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(12/11/00 10:00am)
For reasons that are a bit embarrassing, not entirely our fault and much too complicated to explain, my friend, Patrizio, and I missed our bus to Paris last Friday and got stuck in London.
So at 11:30 p.m. -- with the next bus leaving at 8:30 a.m. -- we had two options: pay 36 pounds we didn't have to get some sleep in a hostel; or spend the night walking the streets of London where any notion of sleep is non-existent.
A sense of discovery and empty pockets made the streets mighty attractive.
11:45 p.m. -- We walk into Leicester Square and come across a troupe of bongo players banging away for a crowd of people.
In the crowd, I meet a girl from Turkey. Her name is Itam, which she tells me translates into "moonlight."
I think for a minute and then pull her into the dance circle. After all, when will I ever have the chance again to dance in the madness and music of Leicester Square with a Turkish girl named Moonlight?
12:30 a.m. -- Walking about, we see a drunk old man stumble backwards, fall and smack his head on the pavement. We help him up and make sure he isn't bleeding. He seems all right.
He turns to me, gives me a warm smile and then, out of the blue, tries to jam his knee into my groin.
I guess this proves that around the world, a good turn is never without its rewards. It's just that for some people in Britain, that reward is in the form of the aforementioned knee to the groin.
1:30 -- Patrizio and I are stopped by two women who we think are asking for directions. Swathed in makeup and dolled up in club clothes, they speak an Eastern Bloc language we can't quite identify let alone comprehend.
But we understand enough to know what they want. We shake our heads no, say we're very flattered and make a fast escape into the night.
2:15 -- We meet a beautiful Italian girl named Elizabeta who is delighted to find in Patrizio a fellow countryman. As we walk around, men constantly try to grab her and make catcalls.
To these men -- with her limited English and thick Italian accent -- she waves her arms and shouts, "When I see you, the question is, 'Who let the dogs out!'"
She then goes on to sing the song, complete with the "woof, woof" part. Though definitely unorthodox, it is a highly effective way to get the men to leave her alone.
3:15 -- We're sitting at a bus stop across from the Palace Theatre looking into the eyes of Colette, whose face adorns the theatre's entrance with the words "Les Miserables."
At this point we're a bit cold, kind of tired and very hungry. I begin dreaming of coffee and pancakes at the 24-hour diner down the street from my New Jersey home, and try to explain to Patrizio what exactly a diner is.
Europeans love to knock America, but until they think of something as perfect as the 24-hour diner, I'll never take what they say seriously.
4:15-6:00 -- To rouse ourselves from our torpor, we decide to take a looping, scenic walk through Westminster to Victoria Station.
In this still quiet time of night, in this part of town, the streets become a clear stage where even the most mundane occurrences take on a certain, visual poignancy.
A street cleaner lets his bag and stick hang slack as he presses his hand against a display window, staring at the suits and watches inside. An androgynous homeless person -- hair wet, eyes sunken, hands restless -- gazes at bottles of milk just delivered to the door of a coffee shop.
Businessmen stop and look up at the train schedule, standing like chess pieces on the checkered floor of the station, waiting to move. Stray red, white and blue balloons -- their helium drained of their buoyancy long before -- slowly tumble on the road in front of Westminster Abbey.
6:00-7:00 -- The McDonald's in the station opens and we get some breakfast. In an hour, we check in our bags and head out.
So with a cup of coffee and an Egg McMuffin, my night in London ends.
If I ever spend another night on city streets again, especially in London, I'll have to remember a few things. First, I'll dress a little warmer Second, I'll bring a bit more money.
And lastly, no matter how tired I am, I'll keep my eyes wide open. There's a lot to see.
(12/06/00 10:00am)
Countless images of painfully thin adolescent females appear in fashion magazine advertisements each month, and Jean Kilbourne is angry about it.
Kilbourne, an author and activist, criticized these ads last night during a talk at the White Dog Cafe. She addressed a crowd of about 100 mostly middle-aged and older women as part of White Dog's Table Talks program.
"This is a body type that only five percent of the American public has, but it is the only one we see," Kilbourne said.
Table Talks is a three-course dinner held about twice a month at the restaurant and accompanied by a speaker and discussion period afterwards.
Internationally recognized for her work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and images of women in advertising, Kilbourne showed her 30-minute film Killing Us Softly III, followed by a question and answer session.
The video is an updated version of her award-winning 1979 and 1987 films, respectively titled Killing Us Softly and Still Killing Us Softly.
Kilbourne's film used ads and slogans to show how advertisers use the female body to sell a range of products, from jeans and beer to fishing line and skateboards.
The video, which combined commentary with ads illustrating the objectification of women, prompted gasps and exasperated sighs from the audience.
"These ads take women's' bodies and turn them into objects," said Kilbourne, who recently wrote a book entitled Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel.
The video continued with an ad showing a woman's body, resembling the shape of a bottle, with an alcohol label imprinted on her bare stomach.
In order to prevent unrealistic portrayals of women, Kilbourne suggested that media literacy should be taught to children, beginning in kindergarten, so that they will eventually become critical viewers.
Of the few Penn students in attendance, most were members of Communication 125, "Introduction to Communication Behavior," taught by College of General Studies Instructor Mariaelena Bartesaghi. After showing Kilbourne's videos to her class, Bartesaghi encouraged her students to attend the lecture.
"Sometimes I think the arguments Kilbourne makes are too simplistic," Bartesaghi said. "She seems to claim things that are a little dangerous. For example, she claims when women are objectified in ads, it leads to rape... you can't prove that empirically."
Her students seemed to agree.
"I feel she takes such a hard stance on body manipulation in advertising. She overdoes it," said Jay Wahl, a College junior. "By singling out the advertising industry, she's saying one part of the media has more power than the rest."
(11/22/00 10:00am)
The sign outside Cavanaugh's restaurant which reads "Fine Food and Spirits" is wrong -- at least for the week.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board suspended the popular eatery and bar's liquor license from last Monday through this Sunday as a result of several violations of state law in 1999.
According to Liquor Control Board spokeswoman Molly McGowan, Cav's -- located at 117 S. 39th Street -- was cited on separate occasions for possessing "fortified, adulterated or contaminated liquor," unlawfully possessing liquor purchased from a source other than a Pennsylvania state liquor store and refilling liquor bottles.
The restaurant was also fined $1,500.
The punishments were determined during a hearing held in August.
The manager of Cav's was not available for comment last night.
(11/09/00 10:00am)
Remember the last time the Harvard football team played at Franklin Field?
