Beaver The newspaper of the London School of Economics Students'Union since 1949 * S February 2008 * Issue 680 www.thebeaveronline.co.uk The licaver is printed on 100% recycled paper. Please rt?c7c1e youi- copy. artB s anarchist Ps » PartB B Photograp Poetry Fraud afl^ation at LSE's local cash machine » NatWest insists its Aldwycli branch cash machine is safe after a Kings Professor sends an email warning students of a 'skimming' device TIMOTHY ROOT MANAGING EDITOR The LSE's local cash machine, belonging to the NatWest on Ald-wych, may have been fitted with a 'skimming' device designed to copy card details. Steve Pollock, the Manager of the Aldwych branch, has denied suggestions that members of the public, including many LSE students, may have had money illegally removed from their accounts, and a NatWest spokesperson also told The Beaver that they • were unaware of any security breach at the branch. The spokesperson said, "We have no evidence to sug- gest that a skimming device has been placed on this cash machine...We would urge anyone who believes they have suspicious transactions on their account to get in contact with their Bank immediately." A King's College Professor had sent an e-mail on 31 January warning her students to check their accounts for any signs of irregularity. She was told that a member of the public was taking legal action to reclaim funds they believe to have been stolen as a result of having their details copied at the Aldwych machine. The Professor told her students: "The device has now been removed, but I would urge you to check your bank statements if you have been in the practice of taking money from this machine." "It appears that the amounts of money taken were quite small, in the region of £10 - £30 each time, over a period of three months. If you notice any irregularity on your account, please contact your bank," the email continued. The reported scam was brought to the attention of The Beaver when some LSE students were forwarded the e-mail over the course of last week, though an LSE spokesperson said the School was unaware of such a scam. Cash machine card skimming usually works by the perpetrator placing a small device over the card slot on the machine. The device reads the magnetic strip as users unknowingly pass their cards through it. The devices are reportedly frequently used in conjunc- tion with pinhole cameras to read the user's PIN at the same time. A card scanner was supposedly discovered at the same cash point in 2004. It was apparently modified to contain a USB port and a 500k flash memory. In reference to the likelihood the skimmer could have been installed and discovered without it coming to his attention, Pollock explained, "It is our policy to check the cash machines for such devices twice a day between Mpn-day and Friday. No such device has been found in recent months. However, it is of course a possibility that a device, could have been placed and removec' on the machine over a weekend, whenji we do not check the machine." »Features 12 Is the business of aiding the poor going private? V, ( V 02 leaver | 5 February 2008 NEWS Higher Education News Academic flip-flops on Israel's right to exist A guest speaker at the Oxford Union changed sides mid-way through a debate on Israel's right to exist. Ted Honderich, Professor of Philosophy at UCL, initially proposed the motion "This House believes that the state of Israel has a right to exist". Claiming to be "saddened by the want of clarity of the debate", Honderich crossed the floor to the consternation of audience members and Union officials. Also proposing the motion was Norman Finkelstein, who gave a public lecture at the LSE last week. R»J Ti "Criminal" donations fund courses at Cambridge Ukrainian language courses at Cambridge's Department of Slavonic Studies are being funded by a "criminal" central Asian gas trader. Dmytro Firtash, joint owner of RosUkrEnergo - a gas trader with alleged links to the Kremlin and organised crime -has fimded language studies through his private foundation. The head of the Department of Slavonic Studies described the allegations as a "lot of swirling rumour UK challenges US for international students A survey of more than 11000 students has revealed that the UK now rivals the US as destination of choice for international students. 95 per cent of respond Aits rated the UK as an "attractive" or "very attractive" place to study, compared with 93 per cent for the US. The UK was considered a particularly safe place, to study and students rated UK qualifications as the most reputable in the world. However, the UK performed poorly for graduate employment opportunities. Epigram Bristol Students' Union under threat The independence of the University of Bristol's Students' Union may be threat-ed by the University's plans to absorb the Union into its structure. If successful, the move - advo-. cated by high-profile figures within the University - would give the Union similar status to other university deparments. The Union might be accountable to Bristol University leaders and not to students. Last year, John Denham - the secretary of state for universities - said, "It is very important that students should be able to organise themselves and represent themselves effectively." Archive BEAVER H ft itnrout irr, hm. 'hniti<»/ »uk'r. a Nrrfi- /v hkfhr> Water pistols Union debate Director seeks selitude Soo-soc fails to stop party ; > 25 May 1967 Soc-soc fails to stop party THE Union meeting last Friday refused permission for the using of Union funds for financing a sherry party. This had been arranged for invited Union officers, senior members of the academic. staff and Governors of the School. The party had been scheduled to take part in the Shaw Library the same evening at 8.00 pm. The School stepped in to pay for it, and invited along "all students who wished to come". However, some students, mostly Soc-Soc, still objected to the meeting. They declared that only invited students knew about the party in the Shaw Library and that socialising with the Board of Governors would neither clarify any issue nor improve staff-student relationships. Therefore some 20 students manned pickets outside the Library. The President, together with most of the Union Council and members of Beaver staff, joined the Professors and members of the administration. Total raised so far: £10,842 Next Week is RAG week. Money will be raised for: UK Charity pro-iding support to the health and medical needs of lan'M kib i-on vulnerable Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and across the Middle East. map; aids The overall aim of Orphaids is to care for the orphans of AIDS victims in Ecuador and Malawi. However, Orphaids also works to aid the parents of these orphans throughout their illness, giving them a better quality of life, healthcare and death. WaterAid and its partners use practical solutions to provide safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene education to the world's poorest people. With so many students obtaining great degrees employers are looking beyond the grades toward other aspects of where student use their skills: Volunteering & fundraising show case all sorts of different skills! Be part of RAG Week!! Please get in contact'at Su.Rag@lse.ac.uk Find out more at: www.lsesurag.com Speaker's Corner The right to free expression WE were told that the war and sacrifice was for their freedom. We were told that it was a matter of bringing down a monstrous tyranny. We thought they were now "on our side". We were told lots of things. But last week, some of us discovered the fate of Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh, a third year Journalism student in Mazir-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. His crime was to print out material from the internet about women's rights and distribute it amongst his friends. His trial was without legal representation, and his sentence was death. Whatever our opinions, and no matter their conviction, it is impossible to believe that somebody that holds views different to our own and seeks to share them with others, should ever be punished with death. Such thinking can no longer be defended from any perspective. While the motives for the war in Afghanistan were extremely questionable, the removal of the Taliban from power was at least one positive outcome from the event. For this reason, the insidious return of Taliban-like government to Afghanistan extinguishes all reasons for the war As individuals that are fortunate to live in a society with wide ranging freedom of expression, it is our responsibility to stand up for those whose freedoms are being withheld or taken away. Sayed is just one of many that suffers as a result of illiberal regimes. Think of him as he awaits his fate and the many others like him whose names we do not know. streets Ken Livingstone has been accused of jeopardising London's high streets by giving the green light to dozens of huge shopping centres. Approval for 51 major retail developments was granted by the Mayor between 2002 and 2006, according to figures obtained by the Green party. Iniuiy rates rocket for London's cyclists The number of seriously injured cyclists being treated in London hospitals is soaring, official figures have revealed. They show twice as many riders are being admitted for treatment as six years ago. The biggest rises were in Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth, Camden, Kingston and Havering. The figures prompted calls for a better cycling network and a clampdown on rogue road users. They also suggest there is under-reporting to and by the police of serious injury accidents involving bicycles. Swans savaged by unknovm aslant Thirteen swans have been found mutilated following a spate of attacks around Hyde Park. The mute swans and cygnets were all savaged in the space of 12 weeks, with the first attack taking place in November last year. The birds, which nest alongside the Roimd Pond in Kensington Gardens, are believed to have been attacked under darkness in the very early hours of the morning. "They sometimes struggle to walk, they lose the sparkle in their eyes and can look lethargic and their feathers appear greasy and unkempt," said A spokeswoman for the Royal Parks. Police stop and search powders to be extended Police are to be given wider powers to stop and search suspects in the street in an attempt to tackle gun and knife crime. Gordon Brown is to allow officers to carry out more random checks purely on the grounds of suspicion rather than a specific reason. One Muslim group branded the proposals "a return to the bad old days". The "sus laws" were scrapped in 1984 in the wake of riots such as Brixton amid claims from black and Asian youths that they were being unfairly targeted by racist police. London now a Low Emissions Zone Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has designated Greater London a Low Emissions Zone (LEZ). LEZ status means that heavily polluting vehicles, such as diesel lorries or coaches, will have to pay £100-200 per day to drive in London. Cars are currently excluded. The scheme is expected to raise £5-11 million per year, but has will cost £57 million to set up and around £10 million a year to run. London is to be the first LEZ in the UK. Beaver I 5 February 2008 £1,000 theft at High Holbom HENRY LODGE NEWS EDITOR A resident of High Holbom Hall had several personal possessions worth over £1000 stolen from his room on Saturday, 2nd of February. Thomas Ayers, a Masters student in International Relations had left his room unlocked for less than five minutes to go to his kitchen when his laptop, Ipod and mobile phone were all taken from his room. Assuming the theft was not a fellow resident, they would not have been able to get to his door had the main security doors at reception been locked. The doors, which are opened by the High Holborn keycard, had been working last term but had been left open all this term. "When I went down to report the theft, they asked me why hadn't locked my flat door. I don't have a flat door - I'm in a corridor room. They just assumed I had the extra level of security", said Ayers. A potential thief could walk in from the street, pass through the unlocked security doors, and not pass through a single security check or locked door before being right outside Thomas' room. The door was propped open by a shoe, so the most a passerby could have seen is a few inches of wardrobe. "They must have come into the building looking for something to steal", said Ayers, who is currently filling in theft reports. Ayers plans to complain about the lack of locked reception doors. Corridor rooms - the cheapest option at High Holborn - have a kitchen, shower and toilet accessible by keycard, located further down the public corridor. This means that unless propped open, a resident of a corridor room must use their keycard to get to the kitchen and bathroom facilities, and to get back. As a result, many corridor residents prop their doors open for short periods of time when they need both hands to carry something. Paying £10 more per week gets a room in a self contained flat. On the 31st of January, three days before the theft. High Holborn Management sent a letter to all residents saying, "In the interest of your security please ensure you are keeping your flat doors and room doors locked. We carried out checks this afternoon and found several doors left open." An LSE spokesperson said: "'LSE is aware that there have been problems with High Holbom's security doors and is working to have these repaired The doors to High Holbom Residence are left unlocked as soon as possible. Security is taken very seriously by the School... But students also have a responsibility in maintaining the security of their accommodation." In November of last year. Beaver journalists walked into a number of rooms to highlight the security threat. Management locked both front and reception doors so that only those with a keycard could enter the building and get past reception. However, the doors were not locked for the majority of last term, and all of this term. UGM Chair rules out 'Make Apartheid History re-nm against C&S decision » Both UGM Chair and C&S survive motions of no confidence RAJAN PATEL SENIOR REPORTER The result of the "Make Apartheid History" vote taken at the Union General Meeting (UGM) of 24 January is to stand, despite advice from the LSE Students' Union (LSESU) Constitution and Steering Committee (C&S) that the vote should be annulled. The motion in question called for the LSE to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation and fell by just seven votes when it was debated two weeks ago. 637 votes were cast and failure to anticipate such high turnout caused procedural problems. An extraordinary C&S meeting took place last Tuesday to discuss students' formal complaints about the vote. After two hours of debate, the five voting members of C&S -whose job it is to advise the UGM Chair, Joe Meadway, "on the conduct of the Union General Meeting" - split three to two in favour of advising that the disputed vote should be annulled. Even before any complaints were submitted to C&S, there was discussion amongst Union officials of how the UGM Chair would act. It is understood that officials believed he would follow the advice of C&S, whatever that might be. However, Meadway - to whom the Constitution entrusts sole responsibility for deciding whether votes at the UGM are valid - announced at last Thursday's UGM that the vote would stand. He argued that retrospective action and repetition of the motion "would bring the UGM to its knees". Speaking afterwards, he added, "I did listen to the advice from C&S. The committee found the complaints to be well-founded, and I took this into account when making my decision." James Ketteringham, former Chair of C&S, confirmed that Meadway was constitutionally entitled to go against the advice of the Committee. However, Ziyaad Lunat, Chair of the LSESU Palestinian Society, claimed, "The UGM Chair...has no right to make unilateral decisions on behalf of the student body nor this is vested on him by the Constitution and Codes of Practice. The Returning Officer, General Secretary and C&S should ensure that in the future democracy prevails over despotism." C&S Chair Andy Hallett stood by Meadway, saying, "I would have made the same decision as Joe for the good of the Union, the Apartheid issue has now been put to bed and we can all move on and debate things all students care about." Students who lodged com- plaints with C&S criticised Meadway's decision. Nina Gora, a postgraduate in the Sociology department, said, "A girl at the C&S meeting stated that she voted and entered the UGM without even having her LSE card with her, whilst another girl I talked to after the election had cast a vote although she graduated from the LSE last year. Faced with such clear evidence as to the "I did listen to the advice from C&S. The committee found the complaints to be well-founded, and I took this into account when making my decision." James Meadway UGM Chair unprofessional nature of the entire election proceedings I was aghast to hear that the UGM chair declared the election valid." Seph Brown - a voting member of C&S - went further, describing it as a "horrible error". He added,"I would have expected him to go and say that we need to redo the vote, and I think that to dismiss advice from C&S was a veiy large mistake." others were more critical of the advice offered by the C&S Committee and accusations of impartiality were aimed at C&S members. Brown had campaigned for the motion and other members had joined a Facebook group set up in support of it. Clem Broumley Young, former Chair of C&S, spoke in favour of a motion of no confidence in C&S at Thursday's UGM. The motion fell, but Young remains concerned about C&S' competence. He argued C&S failed to vet the motion before it appeared on the order paper, allowing "emotive language" and opinion to be included in the 'Union Notes' section reserved for statements of fact. "It refers to an Apartheid state, ethnic cleansing...none of these things are actually proven, they've just cited some author who said it. The fact there would be saying, 'An author said this,' and then citing the author. They should not say it's an Apartheid state and then cite him. They've just not done their job properly." He added, "If you've got a conflict of interest you're not meant to vote on C&S. C&S is impartial, it should be an Ayers, who is currently on crutches, had locked himself out of the room just days earlier, and when he went down to get a replacement keycard at midday, there was no-one at reception for over an hour. impartial body and anyone who has a conflict of interest shouldn't vote. It's as. simple as that." Brown dismissed allegations of impartiality, claiming, "In light of the issue, the impartiality of it didn't really matter." He focused on the evidence of electoral malpractice brought before C&S, stating: "I think there were somewhere between 5 and 7 complaints, with evidence. When someone can't vote and when someone can vote three times, that's not democratic." Union officials have promised to learn from their mistakes, but questions still remain over their preparation for the controversial vote. A video link exists between the Old Theatre and the New Theatre, which was used on one previous occasion when a UGM packed out the Old Theatre. However, officials did not book the New Theatre in advance and were unable to secure a video link up at short notice on the day of the debate. Also, insufficient ballot papers were printed before the UGM and some students were held outside the Old Theatre for up to ten minutes whilst more were produced. The "Make Apartheid History" motion can be resubmitted in its current form and its proponents are considering their options. Union Jack The dust has yet to settle on the Convention floor, and already the heretics sought to resurrect last week's failed offensive. A seven-vote reversal is a tough pill to swallow. The Zionist bloc stood up well with a stonewall defence; a direct confrontation proved ineffective. And so 'asymmetric approaches' become the new watchwords. Three intrepid infiltrators were already well-placed to exact sweet revenge, or so they thought. Already relishing in the aura of power overwhelming. Union Commissar Midway stood his ground against the attempted insurrection. His seat of power, his precious, wasn't going to be ceded to some heretic upstart. With a eloquent and lucid delivery, Midway laid the Committee of Union Safety on a plate for the Convention hawks to ravage. Drawing inspiration from the exploits of their Italian compatriots in destroying Prodi, Grease and company demanded the guillotine. Partisan treachery within a nominally neutral Committee was punishable by the whisper of a blade. The tainted blood of the traitors shall water the fields of la patrie. However, their call to arms was met with an equally vindictive resistance. With the Committee strangely silent with impending death looming over their collective heads, others stood forth to deflect the unabated verbal fusillade. With a flawed logic and hint of partiality, they put up a flimsy but nonetheless effective defence. The heretic faction rallied behind their agents in the Committee, voting as one man to stifle the counterrevolution. Violence begets violence, to the Convention's detriment. But Jack couldn't care less; conflict is controversy and controversy is fodder for weekly newspaper columnists. For Ze Lunatic, the motion of no-confidence was an affront to be repaid in kind. Unable to direct his vengeance straight onto those who sullied his honour, he picked the imperious Midway to be the object of reprisal. An ill-advised yet perhaps cathartic gesture. But Midway shall not be moved. Unbridled authority has corrosive effects on moral firewalls, and a month of unrestrained supremacy left him with an ironclad inertia on his throne. Running against Midway's legions of loyal minions, Lunatic's petulant deed cut no ice with the Convention. What crashing and burning in consecutive weeks might have done for Lunatic's sanity can only be a matter of speculation. With Lunatic's failed assault, the Zionist-heretic duel fizzled quickly. Freed of its crusading burden, the Convention was poised to tackle matters of its competence. But it was not to be. The end of conflict was a cue for exodus -zealot and pilgrim alike filed out, their purpose served and desires satiated. Perhaps Jack can remedy this lamentably debilitating syndrome. If conflict draws crowds, bloodshed would mobilise masses. To you, faithful reader, watch your back. Ripper' is me new moniker. 