The

College
Hill

The Brown/RISD Weekly | FEBRUARY 24 2011 | Volume XXII Issue 3

 FROM THE EDITORS: THE ISSUE:
I still haven’t seen Thom Yorke dance. Not even in June 2001, when I rolled down the
passenger-side window just enough for a scalper’s grubby fingernails to slide me two
tickets to Radiohead’s show at the Santa Barbara Bowl. I hadn’t heard the new album, News
Amnesiac, nor the one before that: I just wanted to see how they made those sounds
on “Paranoid Android.” Unfortunately for my pre-pubescent self, the capacity crowd WEEK IN REVIEW p.2
stood for the whole set. My dad left in full “I’ve seen a lot of concerts, but...” mode; I by Malcolm Burnley, Emily Gogolak, and Erica Schwiegershausen
was just pissed that the guy in front of me was so tall. My high-school career, 2003-8,
coincided with the longest gap between Radiohead albums and a whole lot of jumping TEMPLE AS SYMBOL p.3
between anti-conformity and anti-anti-conformity. The five guys from Oxford, whose by Emma Whitford
“artisticness” didn’t keep them from selling out the Garden, got stranded in the crevice
between these categories. (My grandpa’s asking about “the Radioheads” didn’t help.)
I did click, multiple times, on the other music videos clogging my newsfeed this past
week: Tyler, The Creator’s “Yonkers” video and performance on Late Night with Jimmy
Fallon. There had been few pleasures greater, this fall, than the inevitable “WTF” face
Metro
elicited from innocents exposed to videos of Tyler and his crew ingesting a smoothie CHANTS AND MURMURS
of pills, cough syrup, and malt liquor. Tyler, who started his first album by dissing king-
by Malcolm Burnley and Jonah Wolf
p.5
making hip-hop blogs, had just signed to Radiohead’s home, mega-indie XL Records.
Network TV should have further compromised his swag. But somehow, Tyler’s green
ski mask supplied menace lacking from his bowdlerized lyrics (“Who the heck invited
Mr. I Don’t Give A What?”); his manic leap onto Fallon’s shoulders showed that he
found his fame just as weird as I did. As we went to press, @kanyewest -- whose “All of
Features
the Lights” clip invited countless digital snores—called “Yonkers” “the video of 2011.”
--JW SECOND AMENDMENT MOMENTUM p.7
by Kate Welsh

THE INDY IS: HELLO MOMO: A GRAPHIC ESSAY

by Jess Daniels
p.11

MANAGING EDITORS Gillian Brassil, Erik Font, Adrian Randall • NEWS Em-
FOR BETTER OR WORSE p.15
by Belle Cushing
ily Gogolak, Ashton Strait, Emma Whitford • METRO Emma Berry, Malcolm
Burnley, Alice Hines, Jonah Wolf • FEATURES Belle Cushing, Mimi Dwyer, Eve
Blazo, Kate Welsh • ARTS Ana Alvarez, Maud Doyle, Olivia Fagon, Alex Spoto •
LITERARY Kate Van Brocklin • SCIENCE Maggie Lange • SPORTS/FOOD David
Adler, Greg Berman • OCCULT Alexandra Corrigan, Natasha Pradhan• LIST
Arts
Dayna Tortorici • CIPHRESS IN CHIEF Raphaela Lipinsky • COVER/CREATIVE RISD SHOWCASE p.9
CONSULTANT Emily Martin • X Fraser Evans • ILLUSTRATIONS Annika Finne,
Becca Levinson • DESIGN Maija Ekey, Katherine Entis, Mary-Evelyn Farrior, Emily
Fishman, Maddy Mckay, Liat Werber, Joanna Zhang • PHOTOGRAPHY John OVERHAULING THE ART EXPERIENCE p.13
Fisher • STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Drew Foster, Sarah Friedland, Annie Macdon-
ald • SENIOR EDITORS Katie Jennings, Tarah Knaresboro, Erin Schikowski, Eli GOOGLE GIVETH. GOOGLE TAKETH AWAY.
Schmitt, Dayna Tortorici, Alex Verdolini by Maud Doyle and Olivia Fagon

COVER ART Eli Schmitt

The College Hill Independent

Food
PO Box 1930 THE ART OF VEGAN MIMICRY p.16
Brown University
by Molly Cousins
Providence, RI 02912

Contact theindy@gmail.com for advertising information. // theindy.org

Letters to the editor are welcome distractions. The College Hill Independent is
Literary
published weekly during the fall and spring semesters and is printed by TCI Press in
Seekonk, MA
MORE SIGNS p.17
by Esther Nasty

EPHEMERA:
AS IF YOU CARE:
Group Sex 101

The best way to not have a threesome is to ask your partner if they want to have a three-
some with that other hot person you stare at sometimes. If you’re not sure if your part-
ner is into the idea of threesomes & beyond, broach the subject gently: “Hey honey,
have you ever been tempted to try _______? I think it might be kind of fun.” Then, if
they find their curiosity is piqued or have always had a passion for ménage a trois,
have them make a short list of people they might want to try such sexcapades with.
Go over the list together and approach mutually agreed upon individuals casually
in a comfortable situation. If they’re interested as well its touch and go from there—but
make sure you and your partner discuss how you will maintain open lines of communi-
cation before during and after your experience and what you are and are not comfort-
able with.
Dia Mustafa Barghouti, 2010, Palestine

Bediquette: If you have enjoyed a couple’s bed, it is polite to leave it and go back to
your own once things have wound down. It is polite to bring condoms to any situation
that may involve salacious behavior, and to wear or have your partner wear a fresh one
for discrete acts. It is extremely rude to complain about having to wear a condom; no
matter how much you hate the feeling, you’ll hate herpes way worse. It is impolite to
come to bed at all when you are intoxicated in ways that impair your ability to make
choices you won’t regret; group sex is a thing of finesse and there is no finesse in sloppy.

If you have questions related to aspects of sexuality, relationships and sexual health that
you want to see in print, please email them to sexanonymous1@gmail.com and some-
one will get back to you shortly. Have a fucking fantastic weekend.