Here's a hint: "Goal-posts! Goal-posts!"
Back in 1998 -- the last time Harvard traveled to Philadelphia -- the visiting Crimson were the final hurdle the Penn football team had to clear in order to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League championship.
In front of a rambunctious Penn crowd, the Red and Blue dominated Harvard to the tune of 41-10 that sunny Saturday in mid-November.
When the game clock finally hit zero, a wave of ecstatic Penn students flooded Franklin Field and assisted in relocating the east goalposts to the bottom of the Schuylkill River.
Awed by the Penn celebration was Harvard freshman Neil Rose, who was excited himself after being awarded the first snaps of his collegiate career at the tail end of the Quakers' rout.
After going two-for-six for 26 yards plus two scrambles for five yards, Rose watched wide-eyed from the sidelines as time expired and the Penn fans raced for the uprights.
"[Franklin Field's] a pretty big stadium and the atmosphere there is pretty lively," he said. "I remember freshman year all the Penn fans came down and tore down the goalposts afterwards. It's kind of crazy."
While this memory from his freshman year gives Rose a somewhat mistaken impression of what Franklin Field is usually like for, say, a game against Brown, the now-junior and Crimson starting quarterback could wind up being the silencer of Penn's Homecoming crowd this Saturday in his second visit to the Quakers' home turf.
"I really think he's been the key to that team," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "They had some experience up front, they had some good wide receivers, [but] they did not have an experienced quarterback per se. They needed someone to come in there and take control and make some good decisions and put the ball on people, and he's done a real nice job of that."
Rose -- the Ancient Eight's second-most-efficient passer behind Penn's Gavin Hoffman -- hasn't just done a nice job throwing the ball, either.
When he breaks from the pocket, Rose becomes the Michael Vick of the Ivy League -- he's quick, he's elusive and he's already gained 183 yards rushing for eight touchdowns to handily lead all Ancient Eight quarterbacks on the ground, particularly impressive because sacks count as negative rushing yardage in college football.
"He's one of those kind of guys that we don't really like -- those scrambling-type quarterbacks," Penn linebacker Travis Belden said. "It adds another dimension to their game that just makes it a hell of a lot more difficult for us to defend. We'll have all their guys covered downfield and then, boom!, he's going to scramble and have a chance to bust a big play on us."
This penchant for the big run play is something instilled in Rose from his days playing high school football in Mililani, Hawaii, located just north of Honolulu.
Since Rose's prep squad was too small to pound the ball through opposing teams, they resorted to a four-receiver formation for almost every play.
"I would basically roll out and try to find somebody open," Rose said. "If I couldn't, I had to run. That's what we did 60-70 plays a game."
With this virtually one-dimensional offense, it's no wonder that Rose's team back home won only one game in 2 1/2 years.
Now that he is starting for Harvard, though, Rose has become the nucleus of a multi-faceted Crimson offense that has kept his team tied with Penn and Cornell in the Ivy title race with just two games remaining.
Rose's crew is tied with Penn for the second-best scoring offense in the league with an average of 33.5 points per game, and Harvard has barely squeezed out the Red and Blue for the second-best total offense in the Ancient Eight. Brown leads the league in both categories.
The problem for the Quakers this weekend is that Rose -- honored as the Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week after throwing for 274 yards and two touchdowns and running for another score in a shutout of Columbia last Saturday -- seems to just keep getting better in both scrambling and passing.
"It seems like the last few games I'm getting better at my pocket presence," said Rose, who redshirted last season with a foot injury. "I think a big part of the quarterback position is knowing when to run and when not to run. I think I'm getting better at that."
The defense of the Red and Blue will have to exploit the last remaining bits of Rose's learning curve Saturday if they want to keep the Crimson flash from streaking through their lines.
"We need to contain Rose -- that's one of our big things this week," Penn cornerback and defensive co-captain Joey Alofaituli said. "Keep him inside on the option and don't let him get to the sideline."
If he is contained?
"I think he can get rattled," Belden said. "I think he's shown in some of his games that when he gets pressure he'll throw some bad passes and will make some bad decisions. I think if we can do that early then it'll make our game a lot easier."
But Rose likely won't be witness to another goalpost teardown -- even if Penn does bottle him up and beat Harvard, the Quakers will still not know their Ivy fate until the end of Cornell's game, which kicks off an hour after the matchup at Franklin Field.
(11/06/00 10:00am)
When George W. Bush's misdemeanor drunk-driving arrest was uncovered last week, the governor did the right thing: He acknowledged that he did it, he acknowledged its stupidity and he talked of how he grew from it.
Bush did not dodge the issue or gloss over its severity. He didn't play cat-and-mouse games with the media, but told the truth when asked.
That straight talk has satisfied Americans who are not letting a summer night arrest from a quarter-century ago spoil an election today. A Fox News survey found that only 7 percent of people after hearing about the DUI had "serious questions" about Bush's ability to serve.
The same survey found that 5 percent felt more inclined to support him due to the revelation's suspicious timing and Democratic lawyer Tom Connoly's enthusiastic claim to being the source of the revelation.
But this kind of truth-telling about his past is nothing new for Bush. Since his campaign began, he has been open about the fact that he made many mistakes and has discussed his struggles with alcohol. He talks of how his adolescent lifestyle followed him into adulthood and how it nearly tore his family apart, leading him to give up the bottle for good in 1986 and recommit himself to his family and to his God.
Though the DUI revelation doesn't tell us more about Bush than we already knew, it does highlight a stark contrast between him and his opponent, Al Gore.
The manners in which Bush and Gore handle past mistakes are immensely different, and that difference goes a long way in telling not simply who was the more responsible man in the past, but who is more responsible now.
Bush owns up to his past and is not ashamed of it. Gore, however, has repeatedly used half-truths and spin to cover up some dubious tracks.
Most recently, Gore has not owned up to any wrongdoing behind his 1995 confidential agreements with then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. A New York Times exclusive last month detailed the agreements that allowed Russia to sell caches of conventional weapons to Iran.
Under the agreements, Russia escaped a U.S. law that levies sanctions against countries that supply arms to terrorist-sponsoring states, which Gore himself penned with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 1992.
The agreement, which was not submitted for Senate ratification as dictated by the Constitution, put submarines and long-range torpedoes in the hands of terrorists, something Gore determined was not a threat to U.S. security interests and therefore allowable under the law.
But Gore has not backed up that claim with documentation, refusing to release the agreement's language for review despite demands from senators.
But even if Gore's actions did follow the letter of the law, they certainly did not follow its spirit. That's something Gore, being the legislation's sponsor, is in the best position to understand.
