September 10

THE WELLESLEY COLLEGE JOURNAL OF CAMPUS LIFE

VOL. 33 / ISSUE 1

SEPTEMBER 2010Counterpoint

TAKE PHOTOS. DRAW CARTOONS.

WRITE ARTICLES.

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WE’LL

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CounterpointThe Wellesley College Journal of Campus LifeSeptember 2010Volume 33 / Issue 1

A R T S & C U L T U R E

P O L I T I C S

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c o u n t e r p o i n t 3

Democracy

CHRISTINA GOSSMANN

E D I T O R I A L S T A F F

B U S I N E S S S T A F F

T R U S T E E S

S T A F F W R I T E R S

D E S I G N S T A F F

C O N T R I BU T O R S

S U B M I S S I O N S

S U B S C R I P T I O N S

Editors in Chief HANNAH ALLEN ‘12

SARIKA NARULA ‘11

Layout Editor MYRIAM TAIBI ‘12

Artistic Director JEAN M. KIM ‘12

HANNAH ALLEN ‘12, ALEXANDRA CAHILL ‘11, ANTHEA CHEUNG ‘12, MARGARET VAN CLEVE ‘11, CHRISTINA GOSSMANN ‘11, SARIKA NARULA ’11, RA-CHEL SALMANOWITZ ‘12

JULIA GALL ‘12, JEAN KIM ‘12, ANNA PRENDELLA ’11, KARIN ROBINSON ‘12, VICTORIA ROYAL ‘11, SHARON TAI ‘13, JAMI-LIN WILLIAMS ‘11

MATT BURNS MIT ‘05, KRISTINA COSTA ‘09, BRIAN DUNAGAN MIT ‘03, KARA HADGE WC ‘08, EDWARD SUMMERS MIT ‘08

Counterpoint welcomes all submissions of articles and letters. Email submissions to counterpointmail@!rstclass.wellesley.edu. Counterpoint encourages cooperation be-tween writers and editors but reserves the right to edit all submissions for length and clarity.

One year’s subscription: $25. Send checks and mailing address to:Counterpoint, Wellesley College

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Counterpoint is funded in part by the Wellesley Senate. Wellesley College is not responsible for the content of Counterpoint. Counterpoint thanks its departmental spon-sors at Wellesley: Economics, Russian, Theatre Studies, and the Newhouse Center for the Humanities.

Managing Editor CHRISTINA GOSSMANN ‘11

Copy Editor ANTHEA CHEUNG ‘12

ANNA COLL ‘12Treasurer

I$%&!'5RACHEL SALMANOWITZ

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15 G( &)!&* '+' ,&,&ALEXANDRA CAHILL

Mama Grizzlies rise up: the right side of feminism

T)! -&. ")!. /'&. +" (0 ")! $"%!!"$An innovative and e"ective approach to eliminating homelessness

8JAMI-LIN WILLIAMS

5RACHEL SALMANOWITZ

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11SARIKA NARULA

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Wellesley bonding over the summer

17 I%%+"&"+03 +/)(0!$, 4'&#24!%%. 4&0$HANNAH ALLEN

#e unfolding struggle between governments and technology companies

R E G U L A R S

Webmaster ALEXANDRA CAHILL ‘11

OK #(10"!%/(+0"5#e hugs, handshakes and high-!ves of the online dating scene

13CHASTITY DILIGENCE

21 A-&. 6%(, %!0"$ANTHEA CHEUNG

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/ E T C

DEMOCRACYFreedom of expression?

B Y C H R I S T I N A G O S S M A N N

The Danish Mohammed car-toon controversy in 2005 clearly showed that freedom of expression

can lead to deep o7ense and long-lasting political consequences. Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were set on 8re, 9ags were desecreated and more than 100 people were killed when police 8red on protesting crowds.

Freedom of expression is not always an easy concept to defend. Yet, it was in its very 8rst session in 1946 that the UN General Assembly adopted resolu-tion 59(I): “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and … the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” :e UN clearly argues that freedom of expres-sion, along with free access to information and ideas, is essential for a functioning democracy.

South Africa, which has one of the world’s most progressive constitutions, is currently facing the greatest challenge to freedom of expression since the founda-tion of its democracy in 1994. A recently introduced ‘Protection of Information Bill’ and a proposed media appeals tri-bunal will legislate how the government manages and classi8es its information, if passed.

:ere are several factors to consider to understand the importance of free speech to South Africa in particular. South Africa is a quite young democracy (16 years) and it was South African individuals’ and pub-

lications’ constant struggle for freedom of expression that ultimately facilitated the formation of this democracy.

During apartheid, independent news-papers operated underground or in co-operation with international sources to provide oppositional information to citi-zens. One of such forefront apartheid crit-ics was the weekly publication the Mail & Guardian. :e newspaper, founded in 1985, was originally named the Weekly Mail and celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

In 1991, the Weekly Mail, together with #e Guardian in London, broke the “Inkathagate” scandal. Police funds were secretly used to block the African Na-tional Congress (ANC), the leading op-positional party at the time. As a conse-quence, the apartheid government under F.W. de Klerk was forced to reopen stalled talks with the ANC. It was freedom of ex-pression that enabled South Africa to have its 8rst democratic elections in 1994.

:e political situation has changed – democracy has been established – but the necessity for freedom of expression re-mains. Since the end of apartheid, South African politics have been dominated by the ANC, 8rst featuring legendary Nelson Mandela, then :abo Mbeki and now Ja-cob Zuma. :e ANC received 65.9% of the vote in the 2009 general election; the main challenger, the Democratic Alliance (DA), received 16.66% - just to compare some numbers. Many argue that South

Africa is really a one-party state. In a country where one party leads,

access to information from non-political sources is crucial. In South Africa, this information is still provided by local pub-lications, in particular newspapers. :ey continue functioning as political watch-dogs.

It is therefore not surprising that South African journalists were outraged by the proposed ‘Protection of Information Bill’ and media appeals tribunal that will not only allow the government to classify a broad range of material that is currently public, but also legitimize an up to 25-year-imprisonment for any leakage or publication of information deemed clas-si8ed by the government.

:e South African National Editors’ Forum said media restrictions proposed by the ANC threatened the “lifeblood” of the country’s democracy; one major newspaper even began printing notices alongside articles to inform readers that they would not be reading those stories if the proposed media laws were going to be passed. Most of those articles involve cor-ruption or incompetence by top o;cials, a major issue in South African politics.

:ere has also been international re-sponse to the proposed bill and tribunal. :e Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of pub-lishers, editors, and leading journalists, has sent an open letter to President Jacob Zuma, urging him to address the press freedom concerns.

:e General Council of the Bar of South Africa, legal advisory on South Af-rican law, predicted at the end of August that the Protection of Information Bill would not pass constitutional law because “a number of provisions are in con9ict with the foundational values of the con-stitution.”

:e decision has not yet been made. Everyone is looking to the South African Parliament, thinking “What’s the verdict, ‘new’ South Africa?”

Christina Gossmann ‘11 ([email protected]) wished she were ubiased but adored interning with the Mail & Guard-ian this past summer.

counterpoint / september 2010page 4

IsraelB Y R A C H E L S A L M A N O W I T Z

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In response to my email notifying him that I would be spending 8ve weeks in Jerusalem, Israel and studying Jew-

ish history as part of Harvard’s Summer Study Abroad program, my uncle, a resi-dent of Jerusalem for the past ten years, wrote, “:is will probably be one of the best—and eventually most troubling—experiences you will ever have.” In retro-spect, this rather vague prediction turned out to be eerily accurate.

My motivations for applying to this program were two-fold. On an academic level, I could not imagine a more edify-ing experience as a Religion major than to live and study in the city where Juda-ism, Christianity, and Islam inevitably intersect—where King Solomon com-missioned the First Temple for the Jews, where Jesus preached and ultimately car-ried the cross to his cruci8xion, and where the prophet was brought by the Buraq af-

ter the 8rst part of his Night Journey. Intellectual pursuits aside, however, I

was also on a mission to reconnect with and understand family members living in Jerusalem that I barely knew—an uncle and aunt and two adult cousins, who in turning to Ultra-Orthodox Judaism rather late in life, had alienated themselves from the other members of the wholly secular Salmanowitz family.