WEEK IN REVIEW
SO LONG MR. PRESIDENT?
The Arab world was dealt yet another
shock on Sunday, when Omar al-Bashir,
President of Sudan, announced his im-
pending retirement. “He has no will to be
president again,” Rabie Abdelati, a senior
government spokesman, told Reuters.
For anyone familiar with Bashir’s sto-
ry, the announcement would have seemed
impossible before revolt rocked the Arab
world. Since winning power in a bloodless
coup in 1989, Bashir has ruled Sudan with
an iron fist. He is the only sitting head of
state to be indicted by the International
Criminal Court—for his perpetration of
the ongoing genocide in Darfur—and is
vilified by the US for hosting Al Qaeda in
the 1990s. Human rights violations, cor-
ruption, and large-scale neglect have been
prominent characteristics of the Bashir
regime.
As the region is exploding with calls
for justice and democracy, Bashir’s move
is seen as a direct response to the flux. Un-
convincingly, however, the President de-
nies any correlation. The same spokesman
that announced Bashir’s decision affirmed
that its timing had “nothing, nothing at
all” to do with the wave of revolution
sweeping the region—which inspired a
small series of protests in Sudan. “In
Egypt, there was a gap between the rulers
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
and the people, but not in our country,”
Mr. Rabie said. “In Sudan,” he continued,
“[the leaders] live with the people.” Most
Sudanese would beg to differ. And most
are now questioning Bashir’s real motives.
As Al-Tayeb Zein al-Abideen, a politi-
cal science professor at the University of
Khartoum, told the New York Times, “In the
Arab world, we have become accustomed
to rulers staying in power until they die.”
That Bashir himself did not make the an-
nouncement is considered highly suspect,
and many question if he seriously intends
to abdicate power. The news could simply
be a tool to pacify a nation in protest, to
feign a move toward democracy, and to
pretend to care for a people who feel for-
gotten and abused by their government.
What will happen now remains un-
clear. In 2010, Bashir took the last round
of elections—which outside observers
deemed illegitimate—in a landslide. The
next elections are scheduled for 2015,
but some think that the opposition may
force Bashir from office before the official
change of guard. This could throw Sudan
into the same all-out chaos of its Arab
neighbors, setting the stage for another
extraordinary outcome in a region where
the only guarantee is the unpredictable.
–EG
by Malcolm Burnley, Emily Gogolak,
and Erica Schwiegershausen
TECHED-OUT MONOPOLY MAN
In the aftermath of Ken Jennings’s defeat
on Jeopardy to Watson, IBM’s supercom-
puter, Hasbro has introduced its own
“computer overlord” into its signature
brand, Monopoly. This fall, slap down
fifty bucks and you’ll get Monopoly Live,
an updated version of the classic board
game, complete with a ten-inch computer
tower at the center of the game board.
Powered by 4 AA batteries, it threatens to
displace, obliterate, and “make obsolete”
all we love about Monopoly game-play:
the multi-colored fake money, laundering
that multi-colored fake money under the
table, under-the-table deal-making with
Grandma, fixing dice throws, and flat-out
disobedience of the rulebook. In Monop-
oly Live, the infrared tower keeps a digital
balance of each player’s funds, produces
electronic dice throws, and speaks voice
commands to ensure rules are adhered to.
Citing a 9 percent drop in 2010 sales
of old-fashioned board games, Hasbro is
trying to appeal to a new generation of
adolescents, hoping the game will mesh
with their chronic addictions of physical
inactivity, energy drinks, and Xbox.
Unfortunately, as a result of the com-
puter tower, Monopoly Live will
deprive players from acquiring im-
portant life lessons instilled through
the classic version of the game. In a
recent New York Times article, Mary
Flanagan, Professor of Digital Hu-
manities at Dartmouth University,
and Joey Lee, Assistant Professor of
Technology and Education at Teach-
ers College at Columbia’s Teacher’s
College, reviewed Monopoly Live’s
wisdom, and deemed it essentially
worthless. Flanagan claims the new-
est iteration is “less and less about
financial awareness” while Lee be-
lieves it is a shame to eliminate cheat-
ing, which is better than the “blind
adherence to following orders,” built
into Hasbro’s newest creation.
What happened to those char-
acter-building board games that re-
ally made you work? Nobody ran the
gauntlet in Hungry Hungry Hippos
without working up a good lather or
leaving without a palm blister. Then
again, maybe Hasbro is on to some-
thing. Had the government devel-
oped Monopoly Live’s technology
four decades ago to run our real-life
banks, railroads, and derivative real
estate markets, we probably could
have avoided half-a-dozen bailouts
and trillions in debt. But it’s a lot
more fun to roll the dice right? Come
on, double sixes!
–MB
NEWS| 2
iPHONE A PRIEST
Bad news for overscheduled Catholics: it
turns out it isn’t possible to absolve your
sins at the touch of a touch-screen. In re-
sponse to the overwhelming popularity of
the recently released “Confession: A Ro-
man Catholic App,” an iPhone application
designed to aid Catholics with the sacra-
ment of confession, the Vatican found it
necessary to issue a clarification on the
nature of absolution. Although there was
understandably some confusion, the fact
of the matter is that the iPhone cannot for-
give sins.
The Confession App, released this
December by Little iApps, is designed for
“those who frequent the sacrament and
those who wish to return,” said developer
Patrick Leinen in a recent press release.
The app aims to guide Catholics through
the stresses of the Rite of Penance, all
for the bargain price of $1.99. Though it
has yet to reach Angry Birds’s status, the
app has been highly successful, currently
ranking in the top ten of iTunes’s Lifestyle
apps.
The Confession App features a cus-
tom examination of conscience. Users
sign in (logs of sin are password-protected
of course) and are asked to enter their age,
sex, and vocation. The app then takes you
step-by-step through the Ten Command-
ments, providing questions designed to
catch transgressions that may otherwise
have been overlooked. Prompts vary ac-
cording to user profile. A teenage girl is
asked to consider the question, “Do I not
treat my body or other people’s bodies
with purity and respect?” under the Sixth
Commandment, while a middle-aged mar-
ried man reads “Have I been guilty of mas-
turbation?”
Users can place a check mark next
to standard offenses (lying, not pray-
ing, practicing superstitious activities) or
choose to type in their own custom sins.
Once this stage of confession has been
completed, the app offers seven acts of
contrition to choose from. However,
the Vatican Radio quoted Father Federico
Lombardi reminding Catholics that “it is
essential to understand that the sacrament
of penance requires a personal dialogue
between the penitent and the confessor
in order for absolution to be given. This
cannot be replaced by a computer appli-
cation.” So, fear not clergymen: while a
computer takeover by Watson and Co.
may seem increasingly imminent, the
church is determined to remain a place of
solace and job security.
–ES
3 |NEWS
TEMPLE AS SYMBOL
A Hindu temple to Shiva—Preah Vi-
hear to Cambodians and Khao Phra
Viharn to Thais—overlooks a valley
in the Dangrek mountain range along the
long-disputed border between Cambodia
and Thailand. A succession of Khmer Rul-
ers built the temple in the first half of the
11th century—a time when Cambodia’s
borders extended into much of the region
that is now Thailand. The temple is cur-
rently occupied by Cambodian troops. It
is a focal point in a nationalist tug-of-war
that has been going since the early 1900s.
On February 4, Thai and Cambodian
troops exchanged fire along the border,
each side blaming the other for the out-
break of violence. A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
of the Pacific Daily News reflects on the
relationship between Cambodia and Thai-
land in an article from February 23, saying
the two countries are “condemned by des-
tiny to live side by side, sharing much his-
tory, similar culture and Buddhist beliefs,
and both members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), yet
generally unable to get along.” The vio-
lence this month comes only two years af-
ter a brief outbreak of fighting in the same
region, also over border-establishment
issues.
The focus of the current dispute is the
1.8 square miles of border territory that
surround the temple. Possession of the
temple is viewed as a symbolic triumph by
the governments of both nations—proof
of the possessor’s strength and influence
in East Asia. The Pacific Daily News cites
micro-level catalysts for the February
violence. On January 25, in response to
Thai protests, the Cambodian defense
minister removed a stone signboard from
the disputed region that read, ‘Here is the
place where Thai troops invaded Cambo-
dian territory on 15 July 2008.’ However,
the sign was replaced with a more blunt
message: “Here is Cambodia.” Thailand
threatened to attack if the second tablet
wasn’t removed. This second assertion
of Cambodian sovereignty was also taken
down, only to be replaced later by a Cam-
bodian flag flying over the temple. Vio-
lence erupted shortly thereafter.
After two days of fighting, Thailand’s
Foreign Ministry reported 3,000 civilian
evacuees from the region, while deputy
governor of Cambodia’s Preah Vihear
province, Sar Thavy, reported that 1,000
families had been evacuated on the Cam-
bodian side. Casualty counts on either side
of the border don’t match up, but a recent
report from Alert Net counts 11 deaths,
including both soldiers and civilians. On
both sides, Red Cross officials report that
thousands of evacuees have been displaced
to makeshift shelters and villages farther
from the border. Food and water have
been in short supply for families crammed
into pagodas and school compounds.
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
Cambodia and Thailand Clash to Divert
Attention from Internal Issues
by Emma Whitford
Illustration by Charis Loke
HISTORICAL GRUDGES
In 1953, Cambodia gained independence
from France. However, Cambodia held
on to French Colonial maps as a refer-
ence for determining its national bor-
ders. According to the French maps,
Preah Vihear Temple lies well within the
Cambodian border. That same year the
Thai army hoisted a flag over the temple.
Thailand had just established a police post
in the Dangrek Mountains in an effort to
strengthen its border defenses. To justify
their country’s actions, Thai officials cited
a 1904 Franco-Thai convention that placed
the national boundary along the cliff edge
on which the temple stands, ensuring that
the temple was in Thai territory.
The International Court of Justice
assessed the border conflict in 1962 and
ruled that the temple was rightly the prop-
erty of Cambodia—a ruling that Thailand
accepted begrudgingly. For years neither
country put effort into the upkeep of the
region, as a war in Cambodia between
the Khmer Rouge and neighboring Viet-
nam made the region uninhabitable.
Since 1992, on-and-off occupation of the
temple by Khmer Rouge forces has pre-
vented public access to the temple for
long stretches of time. In 2008, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cul-
tural Organization (UNESCO) accepted a
Cambodian proposal to make the temple
a World Heritage Site. Thai nationalists
immediately protested, seeing the temple
as Thai property. As a result, both gov-
ernments reinforced troops along their
borders. In periods of safety for tourists,
access to the temple is primarily via Thai-
land. Visitors are welcomed in through
Khao Phra Viharn National Park—a pro-
tected national area abutting the temple
and contested border.
Kho Tararith is a Cambodian poet,
and currently a visiting fellow with the In-
ternational Writers Project at Brown Uni-
versity. Tararith explains the landscape of
conflict: “The division [between the two
countries] cuts through a valley. Thai side
of the valley has a good street. You pay the
Thai, easy to get to temple from the Thai
side. During the civil war, the temple was
controlled by the Khmer Rouge, not safe
to visit.” The civil war, fought between the
Khmer Rouge and the government forces
in Cambodia, only lasted until 1975, but
Cambodia remains tense and conflicted
to this day. Tararith explains, “We need
peace inside Cambodia and also with bor-
dering countries.”
THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONALISM
Sitting in his office on the third floor of the
Watson Institute for International Stud-
ies, Tararith opens ki-media.blogspot.
com—a blog maintained by the Khmer
Intelligence of Cambodia, a dissident
group promoting free speech in Cam-
bodia. Due to state censorship laws, the
blog can’t be accessed within Cambodia.
The bloggers who maintain the site are
part of an “Outside Party, [that] critiques
everything, especially with the corrup-
tion,” explains Tararith. A post from Feb-
ruary 18 is entitled “Why Now for Thai
Cambodia Row?” Originally published in
the Diplomat, a current affairs magazine
for the Asia-Pacific region established in
2002, the post presents the border conflict
between Cambodia and Thailand not as a
dispute between two countries over con-
tested land, but as an effort on the part of
both countries to boost nationalist fervor.
Tararith agrees: “I think the issue is
not really for the temple and for the land
[surrounding it], because Thai want to
move the issue from Bangkok to [the tem-
ple region].” The issue he refers to is the
conflict in Thailand between the People’s
Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and the
current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
The PAD members are known as Yel-
low Shirts, and are primarily Bangkok’s
royalist upper and middle-class. They
are staunch nationalists, unsatisfied with
Prime Minister Vejjajiva’s weak response
to the border dispute. On February 5 the
PAD stated publicly that the Prime Min-
ister should step down, citing govern-
ment corruption and his inability to pro-
tect Thailand’s borders and sovereignty.
Hundreds of Thai nationalists have been
protesting near government offices for
weeks, demanding that the government
get tough with Cambodia.
Wanni Anderson is a Thai Adjunct
Professor of Anthropology at Brown
University. She’s currently working on a
comparative study of biracial Americans
of Thai and American parents, who di-
vide their time between the United States
and Bangkok. As Professor Anderson
explained in an e-mail to the Independent,
“Religion is not part of the conflict, since
both Thailand and Cambodia are pre-
dominantly Buddhist.” She describes a his-
tory of conflict that is primarily political.
Professor Anderson also stresses that the
Thai people are not a homogenous front:
“There is a nationalist group demonstrat-
ing. But not all Thai people agree with all
the demands of this group. I don’t agree
with this group’s demand to send Cam-
bodian refugees who have settled around
there back to Cambodia, unless they want
to themselves.” She refers to some Thais’
insistence that any Cambodians settled in
the disputed region are trespassing.
The Diplomat assesses the Cambodian
government’s nationalist objective: “[T]
he real aim of both Cambodian Prime
Minister Hun Sen and Thai Prime Minis-
ter Abhisit Vejjajiva is to strengthen their
respective leadership credentials.” Cam-
bodia is one of the poorest countries in
the world. According to the Pacific Daily
News, “For Hun Sen, the border dispute
with Cambodia’s historical neighbor to
the West is a blessing to draw domestic
attention away from discontent [within
Cambodia].” Hun Sen has been building
up armed forces in recent years, increas-
ing his power and encroaching on free
speech. In 2010, Cambodia imported doz-
ens of Soviet-designed tanks from China
and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the
ruling Cambodia People’s Party is using
its control of the Internet to prevent the
Khmer Intelligence bloggers from getting
out their message about governmental
corruption and free speech violations.
On February 19, the Bangkok Post,
which bills itself as the “World’s Window
to Thailand,” assessed Cambodia’s desire
to bring a third party, ASEAN, into the
border dispute as a means to come to a set-
tlement and end the violence: “Cambodia
is […] aware that Thailand does not favor
outsiders getting involved in the border
row—which is perhaps why Phnom Penh
is proposing a peace deal witness by other
ASEAN member countries.” It also specu-
lated that Thailand was unlikely to agree
to such a meeting. “[N]o one knows the
problems on the border better than those
involved in the dispute: itself and Cambo-
dia.”
However, despite Thailand’s initial
unwillingness to negotiate with third
party mediation, the foreign ministers of
all ten ASEAN member nations met on
February 22 to negotiate with representa-
tives of Thailand and Cambodia. The deci-
sion reached was the establishment of an
‘unofficial ceasefire.’ Unarmed military
and civilian observers from Indonesia, a
neutral third party, will be dispatched to
both sides of the disputed border, with
permission to report any violence back to
ASEAN. ASEAN chairman and Indone-
sian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa
stated afterwards, “And so there will be
further meeting between the two sides
to try to really solidify the present situa-
tion […] As long as the guns are silent and
the artillery is not making noises, I will be
quite happy.”
While the ceasefire is a breakthrough,
Cambodia and Thailand are just beginning
the process of finding a permanent solu-
tion. Their lofty goal is to resolve a cen-
tury’s worth of tension between countries
that are dealing with their own internal is-
sues. Tararith explains, “Seeing both sides
[of this conflict] is good. I am Cambodian
and I love my country, just like the Thais
love theirs.”
National love runs deep in both Cam-
bodia and Thailand, though neither coun-
try unanimously supports the violent bor-
der conflict. The question that remains is
how this love will be manifested: through
violent attempts to acquire symbols of na-
tional power, or through domestic efforts
to stamp out government corruption and
enforce free speech rights—approaches
that have quelled national pride in the
past.
EMMA WHITFORD B ’12 wonders
why love is a battlefield.
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org NEWS| 4