041 Beaver | 5 February 2008 Lehmann laments lack of English keepers JOE RENNISON & CHUN HAN WONG Overwhelming media and public attention has cast a detrimental pall upon on the English national football team, said Arsenal and Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann. The dearth of top-quality English goalkeepers also seems to be a problem, he added, noting that the best English teams, including Chelsea and Manchester United, currently play foreigners in goal. The 38-year old former UEFA Cup winner shared his insights on the game to an audience of 160 at the LSE last Thursday, discussing the contrasting styles between English and German football. One would think that Lehmann's career path would have made him an unlikely candidate to speak at an institution devoted to the Social Sciences. However, Lehmann once studied Economics at the University of Munster, and was certainly a popular guest as whilst waiting patiently outside the lecture room one fan commented that Lehmann "is a national hero". His lecture was a part of the annual German Symposium organised by the LSESU German Society, which featured talks by prominent German political, business and cultural figures. Lehmann, who played for Schalke and Borussia Dortmund before moving to England, contrasted the managerial and tactical approaches to football in the German Bundesliga and English Premier League. Lehman spoke of many other differences; including the greater reliance English football has on the income received from TV rights and the advantage of foreign influence on the English game, which he feels is lacking from German football and preventing it from moving forward. German teams lack tactical nous in comparison to their English counterparts as the wealth of talent they possessed in the past meant that they "did not need to care about tactics", he added. Physical training in Germany was also focused on endurance rather than "explosive power"; German coaches embark their players on hour-long endurance runs whereas English players focus on short runs lasting about "twelve to sixteen minutes". He also dismissed suggestions that managerial stability correlates with club success, citing the rapid European success of Rudolf Assauer and Ottmar Hitzfeld at Schalke and Bayem Munich respectively. In contrast. Sir Alex Ferguson won the UEFA Champions League only once Lehmann speaks in Clement House in his 21 years at Manchester United, while his own manager Arsene Wenger managed one runner-up finish in over 11 years, added Lehmann. Recently kept out of the Arsenal starting line-up by Spaniard Manuel Almunia, he also hinted at a return to the Bundesliga in the future. He responded candidly to a query from the audience, saying that he may "get a call" in the five hours that remained of the transfer deadline. However, Lehmann remains an Arsenal player Voted Best European Goalkeeper in 1997 and 2006 by UEFA, Lehmann was a prominent member of the undefeated Arsenal team that won the Premiership in 2004. Union to help Students register for Mayoral poll KATIE JANE PEEK As well as a continuation of the Make Apartheid History motion controversy, this week's UGM also saw students voting in favour of a motion mandating the LSE Students' Union (LSESU) to run a campaign to help students register for the upcoming London elections. The elections for the London Mayor and Assembly are to be held on May 1st 2008, and the LSESU hopes to have as many students as possible registered to vote by the looming April 16th deadline. With 370,000 students in London, there is potential for students to significantly influence the political agenda. As well as encouraging registration, the motion aims to promote interest and awareness of the various parties, candidates and election issues. LSE students eligible to vote include British, EU and Commonwealth citizens aged 18 or over on May 1st. Ben Phillips, a first year student from Australia said, "It's important to promote interest among international students and residents who might have an opinion in the running of London but don't yet realise it." The Greater London Authority (GLA) has power over issues directly affecting student life such as transport, housing, culture and the environment. Labour mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has already pledged his support to the popular student campaign promoting the extending of TFL student discounts to cover one-day travel cards. Aled Dilwyn Fisher, the Environment and Ethics Officer who proposed the motion said, "The LSESU has a responsibility to look after our welfare. Students are affected by the decisions of the GLA and so we should make sure our voice is heard in the elections." 'LSE Is Out of Order', a motion mandating General Secretary Fadhil Bakeer-Markar to voice students' concerns over computer facilities, also passed. The motion noted that computer facilities hadn't improved apace with the ? ? UGM Motions 31 Janurary 2008 Promote Voter Registration LSE Is Out Of Order ^ Bloomberg Machines 0 pushed to next week expansion of student numbers and that e-mail and file storage should be increased. However, the motion was amended to remove the clause that suggested taught students should be give priority access to computer facilities. Dan Sheldon, who proposed the motion, said, "It may seem petty, but the lack of public computers, working printers, printer value loaders and the paltry storage allowances on email and H space are huge issues on campus. I think the SU should be campaigning hard on this concerns, which have a real impact on the academic lives of LSE students." A third motion which proposed the installation in the library of Bloomberg Terminals, which provide realtime financial markets information, fell. Nathan Converse, who proposed the motion, argued that using a Bloomberg machine is an essential skill many students have to learn quickly once they have graduated. However, the motion fell after Converse was unable to provide information regarding the proposals' costs. Fresh extremism guidelines issued PATRICK CULLEN Universities should deny Muslim students separate prayer and washing facilities, according to the government's latest guidance aimed at preventing Islamic extremism spreading in universities. The report, published on 22 January, warns that "Universities should balance any requests for separate facilities from religious and cultural groups with the need to ensure an integrated campus community" Bill Rammell, Higher Education Minister, said that violent extremism was a "serious but not widespread" threat in British universities, and that universities should foster "academic freedom, tolerance and debate" in order to prevent the "spread" of religious extremism.. Information gathered by universities on "any form of extremist activity leading to or promoting violence" should be shared between universities and with the police, the report argued. The National Union of Students has expressed fears that the report's advice, while accepted by many universities, risks alienating Muslim students by encouraging staff and students to treat Muslims with suspicion. The University and College Union (UCU) has repeated its fears that the government intends to pressurise institutions to make their staff spy on students. Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU, told The Guardian: "Staff are not trained to, and should not be expected to, police their students ... No student should think they are being spied on." The LSE has stated that staff will not be given training by the Metropolitan police to, as the report suggests, "help in "recognising violent extremism." Last year's government advice, which the latest report revises, has been criticised by the LSE as being heavy-handed and impractical. A School spokesperson told The Beaver that, "Following discussions in a number of School committees, Janet Hartley, Pro Director of Teaching and Learning has set aside some modest funds to support student activities which promote interaction between students of different national groups and/or faiths." Unlike the government's advice, this approach is aimed at supporting inter-faith relationships between religious students and, the School says, students are "encouraged to think of ... activities or events which could help integration, either on campus or in halls of residence." Louise Robinson, LSE Students' Union Residences. Officer, said, "it is very positive that the School are legitimately and proactively supporting students in their efforts and activities to improve the student experience". Da\ies angg during bi^est ever Global Week FIROZ NOORDEEN The LSESU Global Week 2008 took place last week. LSE is unique within UK universities as over 60% of its student population is from outside the UK and there are students from over 120 countries. Global Week is designed to celebrate this diversity as well as educate student's of the distinct and, magnificent cultures from the four comers of the world. This year's Global Week was the biggest ever in terms of events, with over 10 distinct events, over 20 participating societies and 40 volunteers. With the Global Brain quiz competition, People& Planet's Global Dinner, the Development Society's Panel Debate on Latin America, the annual Global Show as well as various other events, the Week certainly tried hard to achieve its aims. Even the Brunch Bowl got involved with a special Global Week menu. All of the major events had strong attendances and positive feedback. Ben Philips, an Australian 1st year Philosophy & Economics student said, "At the LSE, we don't often get the opportunity to see the variety of cultures we all come from. Global Week helped bring that to the fore, exhibiting students' talents and all our unique backgrounds." The 'World In Still' photograph exhibition in the Library foyer showcased pictures from all over the world, from South America to, China. The pictures were part of a Photography society competition, and were a source of great interest for students walking in and out of the Library. The Holocaust Memorial was another one of the highlights. Organised by the LSE Chaplain, it filled up the Shaw Library with a mixture of students and staff. The International Society's Global Show took place last week on Thursday and Friday evening. Showcasing a variety of cultures and talents, the show is one of the largest international events at the LSE. Dances styles of salsa, swing, traditional Vietnamese and break-dancing had the audience swaying in their seats, while the singers gave soulful performances with the likes of jazz and sufi music. Thursday's audience were treated to a special performance by Howard Davies who sang a very witty song on England, while Friday's audience were rewarded for their enthusiasm with a Hungarian dance by Professor Haddon and his wife, and a performance by Goodfoot - a professional break-dancing group. Other events of the week included the Arabic Society's Belly Dancing workshop, 2 films by the Development society and Film Society and a Party by the European and Spanish Societies. NEWS leaver I 5 February 2008 105 Government could "blackmail" students into ID card scheme PHILIP PACANOWSKI Students may be required to have an ID Card if they wish to take out student loans, despite previous government claims that the ID Card scheme would be voluntary. A recent Home Office document argued students should be "assisted" when opening student bank accounts and receiving student loans by being issued with an ID Card. The Conservatives believe the report constitutes "blackmailing" of students into accepting ID cards in exchange for student loans. The Home Office report suggested that anyone aged 16 or over would have to apply for an ID Card, costing up to £100, in order to open a bank account or apply for a student loan. The Guardian said the cards are intended to be distributed to UK citizens on a voluntary basis from 2009, though students could be "forced" into accepting ID cards as early as 2010. The pressure group No2ID believes this sets a worrying precedent: "It seems the IPS [Identity and Passport Service] is proposing that you won't be able to get a job, except cash-paid labouring, or education beyond 16 or 18 without an ID Card." The LSE Students' Union Environment and Ethics Officer Aled Fisher argued that "tying loans to ID Cards is a shameful way of bribing students to submit to the latest move to restrict our civil liberties." "The move is a threat to students, from low-income backgrounds, as well as vulnerable minority groups," he added. The Home Office document stresses that the scheme would Students may be required to have an ID card in order to take out a loan. "meet the needs of individuals within specific target groups." No2ID believes this means "targeting the most vulnerable and dependent on the state first." Damian Green, Shadow Immigration Minister, called this "an outrageous plan. The government are clearly trying to introduce them [ID Cards] by stealth." Dr Edgar Whitley, the head of The Identity Project, an LSE research group specialising in the ID Card scheme, said that the proposals were "certainly novel". Dr Whitley also said that if the details of an ID Card were compromised, then bank accounts could be opened in somebody else's name. He offered the example of Jeremy Clarkson, who had published his bank account number and sort code in The Sun to prove that the data loss controversy was "a palaver about nothing". Mr. Clarkson, discovered the next day that someone had set up a £500 direct debit account to Diabetes UK in his name. The LSE s new robes This year, students are being offered the chance to have their degrees awarded by LSE rather than the Universit>' of London. One of the differences will be the design of the robe worn, with those choosing the LSE as the awarding body wearing the design pictured above. General Secretary elections: The Race Begins » Four candidates for GenSec race emerge by week four » Amendment to codes of preactice set to change elections at next UGM HENRY LODGE NEWS EDITOR With Lent Term elections still four weeks away, four candidates are already in the running for the position of LSE Students' Union (LSESU) General Secretary. Any student can run for the post of General Secretary. As the job is a paid, full-time posi- Hallett told The Beaver that if elected as General Secretary, he would "aim to save the Union from itself". He claimed that the Students' Union "has been going in the wrong direction", explaining that while issues such as the Middle East conflict and Burma are "worthy", the problem is that "student issues aren't being addressed - we need to go back to basics". Wall, current President of "Student issues aren't being addressed - we need to go back to basics" Andy Hallet Chair of LSESU Constitution and Steering Committee tion, the victor will take a year long 'sabbatical' from their studies to fulfil their duties. Whoever is elected will be responsible for the overall coordination of Union activities, campaigns and committees for the next academic year. Andy Hallett, current Chair of the LSESU Constitution and Steering Committee (C&S), and Stephen Wall, President of College Hall, have both confirmed to The Beaver that they plan to run. Aled Fisher, LSESU Environment and Ethics Officer confirmed that he would be running for General Secretary and C&S member Abz Hussein said that his candidacy is a "possibility". College Hall and the only postgraduate to show interest in the position, criticised the "grandiose and pretentious issues" that the Union has been involved in this year, such as the 'Make Apartheid History' motion. He said, "First and foremost, we need to sort out the printers. It is unacceptable that at a school of this status we should have difficulty printing due to broken machinery. Then we need to focus on halls facilities. Teaching standards also need to be addressed - 20 people per class is too many and if a PhD teacher can't teach, we-should get rid of them." Fisher said, "The reason why I would run is because over the past two years I've put a lot of effort into this Union and I can see that LSE students have so much potential - we need a General Secretary who can unlock this potential." Abz Hussein has admitted that a General Secretary candidacy is possible and that he was "definitely running for a sabbatical position". A common theme for the potential candidates is the role of the Union General Meeting (UGM). Hallett suggested systems of online voting to deal with low turnout at the UGM, adding: "Changes need to be made [to the UGM] to avoid it slipping into irrelevancy. Student issues are not being addressed." Phil Doubleday, a first year undergraduate, voiced student disillusionment with the UGM, demanding, "Who is the General Secretary? What does he even do?" When asked if he planned to go to the UGM, he replied "Not especially. I'm not Jewish, I'm not Palestinian -there's nothing there for me." Hussein urged the UGM to return to "internal politics" and clearly show that he will not focus on the administrative woes of the institution, which are what really need looking at." Fkdhil Bakeer Markar, cur- "We need a General Secretary to unlock the student potential" Aled Fisher LSESU Environment and Ethics Officer "We need someone to focus on core issues" Stephen Wall President of College Hall 11^ stop "acting like the UN general assembly". Wall presented himself as a candidate dissociated from current Union politics. Describing the Union, he said, "It's a student's union and isn't just there to represent a clique that hangs around the UGM." Candidates have already begun to assess their competitors' chances. Hussein said, "Aled would make a very good candidate, because at the end of the day, he has put his heart and soul into the Union. Hallett will do well with the right, but really his chances are next to nothing." Fisher did not comment on outcomes, saying, "If everyone runs with a good political message and an honest campaign, then the best man will win -and that's best for the union." However, Wall attacked Fisher's record, claiming, "It would be a travesty if Aled Fisher were to be General Secretary. The things he has written about Peter Sutherland rent General Secretary, was unavailable for comment. The candidates split in their assessment of his performance. Hussein suggested that he "may be leaving office without a legacy", whilst Hallett identified "a tionship with the school" had made him an effective leader. This Thursday will see a motion brought to the UGM by LSESU returning officer James Bacon amending the codes of practice. If passed, the nominations period will be moved to the week starting 11^^ and society endorsements will be banned. Aled said that "something needs to be done about society endorsements, but this isn't the way to go about it. If they are banned, it'll still go on behind the scenes. We need to ensure the process is democratic and accountable." Stephen remained against the motion, asking, "why shouldn't societies back the candidate they think most looks out for their members' interests?" Abz merely commented, "If society endorsements aren't banned, I'm in with a very good chance." Andy came out in favour of the ban. "I want to bring the focus back to internal politics" Abz Hussein Member of LSESU Constitution and Steering Committee series of massive mistakes: the Palestinian letter. Miss LSE and the Ken Livingstone letter". Wall described Bakeer Markar as "frankly, pathetic". Fisher described him as "underrated", arguing that his "constructive but critical rela- Tom Warren has also resigned from his post as PartB Editor in a move that some are interpreting as clearing the way for a General Secretary campaign. 06 Beaver I 5 February 2008 ._ NEWS RAG Week set for success HENRY LODGE NEWS EDITOR Next week is RAG week and organisers are looking to beat last year's total of £23,000. This academic year marked the start of year-round RAG, which had already placed a princely sum of £11,000 in the RAG coffers. The Beaver spoke to Jessica Cartwright, President of RAG and Ben Phillips, RAG Secretary about their preparations and the business of raising money. "The Freshers' Ball at the start of the academic year is the biggest success story so far, having raised over £4,500 on one night alone" says Phillips. Krispy Kreme doughnut sales, numerous pub-crawls and the Gluhwein venture in partnership with the Austrian society have seen the total steadily rise. Phillips explained: "In previous years, RAG week would be organised just a week or two in advance by a couple of Sabbatical and Executive Officers that had other jobs to do. This year, there is a whole team devoted to planning it." In the past, the LSESU has been criticised for not raising as much for charity as other students' unions. Last year, donations per student stood at £3, at a school where 51% pay over £11,000 per annum and many more look for £35,000 LSE students raise money for RAG underground at Leicester Square Station starting salaries. However, when asked if the typical banking-driven student at LSE was lacking generosity, Phillips was quick to dismiss the notion: "They're not stingy, the problem at LSE is we don't have a campus atmosphere. People come to class and then leave - no one is hanging around. Places like Loughborough have an easier time because on campus, there is nothing else to do." The LSE is a relatively small university to have a RAG body. Goldsmiths has started to raise money only this year, and the similarly sized Imperial College London, with 12,129 full time students (the LSE has around 9,000) only raised £5000 last year - though this is 150% increase on the year before. Students attempting to raise money experience a large amount of bureaucracy. Health and Safety issues have seen the end of alcohol prizes (though pub-crawls continue) and the RAG week Assassins game must now be carried out with stickers as opposed to water-pistols. As Phillips points out, "our biggest problem at the moment is dealing with the Ultra Vires laws. We will have to pay the SU for using the Quad for the blind dating event and we can no longer provide free entry to Crush for those who have been out on the RAIDs. However, there are always ways around it. And I don't see it as a huge issue." Due to Ultra Vires law, only net proceeds from RAG rundraising can be donated to charity. It is illegal to use Union funds to collect money for a charity, or for the Union to subsidise costs for the purposes of fundraising. As long as the bar in the quad is closed, and no technician is required for lighting, the Union does not have to charge rental fees. ¦ RAG has received considerable amounts of support from some societies, and the Sabbatical officers have reportedly been "brilliant". However, support has been lacking in other sectors. Jessica Cartwright, President of RAG, told The Beaver: "RAG is most successful if it has enthusiasm, imagination and effort...