Tuesday, March 26, 2002

by Evelyn Khoo
Gazette Reporter

We’ve seen women in front of the camera and how successful they’ve been. How
about women behind the camera? Budding filmmakers and film enthusiasts will
be flocking to Bryn Mawr, come April 4th, as Women Make Movies (WMM), the
multiracial, multicultural non-profit organization, will be holding a film
festival there to mark their 30th anniversary.

The New York-based organization, established in 1972, was formed with the
intent of addressing the “underrepresentation and misrepresentation of
women
in the media industry”, with particular emphasis on women of color.

The three-day event at Bryn Mawr will feature new works, as well as 20 films
spanning the history of WMM and encompassing a myriad of issues and
perspectives.

Along with the film screenings, the festival will also host two panel
discussions facilitated by WMM staff, filmmakers and board members. Two of
the slated panelists include Debra Zimmerman, executive director of WMM, and
Swarthmore’s own Patricia White, the Chair of the Film and Media Studies
Program and a board member of WMM.

Some key films to look out for: Trinh T. Minha’s “The Fourth Dimension,”
the
opening night film, is the latest from this acclaimed director who is a
frequent participant at the Sundance Festival. Ruth L. Ozeki’s “Halving
the
Bones” and Nandini Sikand’s “Don’t Fence Me In” are two more
highlights of
the event – their directors will be on hand during the festival to
participate in discussion of their films.

Of particular relevance to recent events, the Friday night session will
include two films, “Ramleh” and “My Journey, My Islam,”
which were chosen
for WMM’s project ” A Response to Hate” – a project developed in reaction
to
the WTC attacks.

Another key feature of the event is the “Student Series”, to be held
on
Saturday, where students from Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore will show
a selected series of films in Bryn Mawr’s café, the Lusty Cup.

* Security might have tightened considerably at airports all over the United
States, but its 86 most sensitive power plants are still lax in their
security checks and are leaving themselves open to possible terrorist
sabotage, according to Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass). Markey says that
the Nuclear Regulatory Council does not know how many foreign nationals they
have in their employment. Also, employees do not have to undergo security
checks if they do not have a criminal record in the United States. These
limited measures, says Markey, prevent possible terrorist links from being
found. Agreeing that the security checks could be improved on, Dave
Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer who has worked in the industry for 17
years and for more than 20 plants says: ” Had I wanted to sabotage a plant,
it wouldn’t have been difficult to do so.” NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci
declined to discuss the issue, saying, “we don’t normally comment on press
releases from members of Congress.”

* The latest image from the Hubble Space Telescope, released Monday, has
scientists in a flurry of excitement. This new picture shows scattered spots
of blue light indicating star nurseries in NGC 7673, a spiral galaxy about
150 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Each bluish
cluster consists of numerous infant stars. This is the first clear image of
star clusters to be found; previously, scientists have only been able to see
the star-forming regions as fuzzy clumps from ground-based telescopes. The
implication of this new image is that scientists will now be able to figure
out how these star clusters formed and relate that knowledge to a similar
star formation in our own galaxy that was created during the beginnings of
the universe.

* The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) of 2000, a law designed to
prevent minors from gaining access to pornographic material on public
computers, is on trial in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. Leading
the charge against CIPA are the American Library Association and the
Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon, who claim that the law
prevents these institutions from providing free and unbiased access to
information. They say that the law is flawed in that it blocks sites that
might supply valuable information such as information on breast cancer or
sexually transmitted diseases while failing to block pornographic sites.
Further arguments against the law include the claim that librarians are
specially trained to cater to their patrons and should not have to be made
into “thought police”. Also, the plaintiffs feel that the information
open
to minors should be left up to their parents’ discretion, and not the state.
However, supporters of the law insist that the filtering mechanisms have
improved and now make less mistakes. They also argue that since printed
pornographic material is not available in the library, the online version
should not be present either. The trial is expected to last nine days.

*****

Sager Symposium’s Queer People of Color Panel
Scheuer Room – Kohlberg, 7:00 p.m.

Empty the Shelters Meeting
Kohlberg 115, 7:30 p.m.

Argentine Tango Lesson
Upper Tarble, 9:00 p.m.

———-

Wednesday, March 27
Small Craft Warnings Submission Deadline (extended)

Students, Faculty, & Staff, e-mail your poetry & prose to
submit-scw@sccs.swarthmore.edu as a Word attachment and in the body of the
e-mail AND campus mail a hard copy to Jessica Pulver ’02. Contact Amalle
Dublon ’04 about art submissions.

———-

Mondays @ McCabe Workshop: Internet Searching Techniques

Develop good search strategies and learn how to search the web like you
have never searched it before!

* The Final Four for the women’s NCAA tournament is now set, with UConn set
to battle Tennessee and Duke scheduled to take on Oklahoma in the next stage
of the contest. Senior Sue Bird scored a career-high 26 points and made 11
assists as Uconn’s Huskies, who remain undefeated so far this season, rolled
over seventh-seeded Old Dominion 85-64 to claim the Mideast title.
Meanwhile, second-seeded Tennessee claimed a spot in the championship
semifinals for the 13th time by defeating top-seeded Vanderbilt 68-63 in the
Midwest Regional finals. The rival teams, which have combined to win seven
of the past 13 NCAA titles, will face off against each other in San Antonio
on Friday. Friday’s other semifinal game will take place between Oklahoma,
which routed No. 3 Colorado 94-60 in the West Regional final, and Duke, who
won the East Regional final 77-68 over South Carolina. This is the first
time that Oklahoma, or any Big 12 school, has reached the Final Four in the
women’s tournament, while it is the second trip to the championship for Duke’s
Blue Devils.

* After weeks of on-and-off negotiations between promoters, a fight between
defending WBC and IBF heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson has
been arranged for June 8 in Memphis. The fight, which could pay more than
$20 million to each boxer, is scheduled to take place at Memphis’s
20,000-seat Pyramid Arena, where ringside seats are going to sell for $2,500
each. After the New York press conference initially announcing the fight in
January, during which Tyson tried to attack Lewis and a brawl ensued,
promoters have agreed not to have the two men meet each other for any
pre-fight publicity. “We’re not having any more press conferences with
the
two of them together in the future,” Tyson adviser Shelly Finkel said.

* New York Rangers’ goaltender Mike Richter, who also manned the goal for
the U.S. hockey team during the Olympics in Salt Lake City, suffered a mild
concussion last Friday after sustaining three significant blows to the head
in a game against the Thrashers. The injury prevented Richter from playing
in last night’s crucial game against the rival New York Islanders, which his
team lost 4-2 without him, and will probably force him to sit out Wednesday’s

game against the Philadelphia Flyers as well. The Rangers have lost eight
of their last 10 games and now sit three points behind eighth-place Montreal
with eight games left to play and one playoff spot remaining in the Eastern
Conference.

*****

Today:
Baseball hosts Washington, 3:00 p.m.
Softball hosts Goldey Beacom, 3:15 p.m.

Tomorrow:
Baseball hosts Eastern, 3:30 p.m.
Men’s lacrosse at York, 3:30 p.m.
Women’s lacrosse at Franklin & Marshall, 4:00 p.m.

*****

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents’
shortcomings.”
-Laurence J. Peter

*****
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