Koh Tral
By Kho Tararith
Koh Tral remains ours in our minds,

while its whole body melted away from

Khmer land.

The Island ancestors took care of the ter-

ritory

and the island was the inheritance of the

ancestors.

It is unfortunate that we have lost this re-

source,

and this beautiful island is gone.

In history this island was Cambodia.

All generations of Khmer remember.

When the island will return to us

the long suffering will end;

our anger of the many years will be over.

We are waiting for that.

5 |METRO FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org

CHANTS
by Mal
colm B
urnley

UR S
M
and Jon

AND
ah Wol

UR
f

UNITED THEY STAND
On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of Rhode
Island workers filled the Providence State-
house in a rally against a proposed bill that
would deny bargaining rights to Wiscon-
sin’s government workers; Wisconsin’s
Democratic State Senators have fled the
state to delay voting, Across the nation,
new Republican lawmakers hope to solve
deficits by busting unions. As we went to
press, Indiana’s State Democrats had de-
camped to Illinois to avoid voting on a sim-
ilar bill; Ohio Democrats, outnumbered
past the possibility of a filibuster, lacked
such an option. While such extensive
measures are unlikely to spread to Rhode
Island, two recent developments in Provi-
dence have proven the importance of col-
lective bargaining.
The same afternoon, Providence
mayor Angel Taveras mandated that all
non-unionized city employees take a day
non-unionized city employees take a day
of unpaid furlough sometime before June
30, the end of the fiscal year. Taveras’s de-
cision will affect an estimated 160 work-
ers and shave an estimated $40,000 off the
city’s $57 million deficit. In a statement,
Taveras’s director of communications
called the action “a way to signal that re-
storing fiscal stability in the city of Provi-
dence will require shared sacrifice from
everyone.”
Later on Tuesday night, Providence
school superintendent Tom Brady an-
nounced plans to dismiss the entire fleet
of public school teachers at the end of the
academic year. Brady’s move, which will
allow him to re-hire a smaller number of
M
teachers under different terms, resembles
a similar measure enacted a year ago by
the superintendent of Central Falls, work-
ing non-unionized city employees take a
day of unpaid furlough sometime before
June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Tav-
eras’s decision will affect an estimated 160
workers and shave an estimated $40,000
off the city’s $57 million deficit. In a state-
ment, Taveras’s director of communica-
tions called the action “a way to signal
that restoring fiscal stability in the city of
Providence will require shared sacrifice
from everyone.”
Later on Tuesday night, Providence
school superintendent Tom Brady an-
nounced plans to dismiss the entire fleet
of public school teachers at the end of
the academic year. Brady’s move, which
will allow him to re-hire a smaller num-
ber of teachers under different terms,
resembles a similar measure enacted a
year ago by the superintendent of Central
Falls, working(as Brady is) under state
Education Commissioner Deborah Gist,
a strong supporter of non-unionized char-
ter schools. But whereas only 88 teachers
were fired from Central Falls High (all re-
hired in May under new terms, although
many have since resigned), Brady’s action
would affect 1,926 teachers in schools
across the city. The school board will vote
on the measure Thursday. At press time,
Mayor Taveras announced plans to close
several schools in the coming year. –JW