From my father’s perspective, his


brother had grown up celebrating Chanu-kah and Christmas, had never been overt-ly religious, and had married a Catholic woman; yet, at some point when I was in elementary school, this same brother and his family suddenly began keeping Kosher stringently, carefully following the instructions of the Grand Rabbi, and moved from Geneva, Switzerland to the Holy Land. For a variety of reasons, most-ly stemming from my father’s incompre-hension of this transition and the fact that they lived thousands of miles away, I had had very little contact with this side of the family—excepting one family reunion in Vermont many moons ago that has been memorialized by a requisite family picture in which my sister and I sport matching cow-print dresses. At some point last year, it occurred to me that it would be a shame if my cousins’ enduring memory of me was as a six-year old with uneven bangs in a cow dress.

So I found myself on my way to Is-rael in June, not sure of what to expect in terms of the mini-reunion with this family or the program or the country, but armed with my uncle’s foresight that the experience would at the very least be unlike any other thus far in my life. Just getting into the country turned out to be an experience in itself thanks to the Israeli airline, El Al, which is considered the “safest” airline to 9y due to its intense security screening of each passenger. Hav-ing arrived in Geneva from London on my way to Tel Aviv, I underwent a ten-minute private questioning while my bags were basically unpacked and each item inspected. Perhaps my questioning took a di7erent tone than most: “Have you ever been to Israel?” “No.” “Do you speak He-brew?” “No.” “Wait, with the last name Salmanowitz you have never been to Is-rael?” “No.” “Are you sure?” “Yup, I’m sure.” In the end, despite the confusion I apparently caused the El Al employee, I did manage to make it on the plane and into Israel with the added bonus of still having all the contents in my backpack, even the small bottle of Goslings’ Black Rum that has somehow made it through

countless domestic and international se-curity checkpoints without question this summer.

Jumping ahead a few weeks into my time in the “land of milk and honey,” I was convinced that this was indeed the “best” experience of my life. Beyond the fact that class did not start until four in the afternoon every day—hence the op-portunity to experience the nightlife of Jerusalem on a regular basis with the pos-sibility of still getting the reading done—the advertisements found in numerous newspapers and television commercials, promising that “You’ll love Israel from the 8rst Shalom,” seemed to actually be right. I genuinely did “love” frequenting Jerusa-lem’s Jewish shouk or market for majoul dates and falafel, 9oating in the Dead Sea in view of Jordan, visiting major re-ligious sites including the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, Bethlehem and the Ba’hai Temple, and simply exploring Jerusalem against the backdrop of the pale yellow “Jerusalem stone” that is uniform throughout the city. And, despite certain false allegations about my mother’s past (that apparently she had an ex-husband and child that neither she or my dad ever knew about), the familial component of the trip was also a success, as I can now say I know my cousins and their multi-tude of young children—I even have new family photos to show for it.

Upon my return to the United States, however, it seemed obvious to everyone except me that I had wholeheartedly em-braced the message of those government-sponsored advertisements and in doing so, had failed to see them for what they really are—marketing techniques attempting to change and arguably gloss over Israel’s reputation as a country a<icted by ongo-ing violence due to its often antagonistic political policies. After a few weeks at home, when the euphoria of my experi-ence in Israel had subsided, I realized that I had spent 8ve weeks in Israel essentially oblivious to the entire Israeli-Palestinian con9ict. Perhaps due to my course work that focused exclusively on Jewish history and Zionism and the time spent with Jew-

ish students in the program as well as my staunchly pro-Israel Jewish family mem-bers, I soon came to also view Israel as the rightful Jewish homeland. I was told to avoid wandering into East Jerusalem where the majority of the Arab popula-tion in Jerusalem resides, I rarely came into contact with anyone that was not of Jewish ancestry, and I most certainly did not converse with any Palestinians regard-ing their thoughts towards the con9ict, the Jews’ claim to the land, or their expe-riences living in Israel. I returned home not just exclaiming my love for Israeli food and culture but also defending the Israeli state; in hindsight, I realize that I was almost word for word touting the Zi-onist rhetoric of Michael Buber and Da-vid Ben-Gurion.

:e purpose of this article is not to criticize those who support Israel, nor in any way do I feel comfortable or capable of stating my own opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian con9ict at this point. Instead, I want to convey that what I ultimately found most “troubling” about my experi-ence in Israel was myself. Almost inexpli-cably, I arrived in Israel and lost my ability to look at both sides of an argument; I un-questioningly accepted the pro-Israeli in-9uences around me and basically hopped on board, all the while failing to truly consider what information or opinions I lacked. Although it may take me a long time and more words than I can 8t into this article to rationalize what factors led me to this mentality, my trip to Israel un-equivocally became a lesson in just how easily I can be in9uenced.

Today my uncle sent me a message on Facebook in which he voiced his “hope that I am still looking forward to return-ing to Israel.” Someday, I do indeed hope to return to Israel—prepared to form my own opinions this time.

Rachel Salmanowitz ‘12 ([email protected]) is feeling so $y, like a G6.

counterpoint / september 2010 page 7


THE WAY THEY PLAY IT ON THE STREETS

An innovative and e"ective approach to eliminating homelessness

B Y J A M I - L I N W I L L I A M S

Weeks after the FIFA World Cup brought soccer enthusiasts to life, a smallish crowd gath-

ered at the corner of 11th and H Streets in Northwest Washington, D.C. Two hundred street soccer players from 20 US cities and Russia paraded into the Wash-ington Kastles Stadium to the beat of the

all-female samba/reggae band Batala. Dis-trict Mayor Adrian Fenty o7ered welcom-ing remarks and the crowd, led by mem-bers of the Barra Brava (an independent supporters’ group for DC United often referred to as the craziest fans in Major League Soccer for their drum circles and other antics), hooped and hollered as the

8rst match began on the 22 by 16 meter court. As the sun made its descent, a pal-pable feeling of hope and excitement rose and showed itself in the smile on the face of every participant. Such was the start of the 2010 Street Soccer USA Cup.

:e annual SSUSA tournament, now in its fourth year, di7ers from the soccer

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that was broadcasted around the world from South Africa earlier this summer in several aspects. :e court is about a 8fth of the size of a standard soccer 8eld, the net is 1.1 meters high, and only four play-ers from each team (three out8eld players and a goalkeeper) are on the court at any given time. :e FIFA “Laws of the Game”, alternatively, call for 11 players from each team and a goal that is 2.34 meters high. Play is fast and dynamic and the tables can turn at any time; as announcer Joe Tripodo commented, “You’re never out of the game.” Instead of 90 minutes of regu-lation time, a street soccer match is over in two quick, seven-minute halves with only a one-minute halftime. If any match ends in a draw, a penalty shoot-out begins until one team leads by a goal. And one more thing: each of the players is or has been homeless in the last year.

Street Soccer USA is a young non-pro8t organization that uses soccer to show homeless individuals and asylum-seekers the path o7 the street and, as crazy as it may sound, it works. Within a year, approximately 75% of participants have moved o7 the streets. Not only does Street Soccer build con8dence and pro-vide structure (each team practices three times per week, in addition to frequent local competitions), but it also changes the way the players, and more important-ly, outsiders, view homelessness.

I 8rst learned about the tournament through my work this summer with Street Sense, a non-pro8t street newspaper in DC that o7ers economic opportunities to homeless individuals in the area. My 8rst assignment with the paper was to cover the SSUSA tournament and “capture the spirit of the event”. Easy, I thought. :e Kastles stadium is just a block or so away from the Street Sense o;ce, so my plan was to head over after work on Friday night, check out the opening matches, talk to some players, then write some admir-ing piece about how carefree and hopeful it all was. By the time night began to fall and the crowd slowly dissembled, I was still stuck to my chair, rapt and pensive.