Gore has also never come clean about his shady campaign finance history, from White House fundraising phone calls to the Buddhist temple debacle.
Instead of being upfront with Americans when news of the Buddhist temple broke in 1996, he said it was a "community outreach" event. This phrase later changed to "donor maintenance" in 1997.
And not until this year did Gore finally admit the temple get-together was a finance-related event, though he still maintains that he was unaware of it at the time -- despite the fact that the more than $100,000 changing hands that day went straight to his and Clinton's campaign coffers.
With euphemisms like "donor maintenance," legalese like "no controlling legal authority" and the plain and simple "losing" of e-mails, Gore has gone to great lengths to mask his wrongs and dodge the campaign finance bullet.
Last week, after Bush's DUI arrest came to light, Gore's campaign chief, William Daley, said that it was about time Bush "started accepting responsibility."
Daley, though, should have been speaking to his boss.
In 24 hours, the polls will open and two men will be on the threshold of a presidency.
Gore's trail of dishonesty has gotten him this far. Hopefully, it won't carry him any farther.
(11/06/00 10:00am)
PRINCETON, N.J. -- If the old adage that defense wins championships is really true in a conference as bent on wild offensive numbers as the Ivy League, then the Penn football team has put itself in a pretty good position all season.
The Quakers entered Saturday's contest at Princeton ranked second in the Ancient Eight in both scoring defense and total defense.
That the Red and Blue surrendered 24 points to Princeton is a bit misleading; the Quakers found themselves in an early 18-point hole largely as a result of turnovers that put the defense at a distinct disadvantage. Of Princeton's four first-half scoring drives, only one started in the Tigers' own half of the field.
Penn allowed just 318 yards of total offense, and for the first time all season, adhered to another old football adage.
"The other team's quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard."
The Quakers started Saturday with a pass rush that had laid out opposing quarterbacks 15 times in seven games, more in the Ivy League than only the lambswool-soft defenses of Dartmouth and Columbia.
After introducing Princeton quarterbacks to the Princeton Stadium sod eight times on Saturday, the Quakers have the Ivy League lead with 23 sacks.
Eight sacks for 56 yards. Columbia has 10 for 68 all season.
The Quakers charged through the Princeton offensive line so hard that by the end of the game, the Tigers were down to their third-string center.
"Eventually, we were just pushing 'em back and creating piles in the backfield," Penn defensive tackle Ed Galan said. "We were making the quarterback go up in the pocket, and getting him sacked."
The battle in the trenches was not only won by Penn on the pass rush on Saturday. The Quakers were land mines to the Princeton ground attack. The Tigers rushed 50 times for 111 yards, working out to a horrific average of 2.2 yards per carry.
The Quakers also forced two fumbles, recovering one. After a first half in which the Penn offense seemed content to present the ball to its hosts on a platter, the Red and Blue actually managed to break even in turnovers on the day after their utter domination of the Tigers in the second half.
"Eight sacks and any turnovers, that's obviously not going to help your effort," Princeton coach Roger Hughes said. "I have to give Penn's defense a lot of credit."
After Penn's lightning-fast three touchdowns in the first eight minutes of the third quarter, the defense made it stand up. Penn blanked the Tigers for the entire second half.
In that fateful third quarter, Princeton gained a grand total of three yards.
Three yards. Penn's offense averaged over twice that per play on Saturday.
There are a few things that might make the Penn defense's performance seem a bit less impressive. The Tigers started Brian Danielewicz at quarterback, their fourth different signal-caller of the year. And Princeton's offense did enter Saturday's game ranked sixth in the Ivy League in scoring, dead last in total yards.
Still, what the Penn defensive line did on Saturday was nothing short of incredible. The Quakers front seven dominated a Princeton offensive line whose average weight was a robust 288. By comparison, the average Penn offensive lineman checks in at 276, a figure that would be even lower if not for 305-pound road grader Jeff Hatch.
"Having Dennis Norman and [John] Raveche at the two tackles, they tried to push us around," Galan said. "We knew that they might be bigger, but we were quicker, so we started using that to our advantage. By the end of the third quarter, these guys were getting tired out trying to chase us down."
The Penn defense held Princeton to 318 yards of total offense, all but unheard of in today's Ivy League. The Quakers had eight sacks, and bottled up the Tigers in the crucial third quarter.
Going into next week's game against an explosive Harvard offense and a game in two weeks at supremely offensively-minded Cornell, Saturday's performance on the road has to give the Penn coaching staff confidence that their defense cannot only get the job done, but help lead the Red and Blue to the Ivy title.
(11/02/00 10:00am)
Tree-huggers across campus won't have to try so hard to correctly dispose of their plastic bottles any more.
A pilot recycling program, which will place about 22 new recycling containers around campus, was announced yesterday by the Undergraduate Assembly, the Penn Environmental Group and the Office of Facilities Services.
University President Judith Rodin and Provost Robert Barchi were there for an unveiling ceremony on College Green.
The pilot project is the product of a task force composed of members from the UA, PEG and Facilities Services. Following a survey conducted by the PEG last year and a resolution passed by the UA on September 24 concerning outdoor recycling, the administration agreed to demands for more recycling containers.
A total of 22 new recycling containers will be placed on campus. Nineteen of those will be located between Spruce and Walnut streets from 34th to 38th streets for the recycling of aluminum, glass and plastic. The remaining three will be located on College Green and at the two ends of Locust Walk on 36th and 37th streets for outdoor paper recycling.
The program was launched by UA Student Life Committee Vice Chairman Jed Gross, PEG co-Chairwoman Sharon Hsu and Director of Facilities Services Michael Coleman. Following opening remarks by UA Chairman Michael Bassik, all three spoke about the new initiative.
Hsu emphasized the fact that the new program is an important asset to Penn's campus.
"The University of Pennsylvania is among the world's most prestigious universities, and a university of our size, reputation and affluence should have a recycling system that correlates to its ability and desire to protect our environment," Hsu said.
Gross said he was impressed by the administration's responsiveness to the pilot program.
"Penn's urban environment presented some special considerations, but when the Division of Facilities Services was put to the test, they responded by developing a vibrant, operable pilot project," Gross said.
Following Bassik's closing remarks, Gross, Hsu and Coleman participated in a symbolic ceremony by recycling an apple, a Pepsi can and a copy of a The Daily Pennsylvanian.
Rodin said she was pleased with the project.
