Welcome to the Boylan Blog

Greetings! Welcome to this week's edition of the Boylan Blog. We invite you all to post your comments here or email us at boylanblog@yahoo.com.


Thank you to all who signed up for the Open Mic!

The response exceeded our expectations. We have had to remove the signup sheet, but we still invite you to come to the Open Mic and sign up there in case a time slot opens up. Life is random, anything is possible!

Mark your calendars and get ready for an afternoon of creative and free food!

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
from 1:30 - 3:30pm in the State Lounge, SUBO



Election Day is just around the corner

Election Day is just around the corner - November 7th, to be exact - and it is not too late to get informed. Here are some sites to explore so you know what to expect upon entering the voting booth:

http://www.vote411.org/bystateresult.php?state=NY

This site provides links on how to find your local polling place, what you will need to have with you in order to vote, and other useful useful information in order to make voting easier.

http://www.vote-smart.org and http://www.ontheissues.org

Both these sites list current politicians voting records in the Senate and House. Discover how your representatives represent you. Contains rankings from some major advocacy groups.

http://www.nypirg.org/oncampus/brooklyn/default.html

There is a NYPIRG chapter on Brooklyn College that can provide more information on voting rights and campaign issues. You can contact Jessica Scholl or Andrew Morrison, the Project Coordinators at BCNYPIRG, at (718) 859-7177 or email them at brooklyn@nypirg.org.



Allen Ginsberg Events

On Tuesday, October 31 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm, in the Brooklyn College Library in the Woody Tanger Auditorium. The Wolfe Institute is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Allen Ginsberg poem Howl with an event entitled, appropriately enough, Howl At Fifty. Students from the Brooklyn College Theatre Department, specifically those from Broadway vocal and dialect coach and adjunct professor Charlotte Fleck’s class, will present a public reading of the poem. The speakers for the event will be Bill Morgan and Kurt Brown, who will provide historical and biographical background. For more information, call 718-951-5341 or email bgargan@brooklyn.cuny.edu or rcohen@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

The Wolfe Institute will also be conducting an Allen Ginsberg Film Festival, a series of films devoted to the life and work of one of America’s most influential poets. The Life & Times of Allen Ginsberg, a profile of Ginsberg as poet and social activist, will be aired on October 31 at 5 pm in the Woody Tanger Auditorium; and on Thursday November 2 at the Brooklyn College library, in Room 242, there will be a double feature of Ginsberg documentaries, Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College and Allen Ginsberg, both of which include performances by Ginsberg of his poetry. For more information, call the Wolfe Institute at 718-951-5341 or email bgargan@brooklyn.cuny.edu or rcohen@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

The Poetry Club's November 2nd meeting will take place at the double feature at 1:30pm, in Room 242 of the library.


A Celebration of Allen Ginsberg, Wednesday, November 1, 8:00 pm - A reading of Allen Ginsberg’s work across his life, in part to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Howl, in part to celebrate the publication of Bill Morgan’s new biography I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg, and, largely, to hear the work. Readers and performers will include Alice Notley, Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman, Bob Rosenthal, Edwin Torres, Lee Ranaldo, Simon Pettet, Eileen Myles, Eliot Katz, Steven Taylor, Judith Malina, Hanon Reznikov, CA Conrad, Sharon Mesmer, Andy Clausen, Bill Morgan and more.

Fall Calendar: http://www.poetryproject.com/calendar.html

The Poetry Project is located at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street at Second Avenue
www.poetryproject.com


Other Events

The Brooklyn College Women's Center and Health Clinic invite you to attend "Every 28 Days", part of the Student Health Series that takes place the first Tuesday of every month in 227 New Ingersoll from 1:45 to 3:15 pm. On November 7, there will be a Film Screening and Discussion of Notsoprivate, where African American women discuss their first sexual experiences, the impact of their familial teachings, their emerging body consciousness, and the way that their own sexual desire and that of others has colored their world. This program is co-sponsored by Women's Studies Programs. For more information, please contact Nava Renek at 718-951-5777.

The Brooklyn College Art Gallery, in collaboration with the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino/a Studies cordially invites you to a cocktail reception celebrating The Possible Dream on Wednesday, November 8 from 6 to 8 pm in the Brooklyn College Library. Speakers at this event will include Heriberto Ferrer, Benjamin Pacheco, and Bonnie Lee Tozzi. This exhibition is sponsored by the ames, '68 and Anna Fantaci Art Fund: and the Donald E., '40, and Edith S. Peieser Fund. For more information please call 718-951-5181 or 718-951-5561,

Are you thinking about applying to graduate school in English or a related field? Do you need to take the GRE Subject Test in English? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, you might be interested in participating in a graduate school discussion session, and/or a separate review session for the GRE Subject Test in English. If you would like more information about either (or both) of these, please contact Prof. Geoffrey Minter at gminter@sutropark.com.

POETRY SLAM @ CITY TECH: Thursday, November 2, 2006 - 5:30 PM, Namm 119
*Refreshments will be served, sponsored by the Office of Student Life and Development at New York City College of Technology


On Nov. 9, The Poetry Club will get down to business by WORKSHOPPING our writing at the meeting. Please think about which piece of writing you would like to be workshopped by your peers. We will break up into groups of three to closely read and discuss our work. You will need to bring three hard copies of your piece that day. If you have suggestions, concerns, or questions regarding the workshop process, feel free to email back bcpoetryclub@gmail.com.

At This Moment

This week, Tova Marin and Damian Patterson asked the following question of BC students: What to you is an important political/social issue or problem and what is your solution?


They don't provide enough health care for lower income families. There are too many restrictions to qualify and too much red tape, which causes low-income families to become sick because they can't afford to take care of themselves. My solution is to create reasonable criteria for people to qualify for health care--they shouldn't have to be so poor, and provide emergency care for everyone.

-Tracy, BC student


Train health care officials so that can work with people and help them understand the underlying causes for diseases. I was in a nutrition class and a guy raised his hand and said, "What's wrong with Mickey D's? I have my meat, my cheese and bread." The professor had to explain to him about moderation and why McDonald's was bad for him, and then he understood.

-Sylvia, BC Student


If you go to a black high school, a large percentage of the males are not staying in school. We must start with the grassroots to let them know the benefits of being educated and what it means to be a man. Explain that life is journey and that if you lose focus, your purpose in life is meaningless. There should be after school programs just for males to explain to them this importance.

-Anonymous, BC student


There should be greater restriction on pollution emissions and mandatory recycling like Japan. Urban development should be stopped unless it's absolutely necessary.

-Anna Petrovichea, BC Grad Student

Image Source

Boylan Brief #54

From AIDS to Leprosy

Doctors in South America, India, Africa, and elsewhere are reporting that some patients using AIDS medications are developing leprosy – painful facial ulcers combined with numbness in their fingers and toes. Leprosy is caused by a bacterium that is related to the germs that cause tuberculosis and mycobacter avium, two of the largest killers of AIDS victims. As a weak immune system strengthens, dormant diseases can often become pathogenic, especially if a patient is using antiretroviral treatment. The AIDS medication causes the immune system to surge, generating new white blood cells that carry the leprosy bacteria from old infections to the skin of the face, hands, and feet.

Experts around the world believe that the problem will inevitably get worse. In Third World countries, where 38 million people are infected with AIDS, 300,000 new cases of leprosy were reported last year. Dr. Pierre Couppié, chief of dermatology at the Central Hospital in Cayenne, remarked that he believed about 1/500 AIDS patients using antiretroviral medication would develop leprosy. Brazil, with the world’s highest per capita leprosy rate and one of the most extensive AIDS treatment programs, has reported seven cases in medical journals. Dr. Patricia D. Deps, a leprosy expert at the Federal University of Espirito Santo in Brazil, believes that such cases are “becoming more and more common.” According to reports, India could have as many as 100,000 new cases of leprosy a year. At the same time, with about 5.2 million people infected with the AIDS virus, India may soon have more AIDS patients than any other country. As AIDS treatment grows, leprosy may surge along with it.

