Monday, September 30, 2002

by Roxanne Yaghoubi
Gazette News Reporter

A group of Swarthmore students, most of whom were affiliated with SPAC,
headed to Washington DC on Saturday to attend a rally and a march organized
around the annual meetings of the World Bank (WB) and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF).

The purpose of these organizations is to lend money to poor nations in the
hopes of rebuilding their economies. Saturday’s protestors, however,
believed that the organizations and their policies only worsen the people’s
experience in these countries. The protests spanned the weekend, with
people arriving in the city from across the nation and even the world to
protest the injustices they believed existed.

About 5000-6000 people, taking up about five city blocks, were estimated to
be at the march on Saturday, the only day that Swarthmore students
attended. The numbers were a significant decrease from previous years’
demonstrations. Jesse O’Brien ’03 agreed that “The protest was smaller than
expected,” but attributed that mostly to the arrests during the previous
day’s protests, which had been unpermitted. More than 600 people had been
arrested on various charges.

For the Swarthmore group, Saturday began with arrival at the Washington
Monument at around noon. Here, a rally was held at the Sylvan Theater that
included various musicians and speakers from all parts of the
anti-globalization issue. The rally included a surprise appearance and
speech from Ralph Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate in 2000.

The performances ended around 3:00 p.m., and the protestors headed enmasse
into the streets of Washington. The march ended in Farragut Square, where
protestors burned in effigy a dummy of a man in corporate attire.
Meanwhile, police set up a barricade around the park. Seeing the barricade,
most of the Swarthmore group decided to leave the city, fearing the police
would begin moving into the square and making arrests. However, a small
group of students did stay behind in the square safely, as the barricade
was opened around 5:45 p.m. and the protestors were allowed to leave.

At that point, they marched to Murrow Park, across from the World Bank
headquarters. On the way there, however, the symbolic Trojan horse which
had been constructed by protestors crashed into a tree and had its head
broken off. At Murrow Park, another rally was held, also peacefully, though
it did not fulfill its stated goal of quarantining the IMF and WB officials
inside the building. Marissa Vahlsing ’06 reported that “a police
provocateur dressed as a black blocker arrested a protester. After that the
police moved in and arrested more people.” However, only around six people
were arrested on Saturday, a stark contrast to Friday’s numbers.

At around 6:40 p.m., protestors started to leave Murrow Park, and the day’s
activities were over. All of the Swarthmore students arrived home safely
late Saturday night. The protestors remaining in DC held an anti-war march
that headed toward Vice President Cheney’s house at the Naval Observatory
and demanded that the U.S. not attack Iraq.

*****

* As U.N. inspectors in Vienna prepare to meet today with Iraqi officials
about conducting weapons inspections in Baghdad, the U.S. and Great Britain
attempted to strengthen their forces in a possible strike against Iraq by
dispatching diplomatic envoys to reluctant allies. While U.S.
Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon held talks in Moscow with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, a British
diplomat flew to China to try to win backing for the U.S. resolution to
disarm Iraq. Meanwhile, Iraq countered by sending Foreign Minister Naji
Sabri to meet with Iranian president Mohammad Khatami and central bank head
Issam Rashid Hwaish to the IMF/World Bank meetings to plead for a lift on
the sanctions against Iraq.

* Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat emerged on Sunday after a 10-day Israeli
siege on his compound came to an end. Though Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon had vowed to end the siege only when Arafat relinquished 50
suspected Hamas militants to Israeli forces, President Bush urged the
Israelis to pull back, fearing the blockade would increase regional
tensions and interfere with the U.S. and Britain’s attempts to win
international support for a war on Iraq. Israeli cabinet member Ephraim
Eitam said, “We correctly preferred to give a boost to the matter of an
American attack on the Iraqis over something we can always do later.”

* A 21-year-old Bulgarian man was arrested on Sunday after trying to board
a flight in New Jersey with two box cutters and a pair of scissors
concealed in toiletry items in his backpack. After the X-ray screeners
detected the prohibited items, a hand search produced the scissors embedded
in a bar of soap and the box cutters inside a package of hand lotion. The
man, who has not been identified, has been charged with possession of a
prohibited item or weapon and is being held on $100,000 bail. Prosecutors
are currently reviewing the case to decide whether to press federal charges
on the man, who was in the U.S. on a student visa and had purchased a
one-way ticket to South Carolina.

*****

Women in Science dinner
Sharples Room 4, 5:30 p.m.

“Forbidden Marriages in the Holy Land”
Gender and Power in the Middle East film screening
LPAC Cinema, 7:00 p.m.

Good Schools PA meeting
Mephistos, 9:00 p.m.

Student Council meeting
CRC, 10:00 p.m.

SWIL Movie Night: “Flight of the Navigator”
Kirby Lecture Hall, 10:00 p.m.