"I'm delighted that the UA has taken the mantle of PEG's project and at the same time that PEG has expanded its scope and the size of its goal," Rodin said. "I think it's a great project and a lot of hard work has gone into it."
Coleman noted how helpful the program will be for the recycling effort on campus.
"This program will help us better understand how to improve recycling and make it fit into the campus in such an urban setting," Coleman said.
However, it is the Penn community that will determine the effectiveness of the program.
"I know it will be successful if people participate in this recycling effort and we are relying upon our students to get the word out," Rodin said.
Gross noted that the project will rely upon the collaborative effort of the entire community.
"The ultimate test is in the hands of the student who collects quarter sheets on Locust Walk and in the hands of the professor who finishes a bottle of water at Wynn Commons," Gross said. "We're counting on the student body to help take outdoor recycling to the next level."
(10/25/00 9:00am)
Life is too short to drink bad wine.
This seemed to be the motto of wine expert Tim Kilcallen, winner of the prestigious Decanter Award and owner of Philadelphia restaurant Panorama, who spoke last night in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall to a packed crowd of about 60 students.
Sponsored by the Wharton Council, the event provided fruit, vegetables and non-alcoholic beverages such as grape juice and iced tea.
Wharton sophomore Suha Shah, a member of the Wharton Council -- which sponsored the event, "Chardonnay Around the World" -- said the program was intended to showcase the important role that wine can play in business gatherings.
But ironically enough, in a talk all about wine, there was no wine to be found.
Kilcallen expressed disappointment in the administration's decision to ban actual wine at his talk and went on to explain the cultural differences between the United States and countries such as Spain, Italy and France.
"It is my goal to change America into a wine culture where wine is normal, a part of the table," Kilcallen said. He spoke of the rich history and culture of wine, describing the different wines in a myriad of images.
Kilcallen explained that the tastes and flavors in wine come from the differences in grape, region and how and when the wine is made.
"Every assessment of wine is valid," Kilcallen assured the crowd. "It's all a personal thing." Even after tasting 3,400 different wines in the last year alone, Kilcallen said he is "still excited by the flavor, the sensations" of the wines.
The ever-popular chardonnay was used as a main example in Kilcallen's talk. Chardonnay is a type of grape, which means that the taste of the wine derived from it depends on where the grape is grown.
The region where the grapes are grown is very important to the wine's quality, Kilcallen added. When searching for quality, the wine expert continued, it is important to gauge a wine's "clarity, brilliance and color."
Kilcallen then went on to demonstrate combinations of food and wine, saying that he always "look[s] for harmony" between the two. Contrary to popular opinion, he favors white wines with fruit and cheese rather than red, because the light, fruity, acidic taste of white wine complements the protein of the cheese and the taste of the fruit.
Urging the crowd to "take time to enjoy wine in a way that's a little more European," Kilcallen recommended drinking wine with lunch and dinner.
"It leads to a sense of civility that we are rapidly in danger of losing," he said, adding, "It is a lot safer than margaritas."
After speaking for an hour, Kilcallen opened the floor for questions, explaining phenomenons such as cork-sniffing (to tell if the wine is spoiled) and wine swirling (to release the aroma).
Students responded very favorably to the speech. "His descriptions were absolutely amazing," Wharton senior Carolina Bonifacino said.
Apparently, wine need not be expensive to have quality. Kilcallen spoke of a $4.99 bottle of wine that he had tried recently: "If it's good, I'll drink a lot of it."
It just goes to show that being a poor college student is no excuse to go without good wine.
(10/25/00 4:00am)
Tim Kilcallen speaks about the tradition of being presented a wine bottle's cork. Kilcallen addressed Wharton students last night on wine tasting. (Leah Tulin/The Daily Pennsylvanian)
(10/19/00 9:00am)
We are beginning to think that the Penn administration just doesn't get it.
Long lines attest to the fact that the student body approves of the new food court in Houston Hall. But the opening of Houston Market is in no way, shape or form a valid reason for the closing of the McClelland Marketplace and the Quadrangle commissary this summer.
Peg Lacey, take note: All food establishments are not created equal. Houston Market is a place where students sit down and eat, and the commissary is a place from whence they take sundries like paper towels, bottles of soda and pints of ice cream back to their rooms. No matter how hard you try, you can't buy paper towels in Houston Market and you can't buy moderately priced Mexican food in a commissary.
In short: The opening of one place that sells food does not obviate the need for another. They serve very different purposes.
There are other reasons why it is unfortunate that McClelland and the commissary were closed. They were the closest source of nourishment for a quarter of the on-campus population. They were open later in the evening than Houston Market. McClelland's food service operations complemented the lounge's social functions well.
By the University's rationale, then, the impending arrival of Freshgrocer.com means Chats and the high-rise commissaries should shut their doors; mass-market movie theater Cinemagic should close once indie-themed Sundance opens; and Vance Hall could be transformed into another high-priced bistro once Huntsman Hall takes its place.
Absurd, yes. Beyond the realm of possibility given the University's track record, no.
The fact is, redundancy has its place (even though in this case Houston Market and the Quad facilities are far from redundant). Different establishments fill different niches, serve different constituencies and meet different needs.
Houston Market fills students' need for a moderately priced lunch option on campus. The Quad commissary fills students' need for paper towels and SEPTA tokens.
Now do you get it?
(10/17/00 9:00am)
Look around. You probably see a waste basket in the classroom, dining hall or dormitory where you are reading this paper, but no place to recycle the 22 pages of newsprint in your hands. And more than likely, there's no place nearby to recycle your Diet Coke can or Snapple bottle either.
The fact is that Penn's recycling resources woefully underserve this community. The University recycles about 26 percent of its trash -- perhaps a good figure a decade ago, when Penn last looked at its recycling policy, but today below the national average of 28 percent of the City of Philadelphia's 35.2 percent.
The reasons for this should be recognizable to most students. Penn's recycling "igloos" are few and far between, and not located near where the bottles or cans are actually used. Houston Market doesn't have any recycling facilities, nor do the outdoor seating areas at Sansom Common and the Compass. And the few recycling bins in the college houses are not properly publicized to students.
Some might argue that the responsibility rests on the students to take their recyclables to the appropriate drop-off location. But that criticism misses the point; if the University is to make recycling a priority -- as we believe it should -- then it should make the process as simple and convenient as possible.
The Undergraduate Assembly and the Penn Environmental Group are justified in calling for more and better recycling options on campus, particularly in student housing. This is an issue on which Penn should be a leader, not lagging the rest of the country.
In the meantime, we hope students will do what they can to separate their aluminum, glass and plastic from the regular trash.
