Razia Said uses songs to tackle deforestation

Durham to compete for selective grant

Duke finds no wrongdoing:

ELYSIA SU/THE CHRONICLE

A recently completed investigation against a former housekeeping supervisor found insufficient evidence to confirm that the employee was harassing and discriminating workers.

by Maggie SpiniTHE CHRONICLE

Some University housekeepers are upset after an investigation completed Spring 2012 found insufficient evidence to validate harass-ment and discrimination accusations against Linda Schlabach, who formerly served as

Edens Quadrangle’s senior housekeeping supervisor.

The decision has left some housekeepers and other concerned parties frustrated with how the University handles such complaints, citing lack of transparency. Schlabach was re-employed by Duke early Fall, following a pe-

riod of suspension while the investigation was taking place, said Edwin Gooch, a lawyer for the union Local 77, which includes employ-ees in housekeeping and facilities manage-ment. She currently works in a dormitory on

SEE HOUSEKEEPING ON PAGE 4

What singer-songwriter Razia Said re-members about her native land in Antalaha, Madagascar, before leaving at age 11 is the thriving rainforests. But when she returned nearly 35 years later in 2005, Said saw her

former home transformed by deforestation, caused by illegal logging and slash-and-burn agricul-

ture. The experience inspired Said to change her music’s sound in order to raise awareness about Malagasy people and the environmen-tal destruction of Madagascar. Monday, the Duke Lemur Center and the Kenan Institute for Ethics hosted a symposium to discuss con-servation in Madagascar, where Said spoke about Madagascar and its influence on her music. After her discussion, The Chronicle’s Danielle Muoio sat down with Said to discuss deforestation in Madagascar and her music.

The Chronicle: Can you talk a bit about how you got started as a musi-cian?

Razia Said: My first album was six

years ago—it was in English and was [rhythm and blues] jazz because I was going for the American market. I always tried to put Madagascar in my music. I had a guitarist that came from Mada-gascar and performed on some of the songs, but [the album] didn’t have a lot of Madagascar’s rhythm.

TC: You talked briefly about the trip you took to Madagascar and its influ-ence on the sound of your second album at the symposium. Can you tell me more about its effect on you?

RS: I took a trip in 2007 to Madagas-car and at that point, I had decided that after my first album I was not happy with outcome. It was time to dig into my roots and see what was going on there.

I left [Madagascar] when I was 11, and I knew I had to get back there. The trip I took in 2007 was after a trip in 2005 where I met a couple of musicians. On the [2005] trip, I thought, ‘Wow, we have this great sound, and I need to use

this.’ So in 2007, I decided to go record stuff in Madagascar, and then I toured Madagascar to get different sounds.

During the tour, I noticed there was smoke and burning everywhere. I stopped at a few of those places and they said, ‘Yeah we’re just burning it to improve our agriculture.’ And I asked them, ‘But did you know that after three crops, the soil will be depleted of its nutrients?’ and they told me they were aware of it.

Madagascar is such a big country that they took it for granted —they have so much land and could just migrate. But we started to tell people, ‘Look at these pictures—see how these mountains are bare now? What are we doing?’ They need to wake up to it.

TC: Is there any sign of Malagasy peo-ple taking more environmental precau-tions?

SEE SAID ON PAGE 12

by Georgia ParkeTHE CHRONICLE

Durham has been named one of 20 cit-ies competing for millions of dollars in grants from the Bloomberg Philanthro-pies Mayors Challenge for innovative so-lutions to major city challenges.

The competition between American cities encourages local governments to resolve issues through original and im-pactful idea proposals. In November, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced 20 finalists chosen out of 305 applications from cities across the country. One finalist will be chosen in the spring to receive the $5 million grand prize and four runners-up will receive $1 million each.

The Durham project proposes en-trepreneurship hubs in three struggling neighborhoods to encourage job creation, workforce training, housing development and economic growth, said Constance Stancil, director of the Neighborhood Im-provement Services Department.

“It is an idea space where [residents] can feel free in deciding what happens in their community,” Stancil said. “The com-munity will serve as the decision makers. We can share knowledge with people and bring them to a point where they create and design their own solution for creating

SEE DURHAM ON PAGE 5

Uni retains housekeeping supervisor accused of harassment

Q&A

The ChronicleTHE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH YEAR, ISSUE 70WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM

Exciting research Exciting research at Duke, at Duke,

Page 2Page 2

Canty emerges as Canty emerges as Duke’s defensive Duke’s defensive

leader, leader, Page 7Page 7

ONTHERECORD“Do I think we will live forever? No....”

—Mike Shammas in ‘Defeating death.’ See column page 10

PHILIP CATTERALL/THE CHRONICLE

Singer and songwriter Razia Said performs music about deforestation in Madagascar.

2 | WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

TO RENT or TO BUY?

where Duke finds housing

115-A North Duke St.Parking available on the street

919.294.9737

Featuring a 8 person meeting/study room that can be reserved

Small sweet and savory food items from local vendors including:

ham and cheese sandwiches, pastries, cake, and cheese plates.

Specialty Coffee and Espresso Drinks

Extensive Fine Loose Leaf Tea list

info@respitecafe.com | respitecafe.com

After a finals-crunch all-nighter, stu-dents should try to make it back to their beds rather than crash on the couch for a cat nap.

An alarmingly large portion of con-sumer couches use foam padding con-taining flame-retardant chemicals that are considered probable human carcino-gens, according to a study conducted by Heather Stapleton, associate professor of environmental chemistry at the Nicholas School of the Environment. Tris—a chemical that was used in infant pajamas in the 1970s but was phased out of usage because of said carci-nogenic risks—was among the chemicals found in the couch cushions.

Another chemical found in 17 percent of the 102 couch foam samples studied was pentaBDE, which is a banned sub-stance in 172 countries and 12 U.S. states. Studies have suggested that PentaBDE chemicals can affect brain development and cause problems with endocrine activ-

ity, and that early exposure to infants can cause low birth weight, lowered IQ and impaired motor and behavioral develop-ment.

Forty-one percent of the couch sam-ples in the study, which was published in Environmental Science and Technology, contained Tris, and Tris and pentaBDE were the only flame retardants found in couches manufactured prior to 2005.

More than half contained flame-retardants that are

potentially harmful to humans or have not been thor-oughly tested for human safety.

I n f o r m a t i o n about the type of

flame retar- dants used can get lost in the production chain by the time the foam reaches the furniture manufac-turer, making it difficult to track the ex-act chemicals used.

If it is any consolation, the couches with flame-retardants are tested to with-stand at least 12 seconds of small flame exposure without igniting.

The largest animals on earth emu-late ballerinas before killing their prey.

Blue whales pirouette before lung-ing to consume krill, according to a study co-written by Ari Friedlaender, assistant research sci-entist in marine sci-ence and conservation, that was published in Biology Letters Nov. 28. Friedlaender said the strategy most likely allows the whales to engulf as many of the tiny crustaceans as possible.

Friedlaender and his teammates equipped 22 blue whales—which are the largest animals to ever live, mea-suring nearly 100 feet long—with mo-tion sensors using suction cups, and at-tached a camera to one of the whales.

After reviewing the data and foot-age, the Duke team found that half of

the whales spun around 360 degrees underwater, often just before lunging for their prey.

Whales locate swarms of krill from below, and then move quickly upward t o w a r d them. The spinning

sometimes occurs dur-ing the surge to cap-ture the krill, signifi-cantly slowing down

the whales’ upward progress. This may allow

the giant aqueous mammals to change direction more quickly as krill attempt to escape their imminent doom, allowing the whales to catch the krill before they are out of reach.

The balletic moves occurred only before or between lunges for krill, indicating that the strategy is used to more effectively hunt and is not mere-ly an outlet of artistic expression for the whales.

Research round-upBlue whales do pirouettes before dinner

Fire-retardant couches can pack a punch

Natural gas leaks abound in Boston

Lion population drops dramatically

A recent Duke study raises concerns over Boston’s natural gas pipeline system.

Although the study was not originally assessing explosion risks in the pipeline system, the researchers found more than 3,000 gas leaks under Boston’s streets. The researchers also iden-tified also six locations in Boston where explosions could potentially occur since gas concentrations exceeded a certain threshold.

“Repairing these leaks will improve air quality, increase consumer health and safety and save money,” Robert B. Jackson, co-author of the study and professor of global envi-ronmental change at the Nicho-las School of the Environment, said in a press release. “We just have to put the right financial incentives into place.”

Leaks were distributed evenly across neighborhoods and were associated with old cast-iron pipes, the study found.

The researchers recommend using gas-leaks mapping campaigns in cities that are deemed at-risk for these leaks.

According to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Ad-

ministration, natural gas pipe-line failures have caused on average 17 fatalities, 68 in-juries and $133 million in property damage annually.

The leaks also pose a negative environmental and economic effect. The primary ingredient of nat-

ural gas is methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas.

Additionally, leaks in the United States contribute to $3 billion of lost and unac-counted gas each year.

African savannahs once teeming with wildlife have been fragmented by human development, driving a decline in the lion population, a Duke study found.

Published in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, the study found that two-thirds of the lion population have disappeared in the last 50 years. The study also found that 75 per-cent of Africa’s savannahs have disappeared within the same time frame, as well. Stuart Pimm, co-author of the study and Doris Duke professor of conservation ecology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, credited massive land-use change, de-forestation and rapid human population growth as factors that have degraded the original savannah in a press release Tuesday.

