certainly showcased his minimal style of simple synthesized arpeggios and booming bass accompanied by the snare rolls that punctuate his DJ sets.

“I haven’t listened to a lot of stuff like that before,” an EDM fan wearing neon sunglasses told me, “but that was awe-some.”

At the end of the night, Hawtin stepped back from the decks and walked into the audience. He shook hands and signed merchandise. At this point, you’d expect him to leave, but he’s still at it. He’s talking to fans, asking them questions.

“I don’t think this tour is about con-verting people,” Hawtin said at that af-ternoon’s panel discussion, “but just bridging the divide between our cul-tures, one person at a time.”

By TAYLOR HODGESLiving & Arts Writer

ELECTRONICALLY SONIC (Above) Ean Golden, founder of the website DJ Tech Tools, moves the dance floor with a technically dizzying set of house and techno. (Bottom Right) Techno luminary Richie Hawtin closes the night with a set of his trademark minimal techno. (Bottom Left) An energetic crowd takes over the floor at Philly’s Electric Factory.

TAYLOR HODGES / THE PHOENIX

TAYLOR HODGES / THE PHOENIX



2010 Pulitzer: ‘Tinkers’ Fails to Impress

The finalists for the 2010 Pulitzer award were all unorthodox books. The winner of the 2010 Fiction Pulitzer was Tinkers by Paul Harding, with the other two finalists being Love in Infant Mon-keys by Lydia Millet, and In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin. Tinkers is Harding’s first novel, and it largely slipped under the radar of the lit-erary review world. It is one of the more obscure titles to win the Pulitzer. Love in Infant Monkeys is actually a collection of short stories revolving around the inter-actions between human beings and other

animals. In Other Rooms, Other Won-ders is also a collec-tion of eight linked stories that revolve around one family and the many with whom it interacts. It is clear

from these selections that the 2010 fiction committee was intrigued by obscurity and sought to praise the unique qualities of the literature they came across.

Though Tinkers won, I am not con-vinced that it deserves the award. The novel revolves around the protagonist, George Washington Crosby, a dying clock repairman. As he attempts to face his imminent death, he obsessively looks to the past and analyzes his personal his-tory in the detail one would expect of a clock repairman. George reflects on his

experience growing up with an epileptic father. His father was a traveling salesman and repairman, and despite his moderate professional success, George remembers most clearly his weakest moments. He describes sounds ringing and sights whirl-ing and writes, “This was his aura, a cold halo of chemical electricity that encircled him immediately before he was struck by a full seizure.” It is clear that George could observe his father’s aura. He knew when a seizure was coming and needed only wait for the moment at which his father fell to the disease. As George suffers from kid-ney failure, he reverberates between life and death, and his reflections in the space between those two worlds—between the world and no world—are fascinating.

Though the layout of the novel is in-teresting, it suffers from fatal downfalls. Most importantly, in my opinion, Tinkers depends far too heavily on two of Hard-ing’s literary techniques: metaphors and imagery. Beginning with metaphors, the clocks that flitter throughout the story are heavy-handed symbols for George’s way of life: watching the second hand tick, cre-ating a web of gears that sustain each oth-er to advance the system, breaking down over time and needing to be repaired. I appreciate the artful usage of metaphor, but it feels like Harding is hitting the read-er over the head with a clock-shaped iron skillet. He relies far too heavily upon this symbol, and that cheapens the novel as a

whole. He faces the same issue with his imagery, which is intense and often trying to read. Many critics have lauded Hard-ing for painting a picture in the reader’s mind, but he does so at the expense of the reading experience. His lengthy, twisting descriptions of sights and sounds are bor-ing. Though they provide detailed looks at every scene, I feel that the reader would be better off with a slightly less detailed scene and more substance in exchange. Relying too heavily upon technique—not having enough faith in the story alone—is a common error among first novels, but I believe it prevents Tinkers from being a reasonable candidate for the 2010 Pulit-zer.

The other novels were also flawed. Af-ter reading them, I have to wonder wheth-er the committee valued obscurity over talent. I am curious what other novels were in the pile of submissions. It is hard for me to imagine that none of those nov-els were more worthy of finalist nomina-tions than the three the committee chose. Love in Infant Monkeys, though interest-ing, struck me as cute. It didn’t seem like the important piece of work one might hope would be nominated for this award. The collection revolves around human-animal interactions, and strives to make the point that we are too far removed from the animal world. But just like Harding, Lydia Millet, the author of Love in Infant Monkeys, goes too far to establish a sense

of fraternity between human beings and other animals. At one point, Millet writes, “A pigeon might seem serene, but that was a trick of the feathers. The feathers were soft, but beneath them it was bloody. That was beauty, said Tesla: the raw veins, the gray-purple meat beneath the down.” This is a good representation of Millet’s primary downfall. She desperately tries to establish this relationship at the expense of being realistic. She hits her reader over the head with her thesis rather than art-fully weaving it throughout her prose.

And finally, there is In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, which is likely the final-ist I would have chosen. This collection of eight short stories revolves around the Harouni family and their sphere of life, which is rather large given their rich, pow-erful status in their Pakistani district. It is intricate and well-written, and the author, Mueenuddin, seems to effortlessly swap points of view and story lines. In fact, Mueenuddin does this so well that the reader is almost unaware of the fractures in the story.

Overall, I would choose In Other Rooms, Other Wonders from these three finalists, but even that excellent book did not strike me as Pulitzer-worthy. Perhaps this was a year of weak submissions, but it is difficult for me to imagine that these were the best three from the piles, and it is particularly perplexing to me that Tinkers was chosen as the best among them.

A Poor Year for Submissions? Finalists Miss the Mark

David Toland is an EVS Technician whose new column, Can You Dig It?, details his experiences at Swarthmore, in the US Army, and with his three children: a daugh-ter, Hunter, 11; and two sons, Noah, 13, and David, 12. Driven by an enjoyment of poetry and digital story-telling fostered in Learning for Life, David is writing to share his life ex-periences with the Swarthmore community.