If students express a desire for change, then maybe, someday, you'll be able to recycle this paper.
(10/12/00 9:00am)
So you're walking out of class, finishing up that 20-ounce Coca Cola, looking around for a place to dump the bottle. But when it comes time to throw it out, there's not a recycling bin in sight.
Sound familiar? With only 11 outdoor recycling bins, Penn isn't always the most earth-friendly place to live.
Students have long commented that the University doesn't make it very easy to recycle. And while some updates to the system are underway, they are slow in coming.
Currently, Penn recycles about 26 percent of all its waste. While this is just below the national average of 28 percent, many of the environmentally conscious say the school could do more.
"In the past, Judith Rodin has sought to reduce binge drinking by changing a culture of the University," Undergraduate Assembly member Jed Gross said. "Right now, recycling does not seem to be at the heart of Penn's culture."
During the 1999 fiscal year, Penn produced 7,100 tons of trash, of which 2,100 tons -- or 26 percent -- was recycled.
In comparison, the city of Philadelphia during this time period recycled 35.2 percent of its total 645,000 tons waste -- but only 6 percent of specifically residential waste was recycled.
One reason for Penn's somewhat underwhelming recycling numbers may be that access to recycling in Penn's dormitories is currently limited and inconvenient.
Students living in the three high rises -- Hamilton, Harrison and Harnwell college houses -- have access to a chute for trash and paper on every floor, but only have aluminum-can recycling bins inside the building on even floors. Meanwhile, receptacles for cans, plastic and glass are only found outside the buildings.
"I always try to recycle," College junior Natalie Dunn said. "But living in the high rises, they could make it easier so that more students recycle."
This is currently true of most college residences. Though Penn has 131 spots on campus for the disposal of recyclables -- in buildings like David Rittenhouse Laboratory, Steinberg-Dietrich and McClelland halls -- outdoor recycling is only provided by 11 green igloos located around campus.
Director of Campus Maintenance and Facilities Services Mike Coleman said that "the original intention of the igloos [was] for students to come out to them."
Most of the recycling igloos are located up and down the Locust Walk area with three others placed near the graduate towers, Kings Court/English House and Hill House.
Recently, the UA passed a resolution asking Penn to step up its commitment to better access to outdoor recycling.
The current UA resolution, which is supported by the Penn Environmental Group, calls for more visible recycling receptacles next to outdoor trash cans, more frequent hauling of recyclables and a central office to handle recycling on campus.
"It's our view that many people don't recycle because it isn't convenient," PEG member Sharon Hsu said.
However, not until the end of last year did the UA join the effort. An informal task force was created by Gross, which also included Hsu, Kristina Rencic, Coleman, Penn Recycling Supervisor Ken Neborak and Julia Baylor Harton, another PEG member.
To the UA, one main problem at Penn is the lack of centralization.
"One of the problems is that there really isn't a single recycling program at Penn, but rather different recycling initiatives," Gross said.
Right now, the University is reviewing the resolution.
Though the proposals set forth by the UA are drawing praise from PEG, the environmental group still has loftier goals.
Other goals of PEG are to have recycling receptacles on all floors of the high rises and to place recycling bins in each student room.
In the meantime, work is underway to improve campus recycling. The college house system is gradually overhauling its facilities.
A program in the Quadrangle -- which should take off within weeks -- will place three separate containers, one for trash, one for cans, plastic and glass and one for paper, in every student room. And three giant chutes are being constructed around the Quad as the receptacles for the sorted waste.
The first one to open will be located at the Provost Tower, near the entrance to the lower Quad. Two others will be constructed near Speakman Hall in Ware College House and Graduate Hall in Spruce College House.
The upgrades in the Quad's recycling facilities are part of a four-year renovation project that the complex is currently undergoing. But officials would not say what the plans were for the other dorms.
However, college house spokeswoman Sue Smith hinted that the new Quad program is only the beginning, with similar programs to follow in each of the college houses.
"Working on the Quad program has led us all to believe that we want to look at the rest of the residences," she said.
(10/12/00 9:00am)
My belly hurts me real bad." I assessed Mr. B., and could not believe my fingers. His stomach felt hard, like a basketball. He had a history of alcoholism and an enlarged prostate. I fetched his nurse.
His nurse narrowed her eyes. "It's not hard," she said. "You need to learn the difference." She seemed to know something but wasn't telling.
Mr. B. was a troublesome patient -- needy, demented, always wetting himself because of his prostate and too delirious to find the urine container by the bedside. I was changing the linens for the third time before noon and let the docs know it. "It's a pity he never sought help," his doctor murmured. The patient's stench overtook the trail of sweet cologne the doctors left behind.
Mr. B.'s stomach was harder at noon. Maybe this is what his nurse meant. I told her, but she shook her head as she charted on another patient. My heart pounded and my back ached. I was wearing a velcro back brace like loading dock workers wear. The financial guy came around and counted the braces at the end of the shift.
A coworker said she was going to start a side business stealing back belts and reselling them. "Let's put Home Depot out of business," I whispered. She screeched in appreciation.
But today I tried to concentrate on Mr. B. "His stomach hurts him," I said. I had to continue singing this song.
"I gave him something. It won't hurt him much longer," his nurse said softly. What could she mean, if she gave him his pain meds at 7 a.m. and he wouldn't get another dose until 3 p.m.? What about Mr. B. was not worth more action? That he was an alcoholic? A black man? Gone out of his head?
"Please, my belly hurts me," Mr. B. said after I took away his tray and dumped the dribble from his stinky urine bottle. His pain made him lucid. He reeked again and needed another sponge bath somehow. I put him on my list.
My neck hurt. "I will tell the nurse, Mr. B. She'll be coming around to have another look here shortly." He threw up midsentence.
I grabbed a kidney-shaped basin. Deep red blood blew it out of my hands. Everything turned red.
My coworker, an experienced nursing assistant, grabbed a bath basin to measure the quantity of blood he lost. I leaned on the call button with one hand and tossed bath basins to the tech with the other.
His nurse appeared in an instant and said, "Here we go." She beeped the doc. I ran to the toilet and back to dump the basins of blood, lost count and was shaking.
The nurse and doc muttered to each other. No code was called. Mr. B. was dead in a matter of minutes.
Right before he died, Mr. B. reached both large hands out to us. His eyes were ringed and sunken. Mr. B.'s expression froze and he moved his mouth wordlessly. "Go in peace," whispered his nurse. She patted her ungloved fingerpads around his carotid, searching, and stroked his face. "Keep moving," she told me.
