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(04/24/01 9:00am)
Trying to add their voices to the worldwide chorus against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, student protesters took to the streets of such major cities as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Quebec City this weekend.
With a working document approved by leaders from 34 countries on Sunday, the FTAA will create the world's largest trade zone -- with an annual output of over $11 trillion -- encompassing all of North and South America by the time it takes effect at the end of 2005.
However, protesters said they felt that the document was crafted in secrecy and favored large, multi-national corporations over the needs of working people.
"It's not an agreement that the people in America are going to have a lot to do with in terms of how it gets shaped," said Penn Political Science Ph.D. student Michael Janson as he led a protest in front of Philadelphia City Hall on Saturday. "It's really being designed by a set of individuals that over history have proven themselves not able to act without checks and balances."
The most violent protests took place in Quebec City, where the international leaders had gathered. Over 400 people were arrested while police warded off nearly 60,000 protesters with water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas.
"I've never witnessed that before -- to be walking around and seeing people wearing bandannas around their nose and mouth," said University of Vermont sophomore Heidi Keller, who marched in Quebec City on Saturday.
"It was great because they had thrown so much tear gas that it actually wound up in the hotel where the delegates were," she added. "They had to turn off the air conditioning and they couldn't eat the food -- it kind of backfired."
This weekend's "Summit of the Americas" was the culmination of earlier FTAA discussions which began in 1994 after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which opened up trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada.
"One of the things that the media will tell you about us is that we're protectionists," said Michael Morrill, executive director of the Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network, an independent consumer and environmental rights organization, as he marched with about 100 people in front of Philadelphia City Hall.
"Well, there's a sense in which we are protectionists -- we want to protect democracy, we want to protect the environment, we want to protect human rights," he said.
Despite all of the criticism, Wharton Professor of Public Policy and Management Howard Pack believes that the FTAA is beneficial.
"It's a super thing," Pack said. "It will lead to lower prices for all American consumers -- and a handful of workers will lose their jobs."
With the FTAA, some compared the power of business conglomerates to that of such countries as England, Portugal and Denmark in colonial times -- when many countries were exploited for the benefit for a few.
"It's any of the Fortune 500 companies... where you have the research and development in America but where you have your labor in peripheral countries where the safety, environmental and occupational safety standards are lax," Temple University junior Maggie Serota said at the Philadelphia rally. "Corporations take advantage of that to increase profit."
But Pack contends that most of those protesting are ill-informed about the trade topic.
"Nobody elected those people who are protesting -- in my view most of them don't know much about these issues," he said.
The protesters did believe that they had an impact on the negotiations. The pact now includes a clause that requires countries participating in the FTAA to uphold democratic principles, and the leaders also promised to release the text of the trade agreement to public scrutiny for the first time.
"Since there was this huge protest it made a lot of press -- now people are asking what went on in Quebec," said College junior Matt Grove, who traveled down to protest the FTAA in Baltimore.
As for the many people who have never heard of the FTAA, Groves replied, "Most people never heard of the World Trade Organization either until there were like 60,000 people on the streets of Seattle."
With the approval of the FTAA on Sunday, talks among trade officials will hammer out the details until 2004, when the country's leaders will gather again in Argentina. But the protesters did not feel that their efforts were in vain.
"We knew that we weren't going to stop them from signing it," Keller said. "As long as we get people to mobilize and get a strong enough movement, eventually by [2005] we can do a lot to save the world from globalization."
(04/09/01 9:00am)
Despite the 50-odd commissions that have originated to tackle election reform, the Fels Center of Government -- by proposing a national voting fairness index -- hopes to finally find success in number 51.
And an internationally recognized leader on election fairness demonstrated how much the United States still has to learn about elections by looking abroad.
On Friday, Fels Director Lawrence Sherman announced the formation of the Fels Voting Index, which will track errors in vote tallying across the country. The project will present the results in a yearly report to the nation.
"This is a chance for the Fels Center to provide the key performance measurement for our democracy," Sherman said.
Scholars and political officials from both parties met on Friday to help advise Fels students and faculty on the index's development. Researchers will begin combing through election results this summer.
"We live in an era of close elections in which what happened in Florida last fall has become a frequent occurrence in state and local elections," Sherman said. "As long as elections are close, our governments need to ensure that votes are counted with even more accuracy than found in banks counting money."
