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Navigational Fix

A student at sea discovers new bearings for his life in the classroom.

Health-Care Marker

Getting women to stop ignoring their own general health.

Obstacle Course

For this father-daughter marathon team, the miles were the easy part.

Prisoners of the Pen

A reminder that words in some countries can still be dangerous.

Fuzzy Math

Is need-blind changing the calculus of financial aid?

Gangsters Rapped

Spike Lee blasts young people for getting hooked on cultural opium.

Person on the Case

A student who wants to transform girls from bystanders to participants.

A Green Light on Guns

President Simmons approves the arming of campus police.

In her letter to the editor (Mailroom, March/April), Alice Lemos ’81 PhD condemns politicians such as Lincoln Chafee ’75 for championing abortion on demand and having a “cavalier attitude towards the sanctity of life.” Senator Chafee voted against authorizing the president to attack Iraq.

The Haggadah and Gays

The Passover Haggadah provides an interesting context for the comments of Phillip N. Jacobs ’79 on gay synagogues and gay people (Mailroom, March/April).  He writes: “[H]omosexuals, like all people, are G-d’s creations, and as such we must treat them with kindness.  However ... it must be clear that their behavior is ... not to be condoned.”

Teaching Doctors

While we can welcome “A Major Milestone” (Under the Elms, March/April) in the form of a $100 million gift to the medical school, one can only hope that Brown will begin to prepare new doctors for the fact that, while we’re spending twice as much per capita as any other nation, the World Health Organization has ranked us No. 37 in the effectiveness of our health-care non-system.

Life Lessons

In response to “Fitting In” by Amy Ramos ’87 (Alumni POV, March/April): As a low-income student accepted in a need-blind period when Brown was increasing the ratio of public- to private-school students, Ms. Ramos points out a number of very real differences in the environment. In a sense, we lucky ones gained a greater education at Brown than most.

Rods Per Hogshead

I have learned to be suspicious of measurements given in unfamiliar terms. (In a Simpsons episode, Grandpa boasts of his car’s fuel economy as so many “rods per hogshead.”)  Sometimes even using familiar terms, such as feet and seconds, can be confusing.  Your article on bats (“To Build a Better Batmobile,” Elms, March/April) breathlessly refers to their speed as “up to forty-nine feet per second.”

Whirlwind

The article about Professor Dietrich Neumann and Ed Huff and their experiments with panoramas (“The Virtual Magic Carpet,” Under the Elms, March/April) was fascinating, especially for someone like me who loved Neumann’s classes.

Owners’ Rights

I want to thank Lawrence Goodman for his nice article about me and my organization, Citizens for Pets in Condos Inc. (“Getting Her Fur Up,” The Classes, March/April). I have a few corrections to make.  Unfortunately, the article did not include my full name, so classmates who did not see Waldner might not recognize me after so many years, even though my first name is unusual.

Apologist Nutterguff

I attended the Nonie Darwish lecture (“Rain Date,” Under the Elms, March/April) and was both surprised and disappointed when the Q&A session deteriorated into apologist nutterguff. Professor John Tomasi, whose job as moderator admittedly was not an easy one, reminded me once again that political correctness seems to have replaced serious education at our institutions of higher learning.

Charles Nichols

I was saddened to read of the death of Professor Charles Nichols (March/April). I was a senior the year he came to Brown. Although he was recruited to head the Afro-American Studies program, he also taught, within the English department, a course on Jewish literature of the Holocaust and post–World War II era, which I took. We read Elie Wiesel, Jerzy Kosinski, Saul Bellow, and others.

Lamp Posts

I disagree strongly with the claim that a 15-watt fluorescent bulb equals the quality and strength of light given by a sixty-watt incandescent bulb. I tried replacing the seventy-five-watt incandescent bulb in a walk-in closet with the stated compact fluorescent equivalent. It was as if the power had suddenly been usurped by a surge from some unseen appliance.

The Sweetest Memories

In 1960, I was stationed briefly at Fort Dix during basketball season, and one January night I managed, still in uniform, to slip up in time for the tip-off at nearby Princeton. Stan Ward, a remarkable, wonderful guy, was the coach. Mike Cingiser ’62 was playing, and I grabbed a seat behind the Brown bench.