“Only 25 percent remains of an eco-system that once was a third larger than the continental United States,” Pimm said in the release.

It is estimated that 100,000 lions

roamed the savannah in 1960 with only 32,000 to 35,000 currently remaining. Lion populations in West Africa have had the steepest decline.

Using satellite imagery from Google Earth, human population density data and estimates of the local lion popu-lations, the researchers were able to estimate where lions have the highest chance of survival. They found that only 10 areas were identified as strong-

holds—spots that offer lions an excellent chance of survival.

Many strongholds exist within national parks, how-ever, and none exist in West

Africa, where human populations have nearly doubled in the last 20 to

30 years.“Giving these lions something of a

fighting chance will require substantial increases in effort,” Andrew Jacobson, a research associate in Pimm’s lab, said in the release. “The next 10 years are decisive for this region, not just for li-ons but for biodiversity, since lions are indicators of ecosystem health.”

—from Staff Reports

THE CHRONICLE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 | 3

Time is money.Don’t waste either.

Duke Optical2351 Erwin Rd

Durham, NC 27705919-282-0053

Durham4102 North Roxboro St

Durham, NC 27704919-595-2020

South Square3101 Shannon Rd

Durham, NC 27707919-493-8508

South Point7001-105 Fayetteville Rd

Durham, NC 27713 919-861-9178

Most Flexible Spending Accounts expire December 31st.

Get the most value out of your FSA this year & save with our UP to 50% Off Frame Sale going on now.

eyecareassociatesnc.com

The 2008

Crisis &

The Housing Bubble

PETER J. WALLISON

SOC PSY 126,

6:15PM

DEC. 6, 2012

THURSDAY

Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Financial Policy, The American Enterprise Institute

Co-author of the Congressional Financial

Crisis Inquiry Report

Markets and ManagementFundamentals of Corporate Finance

Visiting Associate Professor, Ed TiryakianP r e s e n t s G u e s t L e c t u r e r :

by Rosalind HeldermanTHE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — The Sen-ate has failed to ratify an in-ternational treaty intended to protect the rights of those with disabilities, as a bloc of conser-vatives opposed the treaty be-lieving it could interfere with U.S. law.

The Senate voted 61 to 38 to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabili-ties, a tally that fell short of the two-thirds needed to sign on to an international treaty.

The 2006 treaty, which for-bids discrimination of the dis-abled, has enjoyed bipartisan support. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the treaty would encourage other nations to develop the kind of protections the United States adopted 22 years ago with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The international treaty’s thrust, he said, was a message: “Be more like us.”

But the treaty has split Re-publicans. Among its most vocal supporters were Repub-lican war veterans, including President George H.W. Bush and former senator Bob Dole, who was injured in World War II and made a rare return to

the Senate floor Tuesday to observe the vote and lend his stature.

Other conservatives were deeply suspicious of the Unit-ed Nations, which would over-see treaty obligations. Those who opposed the treaty in-cluded former senator and Republican presidential candi-date Rick Santorum, the father of a developmentally disabled child who had traveled to Capi-tol Hill last week to encourage fellow Republicans to vote no.

He and other conservatives argued that the treaty could re-linquish U.S. sovereignty to a U.N. committee charged with overseeing a ban on discrimi-nation and determining how the disabled, including chil-dren, should be treated. They particularly worried that the committee could violate the rights of parents who choose to home school their disabled children.

“This is a direct assault on us,” Santorum said.

Nations that have signed on to the treaty include China, Iran and Syria. Opponents said that American approval might give the impression that the United States accepts how those nations treat their dis-abled citizens.

“The hard reality is that there are nation-states, like China, who do like to sign up to these organizations and gain the reputation for doing good things while, in fact, not doing good things,” said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Supporters dismissed those fears as paranoid, noting that the treaty would change noth-ing in U.S. law without further approval from Congress.

“With these provisions, the United States can join the con-vention as an expression — an expression — of our leadership on disability rights without ced-ing any of our ability to decide for ourselves how best to ad-dress those issues in our law,” said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.

The risk of rejection grew after Santorum and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, announced that they had gathered the signa-tures of 36 fellow Republicans on a letter opposing the adop-tion of the measure during this month’s lame-duck session.

But its proponents had pushed forward in hopes of peeling off a handful of Repub-lican opponents. Senators were greeted this week near their basement subway by veterans and others in wheelchairs who pushed for support.

Senate rejects international treaty to protect disabled

by Roger Runningen and William Selway

BLOOMBERG NEWS

WASHINGTON — U.S. gov-ernors urged President Obama to quickly compromise with Congress to avert the so-called fiscal cliff and avoid hurting economic recoveries in their states.

Governors also pressed the presi-dent to avoid shifting costs from the federal government to states as the White House negotiates with Repub-lican leaders in Congress over avoid-ing the fiscal cliff, more than $600 billion of tax increases and spend-ing cuts set to begin in January.

“What people are concerned about is the uncertainty that the cur-rent state of the debate represents to businesses and individuals across the country,” said Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, D, at a news conference Tuesday after meeting with Obama at the White House. “The sooner this gets resolved in a way that’s not a three-month fix, but that’s a fix for some longer period of time, the bet-ter off that we’ll be.”

States are concerned that Con-gress could hurt their financial re-coveries by eliminating billions in state aid and triggering a recession. That poses risks in the nation’s capi-tals, where tax collections have re-bounded near the peaks hit before the brunt of the 18-month recession that began in December 2007.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, R, said the fiscal cliff threatens to cut $500 million from his state’s revenue.

“We’ve got to come together and get this done,” he said. “This impacts the economy. The uncertainty that’s out there lingering is creating havoc with the economies in our states.”

Obama invited members of the executive committee of the National Governors Association to the White House for talks on the budget nego-tiations, the effect on states and po-tential compromises with Congress.

Governors at the meeting includ-ed Democrats Mike Beebe of Arkan-sas and Mark Dayton of Minnesota, and Republican Scott Walker of Wis-consin. Also present were Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling.

Obama put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of following up with the governors.

The Congressional Budget Of-fice has warned that failing to keep the tax increases and spending cuts from happening might pitch the U.S. economy into a recession. That would put pressure on state govern-ments if sales taxes decline and resi-dents lose their jobs.

“If we go into another reces-sion that will have a serious effect

Govs. urge Obama to fix the fiscal cliff

SEE CLIFF ON PAGE 12

4 | WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

1920 1/2 Perry St. at Ninth Street Just a block from East Campus

Also serving from Chick-Fil-A on Campus

Menu SamplingOld School Veggie Burrito $2.86Regular Chicken Burrito $5.65Cheese Quesadilla $1.41Chicken Quesadilla $3.59VeggieNachos $4.12Chips & Salsa $2.06

Open until 4 am

cosmic cantina

SIM

PL

Y T

HE B

EST

!East Campus, he added, noting that he is not aware of any complaints filed against Schla-bach since she resumed employment.

The original grievance, filed Dec. 7, 2011 and signed by seven housekeepers who had been working under Schlabach in Edens, contended that Schlabach harassed em-ployees based on racial and national origin. According to a copy of the original docu-ment obtained by The Chronicle, she was accused of routinely utilizing “humiliation and aggression, used to promote a climate of fear.”

Specifically, the letter alleged that Schla-bach had taken money from the housekeep-ers, violated their personal property and threatened termination and deportation, among other actions. The original letter de-manded that Schlabach should be fired.

“We can’t get a definite answer from man-agement [why], but they brought her back with a clean slate,” Gooch said. “We don’t know what happened with the investigation.”

Andrea*, a former housekeeper, was one of the original seven signatories. This Spring, she received a letter dated May 3, 2012 explain-ing Duke’s reasons for not finding Schlabach guilty of the alleged harassment, written and signed by Cynthia Clinton, director of harass-ment prevention at the Office of Institutional Equity. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Chronicle.

“My follow-up to this matter did not reveal sufficient evidence of prohibited discrimina-tion,” the letter states. “Ms. Schlabach present-ed legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for any employment actions taken, which do not appear disingenuous or unworthy of belief. As such, I do not find a violation of Duke’s non-discrimination policy.”

The Chronicle made repeated attempts to contact Schlabach, but she could not be reached for comment.

‘Nobody asked me’After Housing, Dining and Residence Life

received the complaint in December 2011, they referred it to a “third-party” office on Duke’s campus for review that is equipped to investigate harassment issues, said Rick John-son, assistant vice president of student affairs for HDRL. Due to employee privacy rights, Johnson declined to state which office was charged with the task.

Clinton would not confirm that her office handled the investigation, citing her obliga-tion to protect the privacy of University em-ployees and because of an OIE policy that bars her from speaking about specific cases.

But her May 3 letter states that she con-ducted interviews to investigate concerns and complaints cited in the Dec. 7 grievance and reviewed relevant documents. Additionally, her letter terms the decision “my investigation and determination.”

Johnson said the investigation and review process was “thorough and exhaustive,” span-ning about three months.

“The third-party office interviewed over 20 people, some of them multiple times,” he said. “The intent was to corroborate stuff that they heard through the other interviews.”

Andrea, however, said she was never con-tacted to testify about the case, though she was one of the seven housekeepers who signed the Dec. 7 complaint. Andrea lost her job at the University Sept. 15, 2011 after six years of employment, when human resources officials found that she did not have the proper autho-rization to work in the United States.