Yecheskel Schneider
Source: NY TIMES

Father Mutilates His Daughter’s Genitals

Khalid Adem, who immigrated to the US from Ethiopia, is accused of taking a pair of scissors and mutilating the genitals of his two-year-old daughter in their apartment in Duluth, Georgia. If convicted, he faces up to forty year in prison. According to authorities, the mutilation took place in 2001, but was reported by the girl's mother in 2003. W. Mark Hill, Adem’s defense attorney, states that the mother's allegations stem from the bitter divorce that she and her husband are going through. Hill also questions why it took the mother two years to figure out that her daughter's genitals had been mutilated. Human rights activists have been championing against female circumcision, an African custom, often done to girls in order to ensure their chastity and inhibit their sex drive, and considered by some a rite of passage. The procedure is extremely painful, and involves the removal of the clitoris or all of the external genitalia. Although genital mutilation is illegal in the US, many states do not have laws addressing it, and until May 2005, Georgia had no such law. The arrest of Adem incited legislature to enact laws to address the practice. However, there remains the physical, emotional, and psychological scarring of a young girl who has been traumatized by the act. As her mother has said, "Her whole life has been changed...She is going to be traumatized psychologically. Parts of her body have been taken away from her without her consent."

Tova Marin
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Premier Muslim Cleric Links Removal of Veil to Rape

In a sermon purported to encourage modesty, Sheik Taj Aldin al Hilali, senior cleric at Sydney, Australia’s largest mosque, implied that Muslim women who choose to leave the house without their hijab are inviting men to rape them. This recent comment, along with another made in 2004 suggesting that the 9/11 attacks were "God's work against the oppressors" has many, including Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner, calling for his resignation, fearing that Hilali’s comments will cause anti-Muslim sentiment to grow, sparking riots like the ones last year, which saw white gangs targeting middle eastern youths.

Damian Patterson
Source: AP

“Fake-News” Program Skewers the Absurdity of Life in Iraq

In Iraq, a diminutive man in an Afro wig and star-shaped sunglasses appears on television and jokes that the Ministry of Water and Sewage should drop the water part from its name because it hadn’t been providing it to Iraqis. In another episode, he announces that American forces will leave Iraq on 1/1, until he realizes his mistake: what he actually meant to say was that troops would be leaving one by one, which means it will take about 600 years for the last American to exit Iraq. These are but a few examples of the sort of dark comedy being offered up by Iraq’s newest hit program “Hurry Up, He’s Dead,” in which the aforementioned man in the wig and glasses, comedian Saad Khalifa, hosts a newscast that satirizes the war in Iraq and those responsible for it, from the Americans to those in the Iraqi government. The title of the show relates to this central premise: by 2017, the only Iraqi left alive is its main character, Saad. The broadcast that Khalifa hosts takes place in the present, and is meant to illustrate how Saad came to be the last Iraqi. Using the “fake-news” model of “The Daily Show,” “Hurry Up, He’s Dead” has been airing daily in Baghdad for the past month, and, according to its star, the show has an ideological purpose behind it. “The purpose of the show is to fix Iraq,” Khalifa said. “We want to fix the government and stop the corruption.

Anthony Punt
Source: New York Times

Harsh Climate

As Australia faces its worst drought in a century, more and more farmers whose livelihoods have been adversely affected are turning to suicide. According to one report issued by the national mental health body Beyond Blue, one farmer takes his own life every four days. Reminiscent of Dust Bowl era farmers in the United States who were left destitute and homeless, Australian farmers have struggled to make ends meet as the drought in the country stretches into its' sixth year. The Prime Minister has addressed this issue by pledging 263 million dollars in aid for farmers. The suicide rate among farmers is already twice the national average and due to the lack of support services in rural areas, many people are left without adequate counseling. This is compounded by the fact that many farmers who pride themselves on their self-reliance and toughness do not seek help for their depression. With no significant prospect for rain before the New Year, Australian farmers face a tough road in front of them. Severe weather and unpredictable storm events are generally accepted as stemming from human induced climate change. Australiam which rejected the Kyoto Protocol, is heavily reliant on coal burning for its energy consumption, but is in the process of building the worlds largest solar power plant in an attempt to generate more power from renewable sources.

Chris Gothorpe

Source: BBC News

Source: BBC News

Poem of the Week

Arthur Rimbaud

In the photograph he remains eternally young, a fresh-faced youth with slightly mussed-up hair and an askance bowtie; our memory of him unsullied by age or decay, always the brilliant poetic prodigy whose visionary verse remains undimmed by the ravages of time. Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) was born in the town of Charleville in northeastern France, and by the age of 15 he had already won several poetry prizes and had been published in a literary review, attracting the attention of teachers eager to cultivate his prodigious talent. Throughout his late teens Rimbaud traversed the streets of Paris and began to acquire life experiences and attitudes that would greatly influence his work. He then became an intimate of the Surrealist poet Paul Verlaine, with whom he had an infamous, drug-fueled love affair. Rimbaud advocated the use of absinthe and hashish as a means of achieving poetical transcendence, writing to a fellow poet that true artistic vision could only be gained through a “long, immense, and rational derangement of all the senses.” By the age of 20, Rimbaud had abandoned his art to pursue a more stable lifestyle, yet he continually wandered throughout Europe until he died of a leg infection at the age of 37. In his brief poetic career, Rimbaud produced four influential collections of poetry, including Illuminations (1874), which is where the following poem, “After the Flood,” appears. I have included both the original French and English translation for you to enjoy; its strange, haunting power remains as potent as when it was first written, just as its author remains forever young, captured in that famous photograph when he and his talents were in their fullest flower.

--Anthony Punt

AFTER THE FLOOD

After the idea of the Flood had receded,
A rabbit rested within swaying clover and bellflowers, saying his prayers to a rainbow spied through a spider’s web.
Oh what precious stones sunk out of sight, what flowers suddenly stared.
On the dirty main drag it was back to business; ships went to sea, piled on the water like a postcard.
Blood flowed—at Bluebeard’s, in slaughterhouses, in circuses—wherever God’s mark marred windows. Milk, and blood, flowed.
Beavers damned. Steam rose from coffee cups in small cafés.
The mansion’s windows were still screaming, mourning children within contemplating amazing scenes.
A door slammed, and the child whirled his arms through the town square, movements understood by weathervanes and weathercocks everywhere, beneath a tumultuous downpour.
Madame **** put a piano in the Alps. Mass and First Communion were given at the hundred thousand alters of the cathedral.
Caravans left. The Hotel Splendide was built atop a chaos of ice in the polar night.
Ever since, the Moon has heard jackals whimpering in thyme-strewn deserts, and club-footed eclogues growling in orchards. At last, in a violet, blooming stand, Eucharis said: Spring Is Here.
Rise, waters.—Foam; roll over the bridge and through the woods—black veils and organ strains—lightning, thunder—rise and roam. Waters and sorrows, step forward and reveal the Floods.
For since they relented—what precious stones have sunk—what flowers have bloomed—who cares! And the Queen, the Witch who sparks her blaze in a bowl of Earth, never tells us what she knows, and what we do not.