The index will begin by grading states on criteria including the number of under- and over-counts and the uniformity of voter registration systems. Sherman hopes that the funding, which is still being sought, will allow for scrutiny on the county level as well.
Many of the other commissions are focusing on specific improvements, like improved voting machine technology. The Fels effort hopes to be the impetus.
"Once these rankings get published, the states and counties at the bottom of the list will make the media and voters in these communities demand improvements," said Annenberg School for Communication Fellow David Eisenhower, who is collaborating on the project.
"The U.S. News [and World Report] practice of ranking colleges and universities has made big changes in the quality of higher education," Eisenhower said. "The Fels Voting Index could do the same for the quality of democracy."
Emory University Political Science Professor Robert Pastor, who has worked to advance the cause of worldwide free and fair elections with former President Jimmy Carter for the past 15 years, came to Penn on Friday to put the Fels proposal in perspective.
Pastor addressed about 20 students after meeting to discuss the voting index.
"There are many people who believe that democracy should be more than free and fair elections, but it can't be any less," Pastor said during his speech.
In countries where democracy was once deemed to be impossible, such as Nicaragua and Mexico, Pastor intervened as part of an international team to help increase democratic practices. With the number of democratic countries having increased by a third in the last 30 years, the United States has much to learn from these other countries, he said.
"The most implausible of all scenarios occurred in the year 2000, when a free and fair election judged credible by all of the parties in Mexico occurred at the same time that our own election was questioned by the political parties," Pastor said.
Past elections gone awry in Panama and Jamaica have resulted in many deaths, Pastor said. However, he added that has not been the case in the U.S. yet.
"When you have a margin of technical error that exceeds the margin of difference between the victor, you have a recipe for a very serious problem," he said. "In the U.S. we have a different technique for dealing with this problem. We send in the only species in Florida more dangerous than sharks -- they're called lawyers."
Pastor explained that problems with the American political process extended beyond Election Day and included a "rotten" campaign finance procedure.
"Is Canada any less democratic than us for conducting its election in 36 days at a cost of $50 million, as opposed to our presidential election which goes on for four years and costs $3 billion?" Pastor said, noting the American elections are essentially continuous.
The United States also lags behind other countries in terms of voter turnout -- especially among young people. Only about 55 percent of Americans vote, compared to up to 65 percent in other industrialized democracies, Pastor said.
"I think the big thing is just awareness that problems exist," said Master of Government Administration student David Reed. "This past election really made people step back and realize the types of problems out there -- and that they don't just happen in town council or school board elections."
(03/21/01 10:00am)
With the results from the 2000 Census now tallied, leading thinkers on the topic of immigration gathered last night for a talk entitled "Immigration and the Future of Cities."
The Census data showed that immigration allowed cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to increase in population. While Philadelphia saw a decrease in overall population, increased immigration in the city helped to counter the scale of the drop.
The keynote speaker, Penn Sociology Department Chairman Douglas Massey, sought to set straight common misconceptions as to why such immigration was occurring, especially since many politicians see it as a cure for urban ills.
"The idea that you can turn immigration on and off like a faucet is unrealistic," Massey said, who has spent the last 20 years studying migration patterns between the United States and Mexico. "The social networks make it relatively resistant to reversal."
Globalization, with its huge communications abilities, has made it easier than ever to maintain such contacts in foreign lands. In fact, this is why people immigrate today, Massey said.
"International immigration is not seen as a way to settle, but as a means to keep things viable in their home country," Massey said.
Immigrants no longer venture abroad for a big new house, but rather as a source of income to support relatives in their home country. Massey's research shows that the income sent back home is mostly used for housing.
Encouraging Philadelphia to increase its share of the nation's immigrants -- which is currently less than one percent -- Massey prodded the city to look beyond regionalism and become a global player with such countries as Mexico and Canada.
The talk also touched upon how cities need to solve their own social problems while they seek to encourage new residents.
"It may be all well and good... to make the city more attractive to immigrants, but we also need to pay attention to our homegrown racial woes," Massey said, noting the problems still facing African Americans.