Rhode Islanders may not know State Rep-
resentative Robert A. Watson yet (R-East
Greenwich), but he’s having no trouble
making a name for himself abroad. Dur-
ing a luncheon on February 9, Watson
made an outrageous comment that result-
ed in political uproar: “I suppose if you’re
a gay man from Guatemala who gambles
and smokes pot, you probably think that
we’re onto some good ideas here,” he
said, referring to the legislative agenda
of the Rhode Island Statehouse this year.
What began as an attempt at political sar-
casm from Watson, the House Minority
Leader, has escalated Rhode-Island-Gua-
temala tensions to their highest point in,
well… ever.
Days later, Watson claimed his re-
mark was just a boisterous attempt to
highlight misplaced priorities within the
Statehouse in 2011; the body has primar-
ily held hearings on social issues like gay
marriage, medical marijuana, and illegal
immigration—not financial policy, which
Watson claims he’d prefer. While it’s no
surprise that local groups have pounced
on his remarks—the Guatemala-American
Alliance of Rhode Island demanded an
apology, which Watson refused—Watson
also sent ripples as far as South America.
The Guatemalan Ministry of Affairs re-
cently sent out a press release in Spanish,
condemning the comments as “a direct
insult to the entire Guatemalan commu-
nity.”
It’s safe to say Watson drew few
STRONG WORDS
laughs with his sarcasm, but far worse: his was unfortunate in our current ethnically
comments were illogical to begin with. hypersensitive society.” Following this
Suggesting that the Guatemalan commu- logic, it’s okay to make derogatory re-
nity in Rhode Island consists mostly of il- marks as long as they have literary merit.
legal immigrants is false: according to the If insults are excused when spoken in al-
Latino Oral History Project of Rhode Is- literation, then I’ll go ahead and call Mr.
land, the state’s largest influx of Guatema- Watson a washed-up walrus-looking
lan people occurred in the 1980s during WASP, thank you very much. –MB
a Civil War in the country, which means
they settled in Rhode Island as legal refu-
gees.
Not surprisingly, some people have
actually defended the House Minority
leader—like one Christopher Curran, who
wrote in a letter to the Providence Jour-
nal that “Robert Watson’s specific choice
of the grammatical device of alliteration at
a Feb. 9 Chamber of Commerce luncheon
7 |FEATURES
SECOND AMENDMENT
MOMENTUM
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
A t a Washington rally last year
on the fifteenth anniversary of
the Oklahoma City bombing, Rep. Paul
Broun (R-GA) declared, “Fellow patri-
ots, we have a lot of domestic enemies of
the Constitution, and they’re right down
the Mall, in the Congress of the United
States—and right down Independence Av-
enue in the White House that belongs to
us. It’s not about my ability to hunt, which
I love to do. It’s not about the ability for
me to protect my family and my property
against criminals, which we have the right
to do. But it’s all about protecting our-
selves from a tyrannical government of
the United States.”
In the wake of the Tucson shooting,
aides to President Obama have said that
he will address the issue of gun control in
the coming weeks—after ignoring it for
the entirety of his presidency. Former
vice president Dick Cheney has also ex-
pressed a desire to ban high capacity clips,
like the one used by Jared Loughner, last
month’s Tucson shooter. But many Sec-
ond Amendment supporters abhor any
sort of restriction on gun ownership. The
rhetoric employed by much of the politi-
cal right equates gun control legislation
with dictatorship; many politicians in state
legislatures have continued—even in the
aftermath of Tucson—to attempt not only
to rescind current restrictions, but have
also introduced some of the most enthusi-
astic right to bear arms bills to date.
In Florida, Rep. Jason Brodeur
(R) wants to make it a felony for phy-
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
sicians—who often ask their patients
about risky behavior, including drink-
ing, smoking, and wearing a seatbelt—to
ask if their patient keeps a gun at home.
Brodeur expressed his worry that “If the
overreaching federal government actu-
ally takes over health care, we’re worried
that Washington, D.C., is going to know
whether or not they own a gun, and so this
is really just a privacy protection.” Doc-
tors who fail to comply with the proposed
law could face up to five million dollars in
fines—or jail time. In Michigan, State Sen.
Mike Green (R-Mayville) introduced leg-
islation that would allow people to carry
concealed guns into churches, schools,
day care centers, stadiums, bars, and hos-
pitals. He told The Detroit News that he in-
troduced the bill to prove that “there are
no places that should be gun-free.” Ne-
braska State Sen. Mark Christensen also
introduced legislation to allow employees
at K-12 schools to carry guns. Wyoming
and Nebraska both have bills up for con-
sideration in their legislatures that would
allow their citizens to carry concealed
guns without state permits. And last year,
Indiana lawmakers passed a bill allowing
workers to keep guns in their cars while
parked on company property. State Sen.
Johnny Nugent (R-Lawrenceville) has
filed legislation barring employers from
asking their workers about any firearms
that might be in their parking lots be-
cause, “there are things that trump those
property rights, and one of them is the de-
fense of my life.”
For a long time, liberals hoped that
by convincing opponents of gun control
that they harbored no hostility toward the
vast majority of law-abiding gun owners—
or to hunting or rural culture—that they
might be able to forge a consensus and
create pragmatic firearm laws to protect
innocent civilians. But the real passion in
the anything goes approach to guns has
little to do with the culture of hunting,
as evinced by the current bills floating
around state legislatures, as well as the
sentiments expressed by Rep. Broun. In
2006, Rep. Ron Paul put it: “The Second
Amendment is not about hunting deer or
keeping a pistol in your nightstand. It is
not about protecting oneself against com-
mon criminals. It is about preventing tyr-
anny. The Founders knew that unarmed
citizens would never be able to overthrow
a tyrannical government as they did… The
muskets they used against the British army
were the assault rifles of that time.” There
is a growing acceptability in widening ex-
tremist circles to take the Second Amend-
ment at its face value—that United States
citizens have a right to guns in order to
maintain militias with the firepower to
overthrow a “tyrannical” government.
In the past three years, broad-based
populist anger over political, demo-
graphic, and economic changes in Amer-
ica ignited an explosion of new extremist
groups and activism across the nation. The
vast majority of these groups are united by
the belief that they should have absolute
access to any and all types of firearms, and
that any step towards gun regulation is a
step towards tyranny. One indication of
the power of this increasingly widespread
belief is in the fate of the assault weapons
ban. In September 1994, after a string of
grisly shootings—the 1989 Stockton Cali-
fornia elementary school attack, the 1991
Killeen massacre, the 1993 Waco siege—
Congress passed the assault weapons ban,
which limited magazine capacity to ten
rounds. But by 2000, the gun control
movement had already started flagging.
After the passage of the assault weapons
ban, the NRA—a powerful, and, for the
gun industry, inexpensive lobbying arm
that is funded mostly by gun-owner mem-
ber—introduced a nationwide campaign
in support of state laws that gave civilians
the right to carry concealed handguns into
public areas: shopping malls, Little League
games, and almost anywhere else. Before
1987, only ten states had right-to-carry
laws. In 1994 and 1995 alone, 11 states
enacted such statutes, bringing the total to
28. Today, 48 states allow concealed car-
ry, and Arizona, Alaska, and Vermont do
not require any sort of permit in order to
do so—which is why Jared Loughner was
easily able to buy and carry a concealed
gun in public, despite his documented his-
tory of mental illness.
Democrats collectively decided that
gun control was a cursed issue in the af-
termath of the closely contested presiden-
tial election of 2000, when Al Gore lost
his home state of Tennessee in large part
because of NRA opposition. President
George W. Bush suggested that he would
extend the assault weapons ban and maga-
zine limit, but when the NRA and Repub-
licans on Capitol Hill resisted, he allowed
the law to expire in September 2004. The
Glock 19—Mr. Loughner’s weapon of
choice—would not have been sold for ci-
vilian use under the assault weapons ban.
Rep. Giffords would probably still have
been shot if he had brought a .22 pistol into
that Safeway. But without the smooth-fir-
ing Glock’s 33 round ammunition maga-
zine, he would not have murdered six
people—including a nine year old girl—af-
ter shooting over 30 rounds before paus-
ing to reload.