I came back for day two. It was one of those days in DC when the sun heats up the pollutants in the humid air to a toxic-feeling degree, making one feel as though one is breathing through a damp, hot washcloth. Still, I was not the only one who came out to see the games. I was struck not only by the number of attend-ees, but also by the many types of people in attendance; I saw groups of twenty-somethings, couples of all ages, entire families, even a group of rowdy middle-school boys who got their 8ve seconds of fame when a local news cameraman re-corded them playing with noisemakers.

:e players themselves comprised an even more diverse demographic, hail-ing from all over the US and a number of foreign countries – visual evidence of the saying that “homelessness can happen to anyone.” I was surprised, also, to see a handful of women’s teams and a number of women playing on the rest of the teams, including a tough goalie from Charlotte. More pertinent to the game was the range of skill levels in evidence. Some games, I admit, were sloppy. Players would miss the ball on an easy shot, get tripped up on their own two feet, or fail to make plays. Other games, though, were intense and packed with skilled players passing the ball around the court with 8nesse. :ough this was no feel-good, lovey-dovey event; the players were scrappy and treated their games with the same seriousness as FIFA stars with multi-million-dollar contracts. And it wasn’t a bunch of bums pushing each other around, either. In fact, the tournament itself seemed to allow the players to escape the narrow de8nition usually applied to them by stereotypes of homelessness. :ese were people and soccer players, nothing more and nothing less. :is, I realized, is the beauty of Street Soccer USA; it allows homeless people to be people again and, most of all, to be seen as people again.

We often think of homelessness as the result of bad choices and/or unfortunate circumstances – the failure of an indi-vidual to thrive. Lawrence Cann, SSUSA’s

founder, says instead that homelessness is the product of the breakdown of a community, resulting in isolation, mar-ginalization and abuse (widely de8ned). In order to end homelessness, then, it is necessary to rebuild the community, giv-ing each individual a sense both of pur-pose and belonging. Being homeless is no longer a solitary experience for the Street Soccer player, but one in which the indi-vidual is able to connect with other indi-viduals and begin to feel human again. By changing the context of homelessness for its participants, as the organization’s web-site terms it, SSUSA allows them to make their way out of it.

It’s not just that, either; SSUSA suc-cessfully combats homelessness by con-necting its participants with the scattered resources already available to them. :at’s one of the tricky things about being homeless – there is help out there (shel-ters, food pantries, counseling, free GED classes, etc.), but it’s really hard to 8nd. SSUSA connects players with other orga-nizations that can provide job training, pro-bono legal services and therapy. :is way, homeless individuals can have all of their needs addressed in more of a one-stop format instead of searching endlessly for the right resources.

Street Soccer USA is already a suc-cess, as their turnover rate (now nearing the 80% mark) indicates, and it is likely to continue in that way because of an-other central component of its model: 9exibility. Every six weeks, team leaders meet on a conference call to talk strategy. :ey discuss new ideas about such things as sustainability and programming, share techniques, and talk about which prac-tices seem not to be working. :is com-munication allows SSUSA to keep chang-ing and updating itself and also keeps it organized – a pitfall for many institutions providing services to the homeless.

Two days after the end of the tourna-ment on August 3rd, 2010, Mayor Fenty (yes, the same Mayor Fenty who was present at the opening ceremony) pushed to have $4.3 million in federal money


moved from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a federal pro-gram designed to bolster already existing programs dedicated to work, welfare and temporary 8nancial assistance, to a sum-mer employment program for young peo-ple. Although that sum would be enough to house 250 needy families for a year, Fenty planned to use the funds to add seven days onto a six-week employment program that has consistently run over-budget (this year by $4.1 million) since its creation. Fenty was blocked and the money was preserved for programs that work with homeless and needy families, but this problem is not likely to disappear. Helping the homeless is, generally speak-ing, a 8nancial sinkhole for municipal governments and organizations that do so experience a host of struggles, from lack of funding to violence and manipulation on the part of the individuals they assist. With federal and municipal funds at risk even under the Fenty administration, which has completely overhauled public education, expanded health coverage for the uninsured and legalized same-sex mar-

riage in the District, the future is bleak for resources for homeless individuals every-where. Street Soccer USA and organiza-tions like it are already stepping up, but they will be crucial to social services if this trend continues.

:e SSUSA Cup tournament, though it is the pinnacle of street soccer in this country, is a transient thing. It lasts only three days before a winner emerges, the team to represent the USA at the Home-less World Cup is chosen, the encourag-ing posters around the stadium are torn down, and the players must return to their respective cities. After a week, hardly anyone remembers that the USA Cup was won by a team from Russia, or that more females came out to play than ever before. Hardly anyone, that is, except for the players. And therein lays the true secret to Street Soccer’s success; that 9eeting joy and thrill that every player experiences, that one moment away from the harsh-ness of life on the street. For about three-quarters of the players, it’s the only time they’ll ever play in the tournament. “You don’t want to see [the players] next year,”

said Andres Garvey, one of the directors of the event. “You want them to make it.” If a player does not return, that means that he or she no longer meets the quali-8cations to play in Street Soccer USA; he or she is no longer homeless. :e FIFA World Cup may have been big and 9ashy, it may have been important to whole lot of people, and it may even have been a huge economic boost for South Africa, but the Street Soccer USA Cup was a meaningful, rewarding, life-changing experience for 100% of its participants.

In September, teams from 64 nations will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the 8th Annual Homeless World Cup, an event that draws a crowd of over 100,000 people and that, historically, has a posi-tive impact on the host country. When the tournament was held in Cape Town in 2006, media coverage of the event led to the allocation of city funds for a street soccer program. Some players, like Por-tugal’s Tiago Manuel Dias Correia (aka Bèbè), who recently signed on with Man-chester United for $11.5 million without ever having played a major league game, even go on to play soccer professionally. In Russia, where the 8rst ever Homeless World Cup was held, issues of homeless-ness and exclusion were discussed openly in the media for perhaps the 8rst time. Street Soccer USA is just one of the grass-roots football projects associated with the Homeless World Cup, a network that reaches over 40,000 homeless players worldwide. :ough funding for resourc-es for the homeless constantly in danger in this country, and almost nonexistent in many others, SSUSA and its interna-tional counterparts are thriving. Street Soccer presents an e7ective, 21st-century model for eradicating homelessness, and it couldn’t come at a better time.

Jami-Lin WIlliams’ ‘11 ([email protected]) face is on a billboard outside the sta-dium.

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9:30 PM, Berlin Schoenefeld airport. At the time by which we were sup-posed to have landed in Geneva,

my friend Naomi and I were still in Ber-lin, having not even boarded the plane. We had, however, managed to lose our patience and good will with the airline, EasyJet. EasyJet, one of the cheap airlines used often by students 9ying around Eu-rope, was proving its worth—as cheap as the tickets we bought, the airline had not even bothered to formally announce a de-lay and we were kept in the dark as to why the hour and a half delay was necessary.

:at was Wednesday, April 14th, 2010. Fast forward two days to Friday the 16th,

when we got an inkling of how ridicu-lous the situation really would become. We were out shopping for a gift for our hosts—a friend’s parents who had gener-ously let us stay with them, as Geneva is not very student-friendly. We had a 9ight scheduled the next day to take us back to Edinburgh, with 8nals beginning that Monday.

It was a beautiful morning in Geneva. :e blue, cloudless sky heralded a perfect spring morning, which was a welcome re-lief from the gray skies of Edinburgh to which we were returning. With such a wonderful start to the day, we were im-pervious to the thought that anything bad

was coming. My cell phone rang, and I saw a call from my mom. It was an odd time for her to call, but my mom’s main reason for calling was to see if we were ok “with all that ash in the sky.”

I frowned into the phone. “What ash?”