Someone once said, “Life is not a jour-ney to the grave with the intentions of arriv-

ing safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broad-side, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming … WOW! What a ride!” I am pretty sure that Hel-

en Keller did not have a bucket list when she said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” Do not get me wrong; in the back of everyone’s mind I think there is a “bucket list” of sorts. I feel that the first

thing on everyone’s list should be to get a college education. In this day and age, a college education is a necessity to achieve your dreams.

When opportunities come your way to do the things you have in the back of your mind or your “bucket list,” do not hesitate. There is no time for regrets. There are a million different things to which people say, “I want to do that, or I wish I did that.” Just do it. There is fun to be done.

I know the one thing that I always wanted to do was the Polar Bear Plunge. This is a yearly event in which people take a “plunge” into the ocean in the winter-time. I am participating in the Polar Bear Plunge with my two sons, Noah and Da-vid, and several of my friends this January. The event is to raise money for The Special Olympics.

Some of the common things that are on people’s so called “bucket lists” are: travel-ing, skydiving, white water rafting, seeing natural wonders of the world, visiting mu-

seums, getting a tattoo and finding the love of your life. The list goes on and on. I am one of those people that like to say, “I did it, done it, and got the t-shirt.” If we are talking about traveling, I have been to many differ-ent places. One of the most beautiful places I have visited was the Azores for Cinco de Mayo. The Azores are composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean about 930 miles west of Lisbon, Spain. The islands form the autonomous region of the Azores, which is one of the two autonomous regions of Por-tugal. I would highly recommend visiting the Azores. I have also been to Germany for Oktoberfest, a sixteen-day festival cel-ebrating beer. Oktoberfest runs from late September to the first weekend in October. More than six million people from around the world attend this event every year. I had a great time and I highly recommend checking it out.

As for the adventurous things, I have jumped out of many planes, fast- roped

out of a helicopter, repelled down a moun-tain and went cliff diving. I also did a lot of stupid things that I look back and say, “What was I thinking? Going 145 mph on a motorcycle?” Another thing on a lot of people’s so called “bucket list” is getting a tattoo. It is off my list because I am cov-ered with them. This brings me to my so called “bucket list.” When all three of my children are out of college, I am going to travel to Thailand and get a spiritual tattoo by a Buddhist monk. I am going to get it done with a traditional tattoo tool which is a long bamboo stick with a split sharpened point called a Mai Sak. After the tattoo, I will finish off the event by drinking cobra’s blood. It is the final part of the spiritual ritual in the tattoo process.

I hope you all get to do everything in life you want to do. But more importantly, live your “bucket list” everyday, because there is fun to be done. Life is too short to let it pass you by. You only have one shot and then it’s gone.

LANIESCHLESSINGER

Bibliobabble

DAVIDTOLAND

Can You Dig It?

There Is Fun To Be Done: Forget Your Bucket ListEVS Technician David Toland Knows How to Live in the Moment

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� is week, the Phoenix would like to inaugurate what we hope will become a regular, bi-weekly feature in the Living and Arts section. When going back and reading old copies of the Phoenix, we’ve been struck by some consistent threads that connect life at Swarthmore today with life decades ago. In the 50’s, students may have written di� erently, but they wrote about many of the same things. Swatties that are now our grandpar-ents’ age complained about inadequate food at Shar-ples, argued over the merits of athletics and PE pro-grams, and examined what one 1959 writer called the “fraternity-ML” split in social life, all topics that have appeared within the pages of the Phoenix in 2012. We are also struck by the di� erences in what was considered publishable or even politically correct — articles on the admissions process are particularly shocking, as opinion writers debated the merits of quotas for Jews, Catholics, and African-Americans.

With “Blast from the Past” we aspire to challenge readers’ assumptions about Swarthmore’s past while generating debate about how the College’s future should be di� erent. � is week, we chose a comedic piece on freshman year written by a junior opinions writer done for the September 14th, 1990 issue of the Phoenix. Not much has changed in the last two decades.

If you like this piece and want to learn more, check out the archived copies of the Phoenix on the second � oor of McCabe.

A Junior Delivers the Credit/ No Credit Scoop

Week one:Exit building for � rst � re drill at college. Fail swim

test. Decorate room with art posters. Notice the little glow star stickers on the ceiling. Answer hall phone whenever it rings. Learn to say “women”.

Week two:Exit building a� er putting in contacts and brushing

hair for second � re drill at college. Order � rst student special of Swarthmore career. Give all laundry pink tint.

Week three:Meet someone interesting. Receive letter from high

school sweetheart and feel guilty. Make another long distance call. Sleep through � rst eight-thirty.

Week four:Receive � rst long distance bill. Get drunk.

Week � ve:Venture into small room. Notice people look the

same as people in the big room. Return to dorm and re-read Lisa Birnbach’s description of Swarthmore.

Week six:Get together with the interesting someone. Have

� rst � ght with high school sweetheart over October break.

Week eight:Make marshmallow treats for the � rst time in Shar-

ples using the marshmallows from hot chocolate bins. Stop answering hall phones. Wear prom clothes to fall formal. Observe that everyone else is wearing black.

Week nine:Get no mail for a week, except letter mandating

that you must take aquatics class because you failed your swim test. Finally write back high school friends.

Week ten:Begin double ringing friends. Learn to play guitar.

Make out in Crum or in map room.

Week eleven:� ink PASS/FAIL, no sweat.

Week twelve:Watch � rst movie at Video Desk. Fall asleep in Mc-

Cabe. Realize you really do spend eight hours a day in library. Break up with high school sweetheart over � anksgiving Break. Berate parents for not recycling.

Week fourteen:*If from west coast, interrupt class and yell, It’s

Snowing! Spend three days traying. *If from east

coast, feel superior, act nonchalant.

Week � � een:� ink PASS/FAIL, sweat. Go to eight-thirty every

morning, remind teacher who you are.