Silently, I emptied the basins into the toilet, wrapping the used containers in red biohazard bags.
"I hardly think you need that many baths basins at once," the financial manager interrupted. His walk-around management style did not include walking into patient rooms. I whirled around and almost punched him. He shrank away. The man was dead. It didn't matter.
I bandaged Mr. B.'s gaping jaw shut and bound his desiccated hands and feet. I filled out his tag and tied it to his longish big toe. Mr. B.'s expression of fear and pain had softened into a look of horrified surprise; perhaps a terrible joke had been played on him. He died of ruptured blood vessels of the throat brought on by long-term alcoholism.
Hospitals are full of guys like Mr. B. Yet the U.S. lags in funding drug and alcohol treatment beds, even though the costs are far outweighed by the benefits. As managed care causes hospital budget cuts, end-stage alcoholics become unaffordable to manage.
Policymakers exploit folk beliefs that alcoholism is a weakness and not a disease. Managed care plans promised to focus on prevention, but proven treatment regimens and early intervention techniques still await implementation.
We don't need a higher defense budget or all of the conservative tax goodies. We need to fund progressive prevention in order to heal our nation.
(10/09/00 9:00am)
One Wednesday this summer, I was watching as 20/20 ran yet another expose on the dangers of alcohol. However, my apathy was transformed into utter delight when in the middle of their fairly typical coverage, they unleashed one of the biggest news bombshells in years -- drunken monkeys.
Apparently Frank Irvine and Roberta Palmour of McGill University are receiving a lot of attention for feeding alcohol to monkeys and watching what happens.
The segment began with video footage of the original alcoholic monkey. After consuming his fill, he tried to walk, stumbled, fell on his back and then lay there, scratching his tummy and genitals simultaneously until he fell asleep -- basically a Quad freshman on a typical Friday night.
The scientists then compared a cage filled with the offspring of normal monkeys to a cage filled with the offspring of alcoholic monkeys. Not surprisingly, while the normal cage resembled a small puritan village, the other cage resembled the bar room brawl scene from Roadhouse.
While I was delighted to learn of such a progressive study, I was surprised to discover that monkeys have been hitting the bottle long before I even began wetting the bed.
Evidently, over 30 years ago, Dr. Irvine founded a colony of inebriated monkeys on the island of St. Kitts. The green monkeys are a rarity in the animal kingdom; they voluntarily imbibe alcohol without any human manipulation. Their affinity for booze and the fact they share 96 percent of the human genome makes them perfect models for investigating the genetic roots of alcoholism.
Remarkably, the scientists have discovered that the patterns of alcohol consumption in the monkey colony closely parallel those in our own society.
They have all types -- abstainers, social drinkers and alcohol abusers. And among the 12 percent of alcoholics, there are both steady drinkers and binge drinkers.
The steady drinkers are actually quite functional. They do well in social groups and contribute to the well-being of the colony. This finding of the productive drunk stands in stark contrast to previous human alcoholism studies, which have detailed the destructive behavior of alcoholics.
On the other hand, binge drinkers are a quite different animal. They are outcasts who will consume every drop available to them, repeatedly drinking themselves into a coma. If given unrestricted access, they will kill themselves in two or three months due to kidney deterioration.
Thirty years ago, when Irvine and Palmour began their study, alcoholism was thought to be a purely learned behavior, the result of environmental factors. But their study is slowly debunking this myth and proving that alcoholism is not such a simple game of monkey see-monkey do.
With the recent surge in our knowledge of gene expression and manipulation, their study has become much more pertinent. Through her biochemical studies of more than 1,000 monkeys, Dr. Palmour has already identified several genes which may increase vulnerability to alcoholism in the simian population.
This knowledge could eventually lead to medicinal treatments for alcoholism. Pharmaceutical companies could develop drugs which alter the harmful functions of specific proteins and neurotransmitters; or as gene therapy techniques become better developed, one could hope to target the "alcoholic" genes and negate their effects.
Finally, in the realm of prevention, children of alcoholics could be tested to discover if they inherited the genetic vulnerability. These people could then modify their drinking habits in order to limit their liability.
"In doing this monkey work, one of the things that is inescapable is that a part of alcoholism is biological," Palmour said in a newspaper interview. "These monkeys are not under social stress, they live in a beautiful tropical paradise, they don't have economic problems or deprivation. And yet they drink. So we hope that by knowing more about what those biological components are, we'll have better ways of intervening and ideally, preventing problems before they occur in potential alcoholics."
Unfortunately, it will be many years before treatments developed as a result of this and similar studies become available to the average Joe Sixpack.
We must be wary that this knowledge does not become more crippling than empowering. Having the genetic predisposition does not predestine one to become an alcoholic.
While our genes may make the next beer that much more tempting, we still have the power to overcome our natural weaknesses.
(10/09/00 9:00am)
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Without a John Elway calling the signals, the Princeton sprint football team had little to no hope of coming back from its 22-0 halftime deficit at Friday night's game against Penn.
The Quakers (2-0), on the other hand, were supremely confident in the locker room at the break. They had no doubt that a second victory was imminent and that their defense would be able to dominate the Tigers (0-2).
When the Quakers dealt Cornell a 20-0 shutout in their season opener two weeks ago, the offensive heat was not turned on until the fourth quarter. This past Friday night, however, that was not the case.
Penn put the game away in the first 30 minutes.
After two weeks of putting on practice jerseys and scrimmaging each other, Penn's sprint team was ready to play for real. Only seven minutes, five seconds into the contest at Weaver Stadium, the Quakers put the first points on the board on a two-yard touchdown scamper by sophomore Mark Gannon and a two-point conversion run by sophomore Jeff Bagnoli.
The Quakers' bottled-up anticipation for a real battle was let loose, and they led 8-0.
"Last week [against Cornell] we came out with a lot of emotion and we were fired up. But this week the big plays in the first half game killed us," said Princeton sophomore Christian Gomez, who ran for 100 yards. "We came out kind of flat."
Penn's offense was on. After three quarters of being out of sync against Cornell, the Red and Blue was more than ready to execute their game plan of a balanced running and passing game.
Only four seconds into the second quarter, Penn senior running back Chris Wright had the second two-yard touchdown for the evening, with kicker Chris Caputo putting his first of three extra points on the board for a 15 point lead. About eight minutes following Wright's touchdown, senior quarterback John Kernan connected with senior wide receiver Robert Reeves for a five- yard touchdown to put the Quakers up 22-0.