[however] the existing LSE RAG Week Task Force selection system inhibits the success of our RAG Week, as it ensures that the majority of people sitting on the task force probably have no real burning desire to be part of the organisation of RAG. Of the specified fixed Task Force members that are required to attend and put on a blinding RAG Week, approximately five haye actually had any form of active role; and the vast majority have never shown up!" Kayt Beriy, the LSE SU communications officer, commented: "This year exec attendance has been extremely poor - RAG week is extremely important to the Union and to getting students involved in raising money for charity and in learning some valuable skills. This lack of attendance is the main reason for the motion submitted proposing that exec must send apologies if they cannot attend and if they fail to attend three sequential meetings then they will be automatically up for censure in the UGM - this will be voted on this Thursday!" The charitable streak at the LSE has been evident outside of RAG in other one-off events, such as Timeless, a dance and cultural show, which raised a preliminary figure of £10,000 in a night. Mikesh Vora, organiser of Timeless, said "There are loads of charity events coming up -the typical LSE student is charitable, and it's getting better." Tonight is the development society auction, held in the quad at 5pm. Last year the auction raised over £6,200. Sudan Divest campaign highlights popular LSE-student employers ALEX JONES The UK Sudan Divestment Campaign has called for students to consider how they can reconcile their ethical responsibilities with opportunities for personal gain when considering to which firms they will apply for internships. The campaign group has singled out a number of firms that work with the Sudanese government [see info box] and have called on investors and universities to divest their funds from such companies, in light of the continued political violence in the country. Many of the listed companies are connected to firms that will currently be receiving applications from LSE students for internships over the summer. One example is the under-vyriting of PetroChina by UBS late last year. PetroChina is in the top 4 companies of the targeted 25 for its involvement with the Sudanese government. UBS justify their action arguing that "PetroChina has no operations, nor derives any revenue from Sudan." However, the Sudan Divestment Taskforce has released a report claiming that China National Petroleum Corporation, which owns 88 percent of PetroChina, has invested at least $5billion in Sudan and that "primarily through CNPC operations. between 50 percent and 80 percent of Sudan's oil is exported to China." Victoria Pearce, of the UK Sudan Divestment Campaign, told The Beaver that "This oil wealth is consolidating that power [in the Sudanese government] and being spent on arming the Janjuweed." Around the time of the • IPO, students at Oxford University managed to prevent the University inviting UBS to come and advertise. In response to what stu- ' dents should do about divestment, Pearce said, "It's difficult because if I say don't do an internship at UBS, it's not like Barclays or HSBC are clean. It would be very difficult because if I were to say boycott UBS, then I'd have to say the same for Barclays and HSBC, and eventually there'd be nowhere left to apply apart from the coop or something." A spokesman for UBS suggested that working for such a firm need not pose such a moral dilemma: "At UBS, responsible behaviour is an important part of our culture, identity and business practice... We have also adopted measures to protect the environment, we adhere to high social standards and contribute to the communities we are a part of. All our activities are underpinned by our governance structure, which complies with the leading codes of best practices." One student, who wishes to The named companies: ¦china national petroleum corporation (cnpc) petroliam nasional berhad (petronas) ¦oil and natural gas corp ltd. (ongc) ¦china petrochemical corporation (sinopec group) ¦lundin petroleum ab aref investment group ¦ranhill berhad ¦muhibbah engineering berhad ¦kencana petroleum berhad ¦kejuruteraan samu-dra timur bhd (kstb) ¦petrofac ¦avichina industry & technology company ltd (avichina) ¦harbin power equipment company limited balstom ¦bauer ag ¦wartsila oyj ¦bharat heavy elec- tricals ltd ¦dongfeng automo-. bile company limited bindian oil corporation ltd (locl) ¦scomi group berhad ¦pecd berhad ¦electricity generating public company limited (egco) remain anonymous, looked at it slightly differently: "The job of a bank is to make money...you will fail if you give up youf connections." He did feel that "there is a line in business that you can't cross", but admitted that he would not turn down an internship just because he felt a particular firm had crossed it: "You can only exert a force of ethics if you have some influence at the company...protest won't do anything." "If I had to meet some of the Sudanese government," he said, "then I'd be a little uncomfortable." Pearce's view realises this, and she proposes that the best thing students can do to reconcile their consciences with their ambitions is to "get involved with the University Superannuation Scheme projects". She says this is a good place to get started as the investors are lecturers, "so they have a lot of leverage". "LSE already passed a motion of divestment," said Pearce, "someone told me they had already divested, but then I spoke to the guy running the divestment campaign and he said that divestment hadn't actually taken place yet." What needs to happen, according to Pearce, is for "students to ensure that it [the motion of divestment] goes through to the finance committee and that LSE becomes the first university in the country to divest." LSE agrees to listen to 24-hour library pleas DEOTIMA MUKHERJEE LSE has informally agreed to reconsider its decision to end the 24-hour open^ ing of the library and establish a review group including student representation. The 24-hour library campaign team had initially planned to present a report to the Academic Planning and Resource Committee later this month, but have been offered the chance to make a more comprehensive presentation to the committee in April. This means the decision could be delayed to a point when most students will not be around to witness the result. Peter Barton, who started the Facebook group that kicked off the campaign, and -LSE Students' Union (LSESU) General Secretary Fadhil Bakeer-Markar both have grand plans of direct action if the proposal gets rejected. Should they choose not to wait until April then they would present their case to the APRC on 19 February. Bakeer-Markar said he would push for a decision by the summer term in this case, but declined to give an idea of when the decision could come if the APRC remained unmoved by his pleas. In an interview with Bakeer-Markar, he revealed that £350 has so far been spent on the campaign's publicity. The Union has a budget of £2,000 for campaigns such as this, which means about 20 percent of money set aside for all student campaigns has gone into this campaign alone. An estimate of how much spending could rise if the proposal is rejected was not revealed. The issue of keeping the library open for 24 hours during term time has been around for the last three years. It is a cause for student welfare that was revived by 2nd year student Peter Barton a few months ago. After Barton's Fkcebook group brought the issue to people's attention, a motion was proposed in the UGM for a third timg and the LSESU officially adopted the campaign. Surveys carried out by The Beaver showed that around 80 percent of students wanted the library to be open 24-hours. However, only 1,200 of the 9,000 students at the LSE have signed the online and paper petition. Bakeer-Markar justified, this figure saying "1,200 students is a lot in terms of sheer numbers, even if the library can't really hold 1,200 students. Such a large collective voice would definitely attract the APRC's attention." In reference to recent allegations of stagnation in the campaign, a Master's student remarked, "Friends of mine who don't live in LSE residences and don't have the LSE network at home cannot access many of the online readings. But at this rate of progress, the issue might become irrelevant for us." COMMENT&ANALYSIS iBeaverl 5 February 2008 |o7 ___ __ c&a@thebeaveronline.co.uk COMMENTfeuiALYSIS Israel is not an Apartheid state Debra Freedman The "Make Apartheid History" motion was defeated simply because Israel cannot legitimately be categorised as an apartheid state "Make Apartheid History" so loftily declared UGM motion two weeks ago. And who would vote against a motion that called for an end to ethnic cleansing? Well I did, along with the majority who attended the UGM. Not only is Israel not comparable to Apartheid South Africa, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that guarantees the rights of all its citizens irrespective of race, gender or sexuality; a fact that the proposers of this motion seem to have overlooked. Apartheid? Israel is a pluralistic society, home to Jews, Muslims, Druze, Christians and Bedouins. Israeli Arabs share full political rights and enjoy the greatest level of freedom of speech and press in the Middle East - just like every other Israeli citizen. Arabs have served in the Israeli cabinet. Currently, there are 12 Arabs members of parliament. One of Israel's Supreme Court judges is an Arab. Apartheid? Arabs in the Gaza strip and the West Bank enjoy higher standards of liv- ing than they did previously under Egyptian and Jordanian rule. For example, since 1948 life expectancy has increased by 27 years thanks to the Israeli government's investment in healthcare and education. Apartheid? Israel was the first country in the Middle East that allowed Arab women to vote. It's the only country in the Middle East where women are truly equal citizens; a right yet to be realised in the majority of Arab states. A rogue state? Israel provides humanitarian aid to any country in need. Food supplies and medical assistance are sent out to regions struck by natural disaster or war. Israel is often a safe haven for victims of persecution and war. In the 1970s Israel rescued 303 Vietnamese refugees who had been rebuffed by four countries. In 1993, Israel was the first country to grant refuge to Bosnian-Muslims displaced by the civil war in Yugoslavia. Last year, Israel gave a home to approximately 300 survivors of the Darfur genocide. Apartheid? Since its creation, Israel has been surrounded by a host of hostile nations bent on its destruction. Israel has worked tirelessly for peace. Ask Bill Clinton. Ask Tony Blair. But £9 Israel is the only country in the Middle East that guarantees the rights of all its citizens irrespective of race, gender and sexualit}' peace requires a partner. Apartheid? In the summer of 2005, Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza strip, removing 23 Israeli settle- ments from both Gaza and the West Bank, uprooting around 9400 Israelis from their homes. Since Israel's withdrawal, Gaza has come under the control of the terrorist group Hamas. Apartheid? Hamas is responsible for countless terrorist attacks on civilians in shops, restaurants, buses and schools, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Within the Gaza strip, opposition members are subject to arrest and beatings or worse. In September, outdoor prayer gatherings were banned. Hamas doesn't recognise Israel's right to exist and in leaflets distributed in the West Bank and Gaza, it explicitly called for the murder of Jews: "Every Jew or settler is a target and must be killed. Their blood and their property are forfeit." Apartheid? day Kassam rock ets are fired indiscriminately on Israeli civilians from inside the Gaza strip. Suicide bombers infiltrating into Israel remains a real and constant threat. In order to protect its citizens, Israel has had to erect a security fence to monitor terrorist movement into Israel. Even in the current security state, the boundary has been moved in several places where the High Court has ruled that freedom of movement has been too restrictive. Apartheid? . There are black Israelis and white Israelis. There are Asian and European Israelis. Name the country of origin, name the ethnic group, there are Israelis. To in anjrway imply Israel is racist is either s h o w - ing deep ignorance, or a wilful attempt to mislead people. Are all these facts really symptoms of an Apartheid state? To compare the Israel today to Apartheid South Africa is not only a gross distortion of the reality in Israel, but is also an outrageous insult to the memories of black South Africans who suffered under an immensely oppressive regime. The proposers of this motion resorted to misleading, destructive methods. Thankfully most LSE students look beyond mindless extremism to constructive _ dialogue. E>q)osing the Israel myth Charlotte Galvin From its inception, the Zionist campaign has always been a ruthless one. The anti-motion movement that bombarded LSE proved a microcosm of the wider Zionist campaign: their aim is to distort, blur and obfuscate the facts. The intentionally misinforming nature of the propaganda against the motion which was banded about campus, deserves to be exposed. Similarly, Israeli apologists using such methods as Beaver articles, Facebook and displays on Houghton Street to propagate myths on the conflict should be challenged. Leaflets against the motion distributed around LSE prior to the UGM debate did not merely propagate exaggerations: some alleged 'facts' were barefaced lies. Our motion, on the other hand, incorporated well-documented events, facts and figures citing such reputable sources as Amnesty International, UN resolutions and International Court of Justice rulings. However, the opposition successfully and cunningly diverted all attention and focus to the semantics of the motion; the use of the word Apartheid. The myths about the Israel-Palestine conflict propagated by Israel apologists on campus must be exposed in order to separate fact from fiction This convenient tool of distraction sidelined debate on the real issues and undeniable facts; call it what you will, the destruction of Palestinian houses, the building of the 'security fence' and cutting off power to the Gaza strip are all contrary to international law. The rhetoric of the motion's opposition will never be strong enough to obscure the facts. In line with the distraction tactics employed by the opposition, Houghton Street proved a propaganda field day for those against our motion. One display board by the Union of Jewish Students documented the overseas humanitarian aid given by Israel. One could not help but see the irony that whilst Israel provided artificial limbs to African children, their military methods were seeing to it that Palestinian children were losing their limbs. Leaflets distributed on campus even claimed that Israel is aiding and enabling the creation of a Palestinian state as it constantly exchanges "land for peace". This brazen lie is indicative of the disingenuous claims repeated over and over again by the Israeli lobby, with the aim of selling lies as facts. Once again Israel and its apologists publicly chant easy-on-the-ear slogans such as "land for peace" while simultaneously and audaciously carving up the West Bank with illegal settlements. As our motion reiterated, the colonial settler proj- .....4 Israel is i: occilpic." ^:'a^:^siln{; is i.h- ect in the West Bank flouts Article 49, Paragraph 6 of the 4th Geneva Convention. Yet, once again the Zionists cloud their true designs with public lies. During Annapolis, Israel's much photographed handshaking seemed to the whole world a reasonable gesture for peace. However, behind the scenes the miserable blockade and siege on" the Gaza strip is unrelenting. The mission of misinformation continued with Davis' article last week; his claim of "boycott" was sure to get readers reeling in indignation. Fear not dear readers, our motion explicitly supported divestment, not boycotting. Davis also places emphasis on the need to provide Palestinians with 'jobs and stability' as well as 'promoting trade' as stepping stones to peace and rightfully so. However, what Davis fails to mention is why the Palestinian economic and employment fronts are in such dire straits. Conveniently, Israel's direct role in curtailing Palestinian economic development is altogether ignored by Davis. One of the core themes of the anti-motion offensive was to preach how the Make Apartheid History campaign divided the Student Union and marginalised certain student groups. Central to the nature of our motion was that the government of a country does not necessarily represent the views of its people and vice versa; case in point being the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of London to oppose the British government's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The Make Apartheid History motion, contrary to accusations, did not come with any religious or ethnic strings attached. Your religious affiliation or nationality doe§ not resign you to a presupposed set of political beliefs and ideologies. Although Malcolm X did not always advocate peaceful means to justice as proponents of the motion do, he encapsulated the essence of justice; 'You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you cari't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.' Our motion was not a 'discriminatory motion' as Nayfeld asserted in last week's Beaver, to the contrary, people of every race, religion and nationality should unite in denouncing the discriminatory practices of the Israeli government against the Palestinians. Teytelboym's article in last week's Beaver exemplifies almost perfectly the Zionist campaign; the unmitigated attempt to up the Israel/Palestine situation as a balanced conflict. To equate the wrongs of Israel's policies with Palestine's is deliberately misleading; Israel is the illegal-occupier, Palestine is the occupied. Most alarming is Teytelboym's appeal that 'the solution is not in the past but in the future.' Would it not be absurd and naive to look at any current situation without investigating the root of the problem? The history of the conflict is the key to unlocking a future solution. How convenient that Teytelboym would choose to forget the anguish of the Palestinians in their plight for what should rightfully be theirs - a home. For, to understand what the Palestinians are trying to achieve and'need, we must try to comprehend their suffering. Shockingly, Teytelboym asserts '...we should, just this time, stop trying to understand the causes of things.'An almost laudable and contradictory statement you will find given that LSE's motto is "rerum cognoscere causas"; "to utider-iStand the causes of things." 08 leaver I 5 February 2008 COMMENT&ANALYSIS commen analysis c&a@thebeaveronline.co.uk Out of order.... Daniel Sheldon The IT provision on campus is hardly comparable to the fees many students pay and the reputation LSE supposedly occupies internationally Picture the scene. After wasting the best part of ten minutes searching for a public computer, you finally manage to print off your presentation. Or rather, you would if you had any printing credit. You then waste another ten minutes exploring three buildings in a vain attempt to find a printing credit value loader. Cue another search for a public computer before you can attempt to print off your attempts to explain democratisation in Latin America. When you finally manage to log on to a printer, it takes your money but gives nothing in return. After venting your frustrations at the Copy Shop staff, you make it to class: late, flustered and annoyed. Of course this is a caricature, but one grounded in reality. It might seem mundane and petty, but these are problems encountered by LSE students on a daily basis. Not only are these incidents irritating, they are also highly disruptive to our academic lives. Some students at the LSE are paying fees of up to £16,686 per year, and quite rightly expect world class facilities from a world class institution like ours. No wonder there is such anger, particularly amongst the cash cows that are international and k The School cannot continue to pro\1de such poor facilities and expect students to pay ever rising fees postgraduate students. The School cannot continue, to provide such poor facilities and expect students to pay ever rising fees. Some claim that LSE's facilities compare favourably with other British universities, but we are now competing with institutions worldwide, not just the red brick down the road. Those who come to LSE from America are often shocked at our paltry array of computers, our shoddy sports facilities and our lack of a 24-hour library. We need more public computers, in more accessible locations and with more efficient ways of finding out which ones are available. Vitally, we need more working print credit value loaders without the "Out of Order" signs, or even better some facility to top-up online. Also, despite recent increases, H Space and email storage is still woefully inadequate. With computer storage costing so little, it seems miserly of the School to provide us with such small amounts of space. It would be unfair to criticise the School without mentioning the constraints they are working under. Space is at a premium in central London, but we wouldn't be struggling to squeeze everything in if the School wasn't so intent on expanding student numbers. Over the past two years the School has over recruited, but has failed to improve and expand resources to cater for an inflated student population. Hopefully the New Academic Building will be able to cope with the planned 9,000 students by 2010. The second defence the School advances is financial: unlike US universities, we do not have a billion dollar endowment to pay for such "luxuries". True, but neither is the LSE poor: we have £200m in the bank, which is quite a lot for a UK university. When LSE can afford to spend hundreds of thousands on artwork, we can spend a little more on computer facilities. Major change is hard to achieve in public sector organisations like LSE: competing funding bids from various departments, layers of committees and jobsworth bureaucrats stand in the way of responding the needs of students. Another obstacle is closer to home. The School needs to know what students need before they can provide it, and there is no better vehicle for that than your union: the LSESU. Moaning about crappy facilities to your friends is fine, but for anything to change we need to speak up. Last week I proposed a motion at the UGM to force the Students' Union to lobby the School on this issues. With overwhelming support it passed, and now the message is clear: students are demanding value for their money, and facilities must improve. It may sometimes seem like the Students' Union is too busy solving the Middle East conflict to care about student issues. This is wrong: the LSESU has a proud history of debating and taking action on injustice around the world, whilst simultaneously fighting and winning for students here. With campaigns on teaching quality, 24 hour library opening and now computer facilities, I am confident that the Students' Union will continue to make a real difference to the lives of LSE students. Our caged Self Enrique Martino-Martin So often we absorb ourselves in the Self without ever pondering how our perception and understanding of this image of the Self came about There is something frustrating and agonisingly wearisome about the commodified state of the LSE campus. Most nauseating are the uninspiring posters advertising 'Salsa Nights'. Their flamboyancy attracts attention to the least interesting aspects of the Latin American continent, and in one swipe, reduces its people to the lowest common denominator of the 'exotic'. These events are popular because their celebration is operative to the commercial stimulus, business asset and status sjTnbol.This is why they are the siblings of the financial/investment societies; every day is a corporate fest, with country-club dressed conscripts bidding their life for success. The LSE is a university of elite conformity, because studying is treated by many of its students as a mere inter- lude on the well trodden, rehearsed and mostly inherited path to success. The "limitless potential" as advertised on the banner by the corporate propagandists on campus sets strict parameters and instructions for the 'educated classes'. This process of commodifica-tion corrodes the fundamental role of university, and limits it to a 'nursery for financial bankers'. Wilhelm von Humboldt envisaged the educational establishment as the Bildung-, a site for formative learning through study that would allow for a self-examin-ing detachment from the home and experienced surroundings. This can generate the articulation of distance necessary for a reflective re-attachment. As Herbert Marcuse observed, the Ego submits quickly to the required modes of thought and behaviour, assimilating itself to the oth- ers. But these others are also the competitors and superiors, which in the race for the 'Ego Ideal', activate the individualistic and competitive aggressiveness in each one of us. This is the explanation for the bizarre FT advertisement in the Union Shop; a veneration of Richard Branson's vainglorious face modelled on the iconic image of Che Guevara (of which the Salsa organisers have made tiresome use of as well). The opportunistic billionaire's face is titled: 'Business Revolutionaries'. A radical icon has been able to be elected by some slick, dim-witted marketing people, because it evokes the achievement of an individual and sheds the context from which Che Guevara emerged. Being revolutionary is the opposite of what you are supposed to do; what students at the LSE are supposed to do is become executives and managers, or self-important and oblivious leaders and innovators of the current economic orthodoxy. The sustaining substance of the contemporary elite is a compulsive obedience to the ether of carnivorous greed and insatiable needs. This is the recognised formula for prestige. Because of thousands of social restrictions and well maintained economic bound- aries, those who cannot join the upper strata in the pursuit for the 'Ego Ideal' (as strictly defined by financial/con-sumerist conformity) are treated to a daily spectacle of conspicuous consumption, which we are told, are the signs of success. The pursuit of wealth, is based on the sanctified goal of narcissistic comfort and privilege that is most clearly discernible in the idiocy of the life of Richard Branson - the wish of success fulfilled. He is derided by some and is expect- ed to absorb the accusations. for belonging to the class of the hyper-rich and the hyper-annoying. But this evasive strategy of blame tacitly sustains the rules for us to follow; egoism and its derivatives, such as vanity, indulgence, ignorance - "only know your Self and your wants (which you will need money for)". The pursuit to the socially determined 'Ego Ideal' as actu-alised by its elite Self is accepted as desirable, and presented as the inevitable trajectory of predictable elite mediocrity. We are told that the means of Self-creation are bargain deals, a prestige location; fill your purse, dress your status, pursue the purchase. It is not advocated that we should return to Che Guevara, but rather to a diversification of spheres of concern and interests which go beyond the celebration of the Self; for aspirations and dedications which cannot be reduced to bullet points in Eacebook profiles aimed at presenting the market-value of the Self. This commodification may be externally compulsive, but is it internally compelling? Other than for the fiercely ignorant, the philosopher Simon Critchley diagnoses this cynical semi-distance to corporate capitalism as the motivational deficit in the institutions of liberal democracy. At the UGM last term, the chair of Citizens for Social Justice was booed when inquiring on the progress of the implementation of the Living Wage for pestering the self-congratula-tory mood after rejoicing the university's position in the rankings. The Aldwych Living Wage Campaign is currently underway and gathering to produce pamphlets and wage increases - not for the Self. This campaign is against the background of the mind-numbing consumption of the vacuous and stagnant Salsa-nights/catwalks for proto-bankers. Inaction is the preservation of structural violence and inequality. The unaffected go on consuming the vapid mantras of the needy-greedy Ego, bogged down in the iron-cage of Self. EXECUTIVE EDITOR Kevin Perry MANAGING EDITOR Timothy Root SECRETARY Lily Yang NEWS EDITORS Patrick Cullen Michael Decs Henry Lodge C&A EDITOR James Pugh FEATURES EDITOR Joseph Cotterill PART B EDITORS Josh Heller Thomas Warren PART C EDITOR Romy Fawehimni SPORTS EDITORS Josh Tendeter Sophie De La Hunt ACTING LISTINGS SUB-EDITOR Lucie Marie Gouiet NEWS LAYOUT ASSISTANT Petra Sarapatkovo THE COLLECTIVE; Chair: Lucie Marie Gouiet .m.goulet@!se.ac.uk Raidev Akol; Hoslb Baber Fadhil Bakeer-Marl div«^3n is as »mportaOTtft>r jHi oives^ment &anic as mai^tg Too many di^jirase adavities oir-rentty ftrfl uai^ tte CSR «m-breila to make ttw €om:«^ as effective and as integral as it should be to tf»e finamsal sector. De$i^ i»t»^ soc^ pressure from ail soits of V^^}s and diiriJ sod*^ adms, there is sGtt a k>ng way to go ttie financiai world's ftflidamentat mindset &eco««8s tmly sustainable. Even social re-siponsibifity may Jast not be the tegitimate b«»a»«s of business in the first piace. Part of the current probfew lies page 3 literature honcho............................. A.W.O.L We got The Anarchists's Cookbook for you this week. Our literature people enjoyed it so much they blew themselves up and are in the hospital right now with stumps for legs. page 6 <- w -> page 7 ................................theatre honcho tomwhittaker Tom spent the week with a highly accul-turated former lap dancer. This appears to be the status quo for him, expect other exotic characters in future partBs. page 7 <- photography honcho..........................