Finals:Try to smuggle a large container of coke out of

dining hall. Go to math clinic. Forget to check mail. Call former sweetheart. Listen to upperclassmen tell you not to panic because you’re pass/fail. Panic. Sleep through � nal � re drill of your � rst semester in college and realize you did learn something this term a� er all.

With questions, comments, or requests for other topics you’d like to see, email [email protected].



Blast from the Past: � e Phoenix Remembers A Junior Delivers the Credit/No Credit Scoop

ACROSS1. ___ up (admit to)5. Parakeet and leash emporium10. Swine sound11. Ringo of the Beatles12. Advance Notice of Intent (ab-brev.)13. Swamp14. Musical invocation when hop-ing for school closing?17. Wanna hear a sodium joke? ___18. Long period19. Creamy winter beverage21. Eternity (math abbrev.)24. Fruity winter beverage28. Madrid meals29. Desert plateau30. Fluid sac31. Pig place

DOWN1. Baby horse2. Feminine singular, in German3. Nosy � uid4. Winter activity5. Additions, a� er the end of a letter6. __ tu, Brute?7. Forbidden8. Royal headgear9. Like com or net15. Most sun-baked16. Pos. or ___

20. Tiny � sh21. 15th of the month22. Avian home23. Battle24. In, on, or ___

25. Word with “super” or “man”26. First word of Nevada city27. Chat online

BY PRESTON COOPER

For the solution to this week’s puzzle, see The Phoenix’s online edition at www.swarthmorephoenix.com under Multimedia.

Winter Is Coming

Food Truckathon: Comic by Elizabeth Kramer

COURTESY OF SWARTHMORE.EDUPresident Aydelotte with Albert Einstein, Commencement 1938.

OpinionsThe Phoenix


The 2012 election is over, and President Obama is the decisive victor after winning most of the battleground states by narrow but clear margins. After a lengthy reelec-tion battle, voters have given the President the go-ahead to continue leading the country for another four years. The fight, however, is not over for President Obama; the chal-lenge of effectively governing the country for the rest of his time in office remains. A divided Congress still poses a challenge, and there is always the threat of troubles aris-ing within the administration. Mr. Obama, there are sev-eral courses of action you ought to pursue if your last four years are to be a success.

1. Rethink your economic team. Though your appoin-tees to fiscal positions did not frequently come up as a campaign issue this time around, conservatives and liber-als alike both criticize certain players in your Administra-tion, namely Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, for what they perceive as over-friendliness to Wall Street and the financial sector. Now that your reelection is secured, it’s time to make some changes to your economic team and bring in some fresh voices. Polls show that the American people overwhelmingly rated economic issues as their top priorities, and your victory in this election means they trust you to revive a still-sluggish economy. But you will not be able to achieve this in a second term without a cred-ible economic team. After all, your Council of Economic Advisors will help you craft the plan that you have to sell to the American people — and to Congress.

2. Recognize that progress depends on a functioning Congress. Voters gave Democrats a resounding victory in the Senate, but the House remains under Republican con-trol, which means that Congress will be divided in much the same way that it was before the election. Thus the po-tential for a continuation of partisan gridlock is high. The importance of a functioning Congress is impossible to stress enough. Indeed, blame for the dysfunction in Wash-ington rests on everyone. But as President, you will have to take on the role of the leader; you must craft — and advocate — solutions agreeable to both parties. And in or-der to win the cooperation of the legislature, you must also stay on good terms with them. This means that you must stay above the Washington blame game and refrain from pointing fingers at the other side when negotiations break down, because that won’t win you any friends in Congress. The key to a productive second term rests on your legisla-tive relations.

3. Be aware of potential scandals. Second terms are famous for them. From Monica Lewinsky to Scooter Libby, every recent two-term President has had some sort of embarrassment. Keep an eye out for brewing scandals within your administration, as they could undermine your legitimacy in the eyes of Congress. One particular thing to watch out for is the State Department’s handling of the Benghazi affair, and the recent release of cables from Am-

bassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in an act of terror at the American consulate there this past Septem-ber. In the cables, which have received extensive scrutiny from the GOP, Stevens asked for additional security at the Benghazi consulate, citing concerns of terrorist plots. The security was apparently never provided. Look into this is-sue and come clean with the American people if there was a failing on the part of your administration. Should a scan-dal surrounding this affair break in the first couple months of your second term, it could considerably damage your efforts to win over Congress and the public.

4. Come up with a concrete economic plan. During the campaign, both you and your opponent offered goals for the next four years (more jobs, smaller deficit, etc.), but shed very little light on how you would accomplish these objectives. When the 113th Congress convenes in 2013, you should have a plan ready to present to them. This plan

must combine Republican and Democratic proposals and find points of agreement if it is to have any chance of pass-ing Congress.

5. Don’t concern yourself too much with the 2014 midterms. Undoubtedly, senior Democrats are already planning out a strategy to win the House and bolster their majority in the Senate, while Republicans reevaluate their priorities in hopes of making up for losses this time around. Worrying too much about the next election constantly creates problems, as politicians pursue courses of action to bolster their reelection campaigns and those of their peers. This sort of behavior was one of the main causes of the gridlock that strangled the previous Congress. In advance of the 2014 midterms, you must stay above the fray as any strong leader should. Concern yourself with people, not with politics. Perhaps some members of Congress will fol-low your example.

Recommendations for the Reelected AdministrationPresident Obama Wins Another Term, But He Must Look Ahead

Staff Editorial

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LETTER, OP-ED & COMMENT POLICY

COURTESY OF WIRED.COM

2012 Election Results: Swarthmore, PAAs of Wed. 6 p.m. ET

U.S. SenatorRobert Casey (D): 53.6%

Tom Smith (R): 44.6%

U.S. HouseBob Brady (D): 85.1%

John Featherman (R): 15.0%

Pennsylvania State HouseJoe Hackett (R): 52.9%

Larry DeMarco (D): 47.1%

Pennsylvania Attorney GeneralKathleen Kane (D): 56.1%

David Freed (R): 41.6%

Pennsylvania TreasurerRob McCord (D): 52.6%

Diana I. Vaughan (R): 44.0%

Pennsylvania Auditor GeneralEugene DePasquale (D): 49.7%

John Maher (R): 46.5%

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012 OpinionsThe Phoenix

Obama Wins CloseReelection

Governor Romney’s loss Tuesday night gave me time to step back and think about why I care so much about politics. I was devastated by Romney’s loss, and my state of disbelief clouded my more rational senses. I came to see politics as some sort of irrational obsession of mine, rather than as an institution that has real implications for America.

