Wednesday, February 19, 2003

by Christine Shin
Gazette News Reporter

Rebecca Amdemariam ’03 and Anna Perng ’03 have successfully found the
funding to bring Aaron McGruder to Swarthmore. McGruder is best known for
his nationally syndicated comic, “The Boondocks,” a politically-charged
strip featuring African-American characters.

Following the efforts of SASS to educate students about “blackface” in
light of last Halloween’s incidents, both students were frustrated when
fellow Swatties reportedly complained, “‘those people’ overreact.” Perng
believed that these students’ reactions were informed by racial
stereotypes, ultimately undermining SASS’s ability to inform the
campus.  Both Amdemariam and Perng felt that “the need for dialogues about
race relations can be broadened.” Thus, in response to those events, they
sought out McGruder because “he calls people out on racism… is blunt,
direct, critical and intelligent, which will be refreshing for dialogue on
this campus.”

Amdemariam and Perng decided to bring McGruder to offer a broader
perspective on “issues people across the nation care about.” Thanks to
various offices and departments on campus, they were able to secure the
$10,000 honorarium needed to bring McGruder. They hope McGruder will speak
to issues surrounding the brewing conflict with Iraq and “the
responsibility people have to one another, and to addressing systemic
violence here and abroad.”

Amdemariam and Perng view McGruder’s talk as “a wonderful educational
opportunity” for the College community.  Both would like to “acknowledge
the work of student activists working on campus,” but wanted to remind the
campus that this event is “for everybody.”

By bringing McGruder, Perng said they hope to achieve their goal of
“show[ing] that we need to work together, support each other, and open up
dialogue” between communities, “by exploring our definitions of community.”

The event will be held this Saturday, February 22nd in the Lang Music
Building at 8:00 p.m. Perng and Amdemariam would like to thank the
President’s Office, the Serendipity fund of the William J. Cooper
Foundation, Forum for Free Speech, NASA, the Black Cultural Center, the
Intercultural Center, The Associates of the Swarthmore College Libraries,
the Political Science Department, the Education Department, the Office of
Multicultural Affairs, SASS, the Office of Gender Education, ENLACE
(formerly HOLA), and MULTI for their support.

by Jeremy Schifeling
Co-Managing Editor

After spending the last three days without network access, residents of
Mertz South were once again hooked up to the Web, email, and other
electronic means of communication that Swatties take for granted yesterday
afternoon.

According to Network Administrator Bob Velez, the outage was caused by a
problem with one of the two network switches that serve that side of the
dorm.  Since only one of the switches, which relay data from the College’s
network to individual computers, was malfunctioning, not all Mertz South
residents were affected.

Those who were, however, lost all network connectivity, including local
network access.

Velez was not sure what prompted the switch to malfunction, but did note
that it was “similar to a problem we had in Dana where someone connected a
flaky or misconfigured Linksys router to the network causing all
connections to the building switch to drop.”

He also mentioned that a Mertz Dorm Tech told him about a student who had
hooked up a network hub to a dormroom Ethernet port prior to the outage.
“It may have been the cause of the outage but I’m not 100% sure,” said Velez.

Regardless of the root cause, Velez was able to bring the switch back to
full functionality on Tuesday by rebooting it, thereby restoring full
connectivity to the affected rooms.

*****

* President Bush announced on Tuesday that his views had not changed as a
result of the worldwide protests against the war last weekend. On the same
day Lt. General David McKieran, the leader of British and US forces in
Kuwait, reported that there are 100,000 American troops in Kuwait right
now. The US government also awaited word from the Turkish government about
the proposed staging of 40,000 troops there.

* A devastating explosion ripped through a portion of the South Korean
subway system on Tuesday. Killing 124 people and injuring 145, the fire was
caused by a man with a history of mental illness who lit a container filled
with an unknown flammable liquid. The attack has raised questions about the
country’s emergency response teams.

* In the aftermath of the Columbia disaster debate over whether manned
space flights should continue has increased sharply. Robots on unmanned
flights are now able to perform a variety of tasks, and can often go beyond
human limits. While humans have only gone as far as the moon, unmanned
space flights have gone to Mars and Jupiter. In addition manned expeditions
cost twice as much as those with no humans abroad.

*****

“Horizontal Gene Transfer in Eukaryotic Evolution: Rampant Transfer from
Mitochondrion to Nucleus and among Distantly Related Plants”
Biology Lecture by Dr. Jeff Palmer ’77, Indiana University
Kirby Lecture Hall – Martin, 4:15 p.m.

The Evolving Physician-Patient Relationship
Scheuer Room – Kohlberg, 7:00 p.m.

Foreign Policy Analysis 101: The US vs Iraq
Open Discussion Led by Professors Kenneth Sharpe and James Kurth
Hicks Mural Room 312, 7:00 p.m.

French Film Festival, “Love Without Pity”
Kohlberg 328, 7:00 p.m.

PBS Documentary “A Force More Powerful” Screening, Part 1 of 2
Rushmore Room, Swarthmore Friends Meeting House, 7:00 p.m.

Plagiarism and Documentation
Kohlberg 228, 7:30 p.m.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Screening
Sponsored by the Anomalous Picture Show
Trotter 203, 7:30 p.m.

Living Wage Committee Student Fireside Chat
Kohlberg Coffee Bar, 8:45 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

The Swarthmore badminton team played at Bryn Mawr Tuesday night, however
results were not available in time for publication.

*****

The Men’s lacrosse scrimmage with York College scheduled for Tuesday was
postponed due to weather.

*****

Today:
Men’s lacrosse hosts Widener, 4:30 p.m. (scrimmage)
Women’s basketball hosts Muhlenberg, 7:00 p.m.
Men’s basketball at Muhlenberg, 8:00 p.m.

Tomorrow:
Badminton at Albright, 7:00 p.m.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful
ancestor.”
–Laurence Peter

*****
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