> pages 8 and 9 utsamukherjee Like giving a wand to a wizard, when Utsa gets a camera her creative juices erupt like a volcano. The Toilet Factory is a beautiful subject but she made it in to art. pages 10 and 11 <- ...................................telly honcho ericlundquist We have to scrape the TV honcho off the sofa each week to bring you the freshest in telly. We made it through The Wire, thank God through The Wire. film honcho................................... bernardkeenan We hope you all remember last week where a young Eric cut his teeth on an interview with the Juno people, now hear what he thought of the film. -> page 12 page 13 <- tech and gaming honcho............-........ simonwang An overture on the joys of electronic anarchism. Our honcho is now raving about bombing Microsoft's head office, and we fear we may have to sedate him... -> page 13 ............................identity honcho hollieastman I got a helmet... we are going mad for headgear in identity today. And with real style. Pork Pie hats are good for Charlie Mingus, but not for you, you no good Doherty clone. w page 14 <- visual arts honcho............................ fionamackay Fiona tried to disown this article. She put it in a bag, tied the top and lobbed it onto a nearby lake with a grimace. We rescued it because we think it's rather good. -> page 15 page 15 <- gender honcho................................ alicepfieffer On a trip to Paris Alice-still managed to bang out a piece about pro-ana sites. Some harrowing photos and some serious insight this week. 1 r -> page 16 Mr WI(sft and Isl)6 in Isovg 2007 - 2008 ..........................music honcho adamjohns & rahimrahemtulla Reviews, hardcore and musical London, these boys sank their brews, left the bar and came in to the fold to bring you a sideways glance at today's tuneage. I A II o ..................................travel honcho willjoce Will started to lay out a nice article about someone who goes to Costa Rica a lot. Then ¦ he went to the pub. He has yet to come back, we think he's stuck... or drunk. ..................—food and drinking honcho danielbyates The Greeks and their real food were the subject of an evening of gluttony for Yates and his editor. Anarchists don't pay for things, we didn't. •B o 01 torn warren This issue is a mighty one, and a special one as we have great content spread over an all new sixteen page layout. It also marks my the final issue in my short tenure as editor. I regrettably lack the organisational skills an editor requires, so I've decided to move aside to allow someone with a fresher mind than mine to take my place. I shall however remain within the B stable, loitering like a hobo with a good supply of Diamond Ice and no place to go. I imagine I will, most likely, devote myself to the inherently anarchic life to which I am accustomed, and spend my wanton existence meandering from bar to bar like a restless nomad with an incurable thirst. In the meantime, I expect you to keep waving those black flags and pressing for a finer society. Anarchists are fine people, I have the pleasure of being acquainted with more than a few. So get down, rave it up and live well. Fuck the man my friends, fuck the man. josh heller Anarchism as social structure, no damaging power dynamics and only love love love, wherever you go. It sounds like the world we should live in. Jesus would have been an anarchist if he'd read the literature. They sqy it will never work but they also say it happened in Spain pre-Franco so what the fuck man who should you believe? So a massive sixteen pages long, we haven't seen that around these parts for many moons. Things can only get bigger. That is until next week when we'll shrink temporarily like testicles in cold weather. Tom Warren won't be with us anymore and I salute his stepping down with admiration.. Never has a brain so addled with drugs written so well whilst at the same time consuming on inhuman amount of nicotine. This weeks partB is the best one I've done. The squat we explore in the centrespread is perhaps the most incredible building in London. To capture it in photographs so eloquently was a feat I didn't presume possible. Miss Mukherjee's photography and poetry will blow your mind. Everyone else was wonderful, the new sections ore moving at the speed of sound and with Anarchy in partB the^ partBevolution is complete. tuesday the fifth of february, tuo thousand and eight three patrickcullen is therapist to the disparate strands of anarchist ideology... Anarchism! The very word is powerful, instantly conjuring images of burning cars, smashed shop fronts, and gangs of black-clad youths throwing bricks and bottles at the nearest upstanding figure of law and order. Or perhaps, for those of you who know your Chesterton, it brings to mind the genius, bomb-throwing, caped individual with his worldwide conspiracy to collapse Christian civilisation? And for the historians amongst you, maybe the word reminds you of the Makhnovists, of the Durruti Column, or the Kronstadt Rising. Perhaps you have heard of Kropotkin, Proudhon, Malatesta and Ward -or perhaps not. Maybe, for you, an anarchist is a bearded, dreadlocked hippy, who smells faintly of sweat and weed, and who doesn't live but exists. Well, anarchists (sadly, perhaps) are all of these things, but also more. Anarchists - and there are many forms, from anarcho-capitalism to anarcho-syndicalism - in general agree on only one thing: opposition to power-relationships. That is to say, if I have power over you, for any reason, this is a bad thing. Why? Because human beings, being human, are fallible. We are incompetant, we break, we fall ill, we go mad, we do stupid things that look good and stupid things that look stupid. We lose our tempers, we're irritable, irrational, and none of us are really sane. Look what happens when we. get give power; it goes straight to our heads! Not for nothing is it said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. From prefects at school (tossers, all, I know, I was one once) to politicians of all stripes, through police officers, petty beauraucrats and middle-management arseholes, people with power are invariably looking out for themselves and only th^selves. This, anarchists agree, is a bad thing because it poisons human society and human rela- tions. Anarchism, at its most basic level, is an ideology that says, to quote Bill and Ted, those most renowned of political philosophers, 'be excellent to each other'. Power relationships aren't necessary. They cause suffering, on a massive scale, that ranges from a bollock-ing by your boss right the way up to being blown into little bits by a 1,0001b bomb dropped by some poor bastard in the RAF onto some other poor bastard in Godforsakenistan. So what should replace these power relationships that pervade societies the world over? Well, here's the rub. Remember I said that there's only one thing anarchists will generally agree on? Here's where it shows. There are ten distinct strands of anarchist thought, which, in my opinion, is nine too many. Without going into too much detail, these are: Mutualism, Collectivism, Individualism, Anarcho-Communism, Anarcho-Syndicalism, Green Anarchism, Anarcho-Feminism, Anarcho-Capitalism, Post-Left Anarchy and Anarchism Without Adjectives. The only strand that matters is known • as Anarchism Without Adjectives (hereafter referred to as Anarchism), and it's been around ^ since 1889, when a jolly \ decent chap called Fernando Tarrida del Marmol, a Cuban Creole, who was somewhat irritated by the factional infighting that's plagued the radical left ever since the second person joined the movement. Anarchism, then, seeks to create a new society based on the principle of mutual co-operation between free individuals. It's not that simple, or that complex, an idea. Each person is, or should be, the diviner of their own destiny. Anarchists argue that you and I are free persons whose lives should not be curtailed in any way by arbitrary impositions by others. Equally, however, with freedom comes responsibility to our fellow humans. This is where the mutual co-operation comes into play. Consider a society, or club. The members are all there of their own free will. They usually have a say in the way the club is run. They will elect the treasurer, chair, and secretary. They all work together, of their own free will, to ensure that they can all meet up and do whatever it is that they do without outside interference. Without realising it, they are Anarchists. Most of us, really, are Anarchists. We aspire to leave the rat race behind, to live comfortably and happily, doing what we enjoy and living pleasantly with someone else. Anarchism is an ideology which says that this life is possible for all, right now, if only people got their act together and changed things. Not through violence - propaganda of the deed and armed insurrection never work, unless you get the army on side and even then all you end up with is another dictatorship - but through changing the way we think and act. Anarchism offers a new and better way of living our lives, a pleasanter, fairer world for all, not just the tiny elite at the very top, but for everyone. For those of you who are interested. Angel Alley (84b Whitechapel High Street) boasts Freedom Press, home to the longest-running Anarchist newspaper in the world. Remember: revolution starts at home! /\oii (DoDq(DQoiigTeo¦ 1*.#^ director says you've got to take it on tour, like broadway, everywhere. But I don't think I can keep up with this. It's exhausting because of the emotion involved. Honestly It's not fun to talk about yourself, to talk about what you have been through." She's absolutely right. It might well be a rather useful boost to one's ego to have people pay to hear about your life but when a life has been as full of ups and downs it seems somewhat unfair to force her to recollect these things night after night on her own, surrounded by a cynical press. Not only this but I think the fact that it was solely centered around Nadria's story meant that a sharp and political angle was missing throughout. Nadira is 'not political' (while I think it is safe to presume Craig is). It is true that during the play there are occasional segments from Craig's book but these are largely insignificant- more a set dressing for Nadira which are not used to their full potential. A great shame considering the potential for a good theatrical attack on the establishment. In fact I think that is quite a common theme in this performance. Just as with her father, Uzbekistan society and the lap dancing club, Craig and his actions have merely become the setting for Nadira and her life. The lives and actions of her father, and Craig himself, have little consequence beyond how they affect her. But I'm sure she has her reasons for taking this non political stand- whether due to a shrewd piece of advice from her agent to avoid any potential for further embarrassment, or in order to ensure that her remaining family in Uzbekistan did not face persecution. She does vaguely meander around the idea of calling the piece feminist; "It has many contexts and controversial angles but I should say at some point feminist but in a feminine way, still in a sexy way." . I have a slight suspicion she does not really know herself. But with such vague aspirations it is probably a good thing she is not confronting debates on contemporary international relations between Uzbekistan and the UK. Nadira seems content enough though, just exhausted and slightly deflated. She obviously loves London and her eyes light up the minute we start talking about it. She loves the cosmopolitan atmosphere, she says, but more than anything she loves the freedom. "I love London, especially that I can go out late at night and come home at even one in the morning drunk and nobody asks for my papers." I worry somewhat about Craig though. I kept looking at him just behind the curtain while he watched his partner dancing on that stage alone. I wanted to know when it was time for him to move in and share that spotlight with her and maybe fill in the blanks in this otherwise fascinating story. > tuesday the fifth of february tuo thousand and eight sek^en cooking up a storm... thomaswarren has a blast with the anarchists cookbook... The Anarchists Cookbook is an unusual tome, and has existed in many forms over years. It is, in essence, a list of recipes, but the recipes it contains are somewhat more criminal than the works of such placid figures as Nigella. Instead of informing the reader how to create a great meringue the reader is instead equipped with the technical knowhow to make napalm, rob payphones and construct bombs. The book itself bears no philosophical relationship to anarchism, and though purportedly released as a reaction to American involvement in Vietnam the book is now mostly read by school students who spend their free time playing doom and planning atrocities. Banned in many places, the book has moved online, and now the original is being constantly updated and revised by fresh generations of lunatics with too much time on their hands. The book was written by a nineteen year old William PoweU who claimed to have utilised the New York public library and military manuals as a source of information for The' Anarchists Cookbook. Published in 1970 by Lyle Stuart, who retained copyright of the book, the book contains some truly astonishing information, much of it untrue. Take, for example, bananadine. Ever heard that you can get high smoking banana skins? Bananadine is the drug that is said to exist in banana peels and render them psychoactive. The problem with bananadine, however, is that it simply does not exist. It was the product of a hoax published in a hippyzine that was seized upon by the juvenile mind of William Powell who reproduced it faithfully in his book, and unwittingly gave rise to one of the more absurd urban legends of our time. The book also contained putative forms of explosives, such as tennis balls stuffed with match heads to act as ersatz grenades. Other explosives are more worrying,- and there are no grounds on which one can disseminate information on how to make pipebombs in good conscience. William Powell himself was struck by such pangs of conscience, and after his conversion to Christianity lamented his misguided creation of the cookbook and pressed for the Ifc Hi book to be removed from J print. He had no |luck however. The publishers retained the copy-- right of the book and insisted their right to publish it. They a t e r sold the rights to another publisher, and William Powell received no further royalties from the sale of the book. The book, in a twist of anarchic fate, was beyond the control of publishers too. Several publishers released sequels to the original cookbook, and with the advent of the internet the text was put online and updated to the needs of today's lunatic. The original details of manipulating telecommunications devices, known as phreaking, were replaced with more hightech information on hacking and the like, and information on environmental terrorism has appeared in some cookbooks. One notable online publication of the cookbook was the notorious Jolly Roger's Cookbook that drew heavily from the original and gave generation X'ers with a lust for fire a new way to spend their time. Interestingly, whilst the original cookbook had no explicit alleigance to either right or left wing politics, the updated versions were suffused with revolutionary anarchism. Further, whilst the original was published simply from a lust for the filthy lucre, the online versions remained avowedly free, retaining their independence from capitalist constraints. The book over the years has caused both tit-illation and consternation. And I must admit, for all its faults, it is rather amusing, if a little outdated in its original form. It is however, a ¦deeply unfair publication. Its nomenclature has furthered the perception of anarchy as a violent and disruptive philosophy whose adherents are ne'er do wells with no place in decent society, and this is unfortunate, for anarchy in its purest form is a deeply moral philosophy. What William Powell started in his youth has had a real influence on today, and is perhaps the reason for more than one political protester being left bruised and battered by the police. That being said, there are few publications that contain detailed plans of pipebombs, and if you can find an online version with information on how to rob vending machines you will be able to wreak your revenge on every machine that has robbed you of your change. For those of you with a crooked bent, the cookbook is essential reading. take a plight with the Conchords peterjohannssen takes a trip into the fresh new kiwi comedy ericlundquist tells you about the best show you've never seen. With the enormous amount of sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations littering television programming these days, creativity seems in short supply. Even many of the most popular shows, such as CSI and Lost, have turned into cliched facsimiles of their former selves. For this reason, I am surprised to have stumbled upon a truly unique show. Flight of the Conchords, a quietly subversive kiwi comedy. The show follows the two members of 'Flight of the Conchords', the self-described "fourth-best digi-folk par-adists in New Zealand," as they attempt to adjust to life in New York City while their band tries to make it big. The band members, Bret and Jemaine (not Jermaine, as many confrontational You-Tubers are quick to remind you), are endearingly naive, albeit extremely one-dimensional characters. The supporting cast, including a fan with stalker tendencies (Kristen Schaal) and the ^ band's awkward manager (Rhys Darby) are even more stereotypical.. However, the brilliance of the show is in how it takes the cliched» idea of foreignersV^ visiting America {Coming to America, Borat), utilizes a set of shallow characters, but still manages to be disarming-ly funny in an incred- ibly dry, painfully awkward way, much like the BBC's The Office. But unlike The Office's devastating realism, there is a sense of surrealism that permeates this show, especially when it unleashes its trump card: its songs. At least two times each show Bret and Jemaine break into song, transforming their mundane existences into hilarious music video spoofs that lampoon artists ranging from David Bowie to Marvin Gaye. The result is a television show that borrows as much from the dry humor of The Office and Extras, as the work of Michel Grondry {The Science of Sleep). It is a peculiar world in which Bret doesn't like his own band because it isn't popular, there are roll calls at band meetings (with only three attendees), and its okay to be racist against Australians. It is a gloriously off-kilter world. Admittedly, the humor is not for everyone, but the show is a refreshing, honest, and humorously devastating take on American culture, the absurdity of fame, and the awkwardness of everyday life. Flight of the Conchords is a welcome change to most of what passes for television these days. Season 1 is available on DVD, and HBO will screen a second season in late 2008. It was also on BBC 3 a bit ago and it's on youtube as well. Baltimore, for those of you who haven't visited, won't be on any 'Best Places to Live' lists for a long time. The Mid-Atlantic metropolis habitually registers crime, poverty, school performance, drug addiction and AIDS rates that rank at the bottom, if not dead last, among all American cities. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this bleak context has spawned one of the most intelligent and realistic social commentaries television has seen in years, HBO's The Wzre. Born in the minds of police reporter David Simon and former detective Ed Bvims, The Wire's first season aired during the summer of 2002. The series extends in scope far beyond the usual crime drama— it examines every level of the Baltimore police department and the city's dominant criminal organizations with careful scrutiny and moral relativism. In fact, many actors are former real-life drug dealers and law enforcement officials. This analysis further broadens to cover the State's Attorney, public schools, city politics, union workers, local heroin addicts, and even the _ local paper. The show at heart isn't about cops and criminals, but rather aims to realistically depict life in a troubled American city with all of its interconnections. Unrivalled plot complexity, sophistication, and realism do not come without drawbacks. To call it an ensemble would be a gross understatement—although the show arguably centres on Det. Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West -hailing from the City of Steel), there are really no stars. Instead, we get rotations of up to 25 important characters linked only through dialogue and compound plot interaction, prohibitively confusing to the casual watcher and leaving them well behind. This isn't Family Guy, it requires a little focus and patience. The TWre has been named the best show on television by TIME, Entertainment Weekly, and The Guardian among others, and began its fifth and final season for HBO in January. The first four seasons are available on DVD after being broadcast Mondays at 10pm on FX. Rights for the fifth season have yet to be confirmed in the UK. stretch your walls. Take their empty faces and open spaces (fallen on flat investment) where we grow trees out of our palms, and the cradles of their dreams which were fallow to begin with, plant flowers for the derelict and spill colour on their scattered feelings of fight and freedom, court and boredom. 