Thursday, November 6, 2003

by Anya Carrasco
Gazette Reporter

Already thinking about how you’ll spend Friday afternoons when it gets too
cold to sit on Parrish beach? Or Thursday and Friday nights when Pub Night just
won’t do, Paces is closed, and you’ve got the late-night munchies for something
other than Easy Mac, pizza, and Chinese take-out? Lucky for you, the student-run
café/lounge Qüb is back, and with its new faces, dishes, bubble
tea flavors, and take-out options, it promises to be better than ever.

After a delay in obtaining funds, and rumors of it not starting up again, Qüb
opens tonight for its first fully functioning weekend since last semester. Qüb,
the café/lounge located in the Kaori Kitao Student Art Gallery in Sharples
III, between Olde Club and the frat houses, is still the place its founders
last semester intended it to be: an alternative hang-out spot at Swat with “high-quality
late night snacks.”

Qüb’s comeback this fall semester offers all that and much more. To ensure
the best of the best staff members, current managers Janice Im ’06, Marc Chang
’06, Alex Braunstein ’05, founder-manager Joey Roth ’06 and founder-advisors
Dan Yue ’05 and Wynn Wu ’04, held a more open application process. Last semester,
when they started from scratch, most of their employees were close friends.
This time around, new chef Richard Metzler ’06 and a staff comprised of mostly
freshmen and seniors were required to submit an application, have an interview,
and undergo training in order to ensure—among other things—the quality
of Qüb’s famous sushi rolls.

In addition to the California, eel, veggie, and signature Mondo rolls that
they continue to serve on the light green ceramic plates with molten glass bottoms,
they will offer more sushi options for those craving raw fish. Their newest
items include the yellow tail and the spicy yellow tail rolls.

Qüb still uses freshly brewed tea and real condensed milk for their bubble
tea, and will offer the new mango and papaya flavors in addition to strawberry,
their most popular. Other variations anticipated include “latte bubble
tea,” a result of recipe experimentation.

They also plan to feature a weekly special, more dishes with fresh tuna (a
specialty of new chef Metzler) and Ramen noodles. But they’re careful about
not spreading themselves too thin with these additions. “At the moment
we’re trying to focus on improving the quality of each individual dish,”
says Joey Roth ’06. A good example, especially for meat lovers, is a new “dirty
rice” that will contain bits of Chinese sausage in addition to the veggies
included in its vegetarian counterpart.

As if the anticipated menu changes weren’t enough to look forward to (and to
make you hungry), you ‘multi-taskers’ out there can simultaneously enjoy frequently
updated displays of student artwork.

For those who can’t stay and lounge around, the managers are working to improve
their current take-out system and hope to have a call-in, pick-up service just
in time for finals. They are also contemplating an outside patio for the springtime
and a rental service for events.

One thing that will not change, however, are the reasonable prices. Prices
for food items still range between $1.50 and $5.00 and for drinks between $1.00
and $3.00.

The success of these plans, of course, depends on the attendance of Swatties.
Given the turnout at last week’s trial run, the outlook is very positive. Juliet
Braslow ’07 and Angelina Contero ’07, who were both there, used words like ‘fun,’
‘funky,’ ‘laid-back,’ and ‘quaint,’ to describe the different atmosphere that
Qüb provides.

So if you’re a fan of bubble tea and can’t get out to Chinatown, or if you
need a new place besides Sharples to take a professor to eat, or if you’re just
into hanging out with good friends, enjoying fine background music and even
better food under soft pink and blue lights, Qüb is a place to check out.

At least go for the tempura they will have as an opening-night treat, and the
live music they will feature on Friday night!

by Jonathan Ference
Gazette Reporter

Students may have noticed a new publication making its debut on the newspaper
racks in the past week. The Agora, self-dubbed “The Swarthmore Paper with
a worldview,” represents the efforts of executive director Lauren Fenton
’06 and a staff of about 16 to compile a newspaper about international events
from a slightly different perspective. The premier issue, in the works since
the beginning of the spring 2003 and granted funding late last spring, includes
11 pages of article and a one-page introduction from the Agora’s editorial board.