APRÉS LE DÉLUGE

Aussutôt que l’idée du Déluge se fut rassise,
Un liévre s’arrêta dans les sainfoins er les clochettes mouvantes et dit sa priére á l’arc-en-ciel á travers la toile de l’araignée.
Oh les pierres précieuses qui se cachaient,--les fleurs qui regardaient déjà.
Dans la grande rue sale les étals se dressérent, et l’on tira les barques vers la mer étagée lá-haut comme sur les gravures.
Le sang coula, chez Barbe-Bleue,--aux abattoirs,--dans les cirques, oú le sceau de Dieu blêmit les fenêtres. Le sang et le lait coulérent.
Les castors bâtirent. Les <<mazagrans>>fumérent dans les estaminets.
Dans la grande maison de vitres encore ruisselante les enfants en deuil regardérent les merveilleuses images.
Une porte claqua, et sur la place du hameau, l’enfant tourna ses bras compris des girouettes et des coqs de clochers de partout, sous l’éclatante giboulée.
Madame**** établit un piano dans les Alpes. La messe et les premiéres communions se célébrérent aux cent mille autels de la cathédrale.
Les caravans partirent. Et le Splendide Hôtel fut bâti dans le chaos de glaces et de nuit du pole.
Depuis lors, la Lune entendit les chacals piaulant par les deserts de thym,--et les églogues en sabots grognant dans le verger. Puis, dans la futaie violette, bourgeonnante, Eucharis me dit que c’était le printemps.
Sourds, étang,--Écume, roule sur le pont et par-dessus les bois;--draps noirs et orgues,--éclairs et tonnerres, montez et roulez;--Eaux et trisetesses, montez dt relevez les Déluges.
Car despuis qu’ils se sont dissipés,--oh les pierres précieuses s’enfouissant, et les fleurs ouvertes!—c’est un ennui! et la Reine, la Sorcière qui allume sa braise dans le por de terre, ne voundra jamais nous raconteur ce qu’elle sait, et que nous ignorons.

Image Source: Hieronymus Bosch

Welcome to The Boylan Blog

Greetings! Welcome to this week's edition of the Boylan Blog. We invite you all to post your comments here or email us at boylanblog@yahoo.com.

The sign up sheet for the Open Mic is posted on the door of the English Majors Counseling Office in Room 3416B. The Open Mic will be coming up on November 7, 2006 from 1:30 to 3:30 in the State Lounge in SUBO.

This week on Thursday October 26, the Poetry Club will meet from 1:30 to 3:30 pm in room 2307 Boylan. Last week we met to discuss published writers who influenced us; if you missed our meeting last week, don’t hesitate to bring those pieces in. This week we’ll be discussing MUSIC that inspires us, so bring in your CD’s or Ipod’s and pick one or two tracks to share with the group. Make sure to EMAIL THE LYRICS IN ADVANCE to bcpoetryclub@gmail.com. You should also feel free to share poems that utilize iambic pentameter, or any random pictures, words, or phrases that have struck you in some way for inclusion of our oak tag collage. Share your poems, fiction, nonfiction, plays, laundry lists, etc., for comments or critique at the Poetry Club's online forum: http://p067.ezboard.com/bbcpoetryclub.

On Monday, October 23 at 7 pm, the Whitman Auditorium will host Brooklyn on my Mind, a reading/discussion series about the borough of Brooklyn as home to a community of writers. Leonard Lopate, of WNYC Radio's "The Leonard Lopate Show," will moderate and conduct the audience Q&A. Authors Michael Cunningham, Colum McCann, and Francisco Goldman will participate in a discussion and reading of their work. Tickets are $5 and available at the BCBC box office, but FREE FOR STUDENTS!

On Tuesday, October 31 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm, the Wolfe Institute is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Allen Ginsberg poem Howl with an event entitled, appropriately enough, Howl At Fifty. Students from the Brooklyn College Theatre Department, specifically those from Broadway vocal and dialect coach and adjunct professor Charlotte Fleck’s class, will present a public reading of the poem. The speakers for the event will be Bill Morgan and Kurt Brown, who will provide historical and biographical background. For more information, call 718-951-5341 or email bgargan@brooklyn.cuny.edu or rcohen@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

The Wolfe Institute will also be conducting an Allen Ginsberg Film Festival, a series of films devoted to the life and work of one of America’s most influential poets. The Source, a docu-drama on the lives and literature of the Beat Generation, will be shown on Thursday, October 26 at 1:30 pm in the Brooklyn College Library, room 242; The Life & Times of Allen Ginsberg, a profile of Ginsberg as poet and social activist, will be aired on October 31 at 5 pm in the Woody Tanger Auditorium; and on Thursday November 2 there will be a double feature of Ginsberg documentaries, Allen Ginsberg at Brooklyn College and Allen Ginsberg, both of which include performances by Ginsberg of his poetry. For more information, call the Wolfe Institute at 718-951-5341 or email bgargan@brooklyn.cuny.edu or rcohen@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

The Brooklyn College Women's Center and Health Clinic invite you to attend "Every 28 Days", part of the Student Health Series that takes place the first Tuesday of every month in 227 New Ingersoll from 1:45 to 3:15 pm. On November 7, there will be a Film Screening and Discussion of Notsoprivate, where African American women discuss their first sexual experiences, the impact of their familial teachings, their emerging body consciousness, and the way that their own sexual desire and that of others has colored their world. This program is co-sponsored by Women's Studies Programs. For more information, please contact Nava Renek at 718-951-5777.

The Brooklyn College Art Gallery, in collaboration wiht the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino/a Studies cordially invites you to a cocktail reception celebrating The Possible Dream on Wednesday, November 8 from 6 to 8 pm in the Brooklyn College Library. Speakers at this event will include Heriberto Ferrer, Benjamin Pacheco, and Bonnie Lee Tozzi. This exhibition is sponsored by the ames, '68 and Anna Fantaci Art Fund: and the Donald E., '40, and Edith S. Peieser Fund. For more information please call 718-951-5181 or 718-951-5561,

Are you thinking about applying to graduate school in English or a related field? Do you need to take the GRE Subject Test in English? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, you might be interested in participating in a graduate school discussion session, and/or a separate review session for the GRE Subject Test in English. If you would like more information about either (or both) of these, please contact Prof. Geoffrey Minter at gminter@sutropark.com.

Here are some photos from the Vox Pop open mic attended by members of the Poetry Club on October 8th! To learn about upcoming Poetry Club events and readings, email bcpoetryclub@gmail.com to get on our mailing list.

At This Moment

At This Moment 10/19/06

This week Maryana Isakova and Anthony Punt asked BC students what issue they felt needed greater advocacy, and here’s what they had to say:

What needs activism right now, more than anything else, is environmental conservation. It doesn't, or rather shouldn't, take Al Gore developing a blockbuster slide show to wake people up to the fact that yes, our entire environment is in jeopardy of permanent erosion over the next fifty years. It's an afterthought to many that weather patterns have been erratic lately; summers aren't as hot and winters are colder. Is it any wonder why? And shouldn't it be plainly obvious that, when, you know, the whole space in which we live is changing constantly from what scientifically and historically humans have recorded as the norm for worldwide patterns of seasonal change, that something is wrong? It's like a shiny thing is being dangled in front of billions of faces in the developed world who actually can make a difference in how the environment is being affected, that's distracting us from doing things so that we don't notice how all around the shiny thing, chaos has erupted. Clearly this is a rant. But seriously, conservation of energy and the environment is so ridiculously crucial if people want any other issue to matter, or in less than a century, the only issue that will be on people's minds is how to prevent total natural disaster on a global level.

Ryan Merola, Senior



Energy conservation. It affects the whole world as a community. If you focus on it as only one nation or one person, it will not go far enough. We need to get these issues out there as soon as possible in order to provide a future for the generations that will come after us.

Penny Chak, Freshman



People should be more concerned about ending the war. It’s going sideways, it’s not going forward or backward, it’s just stagnating and killing lives.

Carole Ver Eecke, BC Student


The gay rights movement is a very prominent issue now that could use more support from the rest of the population (which would, of course, presuppose stripping minds of instilled prejudices). Why? Most fundamentally, because the pompous language of the American ideology announces equality as the building block of our democratic order, and if the history of the civil rights movement for the African-American political minority does not ring a bell or predict the eventual outcome of the current human rights activism, I don't know what does. Also, I think, the political situation is favorable to the promotion of the Human Rights Campaign, certainly more so than it was, say, decades ago, at the dawn of the movement. People need to understand that it is not the acceptance of fully granted gay rights that will hurt society, but rather the shying away from progress that such acceptance procures.