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I am an antichrist! li: p Were you fuck. John Lydon as, Johnny Rotten in the Sex Pistols was a pastiche: at best an example of the nihilistic apathy of British youth, at worst a pop turd from the ass of shitmonger Malcolm McClaren. Yeah, he redeemed himself with PIL, but nobody was really buying the brand of "anarchism" the Pistols were selling. Punk, like anarchism, never meant chaos to me. In three words, it means: Do it yourself. Let's fast-forward. I used to go to the Warzone Centre a lot. Every bored teenager in Belfast, between 1985 and 200b3, did at some point. For most it was just a big dark hall in a rundown part of town, a place to get wasted on Buckfast and cider, and occassionally watch some of your friends play in their shitty bands. Once I went with an older guy to see some touring band I'd never heard of. They weren't playing the big hall, but downstairs in a little cafe space I hadn't known existed. The crowd wasn't the usual bunch of 15 year olds getting shitfaced. It was older and smaller, maybe only thirty people, and some of them weren't even drinking. May, 1998. Thirty years after Paris burned and the graffitti said LIVE WITHOUT DEAD TIME. Five skinny guys dressed up in black set up on the floor in front of us. "We are Refused from Sweden." What is it that bums these moments so indelibly into the memory? An emotional response that you don't get in school, at work, from your TV, from watching bands play on distant stages through a fog of dry ice. Right there on the floor, they exploded. Honesty, energy, conviction without irony. You can't be a passive observer anymore.You're implicated - but that's just admitting what's going on everyday anyway. The world's fucked, we all are. "We lack the motion to move to the new beat! "That was what Refused screamed. It's funny that a few years later they were the reference point for a thousand MTV clones, in a way proving their own point. Everything gets commodified in the end. There isn't an identity that isn't simultaneously a potential marketing tool. You have to fight for what you hold. Stop, re-wind. In 1977 something far more interesting than the Pistols tabloid soap-opera was going on in North London. It was called Crass. A band, a collective, a bunch of squatters, a record label, a zine. Crass said Do It Yourself, and thousands did. Meantime, a skinny L.A. outcast called Greg Ginn had the same idea and started a band called Black Flag, and a multitude of teenagers got inspired by what became known as hardcore. All the bullshit of earlier rock'n'roll was excised, the music was hard and fast and devoid of any influence outside itself. The mainstream couldn't get in: their aesthetic anathema simply couldn't package this stuff. Not at first (maybe not until Nirvana). Networks of people willing to do it themselves grew up around Europe and the US. No one installed it, no one could have planned it. The sound evolved, and small labels formed a sort of shadow economy around a few leading bands: Sonic Youth, Big Black, Minutemen, Fugazi. In the UK and Europe, the scene was more 'crust', more politically radical. e if' w e Of' 6 A Tbys Orchestra - Technicolor Dreams julianboys 'pon listening to this album it became immediately obvious that this was not a record by Modified Toy Orchestra, a group of musicians who rewire abandoned children's toys and construct bizzarely enticing electronic sound-scapes. Instead, A Tojrs Orchestra are an indie-pop group who use rather more conventional instruments to perform largely uninspiring music. Despite hailing from Italy they sing in English, but with an accent just strong enough to render all their lyrics as incomprehensible as a Glaswegian on speed. Their music occasionally fares better though, with the excellent 'Cornice Dance' sounding like Modest Mouse, although without the blessing of Johnny Marr on guitar. After this peak the album descends once more into several miserable, piano led dirges which you might expect to find as filler on the Amelie soundrack. Just when you think they seem on the edge of suicide though they turn away from the cliff, with a glorious bassline injecting some much needed energy into the proceedings on 'Ease Off The Bit'. Technicolor Dreams is an appropriate name for this eccentric collection of songs, which walks a fine line between uplifting tunes worthy of BeUe and Sebestian and coma inducing drudgery. Like most dreams then, there are highs and lows, but the overall remaining impression is one of confusion and indifference. Adele - 19 kerr/thompson Nineteen is the first offering from this talented young solo singer/songwriter, and the album lives up to the current hype surrounding her name. Adele's current single. Chasing Pavements, entered the charts last week at number two, coming close to the top spot through a combination of dramatic tone and strong vocals. The album, however, smarts of broader influences and varied talent; boasting sounds of pop, soul and new-jazz. Her lesser known debut single. Hometown Glory, stands out as an inspired piece of song-writing but appears on the end of the album as somewhat of an afterthought. While not all the tracks are up to this standard, the up-beat tracks such as "Right as Rain" and "Cold Shoulder" will give you the urge to dance and make the album worth listening to. I'm thinking of anarchist bands like The Ex, Flux of Pink Indians, Conflict, KUKL (featuring a young Bjork). But everywhere it was about people making their own culture, defending their own space, thinking maybe there is another way to live... So, I started volunteering in the Warzone Centre, like everyone else who worked there. It had Belfast's only vegetarian cafe, a studio, a library, and the hall. We booked shows for hundreds of bands from everywhere, anywhere. Some were awful. Most were ok. Soine were so good it made you feel like your chest might explode. Pure events, witnessed by no more than 200 people at any time. Mr Narrator, this is Bob Dylan to me. Punk rock took me on tours, introduced me to hundreds of creative, weird pepple across the world, let me know who I am. Once a kid in Japan wrote to say he liked our record... I lost touch. Maybe because the Warzone Centre closed in 2003 as part of the on-going 're-development' (gentrifica-tion) of my city, maybe because the anarchist 'Seattle movement' has lost direction, maybe cos the music got a little stale, maybe because I saw David Beckham photographed in a Crass tshirt. Maybe the world's moved on, but the tmth hasn't changed: be what you think you want to be, live without dead time, start today, do it yourself. Photos by Ricky Adam - for a document of Irish/global DIY go to www.rickyadamphoto.com I » B, tuelye -tuesday -the fifth of february tuo thousand and eight z JUNO enclundqulst reviews the indie comedy that has movie lovers pregnant with expectation A look at the Chinese astrological calendar reveals the boar as representative for 2007. But in the film world, it became the year of the unwanted pregnancy. Coincidence or not, what was once a real hands-off issue has spawned three wildly successful comedies. After summer films Knocked Up and Waitress arrives the latest and perhaps finest edition to this peculiar mini-genre, Juno. Emerging Canadian actress Ellen Page plays title character Juno MacGuff, sixteen and pregnant in suburban Minneapolis. Juno confidently cruises through adolescence with a sharp wit and offbeat personality, even in the aftermath of a fateful one-aftemoon-sit with timidly endearing band mate and friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). She converses, especially with best friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), in countless idiomatic pop-culture references with blunt honesty and wiy one-liners. The whole film speaks a language refreshingly different from what its high-school-comedy billing would normally suggest. Whether or not this strange vernacular depicts how real-life people talk is a matter of your opinion. That being said, I am quite sure that few American conven- ience store clerks would address a customer in the following diction: "So what's the prognosis. Fertile Myrtle? Minus or plus? That ain't no etch-a-sketch. This is one doodle that can't be un-did, homeskillet." Suspect your disbelief if you must, because screenwriter Diablo Cody's sharp dialogue will keep you listening and laughing from title to credits. After a visit to the local Planned Parenthood center and a chat with a vapid punk receptionist, Juno decides to give the baby away to Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Gamer) after reading their "spawn-seeking" add in the local paper. The Lorings live the same McMansion as do all of their neighbors in a posh gated community. When the families meet for the first time to discuss legal arrangements, the thirty-something couple seems as yuppie and whitewashed as their Martha Stewart abode. However, through frequent visits back to the house, Juno discovers that Mark is a closet rock-star (his wife quite literally sequesters all guitars, posters, ect. into one tiny room). They play the hipster name game—where winning means trumping your oppo- nent with a more obscure or underground band/artist/film—and develop a relationship that I can only categorize as interesting and ambiguous. As Juno's body starts to bulge, she finally loses her cool. The dry verbal carapace slides off to reveal vulnerability, especially during a spat at school with Bleeker; she may rock out to The Stooges, but her own soundtrack includes the insecurity of Kimya Dawson and BeUe & Sebastian. Countless critics have heaped praise upon Ellen Page and Diablo Cody, and justly so. But Juno's parents, (J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) stand out in their own right. Simmons echoes Juno's acute sense of humor without ever coming off as a smartass—he's one big teddy bear. Janney delievers of the film's best quips, and even puts on a decent Minnesota accent. The pair works off each other brilliantly—these are parents you will actually, like. Needless to say, this "indie" film is full of stars, and it's just sad that not everyone can win an Oscar. Juno is released on Friday Make your pointless life complete by winning these really great consumer items: I To be in with your chance to win an ipod Touch simply go to www.youtube.com/junomacguff and upload a video of yourself telling the whole world your favourite buzzwords and lingo - the funnier and the more ridiculous the better (just not too rude, because Fox is a family corporation). II Alternatively, win a Juno goodie bag, bulging all sorts of Juno related macguff, by emailing us here at Part B with no more than 100 words on why you want to smash capitalism. 9 CDRPDRATE SPACE FILLER H Anarcho film bernardkeenan wonders if the democratisation of the means of (film) production will seed a revolution of everyday life Projectile Film Festival [www.projectile.org.uk] is an annual event showing a selection of films and documentaries on anarchism. Last year the main feature was This Revolution, featuring Rosario Dawson, a sort of homage to Haskell Wexler's American verite classic, Medium Cool. It's a low-budget film, made quickly and on the fly, and although it made a small splash at Sundance in 2005, it's not surprising that it hasn't really gone much further. Aside from low-budget political documentaries, there isn't really any 'anarchist cinema' per se. Simply put, cinema doesn't lend itself to collectivity. Historically it has been an expensive art form. Any financers willing to bankroll a movie have expected a profit return on their investment. The main male character in This Revolution is named ¦Jake Cassavetes - a reference to the godfather of American independent cinema, John Cassavetes. He wasn't an anarchist in the political sense, but as a revolutionary director he is unparalleled. Cassavetes would work in the Hollywood system as an actor, before taking the money and financing his own films - wild films, improvised films, films that still shock and provoke. With the advent of digital film, it's become a lot easier for anyone to make a film. Whether many people have the imagination and will to think so radically against the rules remains to be seen. But if you've ever thought you could make a film, there's never been a better time. Get active. tuesday the fifth of february tuo thousand and eight thirteen lives Q. day in the life of her head gear :00: BBC weather announces sun for the whole day. I miss summer. I decide to put on my musketeer hat. 9:05: I take the bus. An old lady tells me she wishes more young people wore hats. I tell her I hope I will look as good as she does when I'm her age. I'm not sure she appreciates the comment. 9:15: I'm scared my hair will be flat by the time I reach the LSE. 9:16:1 decide to lay my hat on the seat next to me. 9:3.0: A conductor checks my Oyster card. He asks if I've got one for my hat seeing that he's occupying a full seat. 9:31: I say that my hat is less than two months old so he shouldn't have to pay bus fare. 9:32:1 start reading Harpers Bazaar. 9:33: Page 20, the new Ralph Lauren advertising campaign features a capeline. It's a straw one. Mine is in fedora. 9:34:1 put my hat back on. Ralph Lauren likes it, I like it, no reason the seat should be the one wearing it. 9:35: My bus passes along St Martin in the Fields. I take my hat off. Just because I've always wanted to take my hat off in front of a church. 10:03: I arrive at school. 12:15: I meet Marion for lunch. She tells me that my hat isn't a proper- musketeer hat because it doesn't have feathers. 12:16: I tell her I was too scared some bird protector would try to duel me if I did. 12:17: Apparently the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was partly created as a reaction to ladies using grebe feathers. 12:18: Wearing my hat has taught me something. 13:15:1 see a girl in the street wearing the exact same hat as me but in grey. I decide to go back to H&M and check whether I shouldn't have . bought my hat in grey as well. 14:00:1 end up in the Peter Jones millinery department. 14:01: I feel like a cat in front of Ratatouille. 14:04: My hat is scared I'm going to cheat on . him. I reassure him. P r E.|14:10: I really fancy a little Philip Treacy k; 5 .. "T number though. pj . ;:jl4:12: The voice of reason (or is it my bank ¦ ; (account?) whispers me not to be unfaithful. J j ;;i4:15:1 end up in H&M and buy a very IV Pa small hat with a veil. if I', i . 14:59: A small kid points at me and laughs " at my hat. 15:10: I'm getting worried about my hat's fashion credentials. I run to the newsagent around the corner to buy this month's issues of UK and US Vogue. 15:20: They both feature the Ralph Lauren hat. There is also an organza and silk number by Noel Stewart for Richard Nicoll. 15:25: I'm still worried. I google various fashion names to see if I can find pictures of them wearing hats. 15:30: I can't find any of Anna Wintour. She even went to Isabella Blow's memorial service bare head. 15:40: I ring my sister up and ask her if French EUe has done any photoshoot recently featuring big hats. 15:43: She says that she can't remember any but agrees that they should. But then again she's my sister. 16:00:1 go back to the Beaver office. Everybody wants to try my hat on. 16:05: It even suits guys. Kind of. 16:30:1 decide to go home before anybody tries to steal my hat. 16:45: It's rush hour. 16:46: I realise that my hat gives me some personal space. Nobody dares come too close to it. 18:00:1 reach home and starts working on an essay. It sadly has nothing at all to do with hats. 22:00:1 decide it's time to go to bed. I still haven't taken my hat off. 22:01: My teddy bear stares at me. He obviously thinks you can't sleep with a hat on. 23:59: I fall asleep. I'm fairly sure I dream of duelling D'Artagnan. i m Covered by PartB a few v^^eeks ago, Pandora, the Music Genome Project radio station, stopped UK access its services because of licensing problems and constraints within the UK. Therefore, if Pandora detects that you're living in the UK, then you simply cannot stream music from the site any longer. Thousands of UK Pandora users were shut ofi from listening and the problem still hasn't resolved itself. If you log on to Pandora today, then all you'll see is a letter of apology from Pandora's founder, explaining the situation* and saying that he'll let you know if things develop. Yet all is not lost! Last weekend, A new service launched which allowed completely free and unlimited P2P music downloads to its users -Qtrax. This was made possible by the fact that it was advertising driven. The user simply had to click through a couple of ads in order to download a song, instead of paying for the song itself. Advertisements do pay a lot, and many different industries, from the newspapers to the videogame industry have embraced advertising as a way of providing content rather than having the end user paying for a more convenient direct access, ad free (although generally this option is also given). All seemed well in the run-up to the launch of Qtrax. All four big music labels - EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner Music had signed up (according to Qtrax) and the internet was buzzing with anticipation. After all, advertising is a perfectly fine business model - it can be superior to actually getting people to pay for the music - and Qtrax also offered built in DRM - which would allow the companies to see what music people were playing (again, the price you pay for downloading free music) and thus allow them to target advertising and gather research data. Even with all this, however, it still seemed to good to be true... simonwang supports the digital music terrorists and this was because it was. After dovraloading Qtrax the day after its launch, the number of songs available was... 0. After some confusion, an uninstall, a reinstall, and some kicking of my PC, I realized that the problem wasn't me, it was Qtrax itself. The reason was revealed today - apparently none of the big companies had agreed to their music being available for download. Why Qtrax claimed that it had 25 million songs available and full music industry support is completely beyond me. If you log on to Qtrax today, and try to download a song, all you get is the wonderful message - 'downloads coming soon!' So why do big companies hate you? Ultimately, it's the fear of Ctrl-V - the fear of piracy. The fear of an anarcho electronic world, electronichy if you will. Even though every major album ever released is available in pirated form in one way or another, the music industry still goes to extraordinary lengths to attempt to stop you from digitally copying music, from enforcing extremely strict DRM upon its users (make sure you never, ever use more than five computers in your lifetime, otherwise all your iTunes downloads will be invalid), to in some cases stopping people from easily ripping music ofi their CDs (screw that shiny new iPod, go use that broken CD player instead), to stopping internet streaming of music (even though conventional radio has been doing it for years). There has been interest in digital watermarking - 'marking' music files so they can be tracked back to you (just in case you 'accidentally' share it on the internet). It's amusing how big companies criminalize their own paying customers by simply assuming that they aren't trustworthy enough. and making non-DRM non-restricted pirated content seem like a better option. So screw the big companies. In the last few years, people have gotten fed up - and the open source movement, which is really making waves in the virtual space, have looked towards music and have begun to target music specif-;ically. Open Source, for software, simply means that the source code of software is available to all, and this means that anyone can make adjustments to open source software that they down-si# load, either for their own personal ' use or to release publicly, as an update to the software. There is no general hierarchy and absolutely anyone can get involved, which is essentially the essence of Open Source itself. Open Source software tends to have many fast updates on a regular basis and there is a tendency towards anarchism in the way that it is structured, although, ironically, a lot of organisation also needs to be implemented in order to choose the correct and most efficient updates for use. Famous and successful open source software include Firefox, the browser of choice, and the free operating system Linux, both expanding their share of their retrospective markets, simply proving that working together, openly, is better than simply working alone. As for music, there has been an increasing amount of 'open source' music emerging onto the internet - music which is open to all, and editable. One example is OPSound, a company which releases music under a copy-left (all wrongs reserved) license - a Creative Commons license - in the spirit of Open Source, which allows artists music to be copied, distributed, edited and changed, as long as the original artist is attributed. I wish them the best of luck, simply because I don't really see free, fair music distribution emerging from anywhere else. .¦4': t;: 'r. B, fourteen tuesday the fifth of february tuo thousand and eight qfflimig 1(DC(D (diDVoi oin C(D$te roC(D graemebrrrell compares visits to Costa Rica I've been to Costa Rica twice, both times were very different experiences but I had always attributed this to ordinary variables, the people I was with, the time of year etc. Recently, though, I was reading Australian travel-author Peter Moore's The Full Montezuma, in which he visits many of the same places that I had in Costa Rica. Moore, having travelled through every country in Central America, comments on how Americanised and immensely different Costa Rica is to its neighbours. And this got me thinking about how my two trips there differed so greatly. The first time I went was with my Spanish class America nj Middle School' in Alaska. The idea was to go on an 'Eco-tourism Adventure' whilst' practicing speaking the language at the same time, so we could experience the country for what it actually was whilst learning about it in some detail. After being met at the airport by a new-looking bus with comfortable seats and a well dressed driver and tour guide, we were quickly whisked off to the ex-President's old palace which had become a hotel. Assured that we would 'be getting a look at the real Costa Rica', the next two weeks were filled with trips to the expensive five star hot springs at Arenal volcano, well furnished hotels and restaurants around the country, and exclusive pieces of National Park in the Monteverde Rainforest that your average tourist doesn't often get easy access to. Being an impressionable fourteen year old, I came away from Costa Rica with high quality souvenirs as gifts and an idea that the country was quite well off - if not the frontier of global society, it was at least a lot better off that the 'Third World' image that I had been led to believe existed all across Central America. A year and a half later, and I had moved to boarding school in my native Scotland where I met Alan, who lived in Costa Rica - his mother being native to the country. I jumped at the chance to spend ten days there with him that October - eager to get some weather that rarely frequents northern Scotland. Once in San Jose (the capital) again, though, I saw a very different city to the one I remembered. Far from the McDonald's and Domino's Pizza outlets next to the modern designed shopping centres that had lined our drive from the airport one the 'Eco-tour', I saw where the real inhabitants o: the city lived - in crowded, poorly built half brick half aluminium homes, with dusty unpaved streets outside, and very little that looked as if it had been refurbished' in the last twenty years. Driving through the country to the coast we I passed the hot springs I had visited almost two years previously, but this time Alan's father was able to point out shirtless men working for next to nothing picking bananas and coffee, rather than the well dressed and reasonably paid hotel and hot spring staff. It was at this point I began to realise that the highly organised nature of the eco-tour I had been on had perhaps shaped my view of Costa Rica more than I had initially realised. Back to Peter Moore, though, and through his book I began to think more deeply about the contrasts in these experiences. The Eco-tourism company, it dawned on me, chose exactly what parts of their country it wanted its (mainly American) customers to see and experience, and branded these as the real experiences of the country. Whilst packaged tours like this are not entirely bad (I came away with a basic knowledge of Costa Rican geography, traditional culture and history for example), how far they depict the true lives of residents is questionable in my mind. Most prominently for me now is looking back at the three days of the first trip I spent on a 'traditional, rural, family-run dairy farm'. Despite the feeling at the time . that this was a real C o s t a^ R i c a n-^ I life, the fact^ 'that the family I encoun-*'' tered had moderni 'and expensive milking machines and high levels of veterinary care for their animals provided by income from 'eco-tourists' was a stark contrast to the diseased animals and much more basic farm equipment I saw in my second trip, travelling with Alan. The fact that we got to milk the cows by hand during our stay seemed almost arbitrary and something of a facade over how the family really lived with the milking machines in the background. Had I not gone back to Costa Rica with Alan, I could easily have gone through the rest of my life with the mindset and misconceptions that I formed during my first trip. And thus I think the most important thing to take from this for me, then, is the need to question my i surroundings when travelling and not just take experiences at face value, or simply from what someone tells me. j tuesday the fifth of february tuo thousand and eight fifteen ANTI-ART fionamackay sees the message in public art go down the toilet This Tuesday 5th February Bonhams,"the world's oldest and largest auctioneer of fine art and antiques", is holding an auction of "Urban Art" where works are expected to sell for up to £60,000. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, "Urban Art" is the new, more socially acceptable, name for the latest emergent art form commonly known as graffiti. Graffiti and its com-modification go way back, to the Bronx and the birth of hip hop. Hugo Martinez and the United Graffiti Artists flirted with the art world as far back as 1973 and Jean Michael Basquiat, who had never even painted a train in his life, was an overnight success. The difference with Banksy et al. is that they weren't just graffiti kids like in the Bronx. Their presence on the streets emerged at the same time as the anti-globalisation and anti-corporate sentiment was stirring in the Western media. It was a protest against the commodification of everyday existence, a fight to give back public space to the public. But where once the discovery of a new mural sparked controversy and debate, these days removing urban art is considered more of a crime than creating it. In April last year a team of cleaners working for Transport for London created a frenzy by whitewashing over one of Banksy's most notorious works - a mural near Old street tube station of John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson, as immortalised in Pulp Fiction, toting bananas instead of guns. When criticised for their decision, TFL issued a statement saying that they "recognize that there are those who view Banksy's work as legitimate art, but sadly our graffiti removal teams are staffed by professional cleaners, not professional art critics." Which raises the question of when and why exactly it was that those art critics, gallery owners and auctioneers, in their gilded fortresses of high culture on Bond Street, decided that this was the latest art form up for appropriation? Much of it comes down to the enigma that is Banksy, and the cult following he has amassed over the years as he transformed the bland spaces of the city with subversive images designed to wake people up out of their apathy. But Banksy is not alone in this trade, there are many more urban art warriors now commanding (almost) as much for the aesthetic that sprays from their cans, such as Japanese artist Takkshi Miarakami (popularly known for his collaborations with Louis Vuitton), and other Brits, D*Face, Cyclops and Adam Neate, all of whose work will go under the hammer this week. % But does selling their works for these vast sums to rich middleclass status-seekers equate to selling out? Street art has always been as much countercultur-al social movement as art form, and art dealers are now cashing in on its subversive allure. In this process of cultural appropriation, as the economic capital of each work rises, so its symbolic capital drops. Divorced from their original context, all meaning is lost as the anarchic threat of graffiti on a public wall is neutralised by its re-signification as high culture on a gallery wall. One has to ask what sort of social commentary these pieces of street art can make when they are hanging in the private, colour coordinated, minimalist entrance hall of a Hollywood celebrity? ' Not that this is the first time that anarchic art has become the pinnacle of cultural refinement. If the logic of lusting after a crumbling graffiti'd wall for your conservatory collection eludes you, remind yourself that Marcel Duchamp's readymade sculpture entitled "fountain" (1917, courtesy of Tate), which is, essentially a detached urinal, is now considered a seminal example of the Dada movement, and a priceless artwork. This and other examples of Duchamp's work, alongside that of his friends and contemporaries, the photographer Man Ray and Francis Picabia, will be on exhibit this month at the Tate Modern. Perhaps the most recognisable anti-art movement, Dadaism was bom out of the context of the irrational horrors of World War One and is characterised by a deliberate absurdity and rejection of the accepted norms of high art. Trying to decipher the message in these artworks is pointless - they are not - . meant to make sense. But if Dada started out in the spirit of anarchy as an anti-art movement, it is now firmly entrenched in the canon. In the exhibi-tion soon to start at the Tate Modem, the focus is less #¦ on the nihilistic principles of the Dadaists than on con-. _ - - ventional a]*tistic themes. If there was no meaning in the con- ception of these works, new meaning has now been found, the original intention forgotten. In a gallery art becomes frozen because a true critique of society must be linked with action expressing a revolutionary movement. The movement itself is always moving ahead and should be ready to cast off its signs the moment they become appropriated and commodified. Defeated by history, and its own success, street art, like dada, has dug its own grave; the Bonhams auction this Tuesday is the funeral. « • « • • « ! ¦X? C/i fTT L 11 danieibyates revels in a real Grecian affair with the boyparty josr^ne^ie^ The Real Greek is more hyperreal than real. The food is glossy and precise, all in dainty mimicry of its autochthonous counterpart down in the olive-groved southern wilds of Europe. To be honest a lot of the food I've encountered in Greece over the years has had a tendency to slide toward the limp-chipped v-.. end of kebabery, so if this is the new reality I'll take it. The menu seemed slightly undecided and a touch self-conscious. Stark meats , . were presented without sides and everything seemed to inhabit the murky uni- ' verse of mezze, to the extent where it became almost impossible to work out the : intricate combinations required to construct two courses. Even with the help of our charming and attentive waiter we turned into prodding fools, feebly enquiring into portion sizes and measures, weights and quantities, as If we were novice drug dealers, inept spice merchants of the orient or backstreet Saville Row tailors. Ultimately we abandoned any sense of chronology and simply read out most of the menu as if listing an inventory, totally uncomprehending of narrative, but quite happy to point at and mispronounce an array of intriguing Grecian dishes. The dolmades were succinct and elegant - the vine leaves separating stem from leaf with due tenderness and the cosseting rice fluffy and clean. The lamb Kefte, served with a simple adornment of caramelized onions and Greek yoghurt, was a juicy affair to put it mildly; when raised above the plate it hung and wobbled from the skewer as if in some undecidable plasmatic state, but the odd intriguing consistency aside the food was glossy and neat, a triumph of compact form and lack of fuss. The dishes come to the table stacked in the kind of wire cake stands I associate mostly with petit bourgeois drawing rooms of 19th century England, an incongruous touch certainly, but necessary in a place where physical space is in such short supply. Indeed the compact tables are wedged so closely together that it becomes less appropriate to talk of ambience, than it does of 'conditions', the conditions here being overcrowded and stuffy but just about on the legal side of humane. For a gentleman of my size and stature it was difficult to lean backward without pushing the poor diner seated behind me face-first into their plate of tsatsiki, and hard to move an arm without jabbing the unfortunate next door into the many waiting arms of their fried octopus platter. As a Grade 1 registered building even the interior surfaces of the Real Greek are required to be left intact, doughty oaken colonnades butting onto drawing-room paneling. With these restrictions in place, and perhaps cowed by the somber majesty of the oak, the designer obviously felt liberated to have the design equivalent of a panic attack in the middle of the room. The once spacious interior is crammed with wire and metal, the high ceilings festooned with a spaghetti tangle of chromium lighting and candelabras that appear to have been assembled from parts of a Buick. Picking your way through this web without braining yourself is an exercise in lithe limbo at its most socially inappropriate. Perhaps there's something hyperreal in the smashing of plates that must be a regular occurrence here. It came as a surprise to me that with such a proliferation of Greek restaurants, we needed one to explicitly state that it was the real one. Having never been to Greece I comment not on the authenticity of the food, only on this rather pleasant experience. Mezzes are the order of the day in Real Greece, these are basically Tapas but spelt differently. The basic idea is the same, lots of small dishes with contrasting textures and flavours. The danger with this type of meal is people can make poor choices with no sense of structure, each dish neither complementing nor balancing with any other. Low-grade amateur food critics would probably fall into this trap, sucked in by the range of choices into trying everything they could, so we did. The dishes come in a stack like a savoury high tea with a lot of olive oil. Whilst I waited for Yates, I ordered a plate of Gigandes Plaki. They were detailed in the menu as "slow cooked giant beans from Kastoria in a rich tomato sauce." Whilst being generally realistic in my expectations, when something is described as "giant," I expect it to be so. If the trojan horse had been only somewhat larger than a regular sized horse, no one would have fit inside the fucking thing. If the cyclops had been a bit bigger than Oddyseus, then a swift poke with a stick would have got them out of that mess. If something is "giant" then it should be bloody massive. These beans were only quite big. So after my initial disappointment at the size of their beans, I took the plunge and had a forkful. I couldn't tell they were from Kastoria but they had a very hxmible and comforting texture. The tomato sauce was gentle enough to actually complement the beans, something Heinz cannot comprehend. The food that seemed Real Greek was generally far superior. Bifteki, a burger with spring onions and thyme served with minted yogurt, was for example, much more interesting than Lamb Cutlets, which were essentially just grilled lambchops. The Lamb Kefte, a minced kebab with caramelised onions, coriander and spices had an air of authenticity to it that the grilled octopus could not muster. Dessert was a similar affair, with a few Real Greek options. The ubiquitous Baklava was not as crispy as I would have hoped, although not without its honeyed charm. Kataifi is a greek dessert not too dissimilar to Baklava, it's actually a very thin pasta which went well with it's chopped pistachios and yet more honey. The Real Greek may not be the most real restaurant nor even the most Greek, but it's not ludicrously overpriced for where it is (Covent Garden), and it's quite a nice way to have a meal, sampling lots of different foods. Semantics are important though, so they must either change the name of the bean dish or genetically modify them to be huge. !.K.!: moa orOuf.ri 7 wiTh Wine but pariB doesn't pay for meaJs and informs restaiu'ants well in advancc^ of our arrival 1=3 25 era tuesday the fifth of february, tuo thousand and eight sixteen aiicepfeiffer says "Bon Appetit" M 'Put a few pieces of toilet paper in the toilet before you purge, this will stop the water from splashing back in your face' - ]his is a direct quote from the 5 'tips' section of one of the many ¦ -A- pro-anorexia websites, also known as 'Pro-Ana'. These are created by and for people- generally, white, middle-class teenage girls- suffering from anorexia and/or bulimia, who are intent on cultivating their habit. These are 'inspirational' blogs, replete with the daily eating journals of their author, advice, vomiting tips and pretence eating . tricks. They contain images and collage videos of 'thinspi-rational' images of various size zero celebrities (the Olsen twins in a bikini, Nicole Ritchie's bony cleavage etc) and emaciated models strutting down catwalks. They advertise and glamorize starvation; through the use of specific lingo 'Ana and Mia', 'purging' (rather than plain vomiting: the term has religious connotations and suggests purifying oneself), a cultlike bonding ' mecanism is created, elevating dieting to a ritualized, transcendental performance, demonstrating the signs of belonging to a secret community. As one might suspect, these sites are regularly tracked and shut down. The self-destruc-tive aspect ('When you start getting dizzy and weak, you are almost there' etc.) is more like advertising slow-motion suicide than narcissistic self-obsession. Indeed, this banalises eating disorders, and makes 'Ana' and 'Mia' look like miracle solutions at hand reach to any girl with a slight weight conscience. One must not forget that anorexia and bulimia are illnesses, and cannot be simplified as over-enthusiastic dieting. These proliferating websites are propaganda for faux corpses, prettified by airbrushed starvation . But who is really to blame? The Internet? For allowing anyone to say anything? Of course, as a communication tool, the Internet provides an interesting model; it allows unregulated discourses, with a global accessibility and anonymity. This means that information that would traditionally belong to the private domain (depression/eating disorders/sexual issues) doesn't face the same cultural, religious or physical boundaries once communicated virtually. People discuss topics they feel strongly about, and naturally, communities form worldwide. Often, this leads to the creation of 'subgroups', theoretically opposing mainstream thinking. These 'pro-Ana' groups present themselves as an activist stance to mass-consumerism and mass-eating society 'Eating is conforming to everyone else's expectations' . They construct starvation as an act of resistance to an outside world that wants to pervert their bodies (hence the recurring language of purification- 'Bones are clean and pure. Fat is dirty and hangs on your bones like a parasite'). It is an undercover act, 'secretly' binding an under-ground community that must not be discovered. 'Go to the kitchen often, and pretend you are snacking, take a bite out of s o m e -. thing and take a long time, look in the fridge, stuff like that. People will always think you are eating!' Of course, while the pro-Ana claim their entitlement to 'free speech', 'democracy' etc, one may wonder how 'free' their ideals -are exactly. Surely their idea of physical perfection is, ironically, the ultimate product of hegemonic mainstream values. While their use of the tool itself demonstrates the extent of the freedom of expression the Internet allows, the actual content, ironically, reflects a dictatorship to a the most reactionary construction of femininity- as frail, vulnerable, and measured through outside eyes. In that case, who is to blame for the skinny ideal? French sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky explains that beauty ideals work in opposition to the physical reality of the popular masses of any given period. In the Middle Ages, when famine was the norm, the female beauty ideal was constructed as a compensation; aristocratic chubbi-ness which represented access to food. Appropriately pale skin was also required; a tan signified physical, outdoor labour. Thirties fascist governements promoted motherhood at all costs, hence curvalicious, 'fertile' beauty ideals, taken up by post-war baby boomers drooling in front of Marilyn Monroe's missile- shaped boobs.. Today, in a world of over-fed mass-consumption in the West, of easy and cheap access to junk food and obesity amongst the American working classes, a skinny, dieting, gym-and-diet-coke model has emerged- as to demonstrate the freedom to say 'no' to food? Note that the media doesn't simply focus on the actual result, the long-awaited miraculous thinness, but rather on the journey to achieving such a result. Like the myth of Sisyphus, it is constructed as a never-attainable goal; in other words, the body is a work in progress, the object of constant self-surveillance, the absolute control of oneself. Food is one of life's basic untampered pleasures and its denial a punishment that could be seen as a reaction against the hedonistic, over indulging society capitalism gone beserk has produced. One is constantly living in an imaginary projection of the self in a near future, trading immediate pleasure for a promise of a happier, fitter self. The idea of control is found in most of the pro-Ana websites, 'Starving is an example of excellent willpower' that controlling one's image and one's body is the first step towards controlling one's life. 'Nothing can't be fixed with hunger and weight loss'. What is this saying about the world we live in? Its central contradiction leaves me short of answers; this 'pro-Ana' philosophy tells girls to fight, to be tough on yourself in order to appear (and in the process, physically become) feeble, vulnerable and forever fixated on appearance. In brief, be strong in order to be weak. Obsessing about your appearance means constantly situating yourself simultaneously as a tyrannical mirror and its masochistic reflection, as your own spectator, in other words, attempting to control at every given moment how you might be, want to be or even to avoid being seen. It takes unbelievable individual determination to serve image and appearance solely. Simone de Beauvoir said women don't dress for men but for all the other women. Today, has the other become a substitute for the mirror, and the scale, whose judgment one lives by? Why skinny? In the mid 90s, a 'switch' was observed in fashion, putting bombshell figures such as Cindy Crawford, Pamela Anderson and other hourglass curves in the cupboard, to be replaced by frail 14-year-old Kate Moss- soon to be followed by many aspiring protruding rib cages. It has been said that today, Cindy Crawford would be too 'fat' to catwalk. Why is the image of frailness appealing? Gender ideals evolve simultaneously, what has happened to the male side? A much smaller proportion of anorexic sufferers are male, but studies have proven that the amount has grown in the past five years. One can also observe the steady emergence of a slender male ideal, rather than a Schwarzenegger/Bob the Builder type. Why thin? And why diet? I didn't even know the meaning of the world 'calorie' until I was a teenager. Now studies have proven that more and more kids, from the ages of 6 or 7 are aware of their body. Yes, anorexia and obsessive dieting are two different things, but isn't ironic that in an image obsessed world, the fastest growing disease is 'death by appearance'? Beaver 5 Februar rs NEW WAVE lustration of how Corporate i cial Responsibility can be used to 'boost the bottoni-line'. The Economist recently cast doubts on the sustainability of CSR as a business value creating practice and not just a PR exercise to keep customers happy. Although it rightly said that we do not yet have evidence that CSR adds value to the operations of largej multinationals, ITC has illus-^ trated that it may indeed be posJ sible. ITC soon hopes to cover! 100,000 villages, representing a| sixth of rural India, by 2012| from just 10,000 in 2003. CSR might. be a luxury| which few companies in the den veloping world can currently af-| ford, but models such aS e-Choupal provide hope and en^ couragement. With food shorts, ages predicted to hit the global! economy, the Indian governmentl is desperate for private invest-T ment in agriculture. For the first time in the last 25 years the United Nations is having trouble in procuring food supplies for poverty-stricken countries in Africa; this year India was forced to cancel its donation of wheat to the UN due to a domestic short-T age. ITC not only hopes to do its! bit for CSR; it also hopes to help] the Indian economy and tap market consisting of a billion-l plus people; and, potentially, the| world. world busi^ ^^nesstt arebusy redistov-^i^ering th« ninetewith-century virtues of wtat us^ to b« called philanthropy, and tiiay ang busier still ei£ca«ng them In the twenty-fli^-century jargon of "corporate social responsibility." Tliese Western banks and corporations are in their turn becoming increasingly outflanked by emerging market multinationals, who are Qven keener to cultivate their own conscientious repubttions on world markets. Surely both developments, however, pale in comparison to the vast, if flawed, microfinance revolution, Microfinance is the practice of giving out tiny loans to people who are too poor to raise cash through large banks, in the hope of encouraging them to break the poverty cycle. It is no longer a new idea. One of its earli^ practitioners, economist Muhammad Yunus, received the Nobel Peace Prize two years ago for his work in the area. Mr Vunus' first furtive experiments began in 1976. Institutions offering microcredit loans now operate in over seventy countries. Some are now huge enterprises with thousands of employees, as with the Latin American conglomerate Pro Mujer, or Indonesia's Bank Rakayat. In Bangladesh, the spiritual home of microfinance and the base of the Grameen Bank, Mr Yunus' first venture in creative financing for the poor, one in five people have u^ a microcredit loan at some point. About six million people in the tiny but populous South Asian state have been lifted out of poverty by microfinance. This all certainly sounds like dominance of the Global South. However, it also implies the microfinance revolution is coming perilously close to a state of diminishing returns. After all, too much remains to be achieved. It's important not to overrate the extent of the microfinance empire. For example, Post office banks all over the developing world remain untouched by the revolution. Since post offices are by far the largest depositories of rural savings in any developing country - and in one or two developed ones too, as Japan's lucrative postal monopoly demonstrates - this is a big deal. The savings stashed away in India's post offices -estimated at $55bn in 2005 -rival the holdings of the country's state bank. This is disappointing, because the inner workings of microfinance lending seem promising. Not only do micro-finance programmes function on highly exclusionary criteria, they also throw an interesting sidelight on to the role of social capital in microeconomic interactions. Loans are only given out to the poorest, and even then only to groups of five peo- Mr Yunus' Joseph Cotterill isn't |wl I I convinced Revolution pie looking to start a business: small enough to prevent free riding, large enough to generate crushing peer pressure on individuals who can't or won't pay their share. (The group as a whole has to make up the shortfall). Since women are generally susceptible to social pressure, they are the best credit risks. Ninety-five per cent of the Grameen Bank's borrowers are female. However, whatever else microfinance is doing, it is not really creating a new generation of what Mr Yunus calls "informal businesses" across the developing world, and which he often sets out as the ultimate goal of his microfinance work. Economists Tyler Cowen and Karl Boudreaux report, for instance, that thirty per cent of the microcredit doled out so far in Indonesia has gone straight into consumption, not investment for business ventures. Data from similar projects in Tanzania also suggests that investment is outweighed by spending on goods such as school fees. Of course, the latter can be seen as investment in its own right. The fact remains, however, that most microfinance borrowers are too clever for even nimble outfits like microfinance NGOs, and that they are more interested in using short-term credit to fulfil immediate needs rather than plan for the future. Of course, this is still a very good thing for improving the lives of the world's poorest people. Nevertheless, it is apt for Cowen and Boudreaux to conclude that "many microcredit loans help borrowers to sur- vive or tread water more than they help them to get ahead." Nor is this quite the whole story of the perverse incentives to be found at the heart of microfinance economics. In truth, microfinance's modern success is based on a very simple and very old principle. Cowen and Boudreaux also argue that if you are a poor person living in a poor country with few reliable institutions, it has never been a good idea to put your savings into a monetary format. Microcredits have provided an easy means for peasants across Asia and Africa to push their savings over the tipping point from meagre cash holdings to proper sunk capital. This includes milk cows. Indeed, a 2003 Grameen Bank report revealed that thefie war<^ the single mo&t popular item purchased with the bank's loans, and it iis not difficult to see the positive ex ternalltles involved. Unlike cash under the bed, cows do not dislntetjtmte in a typhoon or flood. On the contrary, il disaster strikes, they can be quickly killed and «at«n or sold off as meat. Nor can friends; or relatives wheedle repeated smalt amounts of cow from borrowers who are not paying attention. Cows also differ from paper notes In making a fms if they are being stolen. So far, so sensible. However, peasants' preference to "invest" in cows rather than actually put money away hats serious implications for the limits of microWnance. Borrow-ers are turning to small loans as a vote of no confidence in the wider legal structures o( their societies. Without the rule of law, there Is little point in embracing monetisation. This is bestt seen In microfi nance's successful fight against many of the baleful lending practices associated with traditional societies;. To Western eyes, the annual interest rates attached to the typical microfinance loan seem penurious - ranging from fifty to a hundred per cent. This needs to be compared, however, to the two or four hundred per cent rates charged by the shifty middlemen and small-time usurers who haunt the villages of the sub-continent and shanty towns in Africa and Latin America. Traditional lending is also by and large illegal. Debts are often collected violently and a supremely short notice, send ing borrowers back Into the cycle of poverty. For Cowen and Boudreaux, microcredit's great advantage over traditional lending practices is Its introduction of larger organisational scales and regularised interest rates. From there, peasants are inducted into the rudiments of the "formal financial world," and a few entrepreneurs might be inspired to brave the world of commercial loans. They therefore conclude that "the future of microcredit lies in the commercial sector, not in unsustainable aid programmes." Surely, however, this step will not be taken until commercial contracts are legally enforceable in a fair judicial system. At least aid programmes obey international standards and pay for themselves out of the loans' interest rates. If microfinance is here to stay in developing countries like Bangladesh and Bolivia, then it should be taken as a danger sign that governments are stalling in their promises to reform state-building and consolidate civil society. Microfinance is at best an economic sticking plaster for the deeper problems of poverty. It is decidedly not the dawn of a new era of "social business."