Sociology Professor Elijah Anderson, who has studied many of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods, said he has found great feelings of racial distrust in the African-American communities.
"It looks like the white community is ready to undermine the black community," Anderson said, adding that the "poorest of the poor" in these neighborhoods are competing for jobs with places like China and Mexico. Such a situation makes them reluctant to new immigration.
Councilman-at-Large James Kenney, a longtime booster of attracting more immigrants to Philadelphia, said that he wants the city to be an "immigrant-friendly city."
"We not only want you here for our own economic selfishness, but we want to celebrate your diversity as well," Kenney said.
College senior Matt Thornton, said that "although they addressed the issues, no one had a good idea how to go about doing it."
The talk, which was the annual Albert M. Greenfield Memorial Lecture on Human Relations, marks the beginning of a five-part faculty seminar on immigration and cities.
"This was a great start," Wharton Professor Susan Wachter said. "It really reflects the depth of thought that we have here."
(02/16/01 10:00am)
It's job search time for Penn students.
So, last night at Logan Hall, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center and Career Services together sponsored "Out in the Workplace." The program of panel discussions was geared towards students who are looking for work and are open about their sexual orientations.
The program, which began in the mid-1980s and runs every other year, drew around 25 attendees.
"We chose the focuses of the panels based on the professions that tend to be chosen most often by Penn students," LGBT Center Director Bob Shoenberg said.
There were two separate panels -- one with lawyers and public servants and one with professors.
The first speaker, Kathryn Kolbert, a public interest lawyer, spoke about many issues confronting gays and lesbians, including parenthood.
"Having children as lesbians has been a fabulous experience," she said referring to her two children with co-panelist and partner Joann Hyle.
Kolbert, a graduate of Temple University Law School, has dealt with women's rights litigation and is credited with helping to save the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in her arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hyle, an attorney at the prestigious Philadelphia corporate firm Pepper Hamilton, discussed the openness of her current working environment.
Her firm, she was eager to point out, is a "fine place for a lesbian who is also a lawyer."
And panelist Kevin Vaughan, the former regional director for Health and Human Services for the Mid-Atlantic states, echoed the other speakers' thoughts about working in a comfortable setting.
"I don't want to go someplace or work someplace that won't accept me for who I am," Vaughan said.
Vaughan himself is embarking on a job search, since his Clinton administration position has ended. He discussed job searches from a hands-on viewpoint.
Another panelist, Marc Stein, a history professor at York University in Toronto, Canada, spoke about his experiences in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a doctoral student at Penn.
"When I came to Penn, I was coming out of a queer workplace," Stein said, referring to his job as an editor at a Boston magazine geared towards the gay and lesbian community.
"Penn proved to be a positive workplace for me," he added.
Stein discussed the "problems and horrors of the job market," after he graduated from Penn.
Stein searched for a steady position for five years, enduring 25 interviews before finally landing a job with his current employer.
Another panelist spoke about the difficulty she faces in teaching a class as both a lesbian and an African-American woman.
"It barely feels safe to be black," Beaver College Psychology Professor Angela Gillem said.
Many of those in attendance gave the session positive reviews.
College senior Michael Hartwyk, for one, praised the discussion.
"It was very informative." Hartwyk said. "[The organizers] made a good effort in getting different perspectives."
The second part of the program continues next Wednesday, with speakers from the corporate and health care professions.
(01/22/01 10:00am)
As the country watched the inauguration of a new president, The Daily Pennsylvanian held its own inaugural bash -- with fewer politicians but a lot more alcohol.
The DP held its annual banquet Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, marking the official departure of the 116th Board of Editors and Managers and the inauguration of the 117th Board.
Keynote speaker Loren Feldman, the executive editor of Philadelphia Magazine, spoke about his experiences in journalism and the many connections that he made during his time at the DP.
"It if weren't for the DP, I would still be renting cars," Feldman joked as he recalled his first post-graduation job with Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
University President Judith Rodin made a brief speech in which she poked fun at both herself and the DP staff.
Rodin joked about the sling that she had been sporting recently, attributing her arm injury to the incessant tugging of Undergraduate Assembly Chair Michael Bassik.
"I think she finally showed Bassik for who he is," one DP staff member said.