Yevgeniya, Student


I would have to say public education in America. I feel like even in my lifetime, we’ve seen a rapid decline in education. When you go into a store to buy something, the person at the cashier sometimes doesn’t even know how to give you proper change back, and they’ll have to stop and ask their manager for assistance with a simple transaction. I think it’s going to come back to bite us, because we’ve been so behind other countries. And now we’re not really good at anything.

Tasha Parker, Senior, Fine Arts Major


I can tell you what I’m interested in, which is immigration reform. I think it’s sad that such a substantial proportion of the population that is critical to the economy goes by unprotected by our laws, which really contradicts the democratic principles American society purports to practice.

Sancha Doxilly, Junior, Political Science Major


I’m inclined to want to address the issue that applies to my senior thesis: that people aren’t being critically reflective of the visual representations of pregnancy and motherhood in the media. In popular culture, in the economic sphere, in every sphere you can think of, really. I think it undermines the status of women in society by glorifying the mother and negating certain feminist advances.

Meghan Keane, Sixth Year Senior, Fine Arts Major


I would definitely say eliminating cars that run on gasoline. We have the capacity not to use any oil at all, so it’s sad that we continue to use a resource that is so detrimental to the environment and causes such political turmoil. Our physical and mental health depends on the state of our air and our politics.

Jackie Rosenthal, Senior, English Education





Image Source, Cotton Mill, Whitnel, NC

Poem of the Week

Robert Frost

Robert Frost’s work is much loved and often read. I find that the following poem, “Out, Out”, based on the line in Shakespeare’s Macbeth which reads, “Out, out brief candle, is often neglected, but is important nonetheless.” (5.5, 2380) Professor Natov speaks often about children’s rights, and we see in this poem the stolen youth of a child forced to grow up too soon and endure the wrath of reality. The poem illustrates the loss of innocence and the preciousness and transient nature of life. But it is the last line that is utterly wrenching.

-Tova Marin

"Out, Out"

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap--
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all--
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off--
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then--the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little--less--nothing!--and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

Robert Frost was an American poet, (1874-1963) and a four time Pulitzer Prize winner. He traversed the United States from California to Massachusetts, writing mostly pastoral poetry. Frost attended Dartmouth College, but dropped out after a semester. He then taught, worked in a mill and as newspaper writer. His work became recognized later in his life, becoming widely published as he achieved great acclaim.

Image Source, "Angelic Voices"

The Boylan Brief #53

Boylan Brief #53

Humans Cause Global Warming

On October 16, 2006, scientists reported the first direct evidence linking the break-up of an ice shelf in Antarctica to human activities. In the Journal of Climate, British and Belgian scientists brought evidence that global warming and a thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica, which resulted from excessive, airborne human chemicals, had strengthened winds blowing around Antarctica. These wind changes had warmed the Antarctic Peninsula extending toward South America, and directly caused the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002. The unit of ice that collapsed in 2002 was 3,250 square kilometers, bigger than the U.S. state of Rhode Island.

Gareth Marshall, who heads the British Antarctic Survey, said that "this is the first time that anyone has been able to demonstrate a physical process directly linking the break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf to human activity." Most climate experts agree that fossil fuels burnt in power plants, industrial factories, and automobiles, are warming the globe and could potentially bring more arctic erosion or rising seas. The director of the British Antarctic Survey remarked that if this trend continues, other ice shelves would be at risk. Recent data has revealed that two major glaciers in eastern Antarctica are starting to release ice into the sea.

Yecheskel Schneider
Source: CNN


A UK Team Discovers An Alternative Site for Ithaca

For many, Ithaca is best known as Odysseus's homeland in Homer's epic poem The Odyssey. However, new discoveries show that the location of the island referenced in that Greek myth may not be found in the modern-day Ionian island of Ithaki, but the western peninsula, Paliki. Geologists will test this new theory by sinking a borehole into the nearby island of Kefalonia. Scientists say the Paliki peninsula once stood on its own, but the channel has been filled in the last 2,500 to 3,000 years. If hard rock is hit, then this theory may suffer.

In The Odyssey, Homer spoke of Odysseus's native land as a "low-lying terrain, furthest out to the sea and facing dusk." A team of archaeologists, classicists, and geologists argue that the modern-day Ithaki does not fit Homer's description, since it is located on the eastern side of the Ioanian arc of islands, and actually looks towards the "dawn and sun." Just because the island is called Ithaki does not make the island Ithaca's location. If the team is able to prove the Paliki peninsula was the location of Homer’s epic, it will be interesting to study the major geographical and lifestyle changes on the island of Kelafonia from the Bronze to the Classical periods.

Jade Zirino
Source: BBC


Tasmania: Making Amends

The government of the Australian state of Tasmania had proposed an unprecedented bill that will offer monetary compensation to more than a hundred of Tasmanian Aborigines who were removed from their families and forcibly assimilated under former Australian ethnic policies. The members of this "stolen generation" and their descendants are expected to receive up to 2,000lbs. ($3,736) per person, with 8,000lbs. ($14,947) per family being the maximum sum. Tasmanian Aborigines have been left with "deep scars" and have "lost [indigenous] identity" as a result of being taken out of their original homes and being brought up in white households and by white institutions. In announcing the plan, Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon acknowledged that "the funding pool... can't undo the wrong that was done" in the decades preceding the 1970s when the assimilation policies were revoked. The monetary compensation bill is Tasmania's second attempt to make amends for its violation of the Aborigines' human rights. Its first was an official apology to the victims, which transformed into the National Sorry Day in 1998.

Yevgeniya
Source: BBC


Repression in Ethiopia

A recent independent report has revealed that 193 anti-government protesters were killed by police in Ethiopia during demonstrations in June and November 2005 over a suspicious general elections outcome in May 2005. Some 20,000 other people, including opposition leaders, journalists and aid workers, were arrested and over a hundred put on trial for treason and attempted genocide. The judge who investigated the case said excessive force was used during this massacre, and he has since fled to Europe due to death threats and pressure to alter his findings. The unrest and repression in Ethiopia has stopped some foreign aid and caused international doubt about the government’s legitimacy and democratic integrity.

Maryana Isakova
Source: BBC


Where is Julio Lopez?

Across Argentina , banners and posters are asking that very question. Julio Lopez, a former laborer who was tortured by the Argentinean military government, recently testified against members of that government who had been in power between 1976 and 1983, a period now known as “The Dirty War”. His suspicious disappearance has been linked to the supporters and defenders of the “indefensible” military government that tortured and murdered approximately 30,000 people. After democracy returned to Argentina , the guilty members of the government were given long prison terms, but a succession of new laws ultimately freed the imprisoned leaders of “The Dirty War.” The recent trials are the first the country has held since the Supreme Court overturned amnesty laws that freed the orchestrators of the most disturbing era in Argentinean history.

Witnesses and human rights activists who have testified against the crimes committed during “The Dirty War” have been threatened, but it hasn’t prevented Argentineans from speaking out about the matter. Every Thursday afternoon the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo march demanding justice, and answers, for the disappearances, murders, and tortures of their children and family. The effects of “The Dirty War” have permeated the world of Argentinean art, literature, and film, and many Argentineans hope that these recent trials will bring the guilty to justice and uncover the thousands of personal stories of horror and loss that live under the surface of daily life in their country.

Katy Maslow
Source: BBC

Welcome to the Boylan Blog!

Greetings! Welcome to this week's edition of the Boylan Blog. We invite you all to post your comments here or email us at boylanblog@yahoo.com.

The sign up sheet for the Open Mic has now been posted on the door of the English Majors Counseling Office, Room 3416B. The Open Mic is coming up on November 7, 2006 from 1:30 to 3:30 in the State Lounge in SUBO.