! PPATIIRPQ 14' ^Bea\ er 5 February 200B f Christine Whyte rates President Koroma's recovery programme "\ will run Sierra Leone as a business concern. And it will not be business as usual/' . . LSE speech 29 January 2008 Business as usual" in Sierra Leone has for a long time equated to corruption, nepotism and the use of force. Ernest Bai Koroma, President since September 2007, believes that he can change'all that. But when so many of the problems are endemic, systemic and deep-rooted, what hope does this former "insurance man" have of transforming the country? The scale of the difficulties facing Mr Koroma's recently-elected government is almost unimaginable. Sierra Leone ranks among the worst countries in the world on key indicators of development. Mr Koroma himself describes the statistics for his small West African state as "really terrible." Per capita GDP languishes at $903; there is an under-five mortality rate of 244 per 1000 live births; and the adult literacy rate is stalled at 30 per cent . In all areas - economic, health and social - Sierra Leone remains one of Africa's more tightly-woven 'basket cases'. Sierra Leone emerged brought a flood of aid to the country, with the United Kingdom (as the former colonial master) being the largest contributor. The Sierra Leonean government has received over £1.5bn in aid since 2000, in addition to £800m in debt relief. However, this money, hastily given as soon as peace was on the horizon, does not seem to have made a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people. Even as Sierra Leone's people gave Mr Koroma 55 per cent of the vote in the September election, an International Crisis Group report warned that "most of the problems that existed before the war remain - poverty, bad governance, corruption, massive unemployment and disillusioned youth". This list accurately summarises the causes of the civil war, which raged from 1991 to 2002. The fighting, which displaced over a third of the population and provided Western media agencies with compelling images of children with AK-47s going into battle, has been popularly blamed on a crazed lust for diamonds. Blood diamonds are now symbolic of conflict in Sierra Leone and neighbouring Liberia. However, it was not the existence of diamonds that caused young people to take up arms against Major-General Joseph Saidu Momoh, president of Sierra Leone's then one-party regime. The rebel organisation, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), gained control of diamond fields in the Kono district, on the Liberian border, early on in the conflict. But this access to resources merely fuelled the violence, rather than satisfying their greed. The RUF moved on to attack the newly-formed National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) government under Captain Valentine Strasser (who had ousted and exiled Momoh), in Freetown. This prompted the government to hire the now-infamous Executive Outcomes, the South African mercenary unit featured in the film 'Blood Diamond'. A succession of elections, peace accords and coups followed, prolonging the conflict into the 21st century. Even so, the predatory and outrageous violence of the RUF was an attempt to settle genuine grievances with the ¦government. These grievances had festered since colonisation, exacer- bated by the tumultous economic liberalisation of the 1990s. Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, was established as a haven for freed slaves in 1787, and was run as a British colony from 1808 until its independence in 1961. This haven of freed slaves was one of the last places in the British Empire to make slavery illegal in 1928. Colonial authorities feared that the Sierra Leonean elites and chiefs were so attached to slavery that there would be an uprising in the By putting money iht^ attracting foreign investors rather than educating Sierra Leone's children, the President may be writing a blahk cheque for a new civil war event of its demise. Slavery and coerced labour were part of daily life in much of Sierra Leone. There had been a long tradition of polygamy amongst chiefs, with wives used both for labour and an unusual form of indirect taxation, known as the 'adultery tax'. In addition to this, warrior chiefs used 'war boys' to fend off attacks by slavers. The anthropologist Richard F^nthrope, argues that slavery was a destabilising force; communities were defined by unequal gender relationships, and localised interests of 'big men'. These local norms remained largely unchanged, thanks to the ossifying effects of colonial, rule. Chief rule was legitimised and hardened by the British method of indirect rule, leaving chiefs to collect taxes and commandeer free labour even after the official abolition of slavery. Paul Richards, one of the leading scholars of Sierra Leone and an advisor to the British government during the civil war, argues that this system persisted through to the modern era, producing profound grievances among the poor rural communities. Sierra Leone's youth had become 'severed' from the moral community, leaving them fodder for the RUF's ranks. In his 29 January speech at LSE, Mr Koroma repeatedly promised that there would be no more "sacred cows" in Sierra Leonean governance. The APC would weed out corruption in the government, giving the anti-corruption commissioner free rein to "look inwards" and direct policy. This was coupled with an impressive plan to liberalise the economy, improve infrastructure, and regulate the mining industry. These moves, he explained, would send the "right signals" to the international investors he so clearly wants to attract. After all, more than most. Sierra Leone is a nation that deserves a break. Its population has suffered for so long, and Koroma's plans are attractive. Performance targets for ministers; the standardisation of mining contracts, increasing in electricity outputs: it all seems like a practical and 'modern' programme to attract funding and investment. On the other hand, little mention was made of the social and economic rights of the ordinary Sierra Leonean. In a profoundly gendered society, Sierra Leonean women are disem-powered and isolated from the development projects and the reconciliation initiatives which have brought so much money to the state. A recent report from Amnesty International suggested that the wide-spread sexual abuse suffered by women during the war has not yet been adequately addressed. Women who fought or were assaulted in the war face prejudice and rejection in their home commimi-ties. Youth unemployment in Sierra Leone is also staggeringly high, yet Mr Koroma made little mention of what practical changes to the education system would be made. By ignoring the problems faced by the most marginal in society, by opening the nation up to the liberal economic reforms that ravaged states across Africa through the nineties, and by putting money into attracting foreign investors rather than educating the children of Sierra Leone, the President may be writing a blank cheque for a new civil war. Mr Koroma said his "new direction" for Sierra Leone relied on the great potential of the country - which he defined as minerals, tourism and commercial agriculture. He has given his government thirty-six months to achieve their goals, and (o make Sierra Leone a "going concern." Mr Koroma believes that this can be achieveS' with increased aid and investment from Western nations. It is not understating the issue to say that Sierra Leone's future rests on the success of this ambitious project. We can only hope he succeeds, where so many others have failed. ¦ 5 February 2008 ^Beaver 15 US2008 and the Muslim won Sapna Prasad says the best way for Barack Obama to fight the slurs is to stand up for Muslims across America Recent and persistent smear campaigns in the US presidential race have suggested that Senator Barack Obama, currently vying with Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, is secretly a Muslim. This new wave of ugly election politics has even gone so far as to imply that Mr Obama doesn't partake in reciting the pledge of allegiance, turns his back on the American flag, and was sworn into office on the Quran. From the pages of his book, Dreams From My Father, and the urgent fact-checking that ensued in light of the accusation, we know these things to be false on all counts. In an effort to prevent his supporters from falling for this flagrant fabrication, Senator Obama has been making it a point in recent speeches on the campaign trail to assert his Christian faith, telling a crowd of supporters that he has been a member of the same church for nearly 20 years, "praying to Jesus." My ears lingered at the end of that phrase, waiting to hear something hopeful from the man who has been inspiring hope in so many Americans. But Senator Obama proceeded to talk about the economy, healthcare, the Clintons, and other seemingly more important issues. By contrast, he has so far done little to send out the equally important message that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim in America. Indeed, every opportunity Senator Obama devotes to assuring us that he has no association with Islam, sends a less hopeful message to voters, and to the rest of world. Given that the Senator has built his personal appeal around his heritage in Kenya and early life spent in Indonesia, this is a significant failing. The Democratic hopeful has been praised for his ability to bring Americans together, but he is not 'doing-enough to make the basic rhetorical point that all Muslims are not terrorists. Associating Islam with terrorism is representative of the American people falling prey to the terrorists who instill fear in our lives. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that Americans have nothing to fear but fear itself. The Muslim smears against Barack Obama are that fear incarnate This is the diametric opposite of Mr Obama's own message of the "audacity of hope," and the opposite too of the inspiring rhetoric of Democratic presidents of the past. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt - a president who knew about maintaining America's civic achievements in wartime - said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. The Muslim smears circulating around Barack Obama are that fear incarnate. If Senator Obama is going to change America for the better, he needs the support of the Whites, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Christians, the Jews, and the list goes on. The world is getting smaller everyday. It's a world that doesn't have room for divisions based on race or faith. The more votes Senator Obama loses to these fraudulent e-mails, the more divided we become, and the closer we come to losing the fight against terror. The fact that there are people in America who still associate Islam with terrorism and jihad, but nothing more, is a clear sign that there is a tremendous amount of work to be done by whoever wins the 2008 election. If the United States is going to win the war on terror, we have a responsibility to the millions of innocent Muslims who live in America, and around the world. We have a further responsibility to embrace the true meaning of Islam and to educate those who may remain doubtful. Senator Obama has the power to make an unprecedented impact on this front. It is highly likely that his campaign would also benefit from this effort. The votes of many Muslims in America may not have been hotly contested by the candidate so far, but they do represent a voice that will be heard at the polls in November. ^ Muslim Americans: praymg for reason 411' FEATURES! 16 leaver 5 February 2008 US2008 m' Four American Presidential candidates are fighting for the votes and support of the people in twenty-four states across the nation tonight as they campaign for their party's nomination and the presidency of the United States. The Republican and Democratic primaries have been long-winded, over-scripted, and at often times incredibly contentious, but together they have harnessed a overwhelming fervour for the electoral process in America. Each party now retains two viable candidates. For the Republicans, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain present two clear conservative choices for the presidency. For the Democrats, history will be made with either a woman, in Senator Hillary Clinton, or an African-American, in Senator Barack Obama, becoming the first of their gender or race to gain a major party's nomination. It is a clearly historic and important moment in American politics, and tonight's near-national primary will shape the country's direction for years to come. Super Tuesday is a unprecedented phenomenon in American politics. With so many states voting and the quantity of convention delegates in contention, there is a clear sense that this is the defining moment for this campaign season. While primaries have come slowly thus far, they have served to narrow down the candidate field in time for this date. Candidates will be vying not just for total popular vote victories, but for delegates as well. Each state sends a particular amount of delegates, representing population and party size, from each state to nominate a candidate at this summer's conventions. It will be a night of numbers and percentages, but also one of excitement as millions of Americans head to the ballot box to support their version of the American Dream. The Democratic Party has dominated media speculation over the last year as its two strongest candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator point III the race to It Hillary Clinton, have fought nationally for attention and the votes of an inspired base. Their debate has been candid, and often childish in tone. Comments made by Bill Clinton, former President and Hillary Clinton's husband, have bordered on racist at times. The media has sought to emphasise the unique nature of the candidates, while often leaving key issues like health care, the economy, and the war in Iraq as side notes. Things changed dramatically last week as the third contender for the Democratic nomination, former Senator John Edwards, has dropped out of the race. Edwards, who ran as Senator John Kerry's vice-presiden-tial candidate in 2004, sent a populist anti-poverty message through the Democratic Party with a tone reminiscent of former President Jimmy Carter. His share of the early primary polls, a substantial fifteen per cent of Democrats, is now up for grabs on Super Tliesday. Both the Obama and Clinton camps have sought to attract those votes by pandering to his supporters, emphasizing their stances on poverty and health care during the most recent debates. The reality, however, is that Edward's supporters will more than likely split their vote between Mr Obama's message of hope and Mrs Clinton, who already draws on sizeable working-class support. With both candidates attempting to put the racial and gender politics of the last month behind them before Super Tuesday, the debate has taken a much different tone this past week. Policy issues have come to the forefront. Hillary Clinton's technocratic skill has been made obvious on health care and the economy. Barack Obama, while behind in this realm, continues to look the stronger leader, more presidential, and certainly more inspiring. With the Democratic party divided, some are calling for an end to hostilities after Super Tuesday and the emergence of an Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama ticket. While this coalition is possible, both candidates feel they deserve the presidency and with polls tightening in key states It seems unlikely Mitt Rotnney can form a united front capable of beating John McCain. The ftepublfcah race Is such as California and New Jersey, both certainly have a chance of emerging as the dominant candidate. There is no way to project an outcome on 5 February for the Democrats, but for party supporters they certainly seem more unified, cohesive, and capable of victory in a national election than they appeared in a January full of bickering and infighting. The Republican nomination process has been decidedly boring compared to the media-sapping Democratic variant. Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and Senator from Arizona John McCain have come out of a crowded pool of aged, white males whose ties to the current administration hinder their appeal. The two remaining candidates have done their best to distance themselves from President Bush's failures, while admonishing the Democrats for abandoning Iraq and seeking to raise taxes. And while Republicans traditionally remain peaceful during the primary season, Mr Romney and Mr McCain have consistently sought to question each other's conservatism. Mitt Romney, who governed one of the most progressive states in America, has sought to distance himself for his stance on abortion and support for universal health care. McCain has sought to question these views, and Romney's position on the war in Iraq, but has found his own stumbling blocks on immigration and campaign finance reform. There is a real competition here, but it is between two centrist Republicans in a year where only a middle-ground candidate can be expected to retain a Republican presidency. With recent support emanating from key party figures such as California Governor Arnold Swarzenegger and former presidential' candidate and New York Mayor Rudy Giulliani, Senator John McCain has a near-certain lead going into Super Tuesday. With Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee stripping away possible evangelical votes from the Romney campaign, it seems unlikely Mr Romney will be able to form a united front capable of beating Mr McCain by 5 February. Whereas the Democratic race remains truly anyone's guess, the Republican race for the presidency is nearly settled for Senator John McCain. There are always possibilities for surprise, however, and a conservative backlash against McCain's centrism cannot be counted out completely on Super Tuesday. On Tuesday night, or rather Wednesday morning GMT, results will start to pour in shaping America's future for years to come. Whether you are Republican or Democratic, American or not, this is certainly one of the most important political moments of a lifetime. % SUPERHERO SIDEKICKS 2008'S VICE-PRESIDENTAL RACE 2008's vice-presidential politicking, while a sideshow to the main contest's drama, is a good guide to America's future political talent and the shape of presidential campaigns to come. For example, John Edwards' departure from the nomination race - and subsequent reftisai to endorse Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton > leaves him in a good position to become eitlier's running mate in November, his main rwal being centrist Senator 3im Webb of Virginia. Should Mr Obama or Mrs Clinton crash and burn before a Republican onslaught in the autumn, Mr Edwards will be waiting in the wings to pick up the pieces in 2012. On the Republican side, Minnesota Governor Tiiii Pawienty has supported John McCain throughout the eariy primaries, prompting speculation that he seeks a place on the frontrunner ticket in return. While it remains to be seen whether Mr McCain could deliver on such a promise, Mr Pawlenty's manoeuvre is a telling Indication of the Republican party's future ideological direction. 5 February 2008 Beaver 17 LISTINGS isangs www.lsesu.com ITALIAN WEEK2008 PROGRAMME„MAMMA MIA 20:00 Italian Aperitivo TUESDAY, 5th FEBRUARY SU EXECimVE OFFICE HOURS !;00 Global Governance and the Rise^ of Sovereign Wealth Funds Domenico Siniscaico Vice-Chairman Morgan Stanley Europe Giancarlo Bruno Head of banking with North American affiliate of the World Economic Forum E171, New Theatre, East Building WEDNESDAY, 6th February 18:00 Movie Night: Romanzo Criminole G212 THURSDAY, 7th February 19:00 Poetry Reading, with Massimo Mazzoli S78, St Clement's Italian wine and nibbles Free Entrance Underground Bar FRIDAY, 8th FEBRUARY 14:00 Not Quite the Same: Difference between Italian and English Football Gianluca Vialli D502, Clement House TUESDAY, 26th FEBRUARY 19:00 The Italian Labyrinth: a guided tour Beppe Severgnini Journalist of "II Corriere della Sera" G125 General Secretaiy, Fadhil Bakeer Markar Thursdays 2.30PM, Quad Treasurer, Libby Meyer Thursdays 2.30PM, Quad Communications Officer, Kayt Berry Thursdays 2.30PM, Quad Education and Welfare, Ruhana Ali Thursdays 2.30PM, Quad Women's Officer, Daisy Mitchell-Bbrster Thursdays 12PM, Quad Environment and Ethics, Aled Dilwyn Fisher Thursdays 12PM, Quad LGBT Officer, Dominic Rampat Wednesdays 10AM,N3 Societies Officer, Caiys Morgan Thursdays 2PM, Quad R ISLAM WEEK 2 SSU China Ipev^^ment Society Seminar aa and Amilifca: rSa time of d^ision. 2008 araic [ Ramadan, auth^pr pf 'The Messenger; The Meanings of thfTapfef-Muhammad' to explore this statement. L considered one of historic i greatest leaders? What lesso^^f^hodem leaders, both Muslim and non-Muslim, fuhammad's example? r5th-7pm-U8 Wednesday MOl9jEY MATTORS; ISLAMIC FINANCE An open house informal reception where a ^mber of top Islamic finance economists, law professors, practitioners and maji finance Shariah scholars will be availay^^o answer any specific (Questions anyone has. ^ Wed ifeb 6th-.epm - D202 # Thursday .