———-
Upcoming events

Professor Barry Schwartz, Department of Psychology, Dorwin Cartwright
Professor of Social Theory and Social Action, will present the first
lecture in the 2002-2003 Faculty Lecture Series. His talk is entitled “The
Tyranny of Choice: Why More Can Be Less (or, The Secret of Happiness).”
Freedom of choice is absolutely essential to well-being. When people are
deprived of freedom of choice, they suffer both materially and
psychologically. If choice is essential, it seems only reasonable to assume
that the more choices people have in their lives, the better off they are.
But there is now evidence to suggest that this reasonable assumption is
false. There comes a point where choice becomes paralyzing rather than
liberating, especially for people who aspire to achieve the best outcome,
rather than just a “good enough” outcome, with every choice they make. The
“secret of happiness,” at least for many modern Americans, may lie in
limiting choices rather than expanding them. The lecture will begin at 4:15
p.m. on Wednesday, October 2 in the Scheuer Room and will be followed by a
reception. All faculty, students, and staff are welcome.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

Facing off against 10th-ranked McDaniel this past Saturday, the field
hockey team notched a major victory, taking the match 1-0. Emily Szydlowski
’05 scored the only goal of the contest, while goalie Kate Nelson-Lee ’03
recorded eight saves in net for Swat’s first back-to-back shutouts since
2000. The Garnet are now 4-4 on the season and 1-0 in the Centennial
Conference.

*****

Despite not having beaten Gettysburg since the 1980’s, and despite getting
outshot 12-3 in Saturday’s contest, the women’s soccer team managed to snap
its 12-game losing streak against the Bullets with a 1-0 victory. Tanya
Hahnel ’05 tallied the lone score off an assist from Shavaugn Lewis, and
Catherine Salussolia ’04 pulled in eight saves to seal her fourth shutout
of the season. With the win, the Garnet’s record improves to 6-5 overall
and 2-2 in the Centennial.

*****

Competing in the ITA Southeast Regional tennis tournament this weekend, #4
Anjani Reddy ’04 advanced through the first four rounds of competition to
earn a match with two-time NCAA Division III Singles champion Elena
Blanina, of Methodist. Blanina, who is the tourney’s top-seed, will face
Reddy at 9:00 a.m. this morning.

Reddy breezed through the preliminary rounds and quarterfinals to reach the
match, losing no more than three games in any set.

Her teammate Caroline Celano ’04, ranked 10th overall, also fared well,
making it to the quarterfinals yesterday before falling to 8th-seeded
Christina Weng of Carnegie Mellon.

*****

Both the men’s and women’s cross-country squads had strong showings at
Saturday’s Salisbury University Tidewater Invitational.

The women finished third out of fifteen teams, paced by junior Maria-Elena
Young’s fourth-place finish. Also earning points for the Garnet were Carrie
Ritter ’06 (12th), Lauren Fety ’06 (17th), Molly Maurer ’06 (24th), and
Njideka Akunyili ’04 (30th).

The men did just as well, taking fourth place in the eighteen-team field.
Soph sensations Lang Reynolds and James Golden led the Garnet, with fifth
and seventh-place finishes, respectively. Meanwhile, Joe Makin ’03 (15th),
James Kreft ’06 (39th), and Adam Hunt ’06 (51st) all had solid showings as
well.

*****

Even with the inertia of a six-game losing streak working against them, the
volleyball team came out and dominated their Saturday match against
Rutgers-Camden, taking the contest 3-0 (30-19, 30-16, 30-11). Natalie
Dunphy ’05 posted excellent numbers across the scoresheet to snap the
streak, including seven kills and five solo blocks. Also strong for the
Garnet were Emma Benn ’04 (14 digs, six kills) and Emily Conlon ’06 (23
assists, five kills).

Unfortunately, the Garnet could not start up a positive streak of their
own, dropping the second match to Alvernia, 3-0 (30-21, 30-23, 30-19). Even
in defeat though, the Garnet managed to post some big numbers, including 13
digs from Benn and 18 assists from Conlon.

With the split, the squad’s record is now 2-7 on the season.

*****

Facing off against McDaniel (formerly Western Maryland) in Saturday’s
Homecoming contest, the men’s soccer team played an incredible game, but
came up just short, falling in two overtimes, 3-2. Despite falling behind
2-0 by halftime, the Garnet stormed back in the second on first-ever goals
from frosh John Tuthill and Nick Graham. Unfortunately, the Garnet couldn’t
find a third and the game came to a close when the Green Terror struck
again in the second overtime period. Reuben Heyman-Kantor ’06 made 11 saves
in net for the squad. The loss leaves the team with an 0-2 record in the
Centennial and a 4-5-1 tally overall on the season.

*****

Today:
There are no contests scheduled for today.

Tomorrow:
Field hockey at Bryn Mawr, 4:30 p.m.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the
streets after them.”
–Bill Vaughan

*****
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