And in annual tradition, the DP sports department walked out of the banquet hall for pizza in the lobby to protest the ongoing speeches and awards -- right in the middle of Rodin's speech. Sports writer Sebastian Stockman claimed he encountered the president on his way back to the party.
"Judy Rodin tried to come on to me," said Stockman, who arrived at the festivities promptly at 6:59 p.m. in order to take full advantage of the open bar coctail hour.
Newly inaugurated Associate Sports Editor David Zeitlin attempted to justify the traditional protest.
"We don't have any culture," Zeitlin said. "All we know is sports and basketball."
Upon hearing that his quote might appear in the paper, Zeitlin became violent, resorting to stealing another reporter's dessert.
The sports department was vindicated later in the evening when Brian Hindo won the DP Alumni Association Michael Silver Writing Award. The DP Alumni Association gave its annual photography award to David Graff, a former photo editor.
Outgoing Senior Sports Editor Rick Haggerty was named Editor of the Year, while outgoing Production Manager Megan Hall took home Manager of the Year awards.
The banquet honored DP General Manager Eric Jacobs for his 25 years of service to the newspaper, presenting him with a framed copy of his first front-page story for the DP. A scholarship fund for work-study students was created in his honor.
And in the after-dinner dance for DP staff members at the Penn Tower Hotel, one open bar simply wasn't enough for the festivities -- the DP reserved two.
The star of the evening was outgoing Sports Editor and current 34th Street Voice Editor Jesse Spector, who made his presence felt all over the ballroom. Spector sang a rendition of "O Canada," which editorial page editor Jonathan Margulies described as "robust."
Spector was the winner of the random hookup award, which he earned through his escapades with a member of the production staff.
But Spector's achievements were nearly overshadowed by two female members of the business staff, who, for the second consecutive year, displayed their affection for each other on the dance floor.
Other members of the 116th editorial staff displayed their respective states of inebriation.
When asked for the time, outgoing Managing Editor Ben Geldon looked at his watch and responded, "Christ, I need to go have many more beers." Sources say Geldon remained stuck on his third beer for quite some time.
Not to be outdone by his former boss, outgoing Assignments and Features Editor Eric Tucker spent a portion of the night grinding with other members of the DP staff.
"By the end of the night, I will have done or said something inappropriate that I will deny ever having done or said," Tucker said.
Although his performance this year paled in comparison to last year's banquet, Tucker did manage to drunkenly kiss the hands of random male DP staff members and speak to them in Italian.
(11/17/00 10:00am)
When Penn Police Officer Pat Chad walked into roll call on August 6 -- the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing -- several years ago, the tables were lined with mushrooms.
"Pat, doesn't that remind you of your family?" one of the Japanese American's fellow officers asked, referring to the mushroom clouds produced upon the explosion of an atomic bomb.
After roll call, Chad, who left the department earlier this year, complained about the incident to his sergeant.
"I told the sergeant I didn't appreciate it, and I didn't think it was funny," Chad said.
But the sergeant, Chad says, told him that it was not a big deal and to "get over it."
"That's just the way it is at Penn Police," Chad said. "You just took it and went along."
(11/15/00 10:00am)
Imagine an athletic shoe with a radar unit in the toe; a video camera in the heel so you can broadcast your wanderings on the Internet in real time; and a unit in the ankle to massage you as you walk.
Karim Rashid calls it the "Smoo" -- or smart shoe -- and it's just one of many futuristic ideas he proposed and discussed in an hour-long lecture yesterday afternoon.
The talk, attended by an audience of more than 50 students and community members, was part of the Penn Humanities Forum Lief Lecture Series on Style. Rashid, born in Egypt, raised in Canada and educated in Italy, is very much a product of and a force in the modern era of globalization and blending of influences and tasks.
He said he aims to produce work that is "of the moment."
"If it's pivotal at the moment, even momentarily, we tend to realize the value of that work later," he said.
Rashid said he believes in "democratic design," which he explained as a design for everyone that is extremely inexpensive and accessible.
One of his ideas involves "organomics," the marriage of the organic and ergonomics -- a blending of low tech and high tech, furniture and technology.
Thus, he designed one room with an interior landscape that is "seamless and soft," with shifting softness and hardness. He envisions a Web site where a customer can specify his needs and wants for the room, and the program will design it and ship the room, ready-made.