This week on Thursday 10/19, the Poetry Club will meet from 1:30 'til about 3 pm in room 2307 Boylan to discuss writers who have influenced us. Bring in a sampling of the writer's work to share with the group. We will start off the meeting with a fun writing exercise. We will also also discuss future plans for a debate on form vs. free-verse, an information meeting on how to get published, and other activities and forums. Share your poems, fiction, nonfiction, plays, laundry lists, etc., for comments or critique at the Poetry Club's online forum: http://p067.ezboard.com/bbcpoetryclub

The Law School Application Workshop will be held on Tuesday, October 17 from 1:30 to 3:30 in 1309 James Hall.

The Brooklyn College Women's Center and Health Clinic invite you to attend "Every 28 Days", a Student Health Series the first Tuesday of every month in 227 New Ingersoll, 1:45-3:15pm. On November 7th: Film Screening and Discussion - Notsoprivate: African American women discuss their first sexual experiences; the impact of their familial teachings, their emerging body consciousness, and the way that their own sexual desire and that of others has colored their world. The ages of the women interviewed range from 20s - 70s. This program is co-sponsored by Women's Studies Programs. For more information, please contact Nava Renek at 718-951-5777.

Brooklyn on my Mind is a reading/discussion series about the borough of Brooklyn as home to a community of writers. Leonard Lopate, of WNYC Radio's "The Leonard Lopate Show", will moderate and conduct the audience Q&A. Authors Michael Cunningham, Colum McCann, and Francisco Goldman will participate in a discussion and reading in Whitman Auditorium, on Monday, October 23rd, at 7PM. Tickets are $5 and available at the BCBC box office, but FREE FOR STUDENTS!

Are you thinking about applying to graduate school in English or a related field? Do you need to take the GRE Subject Test in English? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, you might be interested in participating in a graduate school discussion session, and/or a separate review session for the GRE Subject Test in English. If you would like more information about either (or both) of these, please contact Prof. Geoffrey Minter at gminter@sutropark.com.

Thursday, October 19, Zicklin Lecture Series, II: The Revival of Cosmopolitanism. David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center. Cosponsored with the Zicklin Chair in the Honors Academy. 11:30 am to 1:15 pm, Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library.

At This Moment

This week Katy Maslow and Yevgeniya Drobitskaya asked BC students their opinions on school safety:

The wave of recent school shootings has stressed the importance of school safety, which has been a nationwide issue for years since the Columbine tragedy of 1999. What makes you (or your family) feel safe or unsafe in New York schools?


I do feel safe at Brooklyn College. The fact that there are security guards on campus and there is an ID control post helps. I just graduated high school, and I felt pretty safe there, too, because of the strict school policies and also the metal detectors. It was taking a while to get to class, being held off by a long line of people waiting to go through the metal detectors, but these precautions accomplished their goal of making me and my friends safer at least inside the school. Though there are no metal detectors here, I still feel more or less at ease because college people seem more mature and, thus, emotionally stable, and appear less likely to do something as stupid as open fire on other students.

-Iolanta, BC freshman

You can't go through life worrying about these things. I don't feel safer knowing that there is a security guard a couple of feet away, just like I don't feel safer when I hear a police car's sirens seven blocks away. Things happen and anybody can go berserk any time. I don't mean to be gloomy about this, but if some wacko would want to hurt others, (s)he will find a way even on the Brooklyn College campus.

-Anonymous, BC student

To make our students feel safe, there is a strict ID control policy that keeps out those that don't belong and could be potentially dangerous. As far as metal detectors go, they are unnecessary and even unwanted, because they would create huge lines and chaos. The fact that we, security guards, are on the job at all times should help create a sense of safety.

-Anonymous, Security Guard

The streets aren't safe... so let's keep the kids in school. Being in school isn't safe, so keep kids at home. Being at home isn't safe... where do you want these children to go? Ultimately, it seems that nothing short of boarding yourself up in your home is going to save you. Perhaps it's just me, but being in a building doesn't affect whether or not I feel safe. Despite that I have never felt unsafe in a NYC school, and I've gone to public schools my entire life. It's not that blind "It can't happen to me" sort of sentiment, because I'm quite aware that it's possible. I look at it this way; any building you walk into, anywhere, has the same potential as any other building to be the epicenter of a tragedy. Metal detectors are not going to stop every instance, and guards aren't going to be alert all the time. My family has never discussed school safety. Then again, my parents think going on the subway is dangerous, so their opinions on school safety are probably skewed. Safety is an illusion, and the fight for it just results in hermitity. Schools are communities within themselves, and if a member of that community pulls a gun, that's no different than any other instance. We really ought to disassociate school violence from its location, because crime is crime, no matter where it takes place.

-Sam, Former BC Student, Education Major

I'm not a current student, but I've been an Education major for, oh, about five years, and I've had experiences in both New York and Connecticut. I was just talking about this with my boyfriend's mother -- a former Special Ed aid here in Connecticut. Funny enough, the "security" precautions they take in Connecticut are far less than in New York. In New York, as an observer in a number of different schools, I had to go through a rigorous sign in method each morning (even though the security guard knew who I was!). I had to wear a visitor's pass/name tag at all times. And did I mention that there was a security guard? Yeah - usually someone suited up in uniform as well as a secretary-type sitting by the doorway. On the contrary, here in Guilford, CT, although there are sign-in policies, they are not as strictly followed, probably because of the false safety these people feel as suburban dwellers. Both my boyfriend's mother and I have walked into schools without being stopped to put on name tags or sign-in. The administration usually relies on the familiarity the students have with us. If a kid in the class I'm observing says "Hi Ms. Garguilo", the adult won't even think twice. They just don't think there's as serious a threat here as in urban areas. So, I guess the security policies are actually quite ironic.

-Alyssa, Former BC Student, Education Major



Image Source

Poem of the Week

I first came across Naomi Shihab Nye's poetry in Professor Natov's class. About a year later, I found more of her poetry on the Internetand began exploring from there. This poem allows me to travel inward—to recognize my own desires to connect with myself and others. It represents the human being as a landscape that can be damaged, but then heals like the earth.

Two Countries

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.
Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet and songwriter born in 1952 to a Palestinian father and American mother. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas. Her childhood travels and experiences have influenced her writing, which include roots and the sense of home and place. She writes for both adults and children, and has won many awards and fellowships, among them four Pushcart Prizes, the Jane Addams Children's Book award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and many notable book and best book citations from the American Library Association.

Her ability to show introspection in foreign experiences is similar to Elizabeth Bishop, while her direct "voice" has been compared to hermentor, William Stafford. Nye calls herself a "wandering poet" whose poetry is inspired by her childhood memories and life travels.

http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/naomi_shihab_nye/biography

-Jade Zirino

Boylan Brief #52

Chile Hot Under The Collar

Recently, Venezuela and Bolivia have made a military pact that calls for Venezuelan financing and support for the construction of Bolivian military bases in its borders with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru. This has raised concerns for Chile, which has a history of bad relations with Bolivia. In the 1879-1883 war between Chile and Bolivia, the latter had lost its coastline and, since then, has maintained demands for re-establishment of an outlet to the Pacific Ocean. Due to the dispute, diplomatic relations between the two countries has been non-existent since 1978. Some government officials in Chile are concerned that Venezuela formed the pact with Bolivia to expand Venezuela’s influence in South America and stir trouble for Chile. Regarding the military pact, Chilean President, Michelle Bachelet, said: "The information I have is that it's within what is normal defense cooperation between two countries." She also remarked that Latin American countries should share information with each other, so as not to cause any strife. "It's good to be able to be transparent so there won't be any kind of distrust among countries," she said. Paraguay and Peru have also vocalized concern about the pact.