When I regained my senses, I realized why elections are so important. Elections are the most effective way to make change in a constitutional republic. When you lose, the opposing side is able to enact the policies you so adamantly oppose, and can harm the country. When you win, you gain or retain control. A loss is a loss, and a win is a win, no matter the margin.

It is when a win can be translated into a mandate that the election takes on a cer-tain power that impacts the extent to which policies can be changed or continued. In 2008, President Obama’s election could be interpreted as a mandate to alter the course of American policy. Ultimately in 2010, this mandate was reversed, and a Democratic senate and Republican house effectively ended Obama’s mandate.

President Obama’s victory on Tuesday certainly does not come with the mandate it did four years ago. Obama used a campaign meant to divide the country, and won a narrow margin of victory in the swing states and nationally. When presidents normally win re-election, they garner more electoral votes and a higher popular vote percentage than in their first election. Obama lost votes around the country.

But Obama won. All the horrendous regulations of Dodd-Frank and the terrible healthcare mandate are now here to stay. Obama’s most unpopular policies will now be enacted. The President will have a full two terms in office, despite a mediocre first term that included the aforementioned legislation. Divided government will continue, as Republicans gained seats in the House and Democrats still control the Senate. The President will likely continue legislating through executive order, bypassing a system set up by our Constitution.

The next four years are going to be a continuation of the status quo. Obama did not run a campaign trying to appeal to a broad spectrum of independents like in 2008. With the economy experi-encing sluggish growth rates, millions of Americans unable to find work, and gridlock in Washington, Obama ran a campaign based on winning by the slim-mest of margins. Obama did manage to win most of the swing states he won in 2008, but with far fewer votes. His cam-paign was about winning and maintain-ing power, with its consequences for governing completely out of the picture.

While I am severely concerned about the direction of the country, I am also concerned about the path of our politics. Over the next few weeks and months, pundits will debate how this election was won and lost. Obama’s campaign will be seen as one of the most negative in his-tory. Obama’s strategy to divide America based on gender, race, and class will be shown to have worked. Is this the party message Democrats will carry through to 2014 and, more importantly, in 2016? Probably, yes.

Obama has created a new Democratic party that goes beyond just promising you everything but the kitchen sink. Obama’s campaign knew Obama had not delivered over the past four years, as evidenced by the high unemployment rate. Instead, they labeled Mitt Romney and the GOP as extremists opposed to contraception and denying women their rights to win the women’s vote. They argued Romney was “anti-immigrant” and wanted to deport all the illegal aliens currently in the country to win the His-panic vote. And, they painted Romney as a Wall Street tycoon that doesn’t care about the average person to appeal to white liberal suburbanites, the poor, and anyone in the middle class who would listen.

The Republican Party will be forced to look at how to counteract this new Democratic strategy of making Repub-licans sound like extremists outside the mainstream of American civil society. And, Republicans will have to educate candidates on how to discuss social is-sues in an appropriate, non-Todd Akin manner. Republican social issues need a messaging makeover, not a policy make-over.

There is no doubt I am still grueling over Governor Romney’s loss on Tues-day. But, I am not ready to give up on politics. The next four years will not in-clude the change I so desired in Wash-ington, but I think they will allow Amer-ica to see its mistake and right its wrong. The election is over, but the battle over America’s future lives on.

Tuesday Night a Victory for Individual

LibertyNo matter what the Republican talking heads are saying, Tuesday was an excellent

night for liberty. In three states, same-sex marriage was recognized, and in two recre-ational marijuana was legalized. Minnesota defeated a voter ID law, and pro-life extrem-ists Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock were defeated in Missouri and Indiana. All of these are questions of liberty, and all of them have one thing in common: the Republican Party was on the wrong side.

The Republican Party’s talk of liberty is a sham. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. Taking control of a woman’s body away from the woman herself is not protecting liberty. Limiting marriage based on gender is not protecting liberty. Opposing the use of drugs, where the effect, negative or otherwise, is limited to the user themselves, is not protecting liberty. Restricting immigration is not protecting liberty. What happened to personal responsibility? How can a party that wants government to be out of people’s lives when it comes to

health care, or retirement, or schools want government to be involved when it comes to sex and drugs?

Republicans claim superior devotion to economic liberty, but I see little evidence to support this. Booms and busts have occurred under Republicans and Democrats alike. Obama has added trillions to the deficit? So did Bush. The size of government is increas-ing readily, as it has been for years, due to Democrats and Republicans both. If you’re looking for a limited government of absolute liberty, neither side really wants that.

It’s about time we admit something to ourselves: there is no party of limited gov-ernment. Democrats want an expansion of welfare, Republicans want to force pseudo-

Biblical morality, and both want an ex-travagant military and a brutish foreign policy. Let’s not pretend that there are huge differences when it comes to many economic issues. Glass-Steagall was re-pealed under Clinton, and Obama has been less regulatory than Bush. When it comes to liberties, the differences be-tween the parties are civil and social.

During this election cycle, I’ve lost count of the number of old, white, Re-publican men who have made unbeliev-ably offensive remarks about rape. They want to take a woman’s right to have control over her body, and to justify, it must engage in a peculiar brand of vic-tim blaming. The right to abortion is a liberty, one which more than any other is the epitome of ‘personal responsibil-ity.’ The same is true for drug laws. Drug use is a victimless crime; the only person who stands to be harmed is the user him-self. I’m not claiming that Democrats are particularly ahead on this issue, especial-ly considering the behavior of the DEA and DOJ under President Obama, but the most vocal opponents of state ballot measures to legalize marijuana were Re-publicans. In Washington state, 16 state legislators support marijuana legaliza-tion, and not one of them Republican.