Rashid even adds a social twist to his designs. He proposed a scheme for a Giorgio Armani store with very little clothing on display. Instead, the store would hire models in the area to sell the clothes -- and display them.
The store would be arranged around a runway, down which the models would strut, wearing a new outfit every hour, turning shopping into an event. Furthermore, the walls would be arrayed with digital projections of the models in their various outfits and, occasionally, just the clothes themselves.
Jessica Magnitsky, a student at the University of the Arts who specializes in industrial design, said she is disturbed by "how much [Rashid] relies on the technology."
She was referring to another of Rashid's ideas in which a machine does the designing itself.
It is what he calls "hands off" -- completely machine-produced. Today, he said, "craft is really a middle-class leisure activity."
However, Rashid may be ahead of his time. Armani seemed to think so when it rejected his plans for their store as "way beyond their clothing."
(11/06/00 10:00am)
Mother Jones, the great American union activist and early 20th century champion of the working class, would have you believe that she was a born activist, rebellious since her childhood in Cork, Ireland.
Elliott Gorn, a professor of History at Purdue University who has written a biography on Mother Jones entitled Looking for Mother Jones, would have you believe differently.
Gorn spoke about Mother Jones Friday in the first talk in the "Writer's Talk Research" series, sponsored by the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and Harrison College House.
Gorn, whose book will be published in February by Hill and Wang Inc., explained his research into the life of Mother Jones, as well as Mary Jones, the woman behind the image. The talk took place in front of an audience of about 15 people at the Arch Center on campus.
Gorn explained that the only published biography on Mother Jones, her 1925 autobiography, is littered with false accounts of Jones' history.
Gorn contends that to Mother Jones, who gained fame by organizing the 1914 Colorado Coal Miner's strike, as well as many other worker's movements across the country, "the person doesn't matter, the persona matters. As a biographer, I have to talk about the person as well as the persona."
Some of Gorn's examples of Jones' lies are that in her autobiography, Jones claimed that she was born in 1830 and that her family, leaders of the revolution, immigrated to Canada in 1837.
Gorn explained that his research entailed visiting the Irish
National Archives in Dublin, as well as archives in Toronto and Ontario to deduce that Jones was really born in 1837 and most likely left Ireland during the potato famine in 1847, not 10 years earlier as she claimed.
Gorn also searched Dublin records and found that Jones' accounts of her father's arrest as a rebel in Ireland are not substantiated.
Gorn said he first became interested in writing about Mother Jones in 1987, when he saw many of her speeches being published, but could find no biographies about her other than her own. This is Gorn's first biography.
When discussing his approach to the research, Gorn said that while you "must have ideas that give you a sense of where to go," you also "have to be open-minded."
Gorn added as an example the fact that he wanted to like Mother Jones "unequivocally," but soon into his research he realized that was not possible.
"Did I want to write an biography Mother Jones would approve of? No, she wouldn't approve of anything," he said.
Art Casciato, director of the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships and former house dean of Harrison College House, said the goal of the Writer's Talk series is to "have a more or less constant flow of students, faculty and non-academic people come to the center to speak about how they do the research, why they do the research and what the joys of doing the research are."
Although the turnout was low, the talk was well-received.
College junior Yaran Noti said, "I thought it was good. It was helpful to hear a professor talk about the methods of research. It helped me understand how to approach my research better."
(11/06/00 10:00am)
To the Editor:
These are the mild rantings of a confused and frustrated liberal:
Why is this race so close? Why does half of the population actually think school vouchers are a good idea? Or that we need another Scalia to interpret the Constitution? Or that drilling on virgin land to fuel more toxin-producing, asthma-inducing combustion engines should be the government's solution to high oil prices?
Who are these people? Didn't their mothers teach them anything? Why do they have so much money, so many voices? There can't be that many anti-choice, pro-NRA millionaires. And why is a very well-educated, caring, responsive, inspiring, hard-working man struggling to reach the office for which he has been preparing his entire life?
I watch the news. I read the papers. I even listen to NPR, and I still don't know why I will be forced to hold my breath on election night.
(10/18/00 9:00am)
I had just arrived in Vienna after an overnight train from Germany. After checking into a youth hostel, I was finally ready to tour the former capital of the Hapsburg Empire.