Although she was not employed by Duke when the complaint was filed or during the investigation, she said she still should have been contacted to give testimony as one of the housekeepers who claimed mistreatment by Schlabach.

“I was furious because it wasn’t right,” An-drea said. “Nobody asked me questions about what happened.”

But in her letter to Andrea, Clinton refers

to interviewing her as part of the investigation process. Clinton declined to comment to The Chronicle on whether or not those interviews with Andrea took place.

Gooch said he believes that as the union protecting housekeepers, Local 77 should have been allowed to be more involved in the investigation. Although he and other union representatives were permitted to sit in on parts of the hearings, they were barred from “actively taking part” in the investiga-tion, he said.

No University officials conferred with union representatives before deeming the case to have unsubstantial evidence, Gooch added.

“We were left out of the conversation,” he said. “No one knew what was happening until we saw [Schlabach] coming back to work.”

In her May 3 letter, Clinton stated that Schlabach denied several of the housekeep-ers’ claims during the investigation process. Schlabach testified that she did not act in an abusive, harassing, threatening or discrimi-natory manner, nor did she use undesirable work assignments to punish workers or force anyone to contribute money for workplace events. Additionally, the letter states that Schla-bach claimed to have followed departmental policies and procedures.

According to the letter, Schlabach acknowl-edged some of the allegations, including shak-ing and hitting a vacuum cleaner—she said it had been clogged and she was trying to make it work again. Those complaints did not quali-fy as a violation of the Duke harassment policy, Clinton noted in the letter.

In addition to Schlabach’s own denial of several actions, the letter notes that some of the accusations made by housekeepers, in-cluding certain behavior and comments at-tributed to Schlabach, could not be corrobo-rated in the interview process.

A separate entitySchlabach’s case not only affects many in-

dividuals personally, but also raises broader questions about how Duke handles harass-ment claims, said Kinnari Bhojani, Trinity ’12 and one of the founders of Duke Student Ac-tion with Workers, a group established to sup-port University employees.

OIE implements Duke harassment poli-cies, and also follows up on concerns about mistreatment, Clinton said. The University has a formal definition for harassment—“verbal or physical conduct… that, because of its sever-ity and/or persistence, interferes significantly with an individual’s work,” according to the OIE website. But when it comes to investigat-ing claims of harassment, there is no formula, Clinton said.

“The factual context is very important,” she said. “We try to be as equitable and fair and objective. In any situation we handle, we al-ways reflect on what we may have learned and how that can influence how we handle future cases.”

At the end of her May 3 letter, Clinton notes that a “detailed confidential report” of the investigation was submitted to responsible University officials, and included recommen-dations “to aid in sustaining an inclusive and respectful work environment.”

She declined to disclose who those Univer-sity officials were or the nature of the alluded to recommendations.

But Bhojani questioned whether OIE should have handled this particular case at all. It is an office within the University, which she believes may have resulted in an investigation conducted with bias.

Johnson contended that the office that conducted the investigation was able to op-erate as a third party because it is external to HDRL.

“[It] is very separate, certainly separate from us, separate from Student Affairs,” he said. “They can be totally objective because they’re evaluating the department and a situa-tion that they’re independent of.”

*Name has been changed for the source’s pro-tection.

HOUSEKEEPING from page 1

DAVID KORNBERG/THE CHRONICLE

The Duke Chorale performed a holiday concert in the Duke Chapel Tuesday evening.

Fa la la la la

THE CHRONICLE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 | 5

jobs, housing and small businesses.” The project is facilitated by the

Durham Urban Innovation Center and began when the center hired a neigh-borhood development specialist with a background in planning and architec-ture a year ago. Since then, the project has grown to become a community-driv-en process that involves both state and local agents as well as Durham residents who meet on a monthly basis.

“This changes the way business is done and changes the relationship be-tween the city and its residents,” said Wanona Satcher, manager of the project and neighborhood development special-ist at the Neighborhood Improvement Services Department. “Our goal is to af-fect as many people as possible.”

After the finalists were announced, a team from Durham traveled to the Bloomberg Ideas Camp in New York City. There, the group worked with experts to refine their ideas and hone their approach. The team will resubmit a final proposal in January to be consid-ered for the prize.

Criteria for the contest include hav-ing a visionary approach, showing po-tential for positive impact, being real-istically implementable and creating solutions that can be replicable in other cities.

“To be selected as a finalist from more than 300 submissions across the country speaks volumes about the po-tential value of this project to Durham and to other cities,” said Durham Mayor Bill Bell in a press release last month. “This project presents Durham with an exciting opportunity to be transforma-tive in a unique way which, if executed,

could have a very positive impact on Durham in general and specifically for the people in the selected neighbor-hoods.”

Other projects competing for the top prize include a real-time pattern detection analytics platform in Chi-cago, a single-bin waste diversion and recovery project in Houston and an in-fant mortality prevention initiative in Cincinnati. Satcher said the Durham project is the only one of its kind and establishes a partnership among city agencies, entrepreneurs, students and residents.

“The project is very organic and can be replicated anywhere out of state,” Satcher said. “Whatever travels in the Durham community —interesting inno-vative concepts and projects—will have a general impact not just today and will continue over time.”

If implemented, the project will ex-tend to the Duke community as well. Stancil expressed interest in involving students with knowledge and passion for education, law, business and public policy in particular.

“We definitely need help with a way we can articulate the policy bench-marks we want —to take that concept and prove that it works,” Satcher said.

Stancil noted that the end goal of the Durham project is about more than just repainting houses and swapping out their residents, which she said marks a departure from previous initiatives. She said the end goal, rather, is to raise the bar and set higher standards of living in Durham above the bare minimum.

“It is more than just empowering people,” Stancil said. “It is promoting freedom to decide what will happen in their life—providing them freedom of choice, thought and action.”

DURHAM from page 1

NICOLE SAVAGE/THE CHRONICLE

A menorah is lit on the Main Quadrangle to celebrate the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, which begins Friday evening.

Hanukkah comes early

MAKE WWW.QDUKE.COM YOUR HOMEPAGE

SportsThe Chronicle

www.dukechroniclesports.com

WEDNESDAYDecember 5, 2012

>> THE BLUE ZONE

ALSO

Read Danny Nolan’s men’s basketball Stat Chat tomor-row on the sports blog.

The lottery for free tickets to Duke football’s bowl game was extended through today.

FENCING

Nollner goes from Utah to rising fencing star

Duke’s most important game (actually this time)

Realignment raises scheduling questions

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Week after week, each football game Duke has played this season has seemingly been billed as the most important Duke football game in upwards of 20 years. With

the Blue Devils headed back to postseason play in the Belk Bowl on Dec. 27, don’t expect that to stop anytime soon.

We said it before Duke’s season opener

against Florida International, a convincing blowout victory.

We said it again before the Blue Devils traveled to Wake Forest, snapping a streak of 13 consecutive losses to their ACC rival. And we said it before Duke secured bowl eligibility for the first time since 1994 with a heart-stopping come-from-behind victory against North Carolina.

So excuse me for sounding redundant, but the Blue Devils’ bowl game against Cincinnati is actually the most important game Duke has played in 18 years.

The Blue Devils are hardly coming into this game on a high note. Posting a 6-2 record in its first eight games, Duke appeared poised to compete during its remaining conference schedule and vie for the ACC’s Coastal Division crown, a feat that should not have been terribly

difficult. Considering the fact that North Carolina was already bowl ineligible, Miami was likely going to join them and Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech were struggling—uncharacteristic of the divi-sion’s two typical powerhouses—Duke would have only needed one more win to secure the division crown and a spot in the ACC Championship game for the first time in program history.

It appeared as though after securing bowl eligibility in dramatic fashion, Duke may have taken its foot off the gas in its losses to Florida State, Clemson, Georgia Tech and Miami. The Blue Devil defense was porous in its final four games of the year, allowing a staggering 49.5 points per game. Duke didn’t have any help from the ACC’s scheduling committee on this one—squaring off with the Seminoles and Tigers in back-to-back games is as tough as it can get in this conference—but the Blue Devils squandered opportunities to win each of their final two games of the season against the Yellow Jackets and Hurricanes and now enter postseason play on a four-game losing skid.

Earlier this week, head coach David Cutcliffe mentioned that the next few weeks of bowl practices are not just meant to prepare Duke for its matchup

DanielCarpOn Football

by Andrew BeatonTHE CHRONICLE

The ACC/Big Ten Challenge annually produces some of the year’s best non-con-ference matchups, including this year’s 73-68 victory for No. 2 Duke against then-No. 4 Ohio State at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

But with Maryland leaving the ACC for the Big Ten as just one example of an increasing-ly-volatile conference realignment picture, will holding the challenge in the future be realistic? Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski wondered just that on his GoDuke.com radio show with Bob Harris last week.

“The ACC/Big Ten—I wonder where that’s going to go. I don’t think we should do it anymore,” Krzyzewski said. “They’re taking teams from conference. We don’t even know who’s in all these conferences anymore. So, let’s just schedule our own games going for-ward.”

Among the chief concerns for the Blue Devils is juggling the realignment and its con-sequences with the desire maintain their own schedule flexibility.