I am not a Democratic partisan, but on questions of liberty, of how free each of us can be, Democrats are miles ahead. Republicans ask us to forget these issues and instead focus on their dubious eco-nomic claims, which they claim are truly fair, free, and libertarian. But how can we forget their social positions? Who in the mid-20th century would vote for a segregationist and defend that vote by appealing to their economic policies? There needs to be a discussion about economic liberty, but that discussion is being silenced by the Republican devo-tion to bigotry.

My hope is that sometime soon Re-publicans realize that they can’t continue their current line of hypocrisy and re-form themselves into a more libertar-ian party. Drop the anti-liberty social positions, and embrace demographic changes. The constituency of old, white men is not enough to base a party on. It’s unlikely that this will happen after this election, but I hope, for all our sakes, that it comes someday soon. Liberty is barely defended at all by our political parties, we need both to make an effort.

I frequently worry that we will stand by and watch as the government eats away at our individual liberties, that we will forget to defend them. Those fears were crushed, for the time being, on Tuesday. America chose liberty and lib-erty this week in numerous states, and reelected a president that won’t bend to the radical religious right. I’d call that a win.

AARONKROEBER

The CivilLibertarianTYLER

BECKERThe Swarthmore

Conservative

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Citizens across the country celebrated President Barack Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney last night.

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SportsThe Phoenix


Swimming Makes Big Splash in Season OpenerRaces Past McDaniel for First Conference Win

In their first meet of the season on Nov. 2, the men and women’s swim teams pulled out huge wins over McDan-iel, easing by with room to spare with scores of 119-86 and 112-93, respectively.

Both the men and women’s 200-yard medley relay teams opened the meet with strong performances; Stan Le ’14, Daniel Duncan ’13, Charlie Hepper ’13 and Roger Chin ’13 teamed up to finish in first in 1:41.96, while Nik-kia Miller ’16, Pooja Kumar ’15, Supriya Davis ’15 and Kate Wiseman ’15 touched in 1:54.12 — a full three sec-onds ahead of McDaniel. Despite the early dominance, Head Coach Sue Davis knew the meets would be closer in the end. “McDaniel swam absolutely fantastically — bet-ter than I expected,” she emphasized.

McDaniel swam so well, in fact, that early on in the meet Brad Brooks smashed the pool record in the 1000 freestyle by four seconds, touching first in a time of 9:37.34, nearly a full minute ahead of a solid performance by Josh Turek-Herman ’16.

The Garnet, however, matched the Green Terror by swimming at a level not often seen this early in the season, from Duncan’s win in the 200 freestyle (1:46.78) to Eva Winter ’16 and Nikkia Miller ’16’s 1-2 finish in the 200 individual medley (2:19.50 and 2:19.83, respectively) to Chin’s win in the 100 backstroke (56.53).

From the start, Chin was confident about his team’s ability to deliver the win. “Having swum together through many meets and practices, we know each other’s person-alities and motivations,” he said. Likewise, Davis knew her team was prepared to face any challenge the opponent may have presented. “Every member of our team [was] prepared to step up and race hard,” she said.

While the returners played a vital role in both teams’ success, the new freshmen have added valuable depth and support. “The freshman are a great addition to the wom-en’s team,” said Davis, as they took three individual events on Saturday. Winter and Jessica Seigel ’16 accounted for three individual wins, as Winter won the 100 breaststroke by four seconds to go with her win in the 200 individual medley, while Seigel won the 500 freestyle runnng away. Despite the wins, Winter admitted to nerves going into her first swim meet at Swarthmore. “I was definitely ner-vous since it was our first official meet.” However, she managed to exceed even her own expectations. “I didn’t expect to swim as fast as I did,” she said.

Meanwhile, on the men’s team, four freshmen fin-ished in the top three spots for three individual races. “The freshmen were a great contribution to the meet with their energy and their excitement,” Chin said. Riley Col-lins ’16, who took second place in the 100 breaststroke, was pleased with both his own performance, as well as the team’s. “We seem to be at a good starting point for the rest of our season,” he said.

The Garnet kept things rolling with a meet last night against Widener. Against the overmatched and outnum-bered Pride, the men thundered to a 108-59 win, while the women delivered a 112-84 statement. As with the meet against McDaniel, Swarthmore started the evening with definitive wins in the medley relays, pulling away on the butterfly legs of each to win by a comfortable margin.

On Saturday at 1 p.m., Swarthmore takes on perhaps its biggest rival in Franklin & Marshall in the comforts of Ware Pool. Fueled by their confidence coming out of their

successful wins against McDaniel and Widener and led by a strong group of upperclassmen leaders, every swimmer is ready to work hard to shave seconds off their times. Col-lins said all of the upperclassmen are involved. “Our cap-tains do a great job of keeping us on task, while Nick Sohn ‘13, Fred Toohey ‘14, Zach Gavin ‘14, and Cyrus Nasseri ‘14 lead us in team-building exercises every weekend.” Furthermore, he said, Duncan and Jake Benveniste ‘14 are “catalysts” for the team in practice.

When asked what the team’s goals were for the upcom-ing meets, Chin said, “We prepare for each meet with in-tensity and focus, regardless of the opponent.” Similarly, Supriya Davis answered when asked the same question, “We plan to race hard at every meet, and bring it on at conferences.” Winter summed up the teams’ target in one simple statement: “Swim just as well and even faster.”

Dan Duncan is the Sports Editor for The Phoenix. He was not involved in the production of this article.

By JENNI LUSports Writer

AKSHAJ KUCHIBHOTLA/PHOENIX STAFF

The Garnet and Green Terror women dive in for the start of the 50 freestyle in this season’s first meet against McDaniel last Friday night. Sophomore Kate Wiseman won in a time of 25.05.