“Didn’t you know?” my mom contin-ued. “:ere’s a volcano that erupted in Iceland and it’s spewing ash, which is trav-elling far across Europe. A lot of airspace in Europe has been closed, and they’re not letting planes enter or leave Britain. It’s been going on since Wednesday.”

I stopped in my tracks. “No planes into Britain?” We hadn’t been watching the news since leaving Edinburgh. Sud-denly something else clicked into place—this was the reason EasyJet had delayed our 9ight into Geneva. Realizing this, I became furious. If we had known that then, we could have done something.

I relayed the situation to Naomi, who agreed that we better leave our task and run home to see what we could 8nd out. We immediately checked our emails, where we saw that our 9ights tomorrow had been cancelled. We then spent the better part of the afternoon assessing the situation and combing the BBC website for updates. As everyone in Europe was 8nding out, the volcano Eyja=allajokull in Iceland had started erupting on that Wednesday. We tried to examine all op-tions, but every hour another European country was closing o7 its airspace. :ough most of Britain had closed its airspace, northern England and western Scotland still had open airspace, but we didn’t manage to book anything that day and as it stood, we were stranded in Ge-neva for a while.

Now, being stuck in Geneva with free accommodation shouldn’t have been stressful, but we had no return ticket and 8nals were due to start in two days. :e next day, growing increasingly frustrat-ed with the situation, we rather hastily booked 9ights to Copenhagen and from


STOPPED IN MY TRACKS

Europe caught in an ash cloud

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there to Manchester, England, from where we would have to catch a bus back to Ed-inburgh. It was annoying, but 9ying with EasyJet was still fairly cheap and we were promised full refunds on any cancelled 9ights, so for the time being we took deep breaths and tried to relax. Our new 9ights were scheduled for the 19th, the 8rst day of 8nals. We emailed our professors and heads of department, and subsequently tried to enjoy that Saturday. It was again a beautiful, sunny day, and if you looked up at the clear sky you would never guess that Switzerland was closing its airspace because of thick volcanic ash drifting over Europe.

Consequently, the next day we found out that our 9ights were, yet again, can-celled. Countries were closing o7 airspace for several days at a time, guessing at when they would reopen, so airlines were forced to cancel 9ights several days before they occurred. During those days Naomi and I religiously followed the news on-line, searching for the latest updates, but nothing looked very hopeful. :ere were even hints that the volcanic eruptions could continue for weeks, if not months (this was about the time I started worry-ing whether I would be able to return to the States at the end of May). We knew we had to 8nd another way out of Swit-zerland.

:us began our epic struggle to 8nd a route back to British soil. We sel8shly hogged the computer in our hosts’ house, looking up every single possible land and sea transportation leaving Switzerland or entering the United Kingdom, often working backwards. It was the largest dis-ruption in air transportation in Europe since World War II. :ough it was incred-ibly stressful, it was also exciting to know that, in a sense, we were witnessing histo-ry. I felt like a character in a novel, maybe Phileas Fogg in Jules Vernes’s Around the World in Eighty Days—pressed for time and jumping through hoops in order to get home. :ere were options; the real

problem was, trains and ferries were be-ing booked by the second by others des-perate to get home, and the ash situation was volatile. One day the BBC would report that a country would open its air-space, giving us faint hope, and the next day that same country would announce it was keeping its airspace closed for an ad-ditional 8ve days. It was, to say the least, maddening.

By Sunday we had lost our patience with all airlines, with online bookings and unreliable websites, and made the trek to the Geneva train station where hundreds of other stranded passengers were wait-ing in line to be helped. When it was our turn, we explained our situation to the lady behind the counter, who looked up any routes from Geneva to the U.K. She came back with a solution: tickets that would take us to London, with two stops in between—8rst in Paris, then in Lille, leaving Wednesday afternoon and reach-ing London that same night. It sounded almost too good to be true—we realized why when we saw the price. :e total cost of the journey, not counting the coach we would have to book independently to Edinburgh, amounted to over $600 each. :e main reason for the expense was the train from Paris to London—we had no other option but to travel 8rst-class, and that was a pretty steep price. :e sales lady told us we could cancel the tickets up until 8fteen minutes before the jour-ney, with a full refund, and it was the only way back we had found, so we winced and handed over our credit cards.

:at Wednesday, the last day of our European adventure, I found myself yearning for the gray skies of Britain, which we would 8nally reach after our 10-hour journey to London. We passed through France, went through the chun-nel (the channel tunnel between France and England) 8rst class, were o7ered complimentary glasses of champagne, and landed at King’s Cross, London. We navigated the tube to get to Victoria Sta-

tion, where we boarded the last overnight coach leaving for Edinburgh. Until we boarded that coach, I did not realize how anxious I had been throughout. We had made all our connections and were back in Britain—no more messy transporta-tion to 8gure out, and I would be given some leeway on my 8nal exams. For such a pricey ticket, it’s natural to wonder, was it worth it? Should we have waited for something cheaper to turn up? You can be sure I asked myself that several times dur-ing those days in Switzerland. Especially as some airspace lifted that last day we spent in Switzerland. My answer, now, is a resounding yes. Of course it was expen-sive—but it was also the only sure8re way out. Airspace was constantly shifting, the volcano was highly unpredictable, spew-ing more ash one day and less the next, and we had our exams to consider.

At the very least, we managed to spend more time in Switzerland, an extra four days, and our grand Eurotrip ended with a bang—one that made international headlines and caused complete chaos in a continent known for its laidback lifestyle.

Sarika Narula ‘11 ([email protected]), wouldn’t even dream of messing with any-thing with such a name as Eyja%allajökull.



OK COUNTERPOINT !#e hugs, handshakes and high-!ves of the online dating scene

B Y C H A S T I T Y D I L I G E N C E

I dismount Peter Pan; he is walking towards me all tall, dark, clean-shav-en, anxious, fantastic. I look at him.

He looks at me. And for some reason, it crawls out from under the mental detritus of seven years of repression…my middle-school girls’ camp slumber-time send-o7. “So. Hug, handshake, or a high-8ve?”

Why am I here? It started with a hastily improvised “Hey there!” on the night before my second organic chem-istry midterm, gradually progressing to conversations, phone calls, and carefully synthesized notions of shared experience that paradoxically preceded a face-to-face

meeting. Blame disenchantment with the social scene, in all its isolations and desperations. A general sense of fatigue surrounding the few feasible night routes to the social gatherings of Boston higher education. :e rapidly diminishing pa-tience for small talk screamed over a for-est of Top 40 and socially awkward boys that, let’s face it, most of us wouldn’t have looked twice at in high school. We already technologically outsource our academic proceedings, our friendships, our enter-tainment, our “Community”— why not outsource our dating lives, too?

So here I am, courtesy of OkCu-

pid, self-proclaimed “best dating site on Earth.” And now I need to propose a topic of conversation that is clever and ir-reverent enough to drag myself out from the hole that my last comment has unwit-tingly dug.

We cross the right side of the Harvard Bridge and count the Smoots that pass underfoot.

:ree weeks and two dates later, I’ve managed to dig myself out of a variety of similarly deep conversational holes…and into his bedroom.

:e slow progression towards horizon-tal has only succeeded in making it more


Staff Illustration // Jean M. K

im

and more noticeable how dismally his 6’3 contradicts my 5’5. A giggle threatens to e<ux the depths of my larynx.

I attempt to distract myself, glancing around at the navy-blue surroundings, the posterless wall. :e duvet cover is a neu-trally striped, vaguely boring in a manly sort of way, analog of most of the shirts in his closet.

:e threat becomes palpable. He pulls away with a brusque onslaught of “what? what?!”

Gravity overrides willpower. I burst out laughing.

:e following morning, I apologize for my awkwardness. He apologizes for his frustration. Our correspondence ends.

Back home, the familiar pink-bordered box 9ashes in the bottom right-hand cor-ner of my screen. Hey there…looks like you’re a hot nerd. Hey there…looks like you’re a shirtless tool posing for a Mys-pace photo op.