“For instance in the ACC, we recently ex-panded from a 16-game to an 18-game con-ference schedule and with the ACC/Big 10 Challenge game already in place, that elimi-nates three games that the schools could schedule in the past,” Krzyzewski wrote in an email statement to The Chronicle Wednes-

day. “For years, Duke and other ACC schools have benefitted from scheduling strong na-tional opponents. Certainly, college sports are based on tradition. We have to be careful not to lose that.”

The ACC/Big Ten Challenge is currently part of the television contracts both confer-ences have with ESPN, the company’s direc-tor of programming and acquisitions Nick Dawson said.

Although the full details of the television contracts are not publicly available, the ACC and ESPN announced an agreement in May 2012 that extended their television rights deal through the 2026-27 season. The Big Ten’s deal with ESPN, however, only runs through the 2016-17 season.

“From my perspective, people I’ve talked to in the two conferences and coaches, they both see a tremendous amount of value in the series,” Dawson said. “It’s one game on their schedule but it’s really become the landmark event for non-conference college basketball.”

But as conference expansion continues, scheduling becomes even more difficult for teams. Last year the Blue Devils were able to play St. John’s in late January, breaking up their ACC play with a non-conference game, something they had been able to do in years

SEE ACC ON PAGE 8SEE CARP ON PAGE 8

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Duke fencer Dylan Nollner, left, defeats Italy’s Andrea Santarelli at the 2012 Junior World Championships.

by Vaishnavi KrishnanTHE CHRONICLE

Three weeks ago, Duke fencer Dylan Nollner placed third out of 264 entries in Division I men’s epee at the North Ameri-can Cup. The junior now returns to Duke this year as the Blue Devils’ top epee after securing a silver medal in the U-20 Junior Olympics last year. He also qualified for the U.S. Junior World Team, was the top finish-er for the Americans at the Junior World Fencing Championships and advanced to the NCAA Championships for his second straight year.

Although he has yet to decide what his next step may be, working towards rep-resenting the United States in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is not out of the question.

But fencing has not always been Noll-ner’s sport of choice. After playing tennis throughout elementary school where he grew up in Ogden, Utah, Nollner decided he wanted to switch over to another indi-vidual sport.

“I was just curious about fencing, I had seen it in movies and things like that,” Noll-ner said. “So I just looked it up online and found a local club and have stuck with it ever since. I love all the strategy behind it, and be-ing a smart kid, it’s the perfect application of the physicality of sports with the big mental aspects. So it was the perfect sport for me.”

The rules for each of the weapons in fencing differ and in epee, the person may only hit the target with the point of the blade to score. The whole body is the target area. Compared to both sabre and foil, epee is considered a slower game in which there is a lot more strategy involved

because it is easy to make a mistake and be hit due to the large target area.

“I don’t know why it appealed to me the most,” Nollner said. “I started off doing foil at the club that I started with and then I ended up having better success earlier with epee. There was also a little bit stronger

epee in the area where I am from.”Coming into college, Nollner had the

option to attend a university with a stron-ger fencing program than Duke’s lower-profile one. Notre Dame—a powerhouse in college fencing that has won National Championships and sent people to the 2012 London Olympics—was on the top of his list before visiting Duke.

“I wanted to make sure that none of my decisions were based off of one factor of a school. When I came and visited here, my first night I went to a party on the fra-tio and saw Kyle Singler with all the other people. Everyone was more welcoming to me. I thought it was the best mix of aca-demics, athletics and a good social environ-ment that will help me grow. It was an easy choice,” Nollner said.

This is the end of the national season for fencing before the official NCAA sea-son kicks off in January. During this time, fencers rack up points in order to qualify for world stage events like the Pan-Ameri-can Games, Junior Worlds and potentially the Olympics.

“This is apart from Duke, but I am still representing them,” Nollner said.

In the North American Cup, Nollner felt that he was moving well and his entire game seemed to be clicking aside from a

SEE NOLLNER ON PAGE 7

THE CHRONICLE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 | 7

FOOTBALL SENIOR PROFILE

FOOTBALL SENIOR PROFILE

Canty emerges as a senior defensive leader

Renfree quietly carries Duke

by Michael SchreinerTHE CHRONICLE

In November 2008, Walt Canty gave a ver-bal commitment to a football team that had won just eight of its last 55 games. In three weeks, he will play his final game as a Blue Devil, concluding the best season for Duke football in nearly two decades.

The senior safety has helped take Blue Devils from the cellar of the ACC to the team’s first bowl game since 1994. Named one of the Duke’s four co-captains before the start of his senior campaign, Canty proved to be a de-pendable leader throughout the team’s 6-6 season.

“If there ever was a captain, he’s a captain,” head coach David Cutcliffe said. “I trust him completely.”

After registering a combined 153 tackles through his first three seasons, Canty had a team-leading 102 stops in the 2012 regular sea-son. No one else on the team had more than 80 and just two other Blue Devils—Jordan Byas and Ross Cockrell—finished the regular season with more than 60. Beyond the scope of Duke, Canty’s 8.5 tackles per game ranked ninth in the ACC.

The senior inherited the title of Duke’s tackle king from fellow safety Matt Daniels, who graduated last year and has appeared in four games for the St. Louis Rams this year. A captain his senior year and one of Cutcliffe’s all-time favorite players, Daniels took Canty under his wing early on in the younger safety’s Duke career.

As Canty developed into a team leader in his own right, he too worked to leave his mark on Duke football. He said reinventing the mentality surrounding the program was the most important, and hardest, change he attempted to enact during his four years.

“I feel like overall more guys have begun to buy in to what’s going on and buy in to the mindset that we expect to win,” he said. “Ev-eryone is expected to be accountable for their actions on and off the field.”

But raising the expectations both players and fans had for the program was not a bur-den Canty shouldered by himself. In fact, Cut-cliffe had already outlined the revival of Duke football before Canty ever called himself a Blue Devil.

The vision Cutcliffe and defensive backs coach Derek Jones laid out while recruiting the 6-foot-1 safety played a large part in Can-ty’s decision to commit to a then-8-for-55 Duke

program in 2008.“Coach Cut always preached faith, family

and football as he continues to preach and that’s something that I really like,” Canty said. “I wanted to be a part of the change in culture here at Duke football.”

Canty’s desire to remain close to his hometown of Roebuck, S.C. also influenced his decision to attend Duke—the first FBS school to offer him a scholarship. To top things off, Canty has spent the last four years living with redshirt junior safety Taylor Sow-ell, his best friend and teammate at Dorman High School.

“At times it can get hard, trying to balance

ELYSIA SU/THE CHRONICLE

Duke senior safety Walt Canty recorded a team-leading 102 tackles this season for the Blue Devils.

the school work, social life and football and all that, but overall it’s been a really good experi-ence,” Canty, a public policy major, said of his time at Duke.

His favorite football memory came in the closing seconds of this year’s game against North Carolina, when the Blue Devils achieved bowl eligibility by stealing the win on their fi-nal drive.

As for his football plans after Duke, Canty is reluctant to look too far ahead—he and his fellow seniors have one last goal to accomplish first.

“We’re going to take care of the bowl game, and then we will see what goes on,” he said.

Throughout the season, Cutcliffe has re-peatedly praised his senior captains for their role in the program’s best season since 1994.

“Our captains are incredible… almost ev-eryone on the team voted for them,” Cutcliffe said. “When you have that kind of respect that they have from their teammates, and then they are the kind of people they are, they are going to carry us not just through games and adversity—they carry every practice.”

That adversity included a combined 18 losses in Canty’s sophomore and junior sea-sons and a number of blowout defeats this year. Despite the demanding path Duke foot-ball had to travel to reach another postseason, Canty’s confidence never wavered.

“You don’t change when you get your tail whipped,” Cutcliffe said. “You don’t lose your confidence in those circumstances. They know. We have enough leaders—enough guys who have played plenty of snaps. Nobody is going to tell Walt Canty he isn’t a good foot-ball player—he is.”

Luckily for the Blue Devils, four years ago Canty also believed Duke could be a good football program.

minor leg cramp. Now, he is engrossed in bettering his game, with both his coach from home and his coach here discussing steps for improvement. Every week, Noll-ner participates in individual workouts: lifting, plyometrics, yoga, pilates, group drilling and footwork. And when not in of-ficial practice, he spends time perfecting his blade-work and tip control.

Although Nollner does not yet know what he is going to do after college, he is going to squeeze in as much training as he can while he is still at Duke. He may try and make the 2016 Olympic team, if it is realistic, but will not step out of school to pursue that goal.

His employment after college has impor-tance to his long-term fencing goals , de-pending on whether or not ithis future job will be able to support his training and travel schedule along with the necessary finances.

An alternate plan could be potentially living in the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs after graduation. Every-thing is paid for there, and depending on his Olympic chances at that time, he said he may choose to live there full time for one or two years.

For Nollner, everything is still up in the air, but he will decide before he graduates from Duke.

“If you are taking fencing seriously in col-lege, there is no pro-fencing league, so at this high of a level and to still be getting some of the finishes that I have, I guess [the Olym-pics] is always in the back of your mind,” Nollner said. “It is for sure a great goal, but I am trying to be realistic about it and take it one step at a time, one season at a time. If in the next couple of years I can qualify first for a Pan-American team that would be great. I went to Junior World Championships last year, and I thought that was a great first step, so hopefully the good results can continue.”