AKSHAJ KUCHIBHOTLA/PHOENIX STAFF

Senior Nathaniel Lo fights through the breaststroke leg of the 200 individual medley. He finished 7th with a time of 2:36.11.

SportsTHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012

The Phoenix

Volleyball Advances into ECAC TournamentSeniors Coleman and Montemurro Reflect on a Successful Four Years

PAGE 17

ALL PHOTOS BY KATY MONTOYA/PHOENIX STAFFOn Wednesday night, Garnet volleyball handed an upset to No. 6 Delaware Valley College, clinching the quarterfinal game in straight sets with a 3-0 win, and securing a berth in the semi-finals against Moravian College in the ECAC Division III South Region Tournament.

The Swarthmore College volleyball team earned its fourth consecutive ECAC Tournament berth on Monday. In a testament to their successful season, the Garnet (20-6, 8-2 Centennial Conference) earned the third seed in the eight-team tournament, and played host to sixth-seeded Delaware Valley (17-9) on Wednesday night, shutting them down with a 3-0 win. The volleyball team will join field hockey and both men’s and women’s soccer in the postsea-son, an achievement that speaks to the growing strength of Swarthmore’s athletic teams.

Swarthmore enters the tournament looking to end their season on a positive note after Johns Hopkins ended the team’s hopes of a Conference championship by beating the Garnet 3-0 on Saturday. Though the Blue Jays overmatched Swarthmore for the second time this season, head coach Harleigh Chwastyk was impressed by her team’s tenacity. Despite acknowledging that Hopkins is “a very strong of-fensive team,” Chwastyk emphasized the continued effort throughout a difficult match, calling her team “relentless.”

A similarly relentless, fearless attitude has characterized a young Garnet team throughout a record-setting season. The team earned its best finish (third place) and conference record (8-2) in program history. With a win on Wednesday night, the team would achieve the program’s third straight 20-win season.

The fact that this year’s team managed to overcome the loss of several key players from last season is partially a re-sult of the impressive play of several underclassmen. In par-ticular, captain Allie Coleman ’13 spoke about the play of setter Sam Dubois ’16 and libero Madison Heppe ’16, prais-ing the duo for “having bought in to the program” from the start.

Due especially to the team’s youth, the leadership from lone seniors on the team, Coleman and fellow captain Kat Montemurro ’13, has been critical. Both seniors have been preparing for their roles this year since their freshman year. Chwastyk lauded the two for being “leaders since they stepped on campus” and for being “driven, intense people, who knew what they wanted to do since they came here.”

Montemurro cited the intimate team atmosphere as be-ing crucial to her development during her four years in the program, saying that, “it’s been an amazing experience to be part of the team that turned the program around. Coach [Chwastyk] always says that you are part of the Swarthmore Volleyball family for life, so this has been an incredible ex-perience in the way of building new and lasting friendships. I’ll miss competing at this level and playing for my team and the school.”

The duo has been a part of a program that has had a historic improvement over the past four years. For the first time ever, the Swarthmore volleyball made four consecutive conference playoffs, and it is no coincidence that Coleman and Montemurro have been a part of this turnaround. The two play complementary positions — Coleman is a setter and Montemurro an outside hitter — and have developed “a very unique chemistry as a pair,” according to their coach.

When Coleman set the career assist record in the Hop-kins match, she was quick to share the credit with her team-mates, pointing out that her individual success would have been impossible if it was not matched with wins. “The as-sists are a good reflection on the team,” she said. “It means we have good passing, lots of kills and most importantly lots of wins. I am really happy to be a part of that.”

As the two seniors enter their final week as student-athletes, they took an opportunity to reflect on some of the highlights of what has been an extraordinarily accom-plished four years. In particular, Coleman used the rivalry with Haverford as a benchmark to exemplify the team’s improvement. In 2009, Haverford was a conference power, and a young Swarthmore team was so happy to win just one set against the Fords that it was “one of the highlights of our season,” according to Coleman. In 2012, however, Swarthmore refused to be satisfied with winning just one set. Instead, they dominated the Fords, winning 3-1 and fin-ishing one game ahead of their archrivals in the Conference standings.

With its two leaders moving on, the team will once again need to transition seamlessly into a new season if it wishes to continue its success. In order to do so, next year’s se-nior leaders, Danielle Sullivan ’14, Brone Lobichusky ’14 and Maggie Duszyk ’14, will shoulder the responsibility of building on the legacy left by previous teams. Chwastyk expects her team to continue to improve, saying that the team’s “alumni have established a certain level [of play] and the expectation stays the same.” To describe her expecta-tions for the team, Chwastyk uses a word familiar to the Swarthmore College community: “sustainability.”

Through the sustainability of the team’s leadership, next year’s Swarthmore volleyball team will look to build on its successes this year by winning the Centennial Conference championship and advancing to the NCAA Tournament. Though Montemurro and Coleman will not be players on that team, their influence in shaping the team over the past for years will nevertheless be a critical component of the team’s continued success.

The team is heading to Bethany College in West Virginia this Saturday for the last leg of the ECAC tournament.

By SCOOP RUXINSports Writer

SportsThe Phoenix


There’s More to Being a Fan Than WinningJamie Says You Should Support a Team for More Than Recent Success

Why can’t people support smaller clubs abroad?

I don’t want anyone to be annoyed by this article. Don’t be annoyed. But why does everyone who watches any football automatically choose a team from the top six of the Premier League or, less so, the top four in Italy, Bayern Munich/Borussia Dortmund or Barca/Madrid. I understand that they get to compete for the title at home and abroad. I understand that they make bigger signings and have more mon-

ey, larger crowds, and more merchan-dising power across the globe. But don’t you ever get bored asking someone, “Who do you sup-

port?” and hearing the same 5 teams over and over again?