Yecheskel Schneider
Source: International Herald Tribune

North Korea Cleanses of Impure Foreign Babies

Pregnant women who escape Kim Jong Il’s prison camps in North Korea are having their fetuses forcibly aborted or killed after the babies are born. Many expecting women cross the border from North Korea to China only to be returned to their country by Chinese officials and then sent to “special camps,” where some are given injections to induce labor. Once delivered, the babies are killed. The infanticide occurs as a result of the dictator Kim Jong Il’s concerns about ethnically impure children. One doctor explained to a woman who had married a Chinese man that, due to inadequate food supply in their country, North Korea could not be expected to provide sustenance to children of “foreign fathers.” Her baby was placed in a box along with many others and buried. It is uncertain whether the babies were dead or alive at the time. Another report states that a prison camp guard, after seeing that two babies had survived induced abortion, “stabbed them with forceps at a soft spot in their skulls.”

Tova Marin

Source: Telegraph


Sweet Medicine

Modern medicine is amazing, but is there no room for what the ancients knew? Since the discovery of antibiotics in the 1940s, home remedies and folk cures have been looked at as the ugly stepsister to the chemically-driven science of saving lives. However, new research and proven results may change opinions about methods for sustaining a healthy living honored some time ago. Honey is saving limbs and stopping infections that are resistant to antibiotics. The ancient Sumerian doctors knew that honey was healthy, so did Hippocrates and the Talmud. So why this resurgence in that sticky golden goo? Doctors have been discovering more and more that there is a wide range of cases where honey is not only more adept at combating an infection, but is more cost-effective as well. Doctor Arne Simon in Germany has been using honey to help treat the wounds on children who have immune systems weakened by the effects of Chemotherapy. Recent outbreaks of a flesh-eating strain of staph infection that could not be stopped with methicillin were also effectively controlled with honey. The more antibiotics are used, the quicker the diseases they were meant to treat develop resistance to them. Honey is different. As bees digest nectar and produce honey, they add enzymes that actually make honey an antibacterial compound. In lab research, scientists have attempted to create bacterial resistance to honey and as of now there has been no success. In the United States, healing with honey is still not widely used or available, but some online retailers do sell medical honey. As more research and attention is being given to honey in the scientific community, it won't be long before we too get some sweet medicine.

Chris Gothorpe
Source: Wired.com

Nurtured Violence

53,000 children killed, 126 million performing hazardous work, 140 million women and girls genitally mutilated, 150 million girls and 73 million boys sexually abused, and 275 million witness domestic violence - all this in a world where 147 countries not only legalized corporal punishment by people other than their parents, but found it acceptable. The shocking results are produced by a report issued on October 12th by the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s office in its study of child violence begun in 2002. The report states that 106 countries allow violence upon children in the classroom. Louise Arbour, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, warns of the potential for violence against children to become more widely permissible in broader contexts if it continues to be acceptable by primary and non-primary caregivers. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, author of the study, denounced all cultural and traditional practices which lead to violence and called for the appointment of a special U.N. representative to act as an international advocate for children's rights.

Damian Patterson
Source: Reuters

Press Freedoms are Dying in Russia Along with Journalists

On October 7, Anna Politkovskaya, one of Russia’s premier investigative journalists, was found dead inside of her apartment building, the victim of a gunshot wound to the head. Reports indicate that the assassin fired four shots at the 48-year old Politkovskaya, who had been an outspoken critic of the human rights abuses of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the government of Chechnya. One of Putin’s presidential predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev, was quick to denounce Politkovskaya’s murder as “a savage crime” and “a blow to the entire democratic, independent press,” yet it took several days before Putin himself officially weighed in on the matter. In another darkly ironic twist to the case, Politkovskaya’s murder occurred on Putin’s birthday, leading to speculation that a party loyalist may have decided to “gift” Putin with the journalist’s death.

Politkovskaya was the 13th journalist to be killed since Putin took power in 2000. In the wake of several incidents, such as the Beslan hostage crisis in 2004, restrictions were placed on the media that limited their ability to report on war and terrorist incidents. The weekly paper that Politkovskaya worked for, Novaya Gazeta, is one of the few media outlets in Russia to challenge the official party line, but many fear that because the journalists’ murders haven’t been fully investigated by the Kremlin, the voice of dissent in the country is being silenced. Viktor Shenderovich, Politkovskaya’s friend and colleague, says that while he doesn’t believe Putin ordered her murder, “the fact is he has created the kind of country where it is possible to kill a journalist - maybe to please him - and then feel untouchable afterwards."

Anthony Punt
Source: Guardian

Welcome to the Boylan Blog!

Greetings!

We hope you enjoy this week's edition of The Boylan Blog! We'd love your feedback, thoughts, and ideas... comment here or email boylanblog@yahoo.com.

Upcoming Events and Announcements

Come read your poems, stories, songs, rants, and laundry lists at the Open Mic, coming up on November 7, 2006. It will be held in the beautiful and cozy State Lounge, from 1:30 to 3:30 pm. Starting October 14th, you can sign up in the English Majors Counseling Office, Room 3416 Boylan. Can't wait to see you there!

Thank you to all who attended the Open Meeting on October 5th. If you still have questions regarding your major and degree, or want to know more about the Zine, Poetry Club, Open Mic, or Internships, please feel free to stop by the English Majors' Counseling Office at 3416 Boylan.

The New York State General Elections are just around the corner! For those of you yet to register to vote you can pick up registration forms in the English Major's Office in 3416 Boylan. The deadline to register is next Friday, October 13. Now's the time to make your voice heard on the issues which matter most to you! If you don't want to end up with a future you didn't choose, choose to vote!

The Poetry Club is going strong! Last meeting we read our poems, shared ideas, and had some fascinating conversations! If you'd like to get on the Poetry Club mailing list to learn about upcoming meetings and events, please email bcpoetryclub@gmail.com. Keep an eye on the Boylan Blog for an update on the Sunday VoxPop open reading some of the group attended!

Are you thinking about applying to graduate school in English or a related field? Do you need to take the GRE Subject Test in English? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, you might be interested in participating in a graduate school discussion session, and/or a separate review session for the GRE Subject Test in English. If you would like more information about either (or both) of these, please contact Prof. Geoffrey Minter at gminter@sutropark.com.

The Great Read in the Park is Sunday October 15th, 2006! Check out this site for more information on literary and cultural events in Bryant Park this weekend.

If you know of any events we would be interested in, let us know at boylanblog@yahoo.com.

The Boylan Brief #51

Bringing you the world...in a week!

Teaching Intelligent Design and Evolution in School Science

In the United Kingdom, an organization named Truth in Science has been pushing for changes in school science. This organization is encouraging parents to challenge the current science curriculum, and is also teaching children that there was a particular intelligence behind the creation of the universe. On the other hand, the Department for Education and Skills in England has said it doesn't support the findings of the Truth in Science organization and believes that fossil records offer enough evidence for evolution.

In response, Truth in Science points to Darwin's theory of evolution as an example of problems arising from the misinterpretation of empirical observations. A spokesperson for the Department of Education and Skills said that neither evolution nor intelligent design is taught in schools as absolutes. Truth in Science brings up a point which could be considered by either side: what a child is taught in school can greatly affect his or her life.

Jade Zirino

Source: BBC

Chile Fights Teen Pregnancy

In Chile, roughly 17 percent of infants are born to mothers between the ages of 15 and 17. Approximately 40 percent of Chilean teenagers over the age of 15 are sexually active, and do not use contraceptives. Often, birth control is too costly and difficult to obtain. In Santiago, 22 percent of babies are born to teenage mothers living in the poorest urban neighborhoods in the country. In response, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has recently implemented a system making it easier for teenage girls to avoid pregnancy in the first place.

President Bachelet granted local health centers the jurisdiction to provide emergency contraception and other forms of birth control – at no cost – to 14-year-old girls who require it, even without acquiring consent from the parents. Previously, only adult women who had been raped were given birth control. Chile, which is a socially conservative and dominantly Roman Catholic country, has recently banned divorce and has outlawed abortions. Each year, some 32,000 women require hospital treatment as a consequence of botched illegal abortions. With her birth control plan, President Bachelet hopes that fewer women will be in that situation.