"Our offense came out and scored a lot of points early which took a lot of pressure off the defense, unlike the last game [against Cornell]," senior defender Mike Viney said.
Besides taking a lot of pressure off the defense, the early lead enabled the coaches to substitute often in the second half.
"[Because of] the nice 22-0 lead at the half, we were able to play all the kids," Penn coach Bill Wagner said.
Before the second string came off the bench for an impressive performance, Penn's starters stepped it up to put on a show for the 300 fans bundled up on the stadium seats for the first chilly night of the football season.
According to Reeves, the two weeks of pure practice gave the Red and Blue more than enough time to really take a look at Princeton's defense and exploit their weaknesses.
"We just took advantage of what they were doing," Reeves said. "Bottom line, guys were blocking and taking care of their responsibilities.
Kernan was 12-of-18 through the air for 151 yards and two touchdowns. Gannon, who was named Collegiate Sprint Football League Player of the Week after the Cornell game, found the end zone once and rushed for 59 yards on 10 carries.
On defense, seniors Dan Rowcotsky, Viney and junior Matt Ragsdale each totaled six tackles for the corps that shut out the boys from Old Nassau.
In two weeks, the Quakers will face their toughest test thus far at Navy. Time will tell if another fortnight of practices will allow the Penn coaches to prepare their team for a third shutout.
(10/04/00 9:00am)
The spaceship-like pods in Stephen Starr's trendy new restaurant were lit in all their fluorescent glory last night, as the highly anticipated restaurant opened its doors for the first time.
Pod's interactive, neon-lit cubicles and bar dazzled the eyes as much as the high-concept -- and high-priced -- Asian fusion menu.
Some 19 strategically placed cameras flashed pulsating, MTV-like images on flat-screen monitors throughout the restaurant. They captured everything from the chattering customers to the sushi being slickly shipped along an elliptical conveyer belt.
And a large waitstaff clad in Fembot-esque grey tunics ushered in a quasi-celebrity guest list of "friends of Stephen," University officials and suburbanites.
In fact, the only thing missing at the Sansom Street premier of the Penn campus' new restaurant were droves of ordinary Penn students.
Pod's opening night crowd skewed older and trendy -- drawing large numbers of turtleneck-and-jacket, Rittenhouse Square yuppies as well as groups of fiftysomething Center City professionals.
Hovering around the neon yellow bar, they ordered $30 exotic sakes and wines while taking in the whitewashed $3.3 million surroundings. Besides the dozens of podlike units that orbit the 187-seat restaurant's perimeter, customers lounged on a fire-engine red, couchlike sculpture.
"It's kind of futuristic looking,
said Carmela DiMaria, a management consultant from Center City who came in for the restaurant opening. "The more I look at it, the more [Pod] looks like a spaceship."
Dining for the first time in the upscale restaurant he wooed to campus, Executive Vice President John Fry said Starr's new eatery would draw more people like DiMaria to University City -- instead of having them head to Center City and the suburbs.
Pod is the latest in a series of University-led initiatives that have brought high-end boutiques and restaurants to Sansom Common and Walnut Street. Robert Redford's Sundance Cinemas complex is scheduled to open on 40th Street this winter.
"We want to bring this to Philadelphia and say, OHey, [Penn] is not just a bunch of academic institutions in University City,'" Fry explained. "It has some great retail and restaurants. We're accessible to everyone."
But Starr said he didn't know if all students could afford Pod's menu -- although he said he tried to create a more youthful atmosphere with some reasonably priced offerings for the campus location.
"[Penn] came to me for pizazz and punch to get people from the suburbs," he said.
The highly successful restaurateur owns several of Philadelphia's top restaurants -- including Buddakan, Tangerine and the Continental. Starr's creations not only attract a high-profile clientele but have often revitalized retail in the surrounding area.
Customers gave the food rave reviews for opening night but felt the price range catered more to Penn faculty and staff than to students; a full-course meal costs more than $30, without a bottle of wine.
And of the 20 or so Penn students who showed up for Pod's first night, most said they doubted their classmates would be regular customers -- or even if the restaurant fit into college student budgets.
"Some of the prices are expensive," College senior Kane Anderson said.
"It's not Smokey Joe's -- you don't come here four times a week," added first year Wharton MBA student Ben Katz, who thought most students would still try Pod for dates and special occasions.
(10/03/00 9:00am)
Guzzling multiple bottles of Snapple at Wawa, especially during all-nighters and midterms, is a venerable campus tradition.
But during lunchtime yesterday, Penn students only had to follow the loud music to the new Houston Hall to try new flavors of the popular beverage and grab freebies.
Penn was the 22nd of 30 campuses to host the "Refresh Your Natural Resources" fall tour, which aims to introduce Snapple's new "Elements" line of drinks to college students around the nation.
Six of the 10 creatively named drinks -- such as Sky, Moon and Gravity -- were available at the gathering. The beverages contain no preservatives and are made with herbs like ginseng, kava kava and gingko biloba for health purposes.
The Gainesville, Fla.-based band Big Sky, on tour for the third consecutive year, headlined the gathering. Most of the 40 students and hospital staff members who attended the hour-long event were drawn by the music, though most wound up staying for the free drinks as well.
"I was working in Irvine when I heard them play," said Melanie Donnly, an employee of Facilities Services. "I like their music, and even though I haven't heard it before, I would buy it."
College freshman Ethan Fixell offered a different take, however.
"They sound too much like Dave Matthews on a bad acid trip," he said.
The band's merchandise was on sale and some individuals got free, autographed shirts from the lead singer, who threw them down to the bystanders.
"The students were very nice to us," said Allen Ashton, bassist for Big Sky. "The University has an exceptional campus, and we look forward to exploring it tomorrow."
The concert was timed to coincide with the grand opening of Houston Market. According to Art Gough of the Canada Dry Delaware Valley franchise, which distributes Snapple in the Philadelphia area, "Penn happens to be one of our largest accounts. We're looking to target the 18-to-25-year-old market."
However, although organizers were satisfied with the turnout, the event attracted only a modest crowd because of the noon-1 p.m. lunch hour and classes.
Still, those who did come seemed to enjoy themselves.
"People love the music, they love the event. They especially like the fact that they don't have to sign up for anything," according to Natalie Cohen, an organizer of the tour who works for Snapple.
In addition to the drinks, the Snapple team handed out free CDs containing a mix of tracks, as well as branded shirts and stickers.
(10/03/00 9:00am)
Melissa Byrne
St. Joseph's University '01
(10/03/00 9:00am)
My kitchen is in crisis. The Diet Coke cans are cascading out of the trash can alongside perilously piled plastic Fresh Samantha juice cartons, while Snapple bottles bulge from every side of their bursting garbage bag.