Like many Americans, I'd heard plenty about the rise of Austria's scary neo-fascist leader, J”rg Haider, and as an obvious non-European, I was slightly apprehensive about how I would be received by the locals.
Sure enough, while touring the Hapsburg palace grounds, with my beat-up camera in hand, I passed a group of tall young men. One of them noticed me and scoffed, "Look at these little Japanese with their cameras."
Austrian racism at its finest? Not exactly. The group consisted of Americans, and these loving words were said, not in Wienerdeutsch, but in good ol' American English.
And their utterer was of South Asian descent.
I might have been forgiven for not wanting to come across any more Asian Americans after my run-in in Vienna. Instead, this incident reminded me of a sad truth that many students visiting Western Europe have observed: the near absence of non-white Americans traveling there.
True, there are reasons for this relative paucity. For one, non-whites are less well-off socioeconomically and so tend to have less disposable income for luxuries such as travel. Many Americans with family in Latin America, Asia or Africa would rather spend their hard-earned savings visiting relatives.
Furthermore, Europe does not symbolize only "civilization" and "culture." To many -- and not just non-Europeans -- the continent also carries heavy historical baggage: colonialism, slavery, discrimination, persecution and mass murder.
These reasons are understandable, but they alone cannot explain why I could count on one hand the minority Americans I encountered in six weeks across the Atlantic.
Why, then, the overwhelming whiteness of Americans in Europe? Especially when there is so much to learn from countries superficially similar to the U.S. -- such as Britain, France and Germany -- yet with distinct societies and cultures?
I suspect that the answer lies in the insular, American-centered world-view of many educated blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans. Ironically, although the discipline of ethnic studies has devoted increasing attention to "diaspora" issues, few U.S. minority intellectuals have shown much awareness of, let alone curiosity in, minorities in Canada and Western Europe.
By focusing narrowly on conditions in the U.S., these folks reinforce that most ethnocentric of beliefs: that "America is the world." Such arrogance causes them to generalize, assuming that, say, West Indian blacks in Britain or North Africans in France face exactly the same sort of injustices as their counterparts here.
Worse, they miss out on the chance to make real, substantive comparisons between the U.S. and other Western nations, ones that go beyond the usual stereotypical jibes about smells, personal habits or movies.
Sometimes it is Europe that comes out looking worse. Many Americans would be shocked to learn that most countries there do not consider native-born non-Europeans automatic citizens. France, for instance, does not allow children of North African immigrants to apply for citizenship until age 18.
Whereas I once condemned this practice as racist, I now understand that the U.S. is unusual in guaranteeing citizenship to everyone born on its soil.
But the fact is that minority life in Europe often compares favorably with that in the U.S.
Despite the existence of ethnic enclaves -- North African "suburbs" in Paris, Turkish "ghettos" in major German cities, Pakistani neighborhoods in London or Leeds -- I witnessed far more interaction across racial lines than I did back home in Philadelphia. Even in the U.K., with its racial and immigrant tensions, it is not uncommon to find ethnically mixed groups of young men or women, or couples.
In Amsterdam, a city known here mostly for marijuana and '60s-style free love, I felt completely comfortable for the first time I can remember. Never mind that I speak poor Dutch or that I didn't know my way around. None of the passersby, waitresses or punks seemed to care in the least about where I, my half-Surinamese friend or her Chinese-Dutch boyfriend "come from."
Of course, the Netherlands has its social problems, but I would never have believed that there was a place where locals -- white Europeans at that -- were simply not interested in my origins. And I would never have imagined I could have so much fun explaining American politics as a representative of the United States -- not until this summer.
Being in Europe taught me a lot about the U.S. and about myself as an American minority. I hope the gentleman who insulted me in Vienna learned as much from his stay as I did.
(10/09/00 9:00am)
Attempting to correct "fundamental assumptions about welfare and welfare families" in America, Harvard University professor William Julius Wilson spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in Logan Hall on Friday afternoon.
In his hour-long lecture, entitled "Welfare: Children and Families," Wilson discussed the changing face of welfare reform in today's society.
Wilson gave the fourth annual Sackler Lecture, an event sponsored by a Penn alumnus and produced by the Sociology Department.