by Kate Welsh
illustrations by Robert Sandler and Annika Finne
In the current political atmosphere,
in which gun control is an untouchable is-
sue, armed men have been attending Pres-
ident Obama’s speeches bearing signs that
“the tree of liberty” needs to be “watered”
with “the blood of tyrants.” The number
of hate groups in America has been going
up for years, rising 54% between 2000 and
2008 and driven largely by an angry back-
lash against non-white immigration, 9/11,
and, starting in the last year of that period,
the economic meltdown and the climb to
power of an African-American president.
The militias, and what became known as
the Patriot movement, first came to Amer-
ica’s attention in the mid 1990s, when
they appeared as an angry reaction to
what was seen as a tyrannical government
bent on crushing all dissent. Sparked most
dramatically by the death of 76 Branch
Davidians during a 1993 law enforcement
siege in Waco, TX, those who joined the
militias also rallied against the Democratic
Clinton Administration and initiatives like
gun control and environmental regula-
tion. Although the Patriot movement
included people formerly associated with
racially-based hate groups, it was above all
animated by a view of the federal govern-
ment as the primary enemy, along with a
fondness for antigovernment conspiracy
theories. By early this decade, the groups
had largely disappeared from public view.
But last year, a dramatic resurgence
in the Patriot movement and its paramili-
tary wing, the militias, began. According
to a count by the Southern poverty law
Center, 363 new Patriot groups appeared
in 2009. Individuals associated with the
Patriot movement during its 1990s hey-
day produced an enormous amount of vi-
olence, most dramatically the Oklahoma
City bombing that left 168 people dead.
As the movement has exploded, so
has the reach of its ideas, aided and abet-
ted by commentators and politicians in
the ostensible mainstream. While in the
1990s, the movement got good reviews
from a few lawmakers and talk-radio
hosts, some of its central ideas today are
being plugged by people with far larger
audiences like FOX News’ Glenn Beck
and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-
Minn). In April 2009, a man armed with
an AK-47, a .22 caliber rifle, and a hand-
gun was charged with killing three cops
in Pittsburgh. The accused killer had, as
part of a pattern of activities involving far-
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org FEATURES| 8
right conspiracy theories, posted a link
on a neo-Nazi website to a video of Beck
talking about the possibility that FEMA
was operating concentration camps in
Wyoming. The killings came after Beck
told Fox viewers that he “can’t debunk”
the notion that FEMA was operating such
camps--but before he finally acknowl-
edged that the conspiracy was not real. In
a similar instance this August, a man was
arrested with a car full of assault weapons
after engaging in a shootout with police.
His mother told investigators that he was
on his way to--in his words--”start a revolu-
tion” by shooting the executive director
of the little known Tides Foundation, a
non-profit that claims to support “sustain-
ability, better education, solutions to the
AIDS epidemic, and human rights.” Not
coincidentally, the man had been watch-
ing Beck’s show in the months prior to his
failed assassination attempt. According to
the press watchdog Media Matters, Beck
had ranted against Tide’s agenda to “seize
power and destroy capitalism” 33 times
in the 18 months before the shooting.
Media Matters said it was unable to find
any other mention of Tides on any news
broadcast by any network over that same
period.
Most of Beck’s broadcasts have vio-
lent imagery: “The clock is ticking. . . .
The war is just beginning. . . . Shoot me in
the head if you try to change our govern-
ment. . . . You have to be prepared to take
rocks to the head. . . . The other side is at-
tacking. . . . There is a coup going on. . .
. Grab a torch! . . . Drive a stake through
the heart of the bloodsuckers. . . . They are
taking you to a place to be slaughtered. . . .
They are putting a gun to America’s head.
. . . Hold these people responsible.”
Beck has prophesied darkly to his mil-
lions of followers that we are reaching “a
point where the people will have exhaust-
ed all their options. When that happens,
look out.”
There are 240 million guns in Amer-
ica, with more being manufactured and
imported every day. The combination of
easy access to weapons with extremist and
violent rhetoric is a potent force. Leaders
and citizens should reconsider the execu-
tive director of the NRA, Wayne LaPi-
erre’s, assertion in 2009 that “the guys
with the guns make the rules.”
KATE WELSH B’12 needs a byline.
1

2
 RISD STUDENT SHOWCASE
1 Korakrit Arunanondchai ‘09 - Untitled (room) design by Erik Font
2 Leif Gann-Matzen ‘11 - Untitled
3 Andy Pomykalski ‘10 - The Actor
4 Nick Corti ‘11 - Zebra Vegas Weekend Throne
5 Patrick Groth ‘10 - The Woolworth Buildings
6 Sonya Dissin ‘11 - Still from What’s Relle Good
7 Everett Williams ‘10 - Placing
8 Robert Dodd ‘11 - Always Thinking of You (detail)
9 Raffaella Hanley ‘11 - Untitled
10 Patrick Armstrong ‘10 - broken-ob-broken

4
5

7 10
11 |GRAPHIC ESSAY FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org GRAPHIC ESSAY| 12
13 |ARTS FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org

OVERHAULING THE
ART EXPERIENCE
Timeless works through new-age Google eyes
by Maud Doyle

G oogle’s Art Project took the art

world and digital world by storm when
screenshots by Emily Martin

it premiered on February 1. The project

features Google street view virtual tours
of rooms in 17 museums in Europe and
on the United States’ eastern seaboard, in-
cluding behemoths like the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York, Versailles
outside of Paris, and the State Hermitage
Museum in Moscow.
As you wander through the rooms of
the some of the world’s great art muse-
ums, you can get high-res and super high-
res images of over 1,000 works by over
400 different artists. The project has been
hailed as a breakthrough educational tool,
and as a democratizer of the art world,
giving laptop owners worldwide access,
from the comfort of their homes, to paint-
ings that they may never have the oppor-
tunity to visit in person.
Art Project has also, perhaps inadver-
tently, created an international network
of museums. After choosing a painting
to study up close, the virtual visitor might
check “more works by this artist,” a list
which includes works from any of the 17
museums.
In addition to the high-res images,
each museum has chosen one painting
for mega-pixel treatment, allowing unbe-
lievably detailed study of the canvases of
works such as Bottecelli’s Venus (at the
Uffizi) or Van Gough’s Starry Night (at
MoMA).
VIRTUAL VIRTUOSOS
There has been, for some time, a rapport
between museums and technology. The
relationship is apt—like Google, and like
the internet generally, museums could be
thought of as vast repositories of discover-
able information. At any given time, only
a tiny portion of any museum’s collection
is on display.
In 2000, the Guggenheim was devel-
oping a Virtual Museum—to be treated as
another established branch, on the same
level as the Guggenheim in Bilbao or the
Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice—
in which traditional works would “hang”
alongside virtual artwork in a morphing,
three-dimensional architectural space.
Now, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art’s relatively new director, Thomas
P. Campbell, is attempting to make the
museum more accessible by overhauling
and massively expanding the museum’s
technological component, with the aim of
enabling visitors to learn from handheld
devices as well as from wall text. He also
wants to have digital records of all—that is,
over 1.6 million—of the museum’s objects.
Most of the museums featured in Art
Project already have hefty online compo-
nents with varying degrees of relation-
ships to “real” exhibitions and collections.
Almost all include lectures, event listings,
multimedia activities, and highlights from
the collection. MoMA’s online exhibi-
tions, meanwhile, are full-blown websites,
with text, scroll bars, navigation bars, and
links alongside images. The Hermitage’s
website includes a searchable “digital col-
lection,” and the Museo Reina Sofia’s on-
line collection is organized by room and
comes with a floor plan of the museum.
Browsing through a gallery space—one
might say the principal activity of museum-
going—as opposed to “searching” online
collections differentiates the umbrella Art
Project from the individual museums’ ex-
isting online features. The Guggenheim’s
millennial idea of building a virtual space
for virtual and traditional art has given
way to virtual tours of traditional spaces
and virtual close-study of traditional art.
THE BIG PICTURE
Art Project’s real claim to breakout star-
dom lies in the much-touted super zoom
technology. Google has moved from im-
aging the topography of the earth to imag-
ing the topography of painted images. The
reproduction of Chris Ofili’s No Woman,
No Cry (the Tate’s “star” painting and the
only one of the 17 mega-pixel paintings
painted after 1914) even includes an X-
ray option.
“Zooming,” a technological mar-
vel that’s seen applications ranging from
telescopes to bombing raids, has grown
mundane. Still, despite all of Art Proj-
ect’s supposed novelties, commentators
seem most turned on by the high-res im-
aging. Roberta Smith, writing for the
New York Times, was thrilled to discover
a group of women skinny dipping in the
far background of Pieter Bruegel the El-
der’s Harvesters, bathers whom she had
never noticed while at the Met. The New
Yorker, writing about The Ambassadors by
Han Holbein the Younger (at London’s
National Gallery) raves, “Zoom in… and
read every note in the scene’s open psalm
book.”
The problem with the mega-pixel
technology is that as much as Roberta
Smith may be marveling at the brush-
strokes that define the buttocks of a nude
woman poking out of the water, most of
us are marveling at the technology that en-
ables to see that at the same time, as much
as if not more than the “artwork” itself.
Hardly surprising––the computer user is
far closer to the technology than to the art
itself.
GRAND THEFT ARTWORK
Arguably, museums are already virtual
spaces, if not digital spaces. They are dis-
connected from the world around them,
not subject to its time, its politics, or its
history, but instead preserve art objects in
a kind of vacuum.
The “white cube”—exemplified by
MoMA in this collection of virtual muse-
ums—is the most supremely plastic space,
and the atmosphere in MoMA’s galleries
was unmistakably that of a Thomas Crown
Affair video game. On the other hand,
touring Versailles, preserved intact for
hundreds of years, feels equally plastic
via Art Project, though it doesn’t inspire
instinctual video game comparisons to the
same degree—it simply, perhaps because
of the detail of furniture and texture that
could only exist in actuality, looks far
more real. Wandering through the Hall
of Mirrors and looking up at Charles Le
Brun murals is a thoroughly awesome
experience compared to wandering the
burgundy corridors of the Smithsonian’s
Freer Gallery of Art.
The relationship between the virtual
museums and their real locations is an
uncomfortable one, even in this digital
universe, despite the helpful Google Map
available on the sidebar. Before realizing
that only one of MoMA’s galleries is open
for viewing, the inexperienced virtual
tourist will be ejected from the 5th floor
galleries to 54th Street at least a few times.
Tellingly, this is a far more jarring experi-
ence than moving smoothly from MoMA
in New York to the Museo Reina Sofia in
Madrid by clicking the “Next” arrow—de-
spite their distance, the two institutions
seem more closely related to one another
than to their own “real” environments.
The feeling of disorientation is fur-
ther exacerbated when plunging headlong
into the paintings with incredible levels of
zoom—you get lost. The feeling of seeing
something forbidden—points of bare can-
vas, a hair that fell out of a brush, a lady’s
bare buttocks—is at once exciting and ter-
rifying. But I also had the vaguely illicit
feeling that I was looking at Botticelli’s
Birth of Venus as an objective machine rath-
er than as a feeling human. Though the op-
portunity to study Rembrandt’s The Night-
watch at such a dangerously close range is
thrilling, the virtual tourist still feels him-
self to be at a great mediated remove from
the painting. A reproduction, no matter
how many pixels, is still a reproduction.
The zoom is frightening because it’s
addictive—the desire to get closer to the
painting urges you to zoom farther and
farther, down this rabbit hole in which
pixels are confused with the artist’s brush-
strokes. And it’s frightening because
when you’re digital eye is right up against
micrometers of canvas, you still feel unsat-
isfied.
MAUD DOYLE B’11 could be thought
of as a vast repository of discoverable in-
formation.