Yecheskel Schneider

Source: BBC

“Gypsy” Groups Suffer Discrimination

On October 4th, 2006, a press conference was held at the United Nations to discuss a January 2007 exhibition that will focus on the persecution of the Romany people by the Nazis during World War II. In his speech, Romani Rose, the chairman of the Roma and Sinti Central Council in Germany, told reporters that Romanies, often referred to as Gypsies, are the most disadvantaged ethnic minority in Europe today, citing the 2005 report by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). Rose stressed the need for protecting Romany people against discrimination, especially in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

There are some 12 million Romanies living in Europe today, concentrated mostly in the eastern and southern parts of the continent. Across Europe, Romanies have been victims of racist violence and hostility, as well as social exclusion and segregation. They have high levels of unemployment, poor health status, low levels of education, and often terrible housing conditions. Many Romany children have been put into special schools for the mentally handicapped, as well as denied entrance into state schools for higher education. In April 2005, the European Union passed a resolution that urged member states to recognize Romanies as a minority ethnic group and to implement their political, economic and social integration.

Certain cultural aspects of the Romanies may serve to complicate integration. These include their oral tradition of education, traveling lifestyle, and distrust of non-Romany neighbors. While Romanies have made significant contributions in music and culture in Russia and elsewhere, the historic persecution and negative stereotyping of their people as thieves and tramps may have perpetuated the distrust others feel towards them and the disparity in living conditions they must bear.

Maryana Isakova

Source: BBC

Approaching History in Neutral Switzerland

New school textbooks in Switzerland are sparking controversy as they re-examine the assumption of Switzerland’s neutrality during World War II. Most school textbooks have stood by the traditional, and nationalistic, notion that the Swiss army stood its ground against Hitler, making it through the war unscathed with a patient readiness to destroy their own internal interests as a means of becoming undesirable to the Nazis.
Now there is much debate over the relationship the Swiss developed with the Germans in order to prevent an invasion of their country.

Since the 1990s there has been a surge of questions arising from evidence that the Swiss turned away refugees, essentially sending thousands of Jews to their deaths, and that Jewish bank accounts disappeared during the war. The new textbook, whose title translates to “Look Back and Ask Questions,” prompts students to question the definitiveness of history, and to take other approaches to viewing historically accepted fact. War veterans are showing concern and anger over the new textbook, and even Switzerland’s right-wing party has called for banning the book. This new approach to the education of Swiss history might influence and alter the way Swiss youth view its grandfathers and previous generations, but it will allow students, as history teacher Paul Bitschnau puts it, “to make up their own minds.”

Katy Maslow

Source: BBC

Hero of the Month

Who is Haruki Murakami?

This isn’t a question. This is an answer. I’m on Jeopardy. To my left and right are high-brow brainiacs; I’m in the middle. I might be draped in velvet. My finger is hovering over the clicker trigger thing. And I hear it…the only question I will get right that night…to win the game…

“This man is at the top of Katy Maslow’s Top Five Favorite Authors of All Time list…”

And yes, I click my clicker trigger thing and Mr. Trebek says my name in that suspenseful way, and I say…

“Who is…Haruki Murakami?”

Ding-ding-ding! The game show girls come out spinning brand new shiny things and they’re oohing and aahing and I’m being congratulated…

And then the cat is licking my face. And I’m up.


That is what reading a Haruki Murakami book is like. It’s exciting. There’s suspense, surprise, and enough bizarre encounters to last a lifetime. Reading Murakami is like dreaming about reality, or finally figuring out your reality is a dream. Or both.

It’s important for me to point out that while Haruki Murakami is my Hero of the Month, I don’t have any “Heroes” in the traditional sense, and I’m not even fully convinced there is such a thing as a “Month”. I’m writing about Murakami because he is at the top of my “life changing authors list.” He is a beautiful thinker and writer, and I must share his genius with you.

I’ve never felt the magic of the written word so clearly than in Murakami’s work. His characters are guides through the sad humanity of the modern world, and Murakami’s great ideas emerge where the gumshoe detective-story meets history, pop culture, psychology, and what I like to call bizzarities of the human animal. We’re a weird species, and Murakami know this all too well. The humility of his characters allow me to laugh at myself.

The adventure of a Murakami everyman hero is to locate the source of mystery and coincidence, to connect dots between the turbulent social and political history of Japan (from its involvement in WWII to its anti-establishment movements in the 60s to its capitalistic present) with the personal history of an individual – their sexuality, spirituality, and perceptions of reality. Murakami’s books are crowded with philosophical questions – many are left unanswered in the end, but they always leave me wondering, my synapses firing away.

Whether subtle (and humble?) genius or outright mad, the dimensions of Murakami’s imagination are in a state of constant expansion. This reader is enchanted with his fully-realized and multi-dimensional characters, the spirals into self-discovery, the superhero lonely man, and the surprising bonds between the most opposite of individuals. Murakami defines the unexpected. He also aids in quite a bit of self-revelation along the way; with each of his works I steadily increase my stockpile of “hey, now that’s an interesting idea…” moments. And he can sure make me laugh out loud when reading on the train, which is always a plus!

I’d gladly read Murakami – anytime, anywhere, anywhy. He’s the wizard of watching what occurs between the living world and the really living world. Search for a disappeared cat, wife, or shadow. Take a strikingly different look at love, society, death, war, alienation, isolation, communion, connection…or just read about a guy who can talk to cats. Whichever book you choose, you will learn something about yourself along the way, and it will surprise you.

Whether or not one has similar experiences with Haruki Murakami’s work as I have had, I do hope everyone, everywhere, everytime picks up his work and lets the self spiral down into confusion, revelation, disappointment, acceptance, and then somehow…a joy. There is a joy. Somewhere, out there, at the end of his tale. Definitely joy.


My Top Five Favorite Murakami Books of All Time That Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime Could Pick Up and Love:

#1: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
#2: Norwegian Wood
#3: Kafka on the Shore
#4: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
#5: A Wild Sheep Chase

- Katy Maslow

Image: The Lobster Quadrille, by Arlyn Firkins Bruccoli

At This Moment

This week, Chris Gothorpe and Yecheskel Schneider posed this question to fellow Brooklyn College students:

It is a month into the school year and the pace is picking up. What do you do to decompress?

Yoga. I only started about two weeks ago, so I’m still a novice. I find that it keeps me centered. Honestly, I’m not sure what that means but it always impresses people when I say it.

- Abby B.

I work on my novel. I go home sit in my comfy chair and type on my
computer. The nice thing is the topic coincides with a political
science class I am taking currently. The reason that writing relaxes
me is because I am so close to completing the novel.

- Jorge H.

I eat…a lot of junk…I like to snack. I guess I kind of medicate myself with food when I get edgy. Coffee gives me the shakes and it kind of defeats the whole purpose of taking it. Maybe I’d be better off biting my nails?

- Barry E.

I like to head to the city's parks. They are these beautiful oases
surrounded by all the noise and commotion of the city. I can just
leave everything behind for a while when I am by myself in a little
slice of nature. I go as much as I can in the fall because I know that
I will miss them during the winter months.

- Mike G.

Poem of the Week

This week, Maryana Isakova offers us this gem by Judith Ortiz Cofer.






“What the Gypsy Said to Her Children”

by Judith Ortiz Cofer

We are like the dead
invisible to those who do not
want to see,
and color is our only protection against
the killing silence of their eyes,
the crimson of our tents pitched
like a scream
in the fields of our foes,
the amber warmth of our fires
where we gather to lift our voices
in the purple lament of our songs,
And beyond the scope of their senses
where all the colors blend into one
we will build our cities of light,
we will carve them
out of the granite of their hatred,
with our own brown hands.