***Pisso7ery #1 (because this is Welles-

ley, where experience coexists with griev-ance):

:is exists: www.datingbrian.com.Now, if I started a web site asking the

Internet to “crowdsource” my dating life so that I could go on 30 dates in 30 days with 30 guys, you’d just laugh.

But apparently if a guy does it, girls are all over it.

***My next instant message is from a

picture-less, pro8le-less young man who disarms me with uncapitalized spars on philosophy and science. We banter and exchange intellectual snobberies over the course of the next week. He’s con8dent, well-read, and two years over the accept-able dating range as de8ned by xkcd (girl’s age > > guy’s age + 7). We also exchanged photos.

His academic leanings dissolve, and eventually heated intellectual discourse devolves into thwarting his best intentions to ask me out. I’m a paragon of reasonable excuses: I’m still underage, it’s kinda far from where I work, this week’s just wayyy

too busy. He asks if I drive. Yes, this is an ability that I possess, just as an automo-bile is a resource that I do not possess.

Is it okay then, he wonders in Verdana 12 point, to send his cha7eur [sic] to pick me up?

Haha, I reply, assuming it’s a joke. Any 28-year-old in medical school who some-how still managed to have enough money left over to pay for a chau7eur would at least know how to spell or Google the word, right?

Ten minutes and still no response later, I horrifyingly realize that it isn’t.

:e next morning, there is a missed IM waiting for me in my inbox: “ok, i better get going, good luck on this site!”

Good luck, indeed.*** Pisso7ery #2: Women thinking that guys think

women who ask them out are “easy.”So if a guy were to ask you out, would

you think that he’s easy, too? I know I would. /sarcasm. No! My ego would be the size of Kansas ± Minnesota, depend-ing on the allure and the intrigue of the young man involved!

And for that matter, if a guy were to think that about me, I wouldn’t want to date him anyway.

***If there’s anything that I’ve learned at

my time at Wellesley, it’s that it pays to be aggressive. Sometimes. (Why, hello OKC meetup #1. I asked you out in Lorentz transformations, but your usage of the words “electron penetration” was entirely non-ironic.)

Tonight hovers between a quantum state of banking and not banking.

He found me advantageously de-praved, in the limbo between the end of 8nals and the beginning of summer. I found him two weeks fresh from a break-up, on the prowl and on the rebound. We found each other reasonably attractive.

Underlying causes and their question-able legitimacy aside, I am here. Wonder-ing why, among other things, that there is a sink in his room.

“Hold that thought.” He gets up, opens iTunes, and soon, the sound of rain is emanating from his desktop computer.

I engineered this encounter; Mother Nature’s monthly gift instituted its rea-sonable limits. Or so I thought.

It isn’t ten minutes before his 8ngers stray below. “Can I just take it out?”

If you have to ask, the answer is usu-ally no.

Memorial Day afternoon is tinged with wind and Canadian smoke. I negoti-ate the 364.4 Smoots back to Boston.

***Pisso7ery #3:Men thinking that MIT beaver ring =

I’ll show you my beaver.Or that “Hi, I’m Alex. I’m from Har-

vard” is under any circumstances an ac-ceptable pick-up line.

***Why am I here? At the end of three

pisso7eries and shameless social anec-dotes, I mean. And this question that I keep repeating in the hope that it will de-rive meaning and thematic content from this article.

I want you to secretly agree, wonder-ing who might the mystery woman be that gave voice to your burning, furtively constructed intuitions. I want you to au-thor livid posts on what was Community with subject lines that adequately convey just how o7ended you are at my lewd au-dacity and shamelessly self-congratulatory vernacular. Above all, I want you to realize the extent to which these last two sentenc-es thoroughly contradict one another.

I’m only trying to start a dialogue that teaches me a little bit more about myself, all of y’all, and the world.

And so I smile, shrug, and rise to meet the next possible link in my chain of con-quests.

At least he’s over 5’9.

Chastity Diligence ‘12 ([email protected]), is a tall order. And you ordered a Venti, snap.



This could very well be the ‘Year of the Conservative Woman.’

So opined the pundits and news analysts in early June, when con-servative female candidates came out on top in primary elections. Former corpo-rate executives, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, won Republican nominations for governor and the U.S. Senate in Califor-nia respectively.

Fiorina – who is locked in a dead heat with Senate stalwart Barbara Boxer – is a member of the so-called “mama grizzlies”: conservative female candidates endorsed by former Alaska governor Sarah Pa-lin. Fellow “grizzly,” gubernatorial South Carolina candidate Nikki Haley, moved on from the June primaries to win a run-o7 election for the Republican nomina-tion. Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle defeated Sue Lowden for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Nevada. She will go up against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November.

:e list goes on: Kristi Noem won the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in South Dako-ta. Former attorney general Kelly Ayotte is the front-runner for the U.S. Senate Republican nomination in New Hamp-shire. And former WWE chief executive and multi-millionaire Linda McMahon is self-8nancing her Senate campaign in Connecticut.

:e collective trend of conservative female victories throughout the summer led to the inevitable debate over what the news meant for feminism. Were these fe-male politicians feminists? Can conserva-

tism be reconciled with feminism?Fueling the 8re of this debate was none

other than Sarah Palin herself. Less than a month earlier, at a speaking engagement for the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List in May, the former governor told audi-ence members that they were responsible for “an emerging, conservative, feminist identity” and called for a “pro-woman sis-

terhood.”“I kinda feel a connection to that

tough, gun totin’ pioneer feminism,” Pa-lin said. “For far too long, when people heard the word feminist, they thought of the faculty lounge and some East Coast women’s college. And no o7ense to them, they have their opinion and their voice and God bless ‘em, that’s great, but that’s

P O L I T I C S

GO AHEAD LIL MAMAMama Grizzlies rise up: the right side of feminism

B Y A L E X A N D R A C A H I L L

Photo // photoshopofhorrors.blogspot.com

not the only voice of women in Ameri-ca.”

Predictably, Palin’s words prompted an immediate backlash from feminists.

Jessica Valenti, editor of Feministing.com, lambasted Palin for adopting the feminist label. “Palin’s ‘feminism’ isn’t just co-opting the language of the feminist movement,” she wrote in the Washington Post. “It’s deliberately misrepresenting real feminism to distract from the fact that she supports policies that limit women’s rights.”

A Slate.com article by Amanda Mar-cotte took a similar tone, labeling Palin as “the latest incarnation of a long and noble line of feminist anti-feminists.”

Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of North America said of Palin: “:ere’s nothing there. I don’t think Sarah Palin is going to change the national scene on choice or on feminism. Her rallying cry is pretty empty if she’s against women’s rights.”

Speaking of the female victories on Good Morning America June 10, editor of the Daily Beast Tina Brown said, “it al-most feels like all these women winning is a blow to feminism.”

:ere is a trend here. :e speakers criticizing Palin are all women; all iden-tify as liberal. :eir criticism 9ows from the same vein of thought; namely, that pro-life women cannot be feminists. It is somewhat ironic, that a movement based in the pursuit of equal opportunity for women has evolved so decisively. Today, “feminism” is so often strictly de8ned within the context of abortion, making it an inherently exclusive and polarizing term. Even Palin’s call for a “pro-woman sisterhood” succumbs to this one-dimen-sional view.

Perhaps feminism has come to be de-8ned in such decisive terms because of the growth of women in positions of power. But the exclusivity of feminism – as an identity where women are able to pick and choose whether or not other women belong – is a call to reconsider our work-ing de8nition of the term and to ponder

whether the term has lost all relevance.Palin released an o;cial “Mama Griz-

zlies” video montage in early June. It’s a clear visual representation of the emerg-ing brand of conservative womanhood. :e “Mama Grizzlies” are not just moth-ers; they are politically aware and inde-pendent women with conservative values.

“:is year will be remembered as the year when common-sense conservative women get things done,” Palin begins.

“All across the country, women are standing up and speaking out for com-mon-sense solutions. :ese policies com-ing out of D.C. right now, this funda-mental transformation of America – a lot of women who are very concerned about their kids’ futures say, ‘We don’t like this fundamental transformation, and we’re going to do something about it.”