"The lecture is intended to raise the profile of the social sciences and make people aware of its relevance in all fields," Sociology Department Chairman Doug Massey said.
Wilson, a former colleague of Massey's at the University of Chicago, has been highly recognized as a distinguished scholar in the field of welfare reform. He has written numerous books that have led to massive changes in the welfare field, and he has worked extensively with President Clinton on welfare legislation.
"It is premature to declare welfare reform a successful experiment," Wilson said. "We still must resolve the problems that will return when we return to normal economic times."
He then noted, "the United States has no comprehensive program to protect the social rights of its citizens."
As a result, he compared the nation unfavorably to Canada and many Western European countries. "Americans are far more concerned with the social obligations of the poor than with their social rights," he added.
Wilson's words extended past University gates. The lecture brought together colleagues of Wilson, alumni, professionals in the welfare field and Penn students.
He also fought through technical difficulties to get his message across. Midway through the lecture, after minutes of fading in and out of the sound system, the professor was forced to pause and change microphones. Still, audio problems notwithstanding, Wilson made it clear that a different type of reform was needed.
"Efforts should be made to facilitate the transition from welfare to work," Wilson said. "Right now, it would not be in the best interest of many welfare recipients to enter the labor market."
Students were largely impressed with the professor's distinctive -- if not controversial -- take on the subject.
"He has a lot of innovative ideas in his work," College senior Jennifer Pettit said. "I've read his books, but I want to hear it from him."
Raising consciousness was Wilson's intention in giving the lecture.
"There are a lot of people here who will become leaders or who will be in the position to address these problems in the near future," Wilson said.
(10/06/00 9:00am)
After 48 years, the carpets are starting to show some wear.
We Swamis have flown around the world, welcome wherever we have gone, be it Cambridge, California or Canada.
We've talked to Elvis impersonators and zookeepers, great running backs and Keith Elias.
Former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell was one of us. So was University President Judith Rodin. And William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd president of these United States, had recently agreed to wrap up a turban next season.
For 48 years, the world has looked to us for all the right picks and a dash of humor.
That much will never change.
But it's time to step off our carpets, unwrap our turbans and ditch our magic lamps.
It's a sign of the times and, with a nod to sensitivity, we will ride off into the sunset after Penn trounces Cornell to win the Ivy League title at the end of this season.
But from our initial gathering in 1953, it's been nothing but good times.
Goalposts in the Schuylkill, toast on the turf, you name it --ÿwe've seen it all, and we've seen it coming.
We're not happy to go out, but we realize that we must, and that nothing lasts forever.
So, we will be making some changes as we prepare to hang up the carpets -- our cartoon companion has already found his way to the retirement home.
But for the remainder of the season, we will continue to pick the Ivy League games as the Swamis whom you've always known and loved.
When we come back with "President Bubba" next season to tell you who's going to win each Ancient Eight contest, we'll have a new name, but the same humorous journeys that you've come to expect.
We'll just have a different way to travel around the world on a weekly basis.
And we promise not to offend or humiliate anyone -- except Princeton.
In all of our reminiscing and in all of our planning for the future of pigskin prognostication at Penn, we did not seek out a guest Swami this week. But we didn't have any need to search for one anyway, since we all already knew that our beloved Quakers will beat the living daylights out of Holy Cross tomorrow afternoon in Worcester.
We may not have our turbans next season, but we shall return in some way to tell you who will win each week.
We will always and forever be the Swamis.
(10/04/00 9:00am)
Paul McNamara, vice president for products and platforms at software company Redhat, Inc., came to Penn last night to discuss his company and its new way of looking at software sales.
McNamara was the first speaker in a series sponsored by the Dining Philosophers, Penn's student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, an international group for computer science and education.
Redhat produces a version of the Linux operating system. An operating system is the basic software that runs computers, like Microsoft Windows or the MacOS.
Linux is distributed freely under an agreement called the GNU General Public License, which allows others to view the underlying code for the program and modify and even sell the software themselves, provided they in turn make their changes to the software publicly available under the same terms.
The GNU license is an example of an "open source" licensing agreement, one in which the underlying source code for a program is made freely available to anyone who wants it. The system allows users to contribute their work toward the underlying programming of the operating system.