As the leaves change color this fall, this poem shows how wonderfully colorful our world is, if we but open our eyes, minds and hearts to people of different backgrounds, lifestyles, and beliefs. The colors in this poem portray difference, resistance, spiritual unity, mourning and strength. The spectrum of our own emotions, experiences, and activities make our stories worth sharing.

Judith Ortiz Cofer, born in 1952 in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, is an acclaimed Puerto Rican writer of poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and Young Adult novels. Cofer grew up traveling with her family between Paterson, New Jersey and Hormigueros, attended high school in Augusta, Georgia, received a B.A. in English from Augusta College, and later an M.A. in English from Florida Atlantic University. In 1984 she joined the faculty of the University of Georgia, where she is currently Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing.

Cofer's narrative style is strongly influenced by oral storytelling, which was inspired by her grandmother, an able storyteller in the tradition of teaching through storytelling among Puerto Rican women. Cofer's autobiographical work often focuses on her attempts at negotiating her life between two cultures, American and Puerto Rican, and how this process informs her sensibilities as a writer. Her work also explores such subjects as racism and sexism in American culture, machismo and female empowerment in Puerto Rican culture, and the challenges diasporic immigrants face in a new culture.

Cofer’s work has appeared in many journals, and she has won numerous awards and honors for her writing. Her novel, The Meaning of Consuelo, merited the 2003 Americas Award and was included on the New York Public Library's "Books for the Teen Age 2004 List. Cofer’s most recent book, A Love Story Beginning in Spanish: Poems, was published in 2005. Among Cofer's more well known essays are "The Story of My Body" and "The Myth of the Latin Woman," available in The Latin Deli.

In a 2005 interview, Cofer remarked: “Poetry to me is the essence of language…. I really think that poetry is a way to get into the deepest recesses of your memory banks and your unconscious.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Ortiz_Cofer
http://www.english.uga.edu/~jcofer/
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/seeingandwriting3/interviews/interview3.asp




Image: Cheers, by Nancy Del Pesco

Upcoming Events and Special Announcements

The Open Meeting will be held this Thursday, October 5th, 1:30-3:30pm in 2315 Boylan. For all current and prospective English majors: learn about major requirements, internships, Zine submission, and other events and activities! Meet your counseling advisors and peers.

The New York State General Elections are just around the corner! For those of you yet to register to vote you can pick up registration forms in the English Major's Office in 3416 Boylan. The deadline to register is next Friday, October 13. Now's the time to make your voice heard on the issues which matter most to you! If you don't want to end up with a future you didn't choose, choose to vote!

The Open Mic is scheduled for Tuesday, November 7th, 1:30-3:30pm in the State Lounge (SUBO). The sign-up sheet will be posted October 14th on the door of 3416 Boylan.

Boylan Brief #50

U.S. Ad Angers Haiti

Since the removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president in 2004, Haiti has been the victim of political and street violence. As a consequence, it is very dependent on U.N. peacekeepers for security and political stability. U.N. peacekeeping forces, with the aid of Haitian police, have tried to disarm members of Haiti's disbanded army gangs, but they have been relatively unsuccessful.

The U.S. has recently sponsored advertisements in Haiti informing the public that the U.S. Embassy offers compensation for information regarding the location of weapons or people concealing weapons. These commercials have angered Haitian politicians and sparked suggestions that the U.S. considers Haiti a U.S. territory. In response, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman has denied that the U.S. wishes to threaten Haiti's independence, and she said the embassy is responsible for the security of all U.S. citizens and Haitians. Critics of the U.S. claim that the country has assumed too much police power in Haiti. A Haitian Cabinet minister remarked, "as a Cabinet member, I feel offended that a foreign embassy can be allowed to air such ads in my country."

Yecheskel Schneider

Source: The Washington Times

They’re Finally Getting it: Spain and Germany Defend Free Speech

European leaders are finally recognizing the threat that radical Islam poses to Western freedoms as they begin to publicly condemn certain infringements. In a Washington conference, the former Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, defended Pope Benedict’s speech regarding Islam, saying, “Why do we always have to say sorry and they never do?” Aznar went on to explain that the West faces a constant threat from radical Islam and must defend itself: “It’s them or us. The West did not attack Islam, it was they who attacked us.” His sentiments were mirrored by the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who condemned political correctness run amok that prevents leaders from speaking out against terrorists’ acts. “The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists,” Barroso explained.

In addition, earlier this week Germany pulled out an opera after fears that its content would anger Muslims. The opera, Mozart’s Idomeneo, was cancelled because of the controversial scene added by the director, which depicted the beheading of Mohammad, Jesus, and Buddha. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, disappointed about the cancellation, told reporters “I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practice violence in the name of Islam. It makes no sense to retreat.”

Tova Marin

href="http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Spain/10070077.html">Source: Gulf News
Source: Reuters

Brazilian College Seeks to Redress Racial Achievement Gap

In a run-down section of San Paulo, Brazil, lies a
college that by all appearances would be considered
unassuming were it not for both the origins of its
name and the nature of its mission, both of which have
struck a chord within this racially divided country.
The name of the university in question is Unipalmares,
named in honor of a black rebel slave leader in
Brazilian history. Its mission is to promote minority
access to higher education, and to that end has set
aside half of its seats for black candidates. The
university's rector, Jose Vicente, defends the policy,
saying that it offers students of color, many of whom
are descendants of African slaves, an opportunity to
succeed.

Both quantitative and qualitative evidence suggest
that, on the whole, black Brazilians remain at a
distinct disadvantage to their white counterparts.
According to a UN report issued last year, there is a
significant economic gap between blacks and whites,
and few blacks have been able to penetrate the highest
tiers of Brazilian society. What complicates matters,
however, is that Brazil also has a long history of
racial miscegenation: about 42% of Brazilians identify
themselves as "grey," or of mixed-race heritage. While
critics charge that institutions like Unipalmares are
endorsing "U.S.-style" affirmative action and racial
quotas, Vicente counters that racial divisions are
simply a fact of Brazilian life. "Brazilian society is
effectively a two-color one. From the point of view of
privileges, access, and social status, it always was,"
he said.

Anthony Punt

Source: BBC News

Here Come the Plagues!

Swarming locusts have besieged large areas in Mexico near the beach resort city of Cancun. The locusts have focused their feeding frenzy on the region's corn crops, affecting from 2,000 to 2,500 acres of farm land, and as yet have spared the touristy locales of Cancun and Playa Del Carmen. The area, which is still recovering from a record season of hurricanes, could face even greater financial woes if the problem is not brought under control soon.
Locust is the name applied to certain types of grasshoppers when they begin to swarm. Locusts are able to travel great distances and destroy entire crops while rapaciously feeding. Locals in the area are not just sitting back to watch their livelihood consumed. Gangs of farmers have joined forces with special pesticide-spraying backpacks to attack the problem in the fields. At night, the locusts cease moving and rest on plants, making this the most effective time to combat them. The recent hot weather and lack of any large storms has allowed the pests to breed faster and cover larger areas, but authorities are hopeful that the plague that has gone on for three weeks will be brought under control soon. German Parra, a senior agriculture official in the Gulf state of Quintana Roo, said jokingly, "We hope that God will take pity on us and help us".

The locusts tend to come in natural four year cycles, but most people know about the famous plague in the bible that befell Egypt. If it starts raining frogs, maybe there is cause for concern.

Chris Gothorpe

Source: Reuters

Consequences of a Sweet Tooth

Type 2 Diabetes is taking its toll on more than just the “developed world.” The disease is currently spreading rapidly in India and China, partially due to the adoption of modern Western diets, and lack of access to affordable healthcare is preventing the population from receiving adequate treatment. But the problem is not just economic: cultural obstacles, in the form of Indians’ widespread belief in miracle cures and the customary presentation of sweets in nearly all social and business gatherings, are exacerbating the problem.

Damian Patterson

Source: The New York Times