NOLLNER from page 6

by Jacob LevittTHE CHRONICLE

It is difficult to get Sean Renfree to talk about himself, but just about anyone else will give him a glowing endorsement. Not just the players and coaching staff at Duke, though they are also happy to talk about how much he has meant to the team, but national awards committees as well. Among others, he has won the Jim Tatum Award, which honors the ACC’s top football student-athlete and the Pop Warner National College Football Award, given to athletes for their accomplish-ments in athletics, academics and com-munity service. He has been a finalist for a number of other awards as well.

“Sean Renfree just keeps racking in, deservedly, honors,” head coach David Cutcliffe said. “To have started as many games, to be as effective as he has been, as humble as he has been and accomplish so much for this University, we need to celebrate Sean Renfree. I think some-times he’s taken for granted, not only in our midst but in this league’s midst. He’s a pretty special guy.”

Sean Renfree’s numbers ensure he will end his career as one of the most ac-complished quarterbacks in Duke history. During his five years at Duke, he has set or tied a multitude of school records, and now holds the mark for career comple-tion percentage. He is also is on mark to break the school’s single-season record, which he set last year.

He has also been instrumental in help-ing senior wide receiver and fellow co-captain Conner Vernon, his roommate the past two years, to establish confer-

ence records for career receptions and receiving yards.

“I had 55 catches my freshman year so, I’m not a math major, but the 200-what-ever I have after that are Sean,” Vernon said. “So again I owe a lot of my success to him and obviously without him I wouldn’t be the player I am today. This program wouldn’t be where it is today without him either.”

And it was only by chance that Ren-free even considered Duke. Renfree had originally committed to Georgia Tech to play for Chan Gailey, but Gailey was dis-missed and replaced by Paul Johnson,

whose triple-option offense did not have room for a pocket passer like Renfree. Just seven days after Johnson’s hiring at Georgia Tech, Duke hired Cutcliffe as its next head coach. Renfree had not previously considered Duke, but he was excited about the prospect of playing for Cutcliffe, who successfully sold him on his vision for success.

Renfree redshirted his freshman year but played the next year as a reserve, even splitting reps with then-starter Thaddeus Lewis, who later signed with the St. Louis

ELYSIA SU/THE CHRONICLE

Sean Renfree has thrown a career-high 18 touchdowns this season, completing 66.3 percent of his passes.

SEE RENFREE ON PAGE 8

8 |WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

ANNOUNCEMENTS

A LOT OF CARS INC. - Cars start at $550/down. 200+Vehi-cles. Layaway option. Student/Employee/Hospital ID $150-dis-count. 10+cars under $2995. 3119 N.Roxboro Street, Durham, NC. http://www.alotofcarsnc.com.

Owned by Duke Alumni 919-220-7155

TRAVEL/VACATION

BAHAMAS SPRING BREAK

$189 for 5 days. All prices in-clude: Round-trip luxury party cruise. Accommodations on the island at your choice of thirteen resorts. Appalachia Travel. www.BahamaSun.com 800-867-5018

Limited Weekly Basketball

sponsorship available NOW!

C Z

Includes

Be a part of Duke Basketball in The Chronicle

919-684-3811 advertising@chronicle.duke.edu Plus 2 promotional tweets during live tweets

of the game!

CLASSIFIEDS

The Chronicle

classified advertising

www.duke-chronicle.com/

classifieds

ratesAll advertising - $6.00 for first 15

words, 10¢ (per day) additional per word

3 or 4 consecutive insertions - 10 % off

5 or more consecutive insertions - 20 % off

deadline12:00 noon 1 business day

prior to publication

past. Because this is the first year ACC teams are playing an 18-game conference sched-ule, Duke has no such game on its calendar this year.

But the ACC/Big Ten Challenge is also a boon for the conference. It is often sched-uled in the weekend leading up to the col-lege football championship games, with the basketball contests featured in primetime on one of ESPN’s networks.

“We certainly hold some ideal real estate for it. And it is the one that gets the most attention nationally by college basketball followers and pundits,” said Karl Hicks, the ACC’s associate commissioner for men’s bas-ketball. “ESPN has the right to a challenge series with us, and the Big Ten/ACC one has certainly been a successful one.”

Mike Cragg, a Duke senior associate ath-letic director who deals with much of the men’s basketball scheduling, echoed much of Krzyzewski’s sentiments about the pro-gram’s scheduling outlook. He said that with the reduced flexibility provided by the 18-game ACC schedule and by losing traditional rivals such as Maryland, the shifting athletic calendar will be something to keep a close eye on moving forward.

“Times change,” Cragg said. “I’m sure we’re not alone in feeling that.”

with the Bearcats, but also to bridge the gap between the end of this season and the commencement of spring practice for next year. Cutcliffe added that there will be times during this period when he forces his seniors to take a seat and watch the 2013 Blue Devils in live ac-tion. Cutcliffe even mentioned that in the next three weeks he will be seri-ously evaluating some position changes, adjustments for next season that could be instituted as early as the bowl game against Cincinnati.

This is a team that is going to experi-ence significant changes in its transition toward next season. Duke will lose three of its four captains, its starting quarterback, the most statistically accomplished wide receiver in ACC history and a number of leaders on both sides of the ball.

The Blue Devils’ goal was not just to make it to one bowl game, but to become a team that is perennially bowl eligible, much like many of its ACC counterparts. But to achieve this, Duke is going to need some momentum heading into an offseason full of change, and a five-game losing streak to end the year is not the way to do that.

The changes this team faces this offsea-son coupled with a disappointing end the season has the potential to remind Duke fans of the winless teams they knew and did not love.

Duke needs one more victory to clinch a winning season for the first time since 1994. This is a team that has made great strides this season—the Blue Devils have accomplished a feat some thought was impossible by becoming bowl eligible and made football relevant on campus for the first time in a long time.

The Blue Devils cannot afford to be content with merely stepping on the field at Bank of America Stadium in three weeks—they need to be ready to compete for the program’s future. This is a year that should be celebrated for the accom-plishments Duke football has made, not a season that drifted into irrelevancy as a 6-7 anomaly from a team with a haunted past.

It may be just the Belk Bowl trophy on the line when both teams take the field in three weeks, but make no mistake, Duke has a lot to lose.

ERIC LIN/THE CHRONICLE

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said he is unsure of the future of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

CARP from page 6ACC from page 6

Rams out of college. As a freshman, Ren-free showed his potential, completing 34-of-50 passes with four touchdowns and two interceptions before tearing his ACL against Georgia Tech.

The next season, Renfree and the of-fense came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, putting up 99 points in two games against Elon and Wake Forest but coming away with only one win to show for it. The season took a downhill turn af-ter a blowout loss to then-No. 1 Alabama left the team—including Renfree—shell-shocked. The young signal-caller com-mitted 12 turnovers in the next three games, two of which came against beat-able opponents. Renfree recovered to compile more than 3,000 yards passing for the year, becoming just the fourth Duke quarterback to do so, but he threw

only 14 touchdowns compared to 17 in-terceptions.

Brandon Connette often replaced Renfree in the red zone as a Wildcat quar-terback that season because of the team’s struggle in the traditional run game, depriving Renfree of the opportunity to throw short touchdowns. Although Ren-free has always said that he felt secure in his starting role, he demonstrated his maturity at a young age by coming out of that season with his confidence intact.

As in his sophomore year, Renfree ac-cumulated excellent passing numbers the next season, but he was able to cut down on the turnovers that plagued him the previous year. Once again, however, the team finished with a frustrating 3-9 record, including several painfully close losses.

But this past season, Renfree has fi-nally put it all together. He is averaging 10 more passing yards per game than

last year with improved decision mak-ing. This season he has set a career-best in touchdown passes and further cut his interceptions, with just eight picks in 11 games, leading his team to six wins and its first bowl game since 1994. As he usu-ally does, Renfree shared the credit with his teammates.

“We’ve played much better as a unit [this year]—our offense, defense and our special teams,” Renfree said. “We’ve been able to run the ball more effectively, and that’s helped us gain more yardage and score more points. Our turnover margin has been very good for the season. There are a lot of people who have contributed.”

After the season, Renfree will return home to Phoenix to train for the NFL Draft, where he is projected as a possible late-round pick, but for now he’s focused on making the most of the final game he was so instrumental in helping Duke earn.

RENFREE from page 7

THE CHRONICLE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 | 9

Diversions Shoe Chris Cassatt and Gary Brookins

Dilbert Scott Adams

The Duplex Glenn McCoy

Doonesbury Garry Trudeau

Sudoku Fill in the grid so that every row, every col-umn and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. (No number is repeated in any column, row or box.)

A nswer to puzzle

www.sudoku.com

The Chronicle Our favorite animals:

lil bub: .................................................................................. locopophoney badger: .....................................................................shwanthpanda on a seesaw: ................................................................ jewelssquirrels with pancakes: .............................................. pheebs, cortfainting goats: .......................................................................briggsycorgnelious : ......................................................................og abeatsphoto is its own animal: ....................................................esu, nsavgrumpy cat [aka dbb]: ....................................................... bri, davidBarb Starbuck: ........................................................................... Barb

Student Advertising Manager: .................................. Allison Rhyne

Account Representatives: ..................... Jen Bahadur, Sarah BurgartCourtney Clower, Peter Hapin, Claire Gilhuly, Sterling Lambert

Liz Lash, Dori Levy, Gini Li, Ina Li, Vivian Lorencatto, Lalita MarajParker Masselink, Cliff Simmons, James Sinclair, Olivia Wax

Creative Services: ..........Allison Eisen, Marcela Heywood, Mao HuRachel Kiner, Anh Pham, Izzy Xu

Thousands of years ago it was written in Cor-inthians 15:26: “And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Throughout history, we

humans have vainly tried to defeat death in what-ever way we could. We have created religions that promise an afterlife. We have, like Alexander the Great, conquered entire nations—not for land but for eternal fame. We have searched for “fountains of life.” The Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang even ingested mercury tablets in an attempt at immortality. When this backfi red, islander Xu Fu convinced a desperate Huang that if only he lent him some treasure-laden ships he would fi nd an elixir on the mythical island of Japan. Needless to say, Fu never returned, and today we are still headed toward the same destination as these men. It is a destination that is conceived as paradise by many and oblivion by few. It is a destination that has consumed billions.