It's time to take out the recycling.
But I'm not the only one putting off the task. In the past four years, Penn has been pitifully uncommitted to making recycling a campus priority.
Houston Hall's gorgeously renovated basement was recently unveiled to reveal great culinary options -- and no recycling cans.
Study lounges and dining halls, havens for newspaper-readers, lack newsprint recycling bins where students can deposit their Daily Pennsylvanians.
And trekking to the two Hamilton Village recycling igloos with three bags of last night's beer and soda cans is not convenient for the average on- or off-campus resident living west of 38th Street.
In a poll conducted this spring by the Penn Environmental Group, 72 percent of students said they threw out recyclables because there were no nearby bins. And while the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 60 to 80 percent of waste is recyclable, at Penn we recycle less than 30 percent of our waste.
There should be plastic, aluminum and glass receptacles next to every trash can. Paper recycling cans should be a fixture of each classroom and University office. And increased steps should be taken in off-campus areas, where municipal waste services collects recyclables only once every two weeks.
I applaud the Undergraduate Assembly for its recent proposal, endorsed by the Penn Environmental Group, that the administration upgrade its decade-old recycling program.
But I wonder why it took the student body 10 years to demand an expansion of Penn's recycling efforts.
The answer is that most college students don't really care. The University could attach recycling bins to our backpacks and some of us would still chuck cans in the trash because we don't consider our daily impact on the environment.
We need an attitude overhaul. We must make the words "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" a motto to live by.
The benefits are undisputed: Recycling glass cuts air pollution by as much as 20 percent. Manufacturing from recycled materials consumes fewer natural resources.
Believe it or not, one person's actions can make a difference. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours.
On the other hand, that plastic bottle you tossed while leaving the gym is going straight to a landfill, and with some states' waste sites nearing capacity, your grandchildren will be dealing with that bottle long after you're gone.
Living the environmental lifestyle is easy. Here are a few simple things college students can do to cut down on the amount of garbage we send to our landfills:
€ Don't go through 10 plastic water bottles a week. Buy a Brita and refill bottles with filtered water.
€ Instead of crumpling up those quarter-size ads you accumulate on Locust Walk, use them as scrap paper.
€ When lunching at the food court, don't grab a fistful of napkins you're going to end up tossing. One or two is enough.
€ Tell the Wawa checkout lady you don't need a bag for the solitary soda you just bought. And if you do leave with a plastic shopping sac, reuse it as a garbage bag.
€ Prevent unnecessary waste by saving the paper towels and cleaning up with dishrags and sponges instead.
€ At the end of the semester, don't chuck your half-filled notebooks. Rip out and write on unused pages.
€ Do your dishes and save those plastic red cups for parties.
And when it comes to recycling, there are numerous reasons to make the extra effort.
First of all, it's the law. Philadelphia residents are legally required to recycle their glass, aluminum, steel and newsprint. Failure to do so results in a $300 fine.
Plus, recycling saves money. It's more expensive to send garbage to landfills than to recycling plants. In 1996, it was estimated that the University saved over $200,000 a year by recycling.
Finally, recycling is the environmental issue over which we have direct control. As everyday citizens, we feel powerless against complex crises like oil spills, the depletion of the ozone layer and rainforest destruction. But each of us can do something to reduce waste.
In fact, the only solution to our society's rapidly mounting garbage problem is individuals consciously choosing to limit their waste production.
It's time for Penn to make campus recycling a priority. It's time for students to make reducing and reusing their personal responsibility.
(09/29/00 9:00am)
Normally, Wharton MBAs spend their days studying formal marketing strategies and balancing credits and debits.
Yesterday afternoon, they had the chance to study the finer aspects of these strategies, as they battled it out for pride and prizes in Lehman Quad.
A cross between the Olympics and a carnival, the Brand Bash, sponsored by the Wharton Marketing Club, brought more than 200 MBA students together in the spirit of friendly competition while they compared different brands of products like chocolate, cereal, lipstick and beer.
The students had their choice of nearly two dozen booths -- ranging from a putting contest to a model-car racing competition -- during the two-hour event. Aside from fun, the annual festivity provided an opportunity to learn about brand building and effective marketing techniques.
For the game "Pucker-Up," the goal was to compare L'Oreal lipstick to Chapstick.
So brave men like second-year MBA student Rich Ackerman donned a blindfold and waited while women wearing either lipstick or Chapstick kissed him on the cheek.
"I have it figured out by now," Ackerman said, in between kisses. "The Chapstick has a mocha smell." If he guessed correctly, the woman received free Chapstick.
Not everyone took the contests so lightly, however.
Showing his competitive streak, second-year MBA student Steve Woda had other ideas.
Defeated once in his bid to win the "Oreo Challenge," where contestants had 30 seconds to stack Oreo cookies as high as they could, he was determined to break the record of 27.
"We can't let a former faculty member beat us," Woda said, referring to the defending record holder. "The key is to line up four at a time into seven stacks, so I'd beat the record by one. I'd be very happy with that."
When it came to implementing his strategy, the Oreos came tumbling down, but Woda persisted.
"You also have to use your beer bottle as a level in order to see how the table is angled," Woda continued, sharing some secrets of the trade.
In the end he relented, after reaching 25 on this third try.
Elsewhere in the big tent outside of Vance Hall where the event was held, second-year MBA student Allison Catalano was helping to run the "Speed-Beaming Challenge," where the first contestant to write the given phrase on a Palm Pilot -- grammatically correct, no less --and beam it to the base unit won a T-shirt.
"I just thought it up as a silly game to get people interested," Catalano said, as MBA students crowded around her table, eager to show off their technological expertise.
Free food was also in abundance at the event.
"Our goal is to get them to eat as much chocolate as they can without getting a tummyache," said first-year MBA student Doug Brand, as he manned a chocolate-tasting booth. "We're asking them to eat Hershey and Nestle and come up with adjectives for each."
In the back of the tent, the beer tasting was, not surprisingly, a perennial favorite.
"We've had an excellent turnout," said second-year MBA student Melinda Newman. "Everyone is attracted to our booth for some reason."
Booth managers had to devise their own concepts and then work to secure sponsors.
"Nabisco does this as a national promotion every year, and I worked for them this summer," said second-year MBA student Mike Bufano, one of the organizers for the "Oreo Challenge." "The regional winners have a stack-off in New York City."
Maybe Steve Woda just missed his big chance.