GOOGLE GIVETH.
GOOGLE TAKETH AWAY.
Google baits public with super high-res seven billion pixel artistic masterpiece
I n 1933, Walter Benjamin prophesized
the death of art and its aura in the age
of mechanical reproduction. So we can
imagine the mental breakdown Benja-
min would experience upon viewing Art
Project, Google’s latest marriage of cul-
tural material and digital online access.
Google’s newest venture has been met
with almost unanimous praise and sup-
port by those both in and outside of the
art world for its focus on accessibility,
visibility, and education in a field more
commonly associated with exclusion and
selectivity.
While most of the discussion sur-
rounding the project has focused on the
danger of the virtual experience replacing
the firsthand, concerns have been raised
over Google’s growing and astonishing
influence in today’s global online culture,
and its effort at contracting the art world
into its monopoly.
THE BENEVOLENT CORPORATION
Google’s emergence as a corporate jug-
gernaut over the past five years hasn’t
incited the expected collective wariness
or conspiracy theories. Google has man-
aged to avoid the ‘evil corporation’ trope
by carefully crafting its public image—one
exemplified by, yes, its expertise and effi-
ciency, but more importantly, by its neu-
trality and a certain invisibility despite its
status as a multinational corporation.
With 127 different services, Google
is becoming not just a monopoly of the
web, but a standard. The Internet starts
at Google, an almost unseen, worldwide
port, with its all-white, clean homepage.
That invisibility is very much a part of the
reason why Google’s Art Project has been
framed as a technological intervention
into the art world, rather than a corporate
one.
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
by Olivia Jene Fagon
GOOGLE GIVETH. GOOGLE TAKETH
AWAY.
Art Project is just the latest initiative in
Google’s long-term effort at digitizing and
uploading cultural material exclusively
to their sites. Launched in 2004, Google
Books—Art Project’s literary brother—of-
fers online access to thousands of scanned
books and essays. A research godsend for
both students and professional scholars,
its high usage rates and popularity contrib-
uted to panic about the relevancy of the
modern day library, and posed a threat to
the rates and profits of the very same pub-
lishing houses with which the project was
launched in collaboration. Rather then
be cut out of the site’s high visibility and
popularity, publishers arranged a settle-
ment in 2005 that allows Google to display
between 20 to 40 percent of a participat-
ing book’s material, while they maintain a
limited ownership over said material.
The issue demonstrates Google’s abil-
ity to gain control over copyrighted cul-
tural materials, and how, in an increasing-
ly Internet-based social order, Google’s
colossus web status can give its ownership
claims more clout.
INTERNET ACCESS
Still, there’s no reason to assume that
Google will eventually own Botticelli’s
Venus or Van Gogh’s Starry Night. (Google
has no copyrights to the high-resolution
images of the artworks.) But in order to
remain relevant and active in an Internet
digitized context, museums have to part-
ner with corporations like Google. The
company is banking on these museums’
and galleries’ need to evolve and keep up
with technological advancements.
Whether or not Art Project’s technol-
ogy is signaling the demise of the museum
experience—a hypothesis most, including
Google reps, seem to dismiss—its success
does indicate at least the possible emer-
gence of a virtual online museum as a
space for artistic exhibition. This, coupled
with the popularity of video- and light-
based art, could put Google and the rapid-
ly expanding Art Project in a very oppor-
tune business position, as the gatekeepers
of an online digitized space that art venues
and works are now attempting to occupy.
THE MAKINGS OF MAINSTREAM
CULTURE
Art Project creator Amit Sood claims that
the site’s technology “in no way supplants
the work of curators, conservators or col-
lectors,” but as we move further into the
Internet age, Art Project and Google’s
other cultural tools could transition from
archives to a more active culture-making
role. The combination of Google’s inter-
net supremacy, the emergence of the in-
ternet as the place for cultural exhibition
and production, and Google’s contracts
with the art world through Art Project,
the literary world through Google Books,
ARTS| 14
and soon the music world—there are ru-
mors that Google Music will launch next
summer—could allow Google to select
which art, books, or music enjoy the ex-
posure and visibility their tools and search
rankings offer.
Putting aside the unnerving possi-
bility of a Google. Inc Art Canon, it’s a
little more problematic to consider how
Google would operate as both corpora-
tion and cultural actor. In 2005, Google
caught JC Penny manipulating search op-
timizations in order to have their webpage
appear more frequently on users searches,
and responded by manually dropping JC
Penny’s search rankings, severely cutting
the store’s online shopping profits.
If the direct implementation of this
‘Google Will’ were to extend to an artist’s
work on Art Project, or a newly released
album’s purchasing page on Google Mu-
sic, with such immediate and extensive
market response, Google could easily
maintain quite a bit of cultural authority
based on market maneuverings.
In any case, these are questions for
the future. Right now, Art Project is what
Google says it is: a resource for facilitating
the public’s exposure to art, and one that
could be used to preserve museums’ popu-
larity and perhaps highlight unrecognized
art and venues.
What complicates Google Art, and
other Google cultural tools, is that their
success promises the preservation and
continual production of art and culture
in the digital online age—but the oppor-
tunity requires participation in Google’s
Internet monopoly, a position that could
weaken the art institutions’ integrity as it
sets Google up to be a potent cultural and
artistic authority.
OLIVIA FAGON B’13 asks Jeeves.
15 |FEATURES FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org

FOR BETTER INTRODUCING…

THE INDYS
Honoring pop culture
achievements from the last

OR WORSE
year
**
******
***************
*************************
************************************
************************************
*************************
***************
Lesser Known Award Shows to ******
**

Reward the Overlooked Best Hot Tub Time Machine

the one at Alice’s house
by Belle Cushing
Best Argument Against Plastic Surgery
illustration by Adela Wu Barbara Hershey in Black Swan

Best Black Swan

‘T
is the season for gaudy and excessive
award shows: starting with the Golden
Globes in January, all the way through our old
friends Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and finally Tony
in June. Award shows encourage quality work
and reward genuine artistic achievements.
They also shamelessly promote public celeb-
rity preening, raise viewership, and pile praise
upon already famous artists. However, beyond
the Academy Awards, there is a lot of achieve-
ment in America that goes unnoticed—as do
the award shows that recognize it. Here’s to the
award shows that represent both the niche suc-
cesses and national failures of pop culture.
HASTY PUDDING
THEATRICALS:
MAN AND WOMAN
BAD SEX IN
FICTION AWARD
The London-based Literary Review grants this
award annually, upholding the noble purpose:
“to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, of-
ten perfunctory use of redundant passages of
sexual description in the modern novel, and to
discourage it.” The award has been embraced in
English literary circles—after all, in the words
of one recent winner, “There’s nothing more
English than bad sex.” Winners have their work
ridiculed in front of an audience of writers and
publishers, and are presented with a bottle of
champagne and a prize that resembles a naked
woman sprawled across an open book. In 2008,
John Updike was given the Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award. Author already dead? No prob-
Showgirls
Best cunnilingus that isn’t in Black
Swan or Blue Valentine
THE RAZZIES The American
Every year, the day before the Academy
Awards, another golden statue is presented to Truest Grit
Hollywood actors and filmmakers for memora- Waka Flocka Flame
ble work—memorably horrible work, that is.
The Golden Raspberry awards, affectionately Best Slonk
known as the Razzies, dis-honor the large per- Donkerson
centage of Hollywood’s output that is embar-
rassingly bad. Paying members of a website sub- Best Winter’s Bone
mit their votes for the worst in nine categories, The NC-17 parts of Blue Valentine
including Worst Picture and Worst Prequel,
Rip-off, or Sequel. Past special interest awards Best James Franco
have included Most Flatulent Teen-Targeted IFC’s “Freaks and Geeks” Christmas mara-
Movie (Jackass:The Movie) and Worst Excuse for thon
an Actual Movie (Gigli). For all those actors that
just won’t get off the big screen, despite never Hottest Classicist
making anything good, their hard work might
finally be rewarded. The 31st Razzies will see
Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2