A July 16 Gallup poll showed Palin was the most favorably rated contender for the 2012 presidential election. Her 76 percent favorability rating ranked her above Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Bobby Jindal. As of mid-August, Palin was 10-5 in endorse-ment wins during primary season. She must be doing something right.

:e political savvy of Palin’s messaging campaign is compelling – and as the cho-rus of strong female conservative voices grows, critics on the feminist left risk be-ing drowned out.

In her Washington Post opinion piece, Valenti de8ned feminism as “a structural analysis of a world that oppresses women, an ideology based on the notion that pa-triarchy exists and that it needs to end.”

:e problem with Valenti’s approach, as columnist Cathy Young points out, is that it subsists on a repressive social struc-ture. Such a philosophy “suggests that feminism has an interest in portraying women as oppressed to perpetuate itself.”

Consider, then, the appeal of those on the other side of the spectrum – the doctrine emerging from Palin and her conservative female counterparts – that feminism is a celebration of motherhood and female strength.

Conservative women are woefully un-derrepresented in the U.S. Congress and in state government. Of the 17 women in the U.S. Senate, four are Republican. Of the 76 women in the House of Represen-tatives, 17 are Republican. :ere are three female Republican governors.

But the tides are turning. :e conser-vative women campaigning nation-wide are former corporate executives and state legislators. Even Palin has undergone a major re-branding transformation since the 2008 presidential campaign. No lon-ger the victim of the “lame-stream” media, Palin has formed a coherent message and wields the in9uence of her devout follow-ers and the 8nancial might of her political action committee, SarahPAC.

What makes the “mama grizzly” ral-lying cry is so e7ective politically is that Palin is by no means the singular spokes-woman for the movement. :e collective success of Fiorina, Whitman, Hayley, and others speaks for itself – this is a move-ment focused on empowering women to pursue free-market solutions over big gov-ernment and to engage in wide-ranging policy discussions. It will become more di;cult for the feminist left to discredit a movement motivated by broad-based conservative values that is not con8ned to the polarizing issue of abortion. :e political climate is just right for a conser-vative female resurgence. :is is just the swift kick of relevancy feminism so des-perately needs.

Alexandra Cahill ’11 ([email protected]) rolls with the Mama Grizzlies.


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P O L I T I C S

IRRITATING IPHONES, BLACKBERRY BANS

#e unfolding struggle between governments and technology companies

B Y H A N N A H A L L E N

These days it seems like everyone and their grandmother has a smart phone. As pervasive as they

are however, this summer many popular smart phones received criticism not only by individual users, but also from govern-ments of entire countries. :roughout August the governments of Saudi Ara-bia, China, India, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Lebanon were at the center of this debate, arguing that security is too tight within various smart-phone networks. :eir most prominent

opponent is Research In Motion, Inc., the telecommunication company based in Waterloo, Canada and developer of the BlackBerry device and network.

:ese con9icts come just after RIM (Research In Motion, the developer of the BlackBerry smartphone) introduced its latest product, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 along with its recent ad campaign, targeting leagues of “everyday” BlackBer-ry users, rather than the individuals in the corporate world, upon which the Black-Berry image has previously been built.

RIM is also confronting this problem in countries where its business is relatively new and has been experiencing a boom in recent years. For example, BlackBerry has around 750,000 customers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE has about a half a million users. :e number of users is con-tinuously increasing and while it is now considered a “must-have” in the Saudi business world, there is no shortage of private users as well.

RIM’s standards for security are very high. :is is the major problem the gov-


Photo // uncrate.com

ernments of these countries see with the devices. RIM uses a process known as encryption, a practice by which informa-tion in plain text form is transformed us-ing an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing the ‘key’ to that information. When proper en-cryption takes place, the message is said to have been encrypted “end-to-end” and cannot be read by RIM or any third party, including governments.

:ere are two types of information transmitted by the BlackBerry network service: corporate emails, which have high levels of encryption and proprietary tech-nology; and consumer emails, which can be decoded by local wireless phone com-panies. :e service is provided to corpora-tions and is called an “enterprise solution.” :e company states that it “was designed to preclude RIM, or any third party, from reading encrypted information under any circumstances since RIM does not store or have access to the encrypted data.” :e nature of this intense privacy has instilled fear in governments worldwide, who are not happy that the information still has to pass through RIM network servers in the UK and Canada before it reaches its rightful recipient on their BlackBerry de-vice. Many are asking not only for access to the information, but also to have proxy servers built in their own home countries, instead of relying on the ones in Canada and the UK.

Since at least July 2009 the UAE has struggled with the RIM-provided Black-Berry service. It was just last summer when the government attempted to install spyware that could intercept private data onto its citizens’ BlackBerrys. RIM did not support such interventions and is not likely to do so in the future, saying that the installation of such software on such a large scale would lead to the collapse of the BlackBerry market.

More recently, after the halt in negoti-ations between the country and RIM, the UAE has declared it would restrict some BlackBerry service starting October 11th. :e government, in not being allowed ac-cess to the information that is transmit-ted using the BlackBerry services, claims it makes it easier for potential terrorists to

communicate to one another malicious plans of attack. :e UAE is arguably in need of increased security measures to be taken, given the two high-pro8le politi-cal assassinations that have recently taken place in its commercial capital, and its sta-tus as an international transportation hub, but many claim this measure is meant to halt the progression of free speech within the country. UAE authorities have repeat-edly dismissed these claims, citing that rival smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone will continue to operate as usual.

Early this August the US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton weighed in on the debate in an attempt to resolve the dis-pute. Many in the US agree the BlackBer-ry issue is not just a trade dispute, not just a question of business, but it is ultimately about Internet freedom and freedom in general, which has become a key issue in US foreign policy under Secretary Clin-ton. Clinton says there are rightful con-cerns about the service, but maintains the right to free use and access.

India is yet another country that was forced to set an ultimatum for RIM to comply with its security demands, re-questing to have access to certain aspects of the BlackBerry network during times of emergency. Fears of attacks based upon information transmitted with BlackBer-ry devices has increased since the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. It recently stated that RIM has until August 31st to work something out with the Indian gov-ernment. Agencies of the Indian govern-ment have declared that this is just part of what is referred to as their “Interception Rule,” by which each local communica-tion provider must abide. One operator working at one of these providers recently estimated that the Indian industry collec-tively receives thousands of surveillance requests per year from government intel-ligence agencies in relation to everything from customs fraud to money laundering and terrorism.

:e outlook for the BlackBerry busi-ness in India is good, however, and after one mere day of negotiations between the two parties, on August 13th RIM was able to state formally that it is “optimistic” about the future of BlackBerry in India,

though the country had given them until the end of August to work out a plan. So far they have already made services such as BlackBerry Internet, voice calls and texting available to be monitored by se-curity agencies upon request. RIM’s only condition for releasing such access to the government and abiding by strict security measures is that they won’t abide to any standards to which their competitors are not held. RIM also stated that it does not cut special deals for speci8c countries.

:e only country to have o;cially halted BlackBerry services entirely has been the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ser-vices were temporarily halted for four hours on the 6th of August. Since the Saudi government and RIM have been in negotiations with one another, Black-Berry messenger services will be allowed to continue because some of its regulatory requirements have been satis8ed, says the country’s Communication and Informa-tion Technology Commission (CITC), though the commission did not specify what the regulatory requirements exactly were. :e two parties are said to be in continued discussion to further complete the remainder of the regulatory demands of the kingdom.

However, though much is not known about the 8nal plan for Saudi Arabia, there are now plans to place a BlackBerry server inside the country, which will al-low regulatory o;cials in the govern-ment to monitor messages and alleviate fears that the system would be used for criminal purposes. :is would allow what are often highly encrypted messages to be read by the government, rendering the encryption methods RIM has utilized for years irrelevant to the Saudi government. :e company is said to be in negotiations with other countries, which may result in similar outcomes including China and Russia. :e worry is now that RIM will enter into even more negotiations with other countries, resulting in the company giving more and more rights away to gov-ernments. However, the market for Black-Berrys in the Middle East has been in a boom over the past years. RIM recognizes this and will do anything in its power to keep that up.