According to Fenton, the goal of the Agora is to analyze international affairs
from the point of view of someone with a well-formed, first-hand concern for
each individual issue. Rather than just report the facts, the Agora aims to
provide the reader with “significant cultural [and] political background”,
allowing the reader to develop much more than a one-dimensional perspective.
This is accomplished by writers who have a vested interest in background in
their subject matter. “The people writing these articles have first hand
experience with the articles they’re writing…they approach it with an opinion,”
Fenton said. By providing both an opinion and an analysis of any given topic,
the Agora’s goal is to then allow readers to form their own well-educated viewpoints,
something its founder felt was lacking in the mainstream press.

Contrary to what some students believe, the Agora is not marketed to compete
with the Phoenix. Fenton explained that every issue is designed to have a focus,
the first being the Iraq crisis. Inside the paper, in sections labeled “Cultural
Currents” to “Swarthmore Perspectives,” a wide variety of international
issues are touched. An article detailing an interview with a speaker from this
semester’s Dialogue for Peace Initiatives Conference appears just under another
about the rise of Islamism in Turkey; on a subsequent page, a survey of upcoming
political and cultural events appears. Two articles even detailed the experiences
of two Swat freshmen who had deferred enrollment to spend time abroad. When
asked how she formed such a wide base of writers for this issue, Fenton noted
that most had reached out to her due to involvement with the International Club
or because they were interested in the subject. That all the writers are so
personally concerned about the subject also allows the Agora to fulfill another
of its goals, to bring to light “international events that have been neglected
by the mainstream press.”

How fast the Swarthmore campus is warming up to the Agora is another question.
Fenton explained that 1000 copies of the paper were printed in Florida and shipped
for distribution last Wednesday afternoon. She felt that over the week most
copies had been consumed by the campus community, and that, as far as feedback:
“most people think it’s an interesting idea and they generally approve.”
The staff has received suggestions for its next issue and has set a likely release
date of December 7th for the next issue. The staff has planned three issues
for next semester and then four for each thereafter, with the eventual goal
of expanding the paper to 16 pages. On a campus like Swarthmore’s, such a project
has what would seem like positive prospects for the future.

Note: as of this writing, a handful of issues of the Agora were available in
both Parrish Parlours and Sharples.

*****

* President Bush signed a bill on Wednesday that would prohibit partial-birth
abortion. In a quote from the New York Times, President Bush said, “For
years, a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are
inches from birth while the law looked the other way. Today, at last, the American
people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense
of the innocent child…The executive branch will vigorously defend this law
against any who would try to overturn it in the courts.” The procedure
is used to terminate pregnancies past the first trimester. Polls have shown
that while the majority of Americans supported reproductive rights, there is
little support for this procedure.

* According to BBC News, Germany’s cabinet has approved plans allowing hijacked
aircraft to be shot down in the case of a terror attack. The ruling coalition
decided that the plan would only be executed if the plane had not responded
to other attempts to halt it. The federal government rather than the military
would make the decision to act. The plan was created in light of the terror
attacks in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, which involved several hijacked
airplanes.

* An international energy consortium halted its multibillion-dollar plans to
build two nuclear power reactions in North Korea which were part of 1994 anti-nuclear
pact. The decision was heavily influenced by the United States. “Our view
is that we want an end to the program,” said the State Department’s spokesman
Adam Early to the New York Times. The consortium, the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization (Kedo), is composed of the United States, Japan, South
Korea, and the European Union. The consortium vows to announce the fate of the
project at their next meeting in New York on November 21.

*****

Korea Peace Forum: “War and Peace on the Korean Peninsula”
Science Center 101, 7:00pm

Lecture by Deborah Prothrow-Smith: “Peacebuilding in Our Communities:
Preventing Youth Violence,”
LPAC Pearson-Hall Theater, 7:30pm

Prayers for Peace
Common Worship Room, 9:00pm – 10:00pm

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

The freshman class made an immediate splash capturing eight individual events
to lead the Garnet to a Centennial Conference victory over Ursinus. Rob McKeon,
Anders Taylor and Jason Horwitz were all double-winners. The Garnet won by a
final score of 121-66.

Tara Trout ’04 and Patrica Funk ’06 both captured two events to lead the Garnet
to the season-opening victory over visiting Ursinus. The final score was 128-71.

Emma Benn ’04 was named Centennial Conference co-player of the week for her
20 kill, 20 dig performance against Haverford.

Today:
No contests are scheduled for today.

Tomorrow
Men’s Basketball at Eastern (Scrimmage), 7:30 p.m.

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.”
–Walt Whitman

*****

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