lem! The award is even given posthumously, as

OF THE YEAR
Harvard would have its own award. The student
theater group, which began as an arts fraternity
in 1785, annually honors the achievements of
one man and one woman in the professional
performing arts world, Harvard diploma not
required. This year’s awards went to Julianne
Moore and Jay Leno. The award, which has
been granted annually since 1951, began in or-
der to recognize female achievement, the first
honoree being English stage actress Gertrude
Lawrence. It first included a Man of the Year in
1968, when Paul Newman was honored along
with Angela Lansbury. The recipients are invit-
ed to attend a ceremony at Harvard, with a cel-
ebratory roast and parade. Basically it’s a good
excuse to get a national celebrity to come hang
out at their club. But out of all the potential
Hollywood stars to invite, why Jay Leno?
THE NAMMYS: THE
NATIVE AMERICAN
MUSIC AWARDS
The Grammys have Justin Bieber, the Nammys
have Wind Spirit Drum. The Nammys, found-
ed in 1998, promote achievements by Native
Americans in all genres of the music industry.
The ceremony, held at the Seneca Niagara Ho-
tel and Casino in Niagara Falls, NY, honors art-
ists in categories ranging from Artist of theYear
to Best Country Song. It is an opportunity to
spotlight work that might otherwise be over-
looked in more mainstream awards. In the spir-
it of inclusion, even non-Native American art-
ists can be considered; the Native Heart award
recognizes those who are Native American ‘at
heart,’ as long as their work promotes the ar-
tistic initiatives of the native peoples. 2010’s
honorees included Joseph FireCrow (Artist of
theYear) and The Boyz for Boys will be Boyz (Best
Pow Wow recording).
it was to Norman Mailer for his description of
the male reproductive organ as a “coil of excre-
ment” in The Castle in the Forest in 2007. Other
notable honorees were Rowan Somerville,
last year for The Shape of Her (narrowly beat-
ing out Jonathon Franzen) and Tom Wolfe for I
Am Charlotte Simmons. The Review cited the fol-
lowing passage to justify Wolfe’s win: “Slither
slither slither slither went the tongue, but the
hand that was what she tried to concentrate
on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of
her torso to explore and not just the otorhi-
nolaryngological caverns ...” Wolfe refused the
award, and claimed that the tediousness of his
erotica was, in fact, deliberate. Sure.
THE CHRISTO-
PHERS
If Tony is the artsy theater kid, Emmy is the
successful over-achiever, and Oscar is the be-
spectacled film student, then Christopher is the
good boy from Sunday School that your mom
always wanted you to date. The eponymous
award show, the Christophers, finds spiritual
inspiration in popular books, film, and televi-
sion. According to Mary Ellen Robinson, VP of
the foundation, “The creativity recognized by
the Christopher Awards presents views of
reality and flights of imagination that heighten
inspiration and engage the human soul.” Win-
ners are seemingly arbitrarily chosen by pan-
els of media professionals, members of The
Christophers’ staff with expertise in film, TV
and book publishing, and by children’s reading
groups. Nominees do not have to have specifi-
cally religious themes, but must contribute to
a general optimism about life. The Pixar film
Up, worth not only two Oscars and forty other
awards, also apparently “affirms the highest val-
ues of the human spirit,” the qualifications of
the award as set forth by founder Father James
Keller. Dogs that talk, houses that fly, boy scouts
that eat ice cream with ornery old men—defi-
nitely the stuff that dreams are made of. As the
awards enter their 62nd year, they continue to
encourage non-denominational spirituality in
an increasingly atheist and nihilistic world.
vampires and bling, diva supporting actresses,
and nine nominations for Razzie veteran M.
Night Shyamalan. Who will carry away the
Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3-D, Cats and
Dogs 2, or Saw VII? Will Miley Cyrus keep the
Worst Actress award away from the entire cast
of Sex and the City 2? The ultimate losers will be
revealed Saturday, February 26 at the Barnsdale
Theater in Hollywood.
WORST IN SHOW:
WORLD’S UGLIEST
DOG CONTEST
If the plucked, shaved, and paraded dogs in a
normal dog show aren’t freaky enough for you,
the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California offers
an alternative contest, for the world’s ugliest
dog, au natural. The competition, which has
been going on for 22 years, draws unfortunate-
looking canines from all over the world, their
owners looking to capitalize on the fact that
their pet is a real eye-sore—and the $1,000
prize. Chinese Cresteds are generally favored
to win, although the 2008 winner’s lack of not
only hair, but also a left eye and a fourth leg
seemed to give him an unfair advantage over
other more complete canines. There’s no such
thing as bad publicity, and winners of the con-
test end up with talk shows, blinged out dog-
gie toys, and even modeling contracts. Beyond
indulging spectators’ fetish for mutant animals,
the contest has a philanthropic side. Models
present orphan animals up for adoption in an
“Ugly is the new Beautiful” Fashion show, al-
though the models used to sell the dogs would
certainly have no chance in a similar contest
for humans. So if your dog is missing limbs or
looks mildly challenged, send it out to Cali. Its
misfortune could be your fortune.
BELLE CUSHING B’13 might just take that
$1,000 prize.
Best Press Release
ATLANTA, GA (June 17, 2010) – As part of
Carvel’s 75th Anniversary celebration last
year, we issued 75 Black Cards to celebri-
ties.  These cards were issued in the ce-
lebrity’s name and require the card hold-
er to be present at the time of use. Many
celebrities have enjoyed their cards at
our Carvel Ice Cream shoppes and have
shared their excitement with being in-
cluded in the celebration.
Unfortunately, the Lohan family has
been abusing the card.   While the card
was issued in Lindsay and Ali’s names
only, their extended family has repeatedly
used the card without either present.   At
first, we graciously honored their requests
while explaining that the Black Card was
not a carte blanche for unlimited Carvel
Ice Cream for the extended Lohan family
and friends.  After more than six months
of numerous and large orders for ice
cream, we finally had to cut off the card
and take it back.
Dina Lohan reacted badly and called
the police to have her card returned.  The
police responded and did return the card
to Dina with instructions not to use it
again.
This is an unfortunate situation where
certain people feel entitled to use a celeb-
rity’s name for their own purposes.   We
regret that the Lohan family is upset and
hope this matter is put behind us quickly.
--Ashley Swann, Carvel Public Relations
Manager
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THE ART
OF VEGAN
MIMICRY
The quest for alfredo
illustration by Annika Finne
I’ve been exposed to a lot of atypical foods
during my 21 years; I’ve eaten raw conch,
chocolate-covered ant clusters, Rocky
Mountain oysters, ostrich burgers, al-
ligator bacon, and spam—a lot of spam,
actually. Some of these are more easily
explained than others: I’ve got a cousin in
Utah who used to send my family an “ex-
otic meat basket” every Christmas, and
growing up I spent my summers snacking
on mussels and quahogs with my grandpar-
ents. Like everyone else, my family has its
favorite comfort foods; it’s just that ours
is pan-fried spam sandwiches with pickles,
mayonnaise, and Colby Jack cheese.
I started out as a carnivore, but for
some unknown reason I have since lost
my predilection for meat. Why, you ask?
Perhaps I got sucked up into the neo-hip-
pie health-nut culture of Brown Univer-
sity and the East Side, or maybe it was for
some grander moral purpose. Most of us
know the environmental effects of raising
flatulent ozone-butchering cows for food,
the nefarious plots of food corporations,
and the myriad of cruel practices inflicted
on Wilbur and Bessie while they wait for
the shredder. (If you’re not, pick up The
Omnivore’s Dilemma, Fast Food Nation, Ani-
mal Liberation, or any one of those food
manifestos out there.) Maybe one of these
persuaded me, or maybe during puberty
my taste buds simply did a 180. Either way,
I’ve gone cold turkey on animal flesh.
Eating vegan can be just as culinarily
adventurous as eating carnivorously—
sometimes more so. The various flavors
and textures I come across while eating
vegan food never cease to fascinate. Some
are an obvious attempt to mimic “regular”
food while others are a clear stand-alone.
Frankly, most vegan mimicry is usually just
plain disappointing. Soy yogurt is disgust-
ing and scarily chunky, and vegan chicken
nuggets taste like breaded sponge. Weird,
seemingly contradictory concoctions with
obnoxiously clever names like “fakin’ ba-
con” and “roast without the beef” have
already found their grocery niche. Many
of these meat-alternative products seem
like an interesting thing to try out (maybe,
just maybe, I’ll find something like the real
thing). Some get the texture, some get the
taste, but upon closer inspection most are
sure to repulse any vegetarians/vegans
who abstain from meat for reasons other
than for self-punishment. Even the nutri-
tional benefit to eating this stuff is tenuous
at best – I can’t pronounce most of the
ingredients, which to me signifies “Stay
away!”
Ironically, the growing market for
“alternative foods” disregards what is sup-
posed to be the central idea of eating veg-
an—food that is better for you also tastes
better. True, most of the vegans I know
are in it for a combination of the health,
FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
by Molly Cousins
environmental, and humane aspects, but
that doesn’t mean that taste has to be
secondary. We want to be able to satisfy
cravings for ice cream and Ruebens when
we need to, and some of these alternatives