¦ eAN:i?0tJ LAST A MUSLIM FAST? ' >- Feeling adventurbu!;? The Islamic Society .challenges you to try and fast for a day (only untif Spmsas the days are "short) so we can ^ experience the sensation of spiritual cleansmg. A free feast wiU bo provided for you>^n the evening to reward you for your efforts and £2 all-you-can-eat buffet for everyone else! > Thurs Feb 7th- 6.30pm - The Quad Friday ' ¦ ¦ ' ' ¦ ¦ CHALLENGED YET UNRIVALLED.THE QUftAN One of the few rehgi0us4&ts to ^maig en^tel^^Mts origmal enfe:«ty..by mjlli0n««fi'0ujid t.fae ^eBe, th^ciei^ and wisdom of " 8th-^rti,-D?02 Date:ll|feiesda^ 6 fi|^: Time: 2-; "Venue: D202?i|^menl Hogse Speaker: Charl^^umpSs ¦ In this lecture, Mr. CHJI^jfes DiUnas, Director and Head of the World Service of Lombar^tree^ Research Ltd "will examine the progress of Globalisation i^|China and the pressure that the asset market has faced. He will also take an in-depth look at the delicatg^nd interesting relatioi^^^s between the China's exploa!ftg^ttrpIus, foreign exchange^f ates and the world economy espksc®i:^||^^^Ttfein China's de<4gion making. ^ ; LSEStJ Ap<^^etics Society - "Jesus - Just a Prophet?" Date: Eridja^KFeb 2008 Time:|^^i6pm|- ; ^ ¦¦ - ~i . '• Venu(llj|«i^iCongThfatre, Dl, Glem^t Hpuse SpeaftnlV"*'*""^'^'^'"— , v , /r,-;... ...... - ' About the even^j. . The Bible and the^'ur'^^evote significant attentito.to the person, of. Jegus Chaflst, but while Taoth.share similar claims^sJesu^j birth, they differ on.,tne account of hi$:deajh,:as weIf«S;|* claims he made while he was aljye. Wha|.4o:bo&.b0o^^ say abdut Jesus, and was he just a proph^;or Y^hnazar, PhD student at the LSE with a bacfe®round|" Islait^c studie?, as sW^exploi-es what botl%reiigions 1 •Sfill be o^ortiuntjf-fwQ&A /! diiS- <5- d word for worn oted ate: Welfa & 2Dra ue: a! 18 'Bea\ t i 5 February 2008 LISTINGS I Ham ^cu hmghtyour yseUefUiaef Oiy cards Ye Olde Shakespeare Events for Ye Olde Shakespeare Week Forsooth! TPu Unimt Skof has A. rm^e Ik Utrck, fc don't delay buyingymtrs Ui timtfor IHh Fei^ntat^^ y ifym're^irUiH^themwtfdlsiAmfKtmi UESUSkttf Bast Building OpefUn^ ftmn: 930to S30 check ffut our other rm^es cfcardx to mit aU ocauietu. Ai-with aU our mAr frices are vtry cempeliiivt, ojKd aptn Muitrmt ike Ureal campeiiHm^ Tuesday 5th February On Houghton Street Authentic and antiquated Elizabethan Dancing 6pm onwards: Ye Olde Pub Quiz at the Underground Bar (1st Prize = Shakespeare in Love DVD), fol-loweth by Pub Crawl. Wednesday 6th February "Trailer" for King Lear Actors' Workshop Shakespeare Theme, 5p.m. D002 Thursday 7th February Brunch Bowl Special: Traditional English Cuisine in honour of Shakespeare. Friday 8th February LSESU Drama Society presents Shakespeare's King Lear at The Old Theatre, 7:30pm STUDENTS'UNION ADVICE AND COUNSELLING CENTRE SERVICES PRO- CONTACT OPENING VIDED DETAILS HOURS Legal and welfare advice Advice on financial help Confidential counselling service LSE SU Advice and Counselling Centre, Room E297 East Building Tel: 020 7955 7145 Email: SU.Advice-Centre@lse.ac.uk Drop-in sessions for students: Monday & Eriday 10:30-16:00, Tuesday-Thursday-10:30-13:00. Outside of these hours, students can see advisers by appointment GANGSTER CRUSH The Great Rocky Balboa will greet you all at the door as we mambo ganster style into the Quad with Peroni on happy hour and top tunes all nite long! The Underground Bar will mix it up with music from across the genres giving everyone a dose of what they want. £1 Entry to all those with an Italian lO/passport! Q JUMP for all those In his And hers Gangster Fancy Dress! £3 Entry all nite long to A.U. Members as always!!!! If its your birthday in the week, email us and get in FREE! your mates can all have a Q JUMP and £3 Entiy all nite too! Don't forget HAPPY HOUR from 8pm - 10pm!!! PLUS: LOOK OUT FOR 'AMERICAN GANGSTER-MOVIE GIVE AWAYS! -¦ilV date : 12ieblOii venue: Ise time: I I many thanks to 2008 KPMG LLP. a UK Hmited liability partnership, is a subsidiary o1 KPMG Europe LLP and a mennber firm of the KPMG networkxi^i'^de^ertdfint member firms affiliated with KPMG International, a Swiss coDyeraiiVfi. : ^ i A bigger stage for your talents i King Lear I Old Theatre, Friday February 8th, 7.30pm ; Tickets: Houghton Street, Monday - Friday, 12pm-3PM Put your career first by joining KPMG. With specialist training and graduate opportunities across Europe, you'l! have the chance to shine in a role that's right for you. Find out more at kpmgcareers.co.uk/biggerstage 1 AUDIT • TAX - ADVISORY An l.SE SU Drama Sodcty Prtxluctioo A ftluy bv fi'iltiam Shaki-'ip,-ari' JPMorgan Q LONGTI 1 ^ li £1 Our spring week programme offers a surprisingly comprehensive introduction to the world of investment banking. You'll spend some time with each of our five business areas, watching what we do, understanding how we do it and learning what roles graduates play in the bank. We pack a whirlwind of new experiences into the week, such as interactive seminars, work shadowing, interview skill workshops and social events with our business representatives. For an experience that could be your first step into a career in investment b a n k i n g The spring week programme is open to students from all disciplines who are in their first year (or second year of a four year course). Apply by February 10, 2008. I 1^--1^¦L ' ' ' T ; -'-iL IPMorgan is a marketing name of JPIVlorgan Chase & Co. and its subsidiaries worldwide. ©2007 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All rights reserved. JPMorgan is an equal opportunities employer. What*s the difference between BEAVER and HUMMUS? HUMMUS TASTES BETTER! Get a free Double Chocolate Brownie OR MalabI at hummus bros with this ad* *With the purchase of any hummus dish. Expires 8FEB08. Subject to availability. hummus bros hbros.co.uk/stucleiit8 Victoria House 37-63 Southampton Row London WC1B 4DA • 020 7404 7079 Opening Hours: Monday-Friday 11am - 10pm ^ hummucbros^ A k w OLIVER WYMAN Our aim at Oliver Wyman is simple: To redefine what it means to be a leading management consulting firm. We work alongside our clients to develop practical solutions that deliver real impact. At Oliver Wyman we offer a 10 week summer internship programme for students in their penultimate year of study. As an intern with us, you would be staffed as a new consultant, working alongside our professionals and assigned to either client or research projects. Penultimate year students can apply to either or both of our distinctive career tracks: ¦ Financial Services Management Consulting ¦ General Management Consulting Deadline for applications Sunday 15 February 2008 Oliver Wyman is a leading global management consultancy Visit us at 01ivenwyman.com MARSH MERCER KROLL GUY CARPENTER OLIVER WYMAN ¦ ¦¦ il l"i Joining the a-list Just another day at the office for a high performer. Sign up for our exclusive screening of Sweeney Todd. Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, WCIH OAH Thursday evening, 13th March, 2008 Register online and you could be enjoying a walk on the red carpet with a champagne and canapes reception at our private showing. What's more you'll have the chance to mingle with our very own a-listers. As one of the world's leading management consulting, technology services and outsourcing companies, we provide innovative technological and business solutions for many of the world's leading companies, like Warner Bros.-just one client that we're helping to become a high-performance business. So, what does being part of the Accenture a-list mean? It means being part of a company which heralds the most talented people in the industry. It means working on up-there projects with prestigious, big name clients, whilst receiving top rewards and first class training. Being on the a-list is all in a day's work for our high performers. Reserve your seat for two and enter our competition online to win a trip to Hollywood. Visit accenture.com/alist/london Consulting • Technology • Outsourcing High performance. Delivered. 22 ^Beaver | 05 February 2008 SPORTS The Hunter A New Cricketing Order Rupert Guest The Hunter The markets have reacted well to ULU FA's decision not to punish the 4th Team for allegedly 'tapping up' lacovos Kouppas. Rumours were flying last week that the Association was looking to penalise Alex O'Brien's team 15 points over the affair, lengthening odds on a 'League and Cup Double' to 8-1. A formal deal for the 'Bearded Wonder' apparently stalled on Owain Bevan's insistence that Johnny Saville was also sent to the ULU Division 2 leaders, a clause A1 labelled as 'debasing'. In better news for the Seventh Team stopper, Ladbrokes have shortened odds on Saville' surviving 'Calella' after a valiant effort in 'FC Pub Golf. Paddy Power has punished backers of Andrew 'Hollywood' Simpson for an Oscar win come February 25th, after the starlet missed out to George 'Henchest Man in EC Le Croix for the role of 'The Incredible Hulk'. Simpson's agent- Robin Low-is odds on favourite to be the first 10* Calella veteran, after his First Second Year (or is it his Third First Year?) was thrown into turmoil after a stinging attack from AU President Dan Holness. The STxth-Teaiiriook-a-sa^fe~bet~al~ 6-4 to be outright Champions ¦ of ULU 3, but you could hedge it against a Barack Obama victory in California on 'Tsunami Tuesday'. Self-confessed Clintonite Ed Frew is said to base team tactics on Hilary's position in the polls. Betfair are already paying out on positions involving Josh Tendeter using the same jokes about Rupert Guest and Andy Rogers in his next Beaversports' article. Apparently the writers' strike in America has stemmed the tide of new material. Sam Tempest Keeping's assertion that he spotted Trent Wilkins on Houghton Street, has reduced odds to 6-1 on the giant Centre-Half being returned to the Second XI before the end of February. Use any advice given here at your own risk and don't gamble what you can't afford to lose. Columnist(s) may have positions in wagers mentioned. Prices quoted are correct at time of going to press. Navta Vij In blazing heat and searing aggression, it was finally curtains down on the Australia v India Test Series as Australia chugged home with a draw in the final test to win the series 2-1. How it has provided the incentive for cricketing talk in years to come. Amongst them, the sudden retirement of Australian wfcketkeeper Adam Gilchrist and, of course, the inflated and ever lingering issue of racism on field antics. Yet what it will mostly be remembered for - at least if, like myself, you are a die hard Indian fan - is the realisation that this really is the beginning of the end of the three great pillars of Indian cricket - SRS - Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly. As the end of their international cricketing careers approach, they will relentlessly be etched in history as the equivalents of famous Bollywood combinations; 'Ram aur Shyam', 'Jai aur Veeru': eat your hearts out. In _ true Indian filmi style their careers have provided us with enough masala to last an entire lifetime. Highs, Lows, Comebacks and now this. The End - almost. All three batsmen made their debuts within seven years of each other. Tendulkar being the first in 1989, Dravid and Ganguly following suit in 1996. Between them they have amassed a mind-blowing 27,283 test match runs in the process marking their presence as the quintessential ideal for international cricket. If Ganguly is the aggressive warrior, almost always playing with his heart on his sleeve, then Dravid is his opposite, the calm before and after Ganguly's various storms; and Tendulkar, the omnipotent force, mediating between the opposing personalities of the latter two. Of the three players Tendulkar's legacy will inevitably have the most impact. He is and will continue to be enshrined in the psyche of cricketing fans world over; like a Demi God -Ganesh, Krishna, Ganpati -and then Tendulkar. And yet one cannot help but wonder whether it is Dravid's exit that, when the time comes, will unnerve fans the most. His innings have erred between sublime and grit-- ty, catering for the needs of each situation, his gentlemanly respect for the game always unwavering. In his own two year captaincy spell which commenced in 2005, Dravid touched upon as many highs as he did lows. Under his guidance India won two historic away victories against both England and the West Indies; but then they exited early from the 2007 World Cup. As is often the case with Indian cricket, the captain suffered. Soon after Dravid resigned from captaincy, gracious even in his exit, knowing that this time success had just like a halo, some were dubious of Gangulys' chances of success. Yet alongside coach John Wright the two formed an almost unformidable allegiance that saw them tap into a side of Indian aggression that had for so long remained dormant, setting in motion a chain of victorious events -amongst them the now infamous Australia v India series of 2001 - which heralded in the era of a new cricketing world order. Suddenly it was Australia and India; then the rest of the world. Some termed him Lord Snooty; others plain old arrogant; but it comical) Board of Control, the BCCI. Neither has been picked in the upcoming CBS One Day International Triangular Series; others are saying that even their place in test matches is no longer a guarantee. They are, apparantly, considered too old for the post modern format: fast and brash with a dash of celebrity leaves very little room for emotions. They must accept the deft hand that nature inevitably deals and be on their way in the shorter format of the game, knowing full well that the same may be the case with test matches too. Certainly it is positioned. There is only so long the dirty world of Indian cricketing politics will hold out. And so this really is it. What each die-hard fan of the 90s era and beyond knew was coming but tried to block out anyway. Wishing the laws of nature away, willing them to hang on in there like three timeless pillars. Something about them - SRS - lives on in us. Each personal high and low charted against their achievements; each memorable innings the incentive for personal success. This is in some ways the most exciting w; % eluded him. It is however Ganguly's stint as captain that will provide fodder for talk long after his cricketing days are over. He took over the helm at the • turn of the century when Indian cricket was in disarray. With the remnants of a mach-fixing debacle that saw the heads of famous Indian players' roll and a Hansie Cronje legacy that lingered over them is Ganguly to whom the current crop of players owe their dues. For now it is Ganguly and Dravid whose careers are drawing to a close in a manner few could ever have imagined. Over ten years of service to Indian cricket and instead of leaving on their own terms they are slowly but surely being forced out by the powers that be by India's (often must be asked how long they can continue playing knowing in their heart of hearts that they are no longer wanted. Tendulkar retains his place. For now. Partly because, of the three, he remains the fittest; but more so maybe because the BCCI cannot muster the courage to dictate terms to God. But with each passing series even He must wonder how close to His head the. axe period for Indian cricket. New coach; new players; new cricketing order - what many of us have, in all honesty, always called for. And yet the nostalgia forming in the gut for so long is now finally coming to the fore. India's cricketing line-up will - in the not so distant future - never, ever be the same again. Sports Survey We need your views on sports facilities! For the first time in five years the school has announced that sports facilities are one of its two key priorities for the year. However, in order for the school to provide more funding, we need evidence of the dissatisfaction of students concerning the current facilities. This is a great opportunity, but it is vital that we act on it now. If the school doesn't see the need to improve things immediately it is very unlikely that anything will be done for at least another five years. Do you want a better gym? Better changing facilities? A dance studio? More transport costs to matches to be covered? Funding for Coaches? Make the effort to let us know! A survey is being distributed to get your opinions. A link to it will be on the Houghton Street Review this week, so for once don't mindlessly delete it. Copies will also be in the Urns and in the gym. AU members should have already had the survey forwarded to them by captains. Please make the effort to fill it in and return it to the Tuns, gym or any of the AU exec or Jarlarth O'Hara. Cheers!! SPORTS IBeaver 105 February 2008 23 Hockey LSE Succumbs to the Scum Kim Ilsen Roadside Poly 8 LSE (full slrengtli) . 1 I won't be comparing the LSEWHC to Tottenham Hotspur today as I feel I went into enough detail last time, all I will say however is that our score today compared to when TOTTENHAM BEAT ARSENAL 5-1. Unfortunately, the score was against us... but I will share our journey with you nonetheless. After getting on the minibus and realising we only had 10 players, our only choice was trying to pull random people off the street; an old man, a business woman, anyone to hold a stick really. ¦No-one seemed up for a random road trip to Reading. Shame. On arrival, we were greeted by Roadside Poly hockey boys playing cricket with hockey balls, their crazy 'banter' continued throughout the game. I will return to this later. As well as being smaller than the chav team, we were also at a distinct disadvantage as they had 16 players; they clearly needed this though when seeing how unfit they were. After five minutes they could hardly breathe. We started off all over them, until they had one lame short corner and scored. Our heads dropped (boo). Having ended up on the same side as a spectators box filled with 'hilarious' hockey boys, their standard comment of 'Oi number 15 your shoelace is undone' cracked me up even for the 10th time. Naaaaattttt. Stinky chat. Anyway 2-0. Half time. Let's sub some people on?! Oh no, wait we can't. Our half time discussion consisted of when to start singing 'Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, you'll never be LSE...' to the boys. We decided to wait until the end, you never can be too careful when there are drunk poly-goers who clearly haven't been taught how to behave. Running on the pitch with their pants down is just one example of this. 3-0, 4-0, 5-0. More 'banter' from the boys. Hilarious. One .boy asked Niyanta if she had any ID, what a comical genius. What was more genius was Todd's sudden outburst, as she stormed towards the Reading girls shouting 'those boys are being racially abusive' and 'they are fucking disgusting', to which all the Reading girls replied with blank looks on their faces, they had clearly never seen a crazy Todd. The game continued soon after the outburst and Reading incessantly used their subs. Alison and Emma made some excellent play, unfortunately Reading were like cockroaches, and with fresh legs man- aged to intervene. Serene made some splendid (I like this word) saves, one might say she is a leg-end; even the 'sidesplitting' poly boys were made speechless by her remarkable saves. Eventually we received a short corner, a little pathetic tap from me (cold hand syndrome) to Niyants and a sly knock into the comer. Let's say 6-1. The rest is history. All I have left to say along with the rest of the team, is 'What's that coming over the hill, it's unemployment, it's unemployment...' Netball Three Days - One-Hundred and Three Goals Pui Chay LSE Ists 33 Holloway Ists 31 LSE Ists 32 HUMS Ists 40 LSE Ists 38 South Bank Ists 12 Its been a hectic week for the mighty mighty good lookin' Ists - three games, two wins, and a week of pretty darn good netball. The mighty mighty Ists are off to Staines (where?) on a cold Monday night. Obviously a ploy to get us lost to steal a walkover. Nice try guys. Harry and Delia had decided over the weekend (apparently while sober) that it would be great to have team mascots so bunny and bambi were mobilised to make up for the lack of boyfriends. The percentage of singles in our 10-woman team has taken an upward trend recently and now stands at 45% (yes Delia, you are the 5%). "The mighty mighty Ists got off to a flying start and were able to maintain the lead till the end of the match. Delia put in a stunning performance as centre, and Charlie, Asha,' Effy and Pui kept the back court tight. Nicci was not in as bad a state as we expected. Clearly after her 21st birthday antics last year she had taken a more moderate approach this time. She kept our shooters well occupied vrith some nice feeds. Harry and Hannah worked Holloway's massive (in size, not effect) defence, and put in the goals. A well-deserved victory, followed by a long train ride back to civilization. So the RUMS 1st captain finally got her act together to arrange this match. Nevermind the fact that the umpire was half an hour late. In a bid to be more cultured this year, the extra time was well spent discussing the complexity of the animal world -What is the plural of platypus? Platypi? Platypuses? ¦The match finally got underway and we matched them goal for goal. Lindsey "Armasaurus", Peel put in some great interceptions. Pui and Delia took turns to keep the wing attack distracted. Charlie made defending look easy, even with a much larger opponent. Effy grabbed the rebounds to keep RUMS at bay. Nicci as usual puts in a great performance, with some fantastic feeds from outside the circle. Under pressure, Hannah and Gill showed that they are not to be bullied, and put in their shots with pinpoint accuracy. The game boiled down to the last quarter. The mighty mighty Ists were down by one. RUMS decided that more aggressive tactics are required. Nicci cut forward to receive a pass. The RUMS wing defence charged in for a tackle. BAM. Nicci tumbles across the floor. Not a good idea mate, cos Mommy O'Regan is in today to support and she ain't so happy now. The RUMS centre aka Miss "I used to play for England Under-14", also steps up sexu- J al harassment and jostled with Lindsey for the ball. Unfortunately, RUMS made a lucky break and took it running. And up against the mighty mighty Ists, they'd better run as fast as they can. All decked out in new kit, LSB saw us and was scared. They knew we had let them off easy the last time we won, and that this time we were out to put them in their proper place. The LSB wing attack puts in a complaint to the umpires that she had been scratched. On closer perusal by Pui and her co-umpire it was more likely that she scratched herself with her newly-painted fluorescent pink nails. Harry and Hannah worked the LSB defence with ease. Nicci and Lins as usual were on a roll in the midcourt, at the same time making sure play was kept away from the LSB goal defence who was putting in triple effort. She was good, but our goal defence was better. Charlie read LSB's play like a page out of her econ textbook and put in the interceptions off theip long passes. Delia too was on to the wing attack like a policeman on surveillance duty. Trying to stay involved in the attack, she made a spectacular feed into the goal circle from midcourt. Asha and Charlie did some great switching in defence to keep LSB down to a paltry 12 goals in 60 minutes. The week ended with more good news. St Barts did us a favour by beating Uni of Essex, putting us and Essex on equal points at the top of the BUSA league. Hell yeah! 05*o2.o8 thebeaver.sports@lse.ac.uk isporis This is an advertisement Hi Ladies. I'm Gabriel. I'm a lost soul looking for the care and love of a good woman. I like fruit picking, mainly apples as you can see, long walks as the sun sets, and painting watercolours of lake scenes; but most of all, what I really enjoy is having a good conversation and being there for someone who needs me. I play for the 3rd XI football team at LSE, you've probably heard of us, we're pretty good actually, and that's how I keep myself in such good shape. I'm really fond of trying new experiences, but the best part of those new experiences is being able to share them with someone who you care about and who cares about you. If you fancy maybe going for lunch, or just a coffee, then look me up on facebook and we can take it from there. I look forward to hearing from you. Gabs X