O;ce for Information Security (BSI), based in Bonn, Germany has found that Apple’s iOS also has a major security 9aw that might be exploited through PDF 8les. :ey recently released a statement warning of potentially serious security problems in several versions of Apple’s iPhone (iOS3.1.2-4.0.1), iPad (iOS 3.2-3.2.1) and iPod touch (3.1.2-4.0) devices. So far the company has acknowledged that it is aware of the problem, and claims to be looking into it, but has yet to declare when they will 8x it. :e German agency has stated that the problem seems to oc-cur sometimes when “opening a manipu-lated website or a PDF 8le,” which “could allow criminals to spy on passwords, pho-tos, text messages, e-mails and even listen into phone conversations,” and though the agency has acknowledged that there has been no reported attacks as of yet, they maintain that “it has to be expected that hackers will soon use the weak spots for attacks.” :ey have also declared that this should have been predicted by Apple, as analysts have been saying for a while now that the weakest link of the iPhone is its browser, mobile Safari.

Now that the news has been broken on this 9aw, experts are expecting “some sort of an iPhone worm” within a week. :e security 9aw was announced on the new “jailbreaking” website, JailbreakMe.com, which allows iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to run software that is not Apple-authorized on the devices. :ough Apple certainly does not approve of these “jail-breaking” methods, it is not clear yet how the vulnerability will be exploited and to what extent.

:is entire debate echoes one that took place in the United States in the 1990s, when the government sought to ban the use of strong encryption methods. :e government ultimately lost, due to strong pressure from technology companies and privacy advocates, but so far it seems like the technology side will not be winning this battle any time soon.

Hannah Allen’s ([email protected]) out the country but the blueberry still connect.

:is agreement on the Saudi front could help ease the similar tensions in other countries such as the UAE, which claims it will halt BlackBerry services in early October. Despite marked progress, on the whole, communications between RIM and any given government have been ridden with confusion and miscom-munications. Both sides are at fault for this. First of all, the governments of these countries are requesting such access be-cause they think the governments of the United States and other industrialized de-mocracies have already been granted simi-lar rights. Many o;cials speculate that this is correct, and though “rumors that various deals have been struck around the world,” Leslie Harris, chief executive of the Center for Democracy and Technol-ogy, a Washington-based 8rm, says, as of yet it is unclear what those deals are. Nei-ther RIM nor the governments in ques-tion will comment on this issue. How-ever, in the US, law-enforcement agencies are said to have an advantage over their overseas counterparts because email ser-vices that are most popular (Gmail, Hot-mail and Yahoo) are based in the US, so the government may see messages in un-encrypted form even if they are sent from a BlackBerry.

RIM is equally confusing, saying that, though it will not compromise the integ-rity of its security system, it also complies with regulatory requirements all around the world. One notable accusation came from the Co-Chief Executive of RIM Mike Lazaridis, who accused the govern-ments of not understanding the Internet and not being tech-savvy enough to prop-erly debate the issue.

Middle Eastern and Asian countries are not the only ones having trouble with RIM. However, the German government has cited the exact opposite problem and has banned the use of BlackBerrys for fed-eral employees, declaring that the service lacks adequate encryption for employees. :e “enterprise solution” is available to enterprise servers, computer systems that provide services across a network, whether that be private individuals within an orga-nization or public users on the Internet, but is apparently insu;cient for German

federal employees and although the Ger-man government has strongly recom-mended its employees not to use such de-vices last year, it has only recently banned their usage. In replacement of these devic-es the government has recommended the Simko 2, made by T-Systems, not only because it is a German product, but also because it is a safe one.

Encrypting data protects it while in transit, but it is often challenging, the German government claims, as the code may be broken with a single slip-up in the algorithm. :e BlackBerry network does not encrypt messages that are sent between the BlackBerry Internet Service and your BlackBerry device. In fact, the BlackBerry Internet Service is the lowest-level, consumer-grade BlackBerry service that the company o7ers. :erefore, if these messages are not encrypted in any manner, they may be intercepted or cop-ied along the way by a third party. In order for properly safe encryption to take place, the message must be encrypted from its source and only decrypted once it reaches its destination. An email sent to a Black-Berry account travels through unsecure networks and therefore has the possibility to be copied or intercepted multiple occa-sions even by RIM, though the company denies having this ability.

:us far, encryption standards have not been made to support every device and every platform. As an individual, to send an encrypted email that not even the individual email carriers may have ac-cess to takes heavy coordination ahead of time. For example, one may use the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, available for the public to download that will en-crypt individual’s private messages. RIM’s other solution encrypts the messages end-to-end, but forces both the message recip-ient and sender to exchange keys, some-thing that would be very cumbersome on a usage scale as large as a government’s. Without going through this trouble, there is no other feasible solution, but even this technology has 9aws, as some have cited that RIM may have the ability to hack into their users’ encryption keys.

In addition to the BlackBerry services, another German company, :e Federal


Since when do you want a break from Wellesley?

We’ve all had those moments. :ose brief seconds when we feel as though we can no longer take it. We can’t tolerate any more complaints about grade de9ation, excessively long p-sets, or the inedible dining hall food. We’ve all got-ten frustrated with our roommates, our friends, our lab partners. Sometimes we grow frustrated, exhausted, and simply weary of life at Wellesley. We take the Senate bus into Boston and wander New-bury St. for the afternoon; we do home-work in the Wellesley Free Library to es-cape the insanity that descends upon the Clapp during midterms and 8nals. We drive to neighboring areas to visit non-a;liated friends at other schools. De-spite the challenges we face in our isolated wooded campus, there is an attachment that forms among students at Wellesley, and it was this summer that I encountered and experienced this remarkable strong-hold of sisterhood.

What my three years at our college have taught me is just how strong this bond we all feel from our a;liation with Wellesley is. :is summer I’ve been liv-ing in Boston, and although I’ve had a rather palpable lack of Wellesley women surrounding me, those who I have seen and been with have reminded me of the unmistakable connection we share.

:is summer I lived with a large num-ber of college students from MIT and other schools. I thought my housemates and I would grow close, since, during my experience at college, I grew close to those with whom I was living. I would form deep bonds with my housemates like those I have created with my peers

and classmates at Wellesley, but what liv-ing with many other people has made me realize is how much I embody Wellesley, and how much I identify with others like me. I have certainly met people and en-joyed their company, but I’ve been unable to see them eye-to-eye the way I can with my sisters. :ere’s a certain je ne sais quoi which Wellesley women embody that I’ve been unable to discover elsewhere. After being away from Wellesley, encountering any sort of Wellesley reunion feels natural, and the reuni8cation occurs easily with-out any thought or e7ort. Our love is in-stantly rekindled, and nothing can ever quite compare! So quickly can we fall into a conversation that spans the annoying campus wide changes to Prop 8 reversal in California to Drake’s new album, that sometimes I question why I would ever bother with people from other schools. I have never met a more interesting, thoughtful, or amazing group of people than the women I’ve gotten to know in my short time at this school. People who unapologetically follow celebrity news as closely as they follow Supreme Court trials. People who openly explain how they have to put o7 marriage so they can achieve all their goals before they’re tied down, people who can converse on just about anything and never feel ashamed for being bookworms or passionate about their academic interests. All of this and the ability to put together a great out8t and hit the bars like any other ‘normal’ college students.