I could rant on about this for ages until the little voice in my head becomes hoarse so can I just focus on the question that bugs me more than anything, how is sup-porting Arsenal meant to be hipster? I have heard both sides of the argument: people who support Arsenal and people question-ing why those people support Arsenal. It seems to come back to the same thing: Arsenal is a hipster team. But they aren’t. What is hipster about them? Just because they haven’t won anything since 2005 does not make them hipster. That they may play like a less effective Barcelona does not make them hipster; both Fulham and Swansea play passing football too. They have a stadium that can fit 60,000 people so plainly that they have a substantial fan base in London; and they can get a match day crowd larger than Liverpool, Man-chester City, Tottenham or Chelsea.

So are they more hipster teams to sup-port because fewer people attend their matches? Why are Arsenal and only Arse-nal considered to be hipster? If you want a team that is hipster and will play in the Premier League for the foreseeable future there are plenty of teams to choose be-tween: Everton have never been relegated, Aston Villa are one of the oldest clubs in the country and Fulham have the old-est ground in the league. There are other teams that have rich histories but these three have been in the top division for at least the past 12 years — surely, that pro-vides you with enough security to support them.

One great advantage of supporting a smaller club is that you set your sights much lower for the season and you begin

to enjoy the smaller things in football. So many football followers spend their time complaining that Arsenal could only draw with a team or win 1-0 against QPR. They fear that Arsenal won’t qualify for the Champions League directly and will have to go through qualification or that they will never win a trophy until there is a management change.

But surely those are smaller issues. As a Fulham fan I focus more on the good points of the season than the bad. We may have been knocked out of the League Cup in the second round by Sheffield last Wednesday, but that isn’t a huge worry. The main focus is to get into the top half of the table and to play nice attacking football, two things that are possible this season. Though Ful-ham haven’t played in many finals (two in total: FA Cup final 1975 and the Europa League Final 2010), this makes the average Fulham supporter really appreciate any cup run or venture into Europe. Rather than being spoiled by constant European football, it is something to be treasured and enjoyed while it lasts. When you don’t have very much, you begin to appreciate what you have even more. Plus, we now have Dimitar Berbatov so life is very good, he may be lazy but he is forever forgiven at Fulham because he is “our precious”.

Supporting a team should be about identifying with it either through their his-tory, location or style of play. Just because they win a lot of trophies is not a reason to support them. That is simply jumping on the bandwagon rather than partaking in the building of the wagon in the first place. The amount of Manchester City fans that have emerged in the past two or three years is phenomenal. They could just be emerging into the light from the darkness of their shame and lost hopes or they could be attracted to the rising of the blue moon. Either way, there are a lot more City sup-porters since the money started flowing out of the coffers.

So instead of being magpies, look for a team that attracts you for other reasons than its shiny. For a college that believes in diversity, there is a shocking lack of diver-sity in the teams that are supported. I don’t care who you support (as long as you give me a good answer that involves historical facts and statistics), but I would like to see more teams represented by the student body. Let’s have a Southampton support-ers group or a Stoke section of the school. Just please, look at teams other than the ones that flash money in your faces in ex-change for your support.

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Chelsea and Real Madrid fans show their pride. Below, Liverpool fans rally behind their team.

ALLIE COLEMANSR., VOLLEYBALL, PALO ALTO, CA.

What She’s Done: Set the volleyball program’s career assists record during the Centennial Con-ference tournament, with 3,210 and counting going into the Garnet’s Wednesday night ECAC matchup against Delaware Valley.

Favorite Career Moment: One that stands out is when we beat Haverford my sophomore year in playoffs. We lost to them in the regular sea-son, and then beat them in the semi-finals in five sets. It was amazing because they were the top seed and the reigning conference champs for the past four years.

Post-Volleyball Plans: I know that volleyball will continue to remain an important part of my life, whether I’m playing or coaching or just watching games … It’s a sport that I will always stay connected to.

What Bird Could Carry a Volleyball?: I bet a red-tailed hawk could carry a volleyball if it wanted to.

Favorite Breakfast Cereal: I love Life.

GARNET ATHLETE OF THE WEEK

DAN DUNCAN/PHOENIX STAFF

JAMESIVEY

Out of Left Field

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SportsTHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012

The Phoenix

Men’s Soccer Stumbles in Conference Final

The #15/19 men’s soccer team may have just finished the best Centennial Conference season in program history, going unbeaten with an 8-0-1 record, but records don’t mat-ter when you reach tournament play. And in the Centennial final, the men faltered when it mattered most, falling to rival Haverford 1-0 with the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament bid on the line. It was the first time in Centennial Conference history that the archrivals met with such high stakes.

As the #1 seed, the Garnet played host to the tournament semifinals and final. In Saturday’s first semifinal, #3 seed Haverford took down #2 seed Dickinson 1-0, striking first with a goal from Ford Bohrmann and hanging on defensively for the win.

In the nightcap, Swarthmore handled #4 seed Johns Hopkins 3-0, effectively ending the Blue Jays’ season. Much like the previ-ous match-up between the teams, the game was much more evenly played than the score would indicate for the majority of the match. Within a period of just 10 minutes, though, the Garnet turned a close match into a blowout.

Between the 37th and 47th minutes, the Garnet struck three times in quick suc-cession. Jack Momeyer ‘14 got things roll-ing with a goal off a pass from David Ge-schwind ‘16. After that, Wyatt McCall ‘16 took over, scoring two goals off passes from Momeyer and Noah Sterngold ‘14. McCall’s career game tripled his career goal total, and more importantly, put the game completely out of reach.

The defense held strong, recording the team’s third consecutive shutout. In goal, Peter Maxted ‘14 made two saves to keep the Blue Jays off the scoreboard.

Even if the score was similar, the inten-sity of the game was not. McCall said, “The conference tournament games were played with much more intensity than any of our regular season games. The stakes were much higher, and we stepped up our effort for both of the games. We have been train-ing all season to make it to the conference

title, so when it all mattered the entire team gave their best efforts to win those games.”