The quest for immortality has not ended. Indeed, people who view death as oblivion are trying hard to defeat it. Armed with modern science, they are making so much progress that Harvard-educated physicist Michio Kaku has even questioned whether he is a member of the last generation to die. Kaku believes that a toddler alive today could be the fi rst physically immortal human.

The idea sounds crazy at fi rst—preposterous, even. But increasingly, more and more scientists are viewing death as less of an inevitability and more as something that science can and will tackle. Though previously senescence research was promoted primar-ily by charlatans like Aubrey de Grey, credible scien-tists like Michio Kaku and Michael West are coming to see physical immortality as an inevitability.

This is due to a few reasons. First, our under-standing of where we age has increased, in large part because of our relatively novel ability to scan the human genome. “Think of a car,” Kaku recently explained in an online video, “Where does aging take place in a car? Well, the engine. Why? Because that’s where combustion takes place, that’s where we have the gum of deposits and soot buildup in the engine because that’s where oxidation takes place. But where does oxidation take place in itself? The mitochondria. The mitochondrion is the engine of the cell. So we now know where aging takes place.”

Second, numerous scientists think it may be pos-sible to reverse cellular damage. In his well-reviewed book, “The Immortal Cell,” Dr. Michael West talks about how the death of his father spurned him to discover the cellular “clock” telomerase (a biologi-cal mechanism that manages the aging of cells). Telomerase is referred to as a “clock” because every

time a cell divides, the cell’s telomere shortens, so the length of a telomere is correlated with a person’s age. After this discovery, West founded a company with the ultimate purpose of using stem cells to re-

pair tissue damage. West faces harsh criticism concerning his research on cellular aging, especially in regards to stem cell use and telomerase ac-tivation. Interestingly, telomerase activation does hold some promise; for example, one study found that activating telomerase reverses tissue degeneration in prematurely aged, telomerase-defi cient mice.

Third, our ability to grow organs in the lab is slowly but surely increas-

ing due to tissue engineering research. Although currently we are limited to growing relatively simple organs such as the bladder, further research could enable us to grow new hearts or lungs. “Have a weak heart?” a future doctor might ask. “Not a problem. Just pop in a new one!”

Finally, we are no longer certain that death is a necessary condition of life. Some of you may have read “Can a Jellyfi sh Unlock the Secret of Immortal-ity?” in The New York Times recently. As the article states, Christian Sommer, a German marine-biology student, “discovered eternal life in 1988” when he unwittingly scooped up Turritopsis dohrnii, today known more commonly as the “immortal jellyfi sh.”

As The New York Times wrote, “After several days [Sommer] noticed that his Turritopsis dohrnii was behaving in a very peculiar manner. … Plainly speaking, it refused to die. It appeared to age in reverse, growing younger and younger until it reached its earliest stage of development, at which point it began its life cycle anew.” Japanese scien-tist Shin Kubota is studying this “Benjamin Button” jellyfi sh in the hopes of uncovering the genes that allow it to live forever—and learning how we can harness them.

Do I think we will live forever? No. This research is still in its nascent stages, and there is still a long way to go. But the social consequences of immortali-ty are interesting to contemplate, for they pose ques-tions for religion as well as society. Would religions fi ght attempts at physical immortality? Given eternal life, how long would couples remain married? What would it mean to have a life-long career goal?

Whether you dread eternal life or welcome it, it seems possible that humans will eventually turn the dream, like spacefl ight or nuclear fusion, into a real-ity. If this is true, the main questions are when—and at what cost to our humanity.

Mike Shammas is a Trinity senior. This is his fi nal col-umn of the semester.

commentaries10 | WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

The C

hron

icle

The Ind

epen

dent

Dai

ly a

t D

uke

Uni

vers

ity

editorial

Defeating death

Sequence all the majors

”“ onlinecomment

I noticed blue paintings of penises on the pavement around the East Campus bridge. Maybe the vandalism was committed by a bunch of immature high school kids.

—“ashpool ” commenting on the story “Duke Jewish center sign vandalized.” See more at www.dukechronicle.com.

LETTERS POLICY

The Chronicle welcomes submissions in the form of letters to the editor or guest columns. Submissions must include the author’s name, signature, department or class, and for purposes of identifi cation, phone number and local address. Letters should not exceed 325 words; contact the editorial department for information regarding guest columns.

The Chronicle will not publish anonymous or form letters or letters that are promotional in nature. The Chronicle reserves the right to edit letters and guest columns for length, clarity and style and the right to withhold letters based on the discretion of the editorial page editor.

Direct submissions to:

E-mail: chronicleletters@duke.eduEditorial Page DepartmentThe ChronicleBox 90858, Durham, NC 27708Phone: (919) 684-2663Fax: (919) 684-4696

Have you ever found your-self in a class that spends weeks recapping material that you learned last semester? Have you ever been frustrated in an upper-level elective where some students have never heard of basic concepts from the department’s intro-ductory course?

With many departments—particularly those in the hu-manities and social sciences—lacking established course sequences, advanced courses often contain students with vastly different prior knowl-edge. Students do not attempt stochastic calculus without be-ing profi cient in basic math. Yet we allow students to compare postmodernism in Virginia Woolf and J. M. Coetzee with-out having learned the funda-

mentals of textual analysis.Wildly varying student ex-

pertise pressures professors to spend a lot of time and energy getting everyone on the same page. Regardless, beginner

and advanced students are un-likely to speak

the language of the discipline with the same fl uency. A more deliberate sequencing of cours-es within majors will empower professors to incorporate more sophisticated material and enhance the academic experi-ence.

In Monday’s editorial, we emphasized the importance of specialization—what we called the second phase of the undergraduate education—es-pecially in the humanities. An anemic attempt at specializa-tion lessens a student’s ability

to engage in integrated learn-ing later on. Humanities de-partments—and certain social science departments—need structured curricula that build on themselves in a clear and methodical fashion over time.

First, a department must establish a strong gateway course to its curriculum. This class needs to be consistent across semesters and profes-sors. The fundamentals of a discipline should never be subject to the whimsy of the teacher. Additionally, gateway courses must be comprehen-sive, covering fundamental concepts rather than niche topics of the professor’s choosing.

Whether textual analysis in English or cost-benefi t analysis in public policy, these concepts should be introduced early

then deliberately developed over a sequenced core. Each department should recom-mended a specifi c roadmap for students, a more in-depth ma-jor worksheet thoroughly ex-plaining pre- and co-requisites. This way, a student can track her own development and choose electives accordingly.

Course numbering is in-tegral to improving course sequencing. Numbers should truly inform students about the diffi culty of a course. The na-ture of the diffi culty—whether measured in pages of reading, number of mathematical con-cepts employed, musical tech-nique mastered—will vary by department.

But this improved course sequencing system should not be too rigid. It must be fl ex-ible enough for students enter-

ing Duke who already possess advanced knowledge to skip courses. It must also ensure that each department has a number of beginner courses that require no prior knowl-edge that anyone could take, regardless of expertise.

Intelligent course sequenc-ing will result in a better, over-all classroom experience. Students in advanced courses would fi nally be accountable for the understanding el-ementary concepts, freeing up professors to jump into the meat of the sophisticated material more quickly. The whole class’ level of intellec-tual engagement would then be elevated, resulting in more learning for all. Let’s buckle down and sequence our ma-jors. Let’s fi nally get everyone on the same page.

Inc. 1993Est. 1905 The Chronicle

YESHWANTH KANDIMALLA, EditorLAUREN CARROLL, Managing Editor

JULIAN SPECTOR, News EditorANDREW BEATON, Sports EditorCHRIS DALL, Photography Editor

MAGGIE LAFALCE, Editorial Page EditorKATHERINE ZHANG, Editorial Board Chair

PARKER KUIVILA, Managing Editor for OnlineJIM POSEN, Director of Online Operations

CHRISSY BECK, General Manager

KRISTIE KIM, University Editor MARGOT TUCHLER, University EditorTIFFANY LIEU, Local & National Editor JACK MERCOLA, Local & National EditorANDREW LUO, Health & Science Editor DANIELLE MUOIO, Health & Science EditorCAROLINE RODRIGUEZ, News Photography Editor ELYSIA SU, Sports Photography EditorPHOEBE LONG, Design Editor ELIZA STRONG, Design Editor MICHAELA DWYER, Recess Editor HOLLY HILLIARD, Recess Managing EditorSOPHIA DURAND, Recess Photography Editor CHELSEA PIERONI, Online Photo Editor SCOTT BRIGGS, Editorial Page Managing Editor ASHLEY MOONEY, Sports Managing EditorMATTHEW CHASE, Towerview Editor SONIA HAVELE, Towerview EditorADDISON CORRIHER, Towerview Photography Editor MELISSA YEO, Towerview Creative DirectorNICOLE KYLE, Social Media Editor NICOLE KYLE, Special Projects EditorSAMANTHA BROOKS, Senior Editor MAGGIE SPINI, Senior EditorREBECCA DICKENSON, Advertising Director MICHAEL SHAMMAS, Recruitment ChairMARY WEAVER, Operations Manager BARBARA STARBUCK, Creative Director DAVID RICE, Director of External Relations MEGAN MCGINITY, Digital Sales Manager

The Chronicle is published by the Duke Student Publishing Company, Inc., a non-profi t corporation indepen-dent of Duke University. The opinions expressed in this newspaper are not necessarily those of Duke University, its students, faculty, staff, administration or trustees. Unsigned editorials represent the majority view of the editorial board. Columns, letters and cartoons represent the views of the authors.