When I see a fellow student or alum outside of Wellesley, I feel an instant bond because she ‘gets it.’ I don’t have to go through the whole harangue on the all women’s experience. I don’t feel the need

to defend my decision to attend a school and how I’ve survived without men. Nor do I have to explain how neither my academic experience nor social life have lacked any normalcy or richness despite the obvious absence of Y chromosomes on campus. When I see another Wellesley woman, I have the pleasure of skipping that digression, in fact, we often celebrate the fact that we did indeed attend an all women’s college, and there are occasion-ally complaints about people who refuse to understand or accept our experience as ‘normal’ yet alone positive. Despite the frustrations that those initial explanations might engender, I kind of enjoy having to defend my school, our unique experience sets us apart from the norm. As main-stream as Wellesley might be, it still holds a place as an unusual institution mainly because it is all women, but that single sex experience attracts fascinating and amaz-ing people.

Maybe I’m lucky because I’ve managed to unearth the many gems at school, or maybe people from Wellesley really are that interesting and multifaceted, but whatever it is, the connection I feel with my Wellesley peers has reminded me of the incredible experience we are o7ered here at this remarkable institution.

I remember itching to go home for :anksgiving during my 8rst semester at school, and how much I missed my friends from home, how much I identi8ed with them. As the semesters wore on, I felt a much stronger connection with those I went to school with rather than those with whom I grew up. After three years, I have realized that Wellesley has grown into me, just as I have grown into it. I’ve watched my friends grow into themselves here, people have come in with boyfriends and now are in the running for BDOC, people have come in as pre-med majors and have become WGST majors, Welles-ley has given its students room to explore their lives and interests. Wasn’t our fa-mous Democratic presidential candidate once president of the College Republi-cans? At a place like Wellesley that sort of transformation is made possible.

As I enter my 8nal year at this place I have grown to call home, I feel bitter-

C A M P U S L I F E

SHE GETS ITWellesley bonding over the summer

B Y M A R G A R E T V A N C L E V E


sweet. Looking back on my 8rst three years, I’m so grateful for what I’ve seen, how I’ve grown, who I’ve met, and what I’ve achieved. Still, there is a slight pang of regret for what I did not do, what I didn’t join, who I didn’t meet until later and the paper on which I didn’t spend more time. I’m excited to embark on my 8nal year, and am looking forward to making the most of my experience, academically and

socially. I implore those incoming 8rst-years to challenge themselves, do what seems scary, because I assure you, its not as terrifying as you think, and you’ll be glad you challenged yourself in hindsight. I encourage everyone to make the most of your experience here, four years is not a lot of time, and it will be over before we know it. :e only consolation I feel as I look towards graduation is that I can

still 8nd alumnae 10, 20, 50 years from now, and we will still have that remark-able connection only Wellesley women have among each other.

Congratulations to Margaret Van Cleve ‘11 ([email protected]), who won coun-selor of the month at Camp Wellelsey!

C A M P U S L I F E

AWAY FROM RENTSFeeling disconnected

B Y A N T H E A C H E U N G

At what point do you stop consid-ering your parent’s home as your own? For many, college is not

only a place of learning, but also an op-portunity for self-exploration and inde-pendence. Some time during the past two years, “home” stopped being home; I had somehow made an ad hoc home out of

Wellesley, with a makeshift family com-prising my closest friends. Perhaps this was out of the necessity of living so far away from home - with its high demands and workload, Wellesley is not exactly a place where one can a7ord to be homesick all the time.

Once I stopped thinking of my parents’

home as mine, formerly small di7erences between my family and I seemed to grow vastly. In high school, I shot the requisite teenager’s eye roll at my parents whenever I disagreed with them. Like most other kids, I was embarrassed by my family’s quirks and eccentricities. But what I used to consider merely eccentric attitudes and


Staff Illustration // Jean M. K

im

his. :ere were many considerations, all

related to family unity. For one thing, my grandmother would ideally want to be laid to rest next to my grandfather. At the same time my grandmother’s children were most probably going to be buried in Canada. However, both my grandparents were born in China and had a connection to their home country, even though they moved to Hong Kong over half a century ago. No one was exempt from the discus-sion- even I, at the tender age of 20, was half-seriously asked where I would most likely be buried. Whether I liked it or not, my family members considered family ties to be bonds that held you together for life. No matter how old, how strong, and how independent I grew, I would still be tied to my family.

Even as my mom and her siblings fussed over my grandma’s plans, how much did they really have in common with their mother? :ey probably don’t share the same values and beliefs, the same attitudes and perspectives toward life. Nor can I imagine that they recount their deep thoughts and feelings to her, as my mom expects me to do to her. Nevertheless, about a week after my arrival in Toronto, my grandmother 8nally decided to stay in Canada, and she went with my mother to a nearby cemetery to pick out a spot. So maybe we don’t need to constantly feel close to our families all the time. We all have our own worries and individual lives; in the end, my family comes together in times of need. Maybe it’s out of obligation or out of love, but all we really need is to have someone to take care of us when we’re sick, and someone to help us pick out a prime location for our graves.

What’s Anthea Cheung’s ([email protected]) age again?

actions became downright ridiculous and alien to me.

Ridiculous and alien was exactly how I felt one July evening as I sat in the back-seat of a car, pretending to be earnest whilst my mom said a prayer out loud. My mom and sister had taken a two-week long vacation to visit me in Boston, and were returning to Beijing the next morn-ing. I had been preparing to get out of the car after saying goodbye, but just as I was about to leave, my mom interjected, “Okay then, let’s bow our heads and make a prayer. God will help us with our lives.” I didn’t have anything against prayers, but I had never dared to tell my mom that I had started identifying as atheist a few years ago. :is awkward interaction just about summed up the prevailing discon-nect between her actions and my thoughts: she, well-meaning, o7ers instruction and words of advice, and I grudgingly pretend to agree with her.

I had spent most of the previous two weeks, quite immaturely, I must admit, trying to spend the least amount of time possible with my mother. What little time I did spend with her, was spent shopping, letting her fuss over me and making small talk on things that had happened back home since I last visited. :ose were all activities I found tiring and not particu-larly engaging, not least because I have felt increasingly disconnected from my parents.

:e trip was the result of my mom’s aim to spend more time with me and be-ing closer to me, but it paradoxically put a strain on our relations, which mani-fested itself in a heated dinner discussion one night. In her e7orts to bond with me, she insisted that I call home at least once every other day. Panicked, I strongly protested the stipulation, bargaining for a weekly call instead. :e crux of the dis-agreement was that she felt I had an obli-gation as the daughter to keep my parents updated on my goings-on, while I felt that we did not have much shared experi-ence for worthwhile conversation. :us, I was once again reminded of our di7er-ences in so many areas: in religion, in our

life experiences, and in our conceptions of family obligations. I dared not venture into our political di7erences, as it would surely result in an argument “that could only end in tears and Nutella,” as a friend liked to say.

I am aware, of course, that there are many objections one could raise to my at-titudes. Of course you feel disconnected from your parents, you may say, if you don’t even share your thoughts and expe-rience with them. Or you may point out that they may have gone through the same thing when they were younger. You could even be indignant at my ingratitude: your parents fed you, clothed you, taught you, and loved you, and this is how you repay them? Maybe I am egotistic, apathetic, near-sighted, ungrateful and 8tting of every other criticism commonly directed at college students. But while I may be self-absorbed, what is the value of forced communication with someone if it all boils down to a mere sense of obligation toward them?

After my mom and sister returned home, my familial relationships remained at a standstill, as I stayed in the Boston area to 8nish up the summer research pro-gram in which I participated. When the program 8nally ended, I reluctantly took a plane to my hometown Toronto to visit my relatives, where my parents were also going to meet me. I dreaded meeting my mom again after our strained parting in Boston. But family disputes were set aside temporarily as I sat down for dinner with my parents, my grandmother, and my uncle’s family. It was a rare occasion for all of us to be sitting at the same table.

:en, like a scene from a morbidly dark comedy on dysfunctional families, the conversation turns to... where my grandmother would like to be laid to rest. :ere were options, more options than I had ever considered: she could be buried in Canada, where she was currently living; she could be cremated and have the ashes stored in a crematorium in Hong Kong next to grandfather; or she could move my grandfather’s ashes to his hometown in China, and have hers placed next to


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