Redhat Linux is the most popular of about a dozen major distributions of various versions of Linux. More than 60 people, mostly Engineering students, filled the Towne Building's Heilmeier Hall for McNamara's presentation, which was directed toward explaining his company's business model and discussing open source software development.
Open source development is superior to standard, proprietary software development because it allows for the collaboration of thousands of people over a wide geographic area on a flexible schedule, McNamara said.
"People in India can effectively participate in real time with people in Canada," McNamara said.
Open source development also allows for a "darwinian effect," where the best of several versions of the same software is selected, McNamara said. It also allows the massive task of writing an operating system, which can consist of more than 25 million lines of programming, to be divided into a large number of small components.
Redhat sells its software in stores for around $50, but since the licensing agreement requires that the software also be made freely available, the entire operating system can be downloaded from thousands of Internet servers and even purchased through other distributors.
McNamara said that even though Redhat sells "a bazillion copies" of the boxed version of its software, the company makes most of its money through training and specialized programming and support, mainly for large corporate customers.
The company announced a program two weeks ago called Redhat Network that allows Redhat to manage and support its corporate companies' computers remotely over the Internet.
(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.
(08/31/00 9:00am)
Oggie Kapetanovic's first season in the Red and Blue will be his only one.
Kapetanovic, who transferred to Penn from Brown after his sophomore season, was forced to sit out the Quakers' entire 1998-99 season due to NCAA regulations, and thus had one year of eligibility remaining after this past year.
"I've been thinking about graduating and going overseas and playing ball there, because I want to play ball," Kapetanovic told The Daily Pennsylvanian in April. "I feel like if I stayed here, I'd get similar time to what I got this year."
Kapetanovic graduated from Wharton this summer after taking six classes last spring and three during the first summer session. A Yugoslav native, Kapetanovic had been playing for an AAU-level team in Sarajevo, his father's birthplace. He is now trying to land with a team in Europe and was unavailable for comment.
Kapetanovic's dual citizenship in Yugoslavia and Canada will allow any European pro team that picks him up to circumvent the "two Americans per team" rule, and his 6'10", 235-pound frame should be an additional help in attracting attention.
While Kapetanovic started last season's opener in the Preseason NIT against Kentucky, he averaged only 12.9 minutes per game on the year. The forward scored just 3.6 points and grabbed 2.9 rebounds per contest last season.
Penn coach Fran Dunphy found out about his forward's decision when Kapetanovic left a message on Dunphy's voicemail in late July.
"Oggie chose to go overseas, and I wish him the best," Dunphy said.
However, the coach, who said that Kapetanovic never sought his advice on the matter, thinks that his former player should have thought a little harder about staying.
"My recommendation would have been for him to come back," Dunphy said. "I understand it a little bit, sort of. Do I agree? No, I don't agree with what he's doing. My whole thought process is I hope he doesn't regret not playing another year of collegiate basketball."
Responding to the lack of playing time to which Kapetanovic alluded in April, Dunphy said that nothing was set in stone and that Kapetanovic -- who got most of his minutes backing up senior center Geoff Owens and sophomore forward Ugonna Onyekwe -- could very well have seen more action in the upcoming season had he elected to stay.
"He said that he didn't get enough playing time and that he wanted to play," Dunphy said. "Well, Geoff and Ugonna were healthy all last year. If they don't stay healthy this year or if Oggie stepped up his game, he could've gotten to play more [next season].
(08/03/00 9:00am)
This weekend is Caribana in Toronto. Two full weeks of events culminate in a big parade on Saturday. Over a million people are expected to attend and it is near impossible to find a hotel room in the city.
(07/27/00 9:00am)
While city officials are putting the last minute touches on the First Union Center, several hundred activists have flocked to West Philadelphia for preparations of a different sort.
(07/27/00 9:00am)
Oggie Kapetanovic's first season in the Red and Blue will be his only one.
(06/29/00 9:00am)
Penn freshman thrower Julie Siebert-Johnson placed fourth in last Friday's Junior National Track and Field Championships in Denton, Tex.
(06/22/00 9:00am)
As a freshman thrower on the Penn women's track team, Julie Siebert-Johnson wasted little time in making an impression.