The next day, the Garnet and Fords met for the Centennial championship. The match was nothing like the first match between the two, in which Swarthmore jumped out to an early lead and outplayed Haverford for the whole match. This time, the match was a gritty, physical match in which no team really performed much bet-ter than the other for most of the time. Mc-Call said the physicality of the match was to be expected. “When the conference title is on the line, the game is bound to become physical on both sides of the ball.”

Someone had to advance, though, and Haverford super sub Bohrmann came through again for the Fords, scoring a stun-ning goal with just a minute left in the first half. From 20 yards out, Bohrmann thun-dered a curling shot directly into the far top corner of the net that Maxted had no shot at stopping.

After the goal, the Garnet frantically pushed throughout the second half, but were unable to piece together many scor-ing opportunities. As the clock ran out, the Fords celebrated their first NCAA bid since 1980, while Swarthmore was left out in the cold.

According to Geli Carabases ‘14, the change in game style reflected less on the Fords than on the Garnet. “The first time we played Haverford we played our style of soccer. We out possessed them and stayed patient. After they scored in the first half we became impatient and got away from what we do best, knock the ball around until we find an opportunity to exploit and attack.”

McCall agreed, saying that “Both [tour-nament] games were physically and men-tally demanding, but I would say that go-ing down a goal late in the first half of the Haverford game made the second half a much more frantic battle. At times it was sloppier than the Hopkins game.”

Despite the loss, the Garnet were in no danger of missing out on further playoff ac-tion. Thanks to a strong schedule, excellent record, and high national ranking, Swarth-more received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament on Monday. While the auto-matic bid would have meant fewer nerves going into Monday’s bracket announce-ment, the Garnet were more or less assured of a spot all along, with no real bad losses (as much as losing to Haverford may sting) to blemish their record.

As one of the higher seeds in the tourna-ment, Swarthmore will host first and second matches of the tournament for the fourth time in five years. On Saturday, the Garnet will host Albertus Magnus, champions of the GNAC, at 5 p.m. At 7:30 p.m., Rens-selaer Polytechnic, winners of the Liberty League tourney, will play Christopher New-port, an at-large bid from the USA South conference. The winners of the two matches will face each other on Sunday at 5 p.m.

Players disagreed on how important it was to be seeded as a host. While Cara-bases said, “ We love playing at home. We love Clothier and our fans. Playing at home in November is always a goal of ours, and luckily our play this season put us in a posi-tion to host this weekend. We are looking forward to launching our run into the tour-nament at home,” Sterngold pointed out, “We’ve been excellent all year on the road.” Regardless of the importance, one cannot deny the allure of sleeping in one’s own bed during the tournament.

PAGE 19

Fall to Haverford, But Still Earn NCAA Tournament SpotBy DAN DUNCAN

Sports Editor

JULIA CARLETON/PHOENIX STAFFForward Joe Keedy fights to get free from a Haverford defender in a moment of physical play in this past Sunday’s championship game.

AKSHAJ KUCHIBHOTLA/PHOENIX STAFFSophomore Mike Stewart shakes his defender to go on a run.

SportsThe Phoenix


After a 9-8 regular season that ended in a heartbreak-ing 4-3 loss to then-No.16 Haverford, one would have thought the field hockey team’s season was over. As a tes-tament to the strength of the Centennial Conference and a solid non-conference record, though, the team received a surprise bid to the ECAC South Region tournament. The bid is Swarthmore’s first postseason field hockey tourna-ment since winning the ECAC tournament in 1997.

Despite a 4-6 losing record in conference play, the Garnet were buoyed by a 5-2 nonconference record. Al-though this may raise questions about the quality of the nonconference schedule, Head Coach Lauren Fuchs be-lieved the schedule works, saying, “We play some top teams each year.” Indeed, it would be difficult to find nonconference opponents that could adequately prepare the team for the national powers like No. 4 Franklin and Marshall that the Centennial Conference boasts. Evident-ly, the ECAC selection committee agreed, considering Swarthmore’s bid.

As the No. 6 seed, the Garnet played host to No. 3 seed Stevens yesterday afternoon. closely played, the Ducks pulled away in the end to win 5-2, Aarti Rao ’14 started the scoring off with an unassisted goal in the third min-ute, but the Ducks responded ten minutes later, pushing the lead to 3-1 by the end of the first half. Sophia Agathis ’13 scored again late in the second half, but it was too lit-tle, too late for the stymied Garnet offense.

The Garnet finish the season with a 9-9 record, their first non-losing season in recent memory. It was a season of great improvement, as Swarthmore recorded its most wins in at least as long, and was in contention for the Cen-tennial Conference playoffs until the final minutes of the regular season.

According to Coach Fuchs, the team “had a lot of bright moments, more so then in the past. The opportu-nity was there for us to make conference playoffs, which I wanted so much for our seniors to experience.” She added that it is due to the seniors that the program has improved so much recently. “They started all the positive trends that we have now. They have done the little extra it takes to be successful and have taught that to the younger players.”

With the season finally over, the Garnet look ahead to next year, with the goal of qualifying for the Centennial tournament and other postseason tourneys. Although the team graduates its catalysts for improvement, there is a strong foundation for fall 2013, with returning players like Capone, Erin Gluck ’16, and Nia Jones ’14. The up-coming schedule will be released sometime in the some-what distant future.

“I was proud of the fight we showed.”Todd Anckaitis

Head Coach

JULIA CARLETON/PHOENIX STAFF

Nia Jones (above) and Catie Meador (below) � eld the ball in the Garnet’s 4-3 to the Haverford Fords two Saturdays ago.

Field Hockey Earns Surprise Playo� BerthECAC Game Wednesday Night Was First Postseason Game Since 1997

Drexel University’s online Master’s in Higher Education degree provides students with an analytical understanding of higher education administration and theory. Students become leaders at institutions of higher education, government agencies, and educational organizations.

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www.Drexel.com/swarthmore

By DAN DUNCANSports Editor

11/8 Phoenix

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