To reach the Editorial Offi ce at 301 Flowers Building, call 684-2663 or fax 684-4696. To reach the Business Offi ce at 103 West Union Building, call 684-3811. To reach the Advertising Offi ce at 101 West Union Building call 684-3811 or fax 684-8295. Visit The Chronicle Online at http://www.dukechronicle.com.

© 2012 The Chronicle, Box 90858, Durham, N.C. 27708. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the prior, written permission of the Business Office. Each individual is entitled to one free copy.

mike shammasfairly unbalanced

commentariesTHE CHRONICLE WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 | 11

One of the most ubiquitously prac-ticed—and yet, seldom interrogat-ed or defended with any true in-

tellectual rigor—habits of the state comes in the form of the restriction of the pool of labor in any given industry. Although such restrictions can come in a myriad of forms, such as licensure, unionization or mandatory school atten-dance until adulthood (as in the case of the NBA), the economic consequences for consumers and unlucky (or unconnected) labor are al-most always the same.

As economist Robert P. Murphy has pointed out, a textbook example of the consequences of artificially restricting desirable goods is found in the practice of issuing “me-dallions,” or numbered metal plates, to taxi cabs in cities such as New York. In areas that follow the medallion system, drivers who wish to operate a cab are re-quired by law to first obtain a medallion from the city. The city government, un-der pressure from political and financial interest groups, severely limits the num-ber of medallions—and, as a result, the number of taxi cabs—on the road at any given time. (As recently as November of 2011, for instance, the total number of medallions in New York City was fixed at a paltry 13,237.)

As supply of medallions stagnates and demand for them grows, a number of things begin to happen. One of these is that the value of each medallion, now the sole means by which to operate a cab—and, for many, to earn a living—skyrock-ets. In fact, the market value of medal-lions has climbed so high in New York that most cab drivers are unable to afford them at all. (In 2011, for example, medal-lions were selling there for as high as $1 million apiece.) As a result, drivers who don’t wish to change lines of work and acquire new skill sets are left with little choice but to take out loans from cor-porations such as Medallion Financial, which charges them a relatively reason-able—yet still more than counterfactual zero—interest rate of 4.8 percent, or to rent medallions from owners. This can leave a driver in a hole of over $100 at the beginning of each day, which can in some circumstances result in the sacrifice of safety, low-yield customers or both as a driver attempts to make up the difference with enough time left over to make some money to take home in the evening.

It’s easy to blame fi rms like Medallion Financial, who profi t off of what appears to be a more or less arbitrary rent-seeking ploy, for rising fares and declining quality in the hired car industry, and it’s not alto-gether unwarranted, either. After all, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, whose father Mario has long sat on the board of Medal-lion Financial and whose political career has been bankrolled by the corporation, has put himself in the interesting position of passing judgment on medallion-related issues in New York. (To Gov. Cuomo’s very limited credit, he did approve a modest in-crease in medallions in late 2011.) If any-

thing, though, fi rms like Medallion Finan-cial serve as red herrings in the medallion debate, and—once we accept the conceit of a state-mandated restriction on the num-ber of cab drivers in a given city—do pro-vide a desirable function: Without them, cab drivers would have an even harder time securing funding for medallions, and the

industry would suffer further as a result.

If Medallion Financial isn’t truly to blame for the farcical boondoggle that is the taxi cab medallion scheme, then some other major player must be at fault. In order to fi nd out who or what that is, it’s useful to look at Washington, D.C. The nation’s Capitol has wit-

nessed its own share of corruption in the taxi cab industry, as it has toiled through debate on bills authored indirectly by taxi cab magnates and has seen dozens of men indicted on bribery charges relating to the issue. The common denominator in all of these instances has been the state and its attempts to artifi cially restrict the labor pool in a given industry, thereby pit-ting productive worker against productive worker and promoting a system according to which the quickest road to profi t is to abandon consumers and please politicians in their place. Instead of pointing the fi n-ger at mere opportunists like Medallion Financial, those who are dissatisfi ed with such a bureaucratic spoils system would do well to look deeper into the matter, and to track down the source of the honey that is drawing the fl ies.

In fact, those paying attention to rent-seeking scams like the medallion traves-ty—which, frankly, is far more than half the battle—will notice how easily the les-sons drawn from it can be extrapolated to any industry in which third-party interven-tions forcibly restrict the size of the labor pool. It is not by some fl aw in execution, but rather by design—which relegates most workers to unemployment while re-warding infl ated revenues to an at-best lucky and at-worst politically connected few—that schemes such as medallion is-suance, state-backed unionization, gov-ernment licensure and minimum wages inevitably result in an increase in prices and a corresponding decrease in quality, availability and, perhaps most important-ly, overall employment.

Of course, it is possible, based on the system of morality of the reader, to per-ceive these consequences as the necessary price to pay for regulated taxi cab service or guaranteed homogeneity of medical practice or additional benefi ts for union-ized workers; that is a different point en-tirely. What is not possible, however, is to squeeze blood from a stone. Artifi cial re-strictions on the labor force will always, for the reasons listed above, make an industry less competitive, and will harm consumers and the vast majority of implicated laborers in the process.

Chris Bassil, Trinity ’12, is currently work-ing for Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass. This is his fi nal column of the semester.

No more medallions

The other day, I set out on a mis-sion—a humanitarian effort, if you will—to benefi t mankind.

My goal: Make everyone in the world get Snapchat.

For those of you who have no idea what modern tech-nology is (a.k.a., those of you without iPhones), Snapchat is an app where you can send pictures for a set number of sec-onds before they are erased from the re-ceiving phone forever. I know what you’re thinking. Never before has there been a piece of technology so clearly meant for sending d*** pics. Well, señoritas, think again. Nowadays, Snapchat is basically the new texting. Which means texting is the new emailing. And emailing is the new messenger pigeon, ex-cept minus the camaraderie and plus erectile dysfunction ads.

My fi rst target on my global Snapchat inoculation mission was my friend Lorenzo. This person’s name has been changed to protect his identity, because his real name is Dan and that’s just not interest-ing. Lorenzo has already gradu-ated from Duke, and is what some call a “real person.” He was back to visit this weekend, and I managed to force him to chill with me (read: nacho-eating contest). After deci-mating some nachos, I started my campaign for him to get Snapchat. When he asked what it was, I heard these words come out of my mouth: “It’s this awesome app where you send funny pictures to people and they send pictures to you and you can’t unsubscribe. It’s … great?”

This conversation began and ended my plot for world Snapchat domination. I had idealized Snap-chat in my mind like new couples idealize their signifi cant others (Snapchat’s just like, SO different from any other social media I’ve been with before. I know he’s got a dirty past but … he’s different with me!). But, just like a new couple, Snapchat and I began noticing each other’s glaring imperfections a few months in. I had no respect for his privacy, and he would vent to all my friends with notifi cations of “Screenshotted!” And, like all the other social media I’d been with before, Snapchat had too many rules. Here is a short list of some of the rules a Snapchat user must abide by, or you and Snapchat are OVER.

Rule One: No screenshotting.I’ve always been a rule breaker.

Takin’ risks, livin’ on the edge. My current favorite act of rebellion is breaking the cardinal Snapchat rule: No taking pictures of Snap-chats. There is almost an implied privacy contract when you hit send, telling the recipient that they can see this picture, but they can’t HAVE it. As most of the pictures sent via Snapchat involve the send-er looking like they just inhaled cinnamon off of a possum’s a**, it’s understandable they wouldn’t want

said pictures shared with the gener-al public. My love of embarrassing people coupled with my tendency to hoard things (photos included)

do not mesh well with this social norm.

Rule Two: No ask-ing to be screenshot-ted.

Photo senders give up any right to NOT have their picture saved forever on my phone if they send a Snapchat for longer than fi ve seconds. If

you send a Snapchat for that long, you obviously either want the whole world to see it, or you think I’m an idiot and it takes me that long to think about pictures. No matter why, I’m posting it on Facebook.

Rule Three: Look your worst.Although Snapchatting is used

in part for actual communication, it is more so intended for explor-ing just how bad you can make your face look. You need to fl ex facial muscles you didn’t even know exist-ed. Incorporate props if necessary. If you look halfway decent in your Snapchats, you’re not trying hard enough. Or you’re trying too hard. Either way, f*** you.

Rule Four: Group chats, a love/hate relationship.