do a bang-up job of recreating the texture
and taste we’re craving (see: Like No Ud-
der, Providence’s purple vegan ice cream
truck). Dying tempeh with beet juice so
that it more closely resembles bacon, but
isn’t full of additives, is an ingenious idea.
That said, we’re not going to eat fake ham
and fake cheese sandwiches every day—
it’s not satisfying and, as I see it, sort of
defeats the point of veganism. For most
people, a major selling point for vegan-
ism is that, at least until very recently, it
eliminates most processed foods from the
diet. Fresh foods do taste better, especially
when done right. While the general per-
ception is that vegans sacrifice taste for
health, this isn’t the case. Only when un-
prepared—for example, out at a restaurant
without vegan options—does it appear that
vegans live lives full of bland boiled veg-
etables accompanied by brown rice and
salads without dressing. Eating complex
carbohydrates and fresh foods full of vi-
tamins and nutrients is better for our day-
to-day functioning and, if done right, can
taste better than that grilled cheese that
will leave you lethargic and craving more
in just an hour. A well-executed vegan
“alternative” to grilled cheese will satisfy
your craving and fill you up with the right
nutrients.
That having been said, vegan attempts
at dairy products are my latest obsession.
I have yet to come across a cheese-alterna-
tive that could fool me, but I have to give
credit for inventiveness. I also fully realize
that I may never find something healthier
than cheese that tastes, feels, and melts
like cheese. That’s okay with me, as long
as I have an option to satisfy cravings with
a close approximation that tastes good and
is good for me. I recently purchased a copy
of the Un-Cheese Cookbook—which at times
bears closer resemblance to a chemistry
textbook than it does a cookbook. Some
recipes require ingredients like agar (a
gelatinous substance that comes from al-
gae) or raw cashew milk, while others are
simply a combination of mustard, vinegar,
and spices. I’m a little frightened of agar,
not to mention I have no idea where to
purchase it, so for the time being I’m go-
ing to stick with what I know is affordable
and what I’m likely to use again in the fu-
ture.
MOLLY COUSINS B’11 cooks with ba-
connaise.
FOOD| 16
VEGAN ACORN SQUASH ALFREDO
My latest challenge has been vegan alfredo sauce. Most of us have probably had al-
fredo—basically all it consists of is cream, butter, and parmesan cheese. Delicious, for
sure, but it sounds sort of difficult to veganize, no?
After bookmarking and post-it-ing half a dozen recipes over the past few months,
I finally found one that didn’t prominently feature any deal-breaking ingredients. I
practically skipped all the way to the grocery store to pick up my acorn squash, which
the recipe suggests as a means of achieving the creaminess we usually associate with
alfredo. Soon thereafter I had a delicious, creamy sauce and a holiday weekend ahead
of me. Life was good again.
The general concensus was that it was delicious, although we were split as to
whether the texture mimicked that of non-vegan alfredo (the taste didn’t). It satis-
fied my craving, which was ultimately the most important part for me. Some of the
less healthy recipes I’d found called for two sticks of margarine, a tub of vegan cream
cheese, or gobs of soy yogurt to recreate the thick consistency of a real cream sauce,
but I think that using squash instead was an effective solution, although it did lend an
extra—albeit muted—flavor into the mix. As far as a non-dairy version of a dish com-
posed entirely of dairy products goes, I’d recommend it. However, in the future, I’d
be interested in experimenting with tahini or hummus in the sauce to make it even
creamier. The competing flavors of the Dijon and apple cider vinegar added a surpris-
ing tang to the dish —I enjoyed it, but it might disconcert those looking for a true dairy
doppelganger.
INSTRUMENTS AND INGREDIENTS
+food processor
+oven
+stovetop
+casserole pan
+bottle opener
+1 medium acorn squash (5-6” diameter)
+1/3 c nutritional yeast
+3/4 c plain soy milk
+1/2 c chopped parsley or basil
+2 tbsp Dijon mustard
+2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
+2-3 cloves garlic
+1 tbsp dried oregano
+1 tsp thyme
+2 tsp real maple syrup
+1 tsp red pepper flakes
+1 dash cayenne
+salt-n-pepa
+beer, barleywine, or wine
of your choice (or all three)
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat your oven to 350F. Fill casserole dish with 1/2 inch of water. Slice your
squash in half horizontally and scoop the seeds out. (This step will probably take a
while—cutting those buggers up is difficult. This is why I always mash or purée my
squash, as an attempt to salvage the appearance of my dish. Mangled squash cubes
generally look less appetizing than a smooth pureé.)
Plunk your squash (or squash fragments) into the casserole dish cut-side down.
Roast for 60 minutes or until soft when poked at with a fork. Be very careful when
taking the pan out of the oven, as that water is now extremely hot. Remove the squash
parts carefully and let them cool for a few.
In the meantime, dump every other ingredient into your food processor. If
you’re planning on serving the sauce with pasta, heat your water and get the pasta
cooking. I recommend whole-wheat penne, although you could certainly serve over
broccoli or cauliflower. (One of my housemates simply ate the sauce with a spoon, so
I guess there’s that option as well.)
Once the squash is cool enough, scoop the flesh out and plop it into the food
processor. Process it for a minute or so until it’s an even consistency. Taste and sea-
son with salt/pepper accordingly. Sneak a few spoonfuls. Once your sauce vehicle of
choice is ready, combine, pour the wine, and chow.
17 |LITERARY FEBRUARY 24 2011 | THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT | www.THEINDY.org
MORE I just finished some exceedingly demand-
ing work on signs for a certain Brown
academic department, reminding the pro-
spective viewer of his/her moral respon-
SIGNS
sibility to turn off the lights upon exiting
the room. They are pretty great signs, to
be honest, and because of this it occurs to
me that all laws or requests or generally
understood social norms should be writ-
ten on signs and taped places.
Already roads are kind of good at do-
ing this, but not exactly. A lot could be im-
proved. Stop signs should have clarificato-
by Esther Nasty ry addendums pasted to them that are like
“…cars! At this line!” because right now
maybe people stop walking or breathing
illustration and design or kissing when they see that sign and
that’s wrong. But everyone knows road
by Alexandra Corrigan laws don’t matter that much anyway, so
this is not the main problem to be fixed.
I’m thinking more WAR ON DRUGS
kinda things. Exempli gratia: in “economi-
cally destitute” (or whatever the current
Latinate euphemism is) neighborhoods
maybe we could post some signs that are
like “Don’t Sell Drugs!! Under Pain of
Sporadically Enforced Laws!!” And then
when dudes are putting on black parkas
to do the drop-off thing I saw them do on
Notorious (the Biggie one not the Hitch-
cock one) they remember they should be
making snow angels or selling Girl Scout
cookies, which I’m pretty sure was the
only thing I was ever allowed to do in my
parka when I was a kid. Then we could
put some ones up in Italian restaurants
that say “Killing is mean and also illegal!”
so mafiosos will remember how they are
supposed to stop doing this and just check
their BlackBerrys under the tablecloth,
like normal people do. Also of course our
border with Mexico needs lots of signs.
Big signs, small signs, maybe even some
people handing out flyers to anyone eat-
ing a taco. And everywhere there should
be stuff written on the wall to remind
people to check with the people they want
to have sex with to make sure they also
wanna have the sex.
Okay, I know God and Moses al-
ready kind of had this idea, but everyone
except sort of small-minded people who
want to limit the scope of the signage to
ten kind of obvious-ish truisms (except for
the weird one which restricts freedom of
believing whatever cool stuff you want,
which is kind of weird) forgot about it.
Also, my signs would include black and
white cartoon drawings. On my PAY
YOUR TAXES sign there would be a man
in a fedora pointing a 1940s-style revolver
at you. Another one could be a CNN-style
eagle who’s also a girl eagle if in fact girl
eagles do exist, tending to a nest that’s half
eagle eggs and half eagle grenades.
And now that I am thinking more
and more about this, I realize how I don’t
even know that many laws beyond the
obvious ones. I mean, I know some for
conversational-anecdote purposes (anoth-
er example ex gratia: how in many places
you gotta have fifty dollars on you, which
considering that mostly I never do means
I am constantly ON THE LAM), but I’m
sure there are all kinds of laws that even
I don’t know and it’d be neat to be filled
in on, probably. Mergers and acquisitions
and also fair mortgages are something I
know nothing about, but about which I
would like to learn. Also Farm Bill? Maybe
there are things I could get paid subsidies
for, besides corn.
Anyway, what with all the wall and
road and television (duh) and pull-down-
air-plane-tray table space these law signs
would be taking up, there would hardly
be any room for ads. Which would be
sad, so what I propose is that, because
since now law books would be obsolete
as well, we fill a bunch of leather-bound
books with complexly numbered ads and
have a select group of really ambitious
people study them, and then so next time
you need to buy toothpaste but you forget
which brand is the most sagacious alterna-
tive, you go in for a consultation and the
dude charges you by the hour and opens
some books and tells you what’s up, and
you leave cursing dude’s fee or attitude,
but you know, whatever, life goes on.