Group Snapchats are a great way to say “HELLO STARSHINE!” to anyone you don’t see often. However, if you send upwards of seven pictures of yourself to near strangers every day, you need to do like Hermione and sort out your pri-or-ities. Remember, kids, your virtual personality must be equally or less obnoxious than your actual personality, or else you’re that si-lent weirdo who only communi-cates via texting.

Rule Five: User discretion is ad-vised.

Adolescents are already prone to the delusion that they are sur-rounded by an imaginary audience that constantly evaluates their be-havior (citation: my developmen-tal psychology class). Although it’s great that social media provides an ever-expanding avenue for social support, it can also breed a par-ticular brand of narcissism where people do things solely to advertise them on social media.

Sorry, lovebirds: Snapchat is not any different than the other social media out there. Although perhaps funnier and more spontaneous, it has all the rules, and perhaps more of the narcissism, that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have. The social comparison and competition we’ve been living with since middle school permeates our adult life virtually, and it can crowd out the actual enjoyment of our life experi-ences for the sake of looking like we’re having fun. So as you send your Urkel face to your friends, make sure you don’t miss out on the bigger picture around you.

Lillie Reed is a Trinity sophomore. This is her fi nal installation for the se-mester of the weekly Socialites column.

Screenshotted!The Socialites

lillie reedwumbology

chris bassilhuman action

Want to hear more from your favorite columnists? Follow them on Twitter!

Visit www.dukechronicle.com/opinion for columnists’ Twitter handles.

12 | WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2012 THE CHRONICLE

EXHIBITIONSThe Restraints: Open and Hidden. Photographer Gordon Parks’s 1956 Life magazine series on segregation. Thru March 2. Center for Documentary Studies. Free.

Campaign for Braddock Hospital (Save Our Community Hospital). Photographs by LaToya Ruby Frazier. Thru Feb 23. Center for Documentary Studies. Free.

Student Action with Farmworkers: 20 Years of Growing Farmworker Activists. Thru Dec 9. Perkins Library Gallery. Free.

Documenting the Politics of Food: Photographs from the Rubenstein Library Collections. Thru December 10. Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery. Free.

Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore. Thru February 10, 2013. Nasher Museum of Art. Free to Duke students (1 per day with I.D.) Tickets: 919-684-4444 or tickets.duke.edu.

EVENTSDecember 5Duke Symphony Orchestra. Harry Davidson, dir. Nothing ‘Pathetic’ about these three: Debussy, Petite Suite; Mozart, Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major, K. 219 “Turkish,” featuring selected soloists from the violin section of the DSO; Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique.” 8pm, Page Aud. Free.

December 6First Thursday. Visitors are invited to take part in fabric design activity inspired by Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters. 6pm. Free.

Art for All. Following the hands-on activity, Celebrate Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters. Hosted by the Nasher Student Advisory Board for the Duke and Durham communities. 7-10pm. Free.

Duke New Music Ensemble [dnme]. Tim Hambourger, dir. 8pm, Motorco Music Hall, 723 Rigsbee Ave., Durham. Free.

December 7Duke Jazz Ensemble. John Brown, dir., with guest artist Alvin Atkinson, drummer/percussionist. 8pm, Page Aud. $10 gen., $5 Students & Sr. Citizens.

December 8Duke String School. Dorothy Kitchen, dir. 3pm, Beginning Ensembles & Intermediate I; 4pm, Chamber Music Groups; 7pm, Intermediate II & DUSS Youth Symphony Orchestra. Page Aud. Free.

Choral Society of Durham Christmas Concert. Presented with full orchestra, this community group will perform Honegger’s Une Cantate de Noel, and carols of the season. 8pm, Duke Chapel. $20 Gen.; $5 Students.

December 9Faculty Recital. Jonathan Bagg, viola, and pianists Philip Amalong and Stephen Jaffe (playing his own piece). Music for viola and piano by Bach, Brahms, Jaffe and Hindemith. 4pm, Nelson Music Rm., East Duke Bldg. Free.

Choral Society of Durham Christmas Concert. (See Dec. 8) 4pm.

Exhibition Closing. Student Action with Farmworkers: 20 Years of Growing Farmworker Activists. Perkins Library Gallery. Free.

December 10Exhibition Closing. Documenting the Politics of Food: Photographs from the Rubenstein Library Collections. Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery. Free.

This message is brought to you by the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Center for Documentary Studies, Chapel Music, Duke Dance Program, Duke Music Department, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University Libraries, Screen/Society, Department of Theater Studies with support from the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts.

December 5 - 10

sssssssss,, ,, ,, , ,, JJJaJJJJaJ

RS: People are really starting to get say, ‘OK, we need to take care of this,’ but it’s the poorest country in the world, and you have to feel for these people who are just surviving. When you need to survive, you’ll do anything, and the least of your concerns is what is going to happen to the planet in 300 years.

That’s the big contradiction—in countries like Madagascar that are really poor… where people are faced with just feeding their families—it’s a very difficult thing to go around and tell people to stop cutting the forest [unless] you come up with solutions for them. Because oth-erwise they say ‘Hey, this is easy for you to say. You live over there, you don’t have our pressure.’ But I say we need to think on the long term. We need to create some economies, some new ways of help-ing you feed your family.

If we can have the forest intact, we can attract have agritourism. We need to build on these things that are endemic that only we can provide—where people come to see lemurs, or these beautiful native turtles or these flowers. People pay a lot of money for that—especially nowadays when nature is becoming more and more valuable.

TC: So the economic and environ-mental situation go pretty hand-in-hand?

RS: The Malagasy person doesn’t live on a lot of money—they live on a dollar a day. If there was a way we could show an example of a successful agritourism area in Madagascar and say, ‘OK—lets really set this up in a way where it’ll be actually protected, and you have to pay to get in and advertise it. Then let’s see how much money this brings in and how many people we can employ in villages to make it work.’ We could have people create artisan bags, clothes, [sell] vanil-la. Lets make it work.

There is one successful forest called Ranomafana. This forest was taken in charge by this lady called Patricia Wright, who’s a conservationist that researches golden bamboo lemurs. She lives there half of the time and constructed labs and brings American students to do in-ternships and study abroad.

They managed to actually contain the problem and make it touristy enough—there are roads that come through it, there are hotels that are comfortable that people can live in and the town is thriving on this national park. I would love to make this happen in the north-east of Madagascar, which has a much bigger forest.

TC: It’s interesting because the idea is that Madagascar’s forest can be the so-lution to Madagascar’s economic prob-lems. Do you try and incorporate that theme in your music?

RS: Music is not just about saying, ‘That’s bad, don’t do it,’ because that’s definitely the worst approach. The best

approach is saying, ‘What do you think would be a good solution? Do you think you could live like this?’ If they say ‘Yes, if we had a road already, my god that would change my world.” But to make a road, you need half a million dollars. We need big money to be injected in Mada-gascar, and that’s not most people’s pri-ority.

TC: You also did a tour in America, was that trying to raise awareness about this predicament?

RS: Yeah the idea of tour in Ameri-ca is to tell people what’s going on and also target people with money to create help…. I’m really trying to see if there are any ways we can find some money in America. Without the money we can’t do anything—ideas are great, but we need money to support them. But first people have to be aware of problem, and that’s where I come in.

We did a whole reforestation pro-gram where we planted 20,000 trees when we did a concert in Masoala, and it was helped by a lot of programs and organizations. But six months down the road I got a phone call, and half of the crops we planted burned because some-one did one of those slash-and-burn ag-ricultural fires, and it and went into na-tional park where we planted. That was heartbreaking.

TC: When will your next tour be?RS: The next one will be in 2013 or

2014 in the United States. We’re not sure if we will do one in Madagascar again, but we’re concentrating in the U.S. There’s awareness that needs to be done…. In the States, we are hop-ing to get support behind it and—who knows—get something that is really big and can generate a substantial amount of money to create new business and industries and improve agritourism [in Madagascar]. That’s something we need to concentrate on.

TC: How has your music changed things both in Madagascar and also here?

RS: It has a parallel kind of impact. People in Madagascar are starting to know about me and why I’m doing my music, so they get a hint about why this is important. They’ll ask, ‘Why would this women do something about Mada-gascar when she lives in New York?’ and then they say, ‘Wow, I guess Madagascar means something to her, which means Madagascar must be important.’ So there’s that kind of recognition in Mada-gascar.

And [in the United States] people are saying, ‘What’s Malagasy music, I’ve never heard of that,’ and people are lis-tening to what I’m doing and not just discovering Malagasy music but also a person from Madagascar who cares about Madagascar. It’s an interesting way to have them discover a country. I have a lot of women followers because women are like, ‘Right on, you’re doing some-thing amazing.’ It’s very empowering.

SAID from page 1

on everybody’s revenue situation at the state level,” Dayton said in an interview.

“We all depend on this economy ex-panding and creating new jobs and gener-ating revenues and lessening some of the burden on some of the social programs,” Dayton said. “We all stand to gain from that, and we all stand to lose if it doesn’t happen.”

States would also be affected by au-tomatic budget cuts set to begin if Con-gress doesn’t come up with other ways to

reduce the deficit. They would lose $7.5 billion next year from dozens of programs that flow through states, including money for public schools, according to Federal Funds Information for States, a Washing-ton-based group that follows the budget for states.

That represents a small share of the approximately $575 billion they received in federal funds in 2011, according to the National Association of State Budget Of-ficers.

Utah’s Herbert said it’s important that states receive more flexibility to manage state programs if the funding is cut.

CLIFF from page 3