Aaron Kiersh

Before an A-list of heavy hitters in New York politics, Governor David Paterson, CC '77, accepted an award and discussed his administration's initiatives in confronting the financial crisis on Saturday night at Casa Italiana.

Months after the two presidential candidates came to campus to tout public service, increasing numbers of seniors are turning to such groups rather than exploring the job market.

After a tumultuous recent past, the Institute of African Studies now seems to be enjoying some stability under new director Mamadou Diouf.

In an election year that may draw record voter turnout, campus and local activists have capitalized on the dramatic spike in youth enthusiasm.

New York's attorney general Andrew Cuomo is examining relationships between Aetna, a private company, and Columbia's student insurance services.

El movimiento nacional para la igualdad del matrimonio ganó apoyo local la noche del jueves pasado cuando políticos y profesores se unieron en la Capilla de Milbank de Teachers College para encender otra vez esta lucha personal y política. El asambleísta del estado Daniel O'Donnell, un demócrata que representa Morningside Heights, y la presidenta del consejo de la ciudad Chritsine Quinn, se unieron con el científico político de Columbia Jeffrey Lax y la abogada Susan Sommer en frente de una audiencia de casi 100 oyentes para explorar los cambios nacionales en la opinión pública con respecto a los derechos del matrimonio entre el mismo sexo, la serie de rechazos que sus defensores han encontrado en el senado del estado, y su desilusión colectiva sobre el Presidente Barack Obama, CC '83. "Los políticos son personas débiles," dijo O'Donnell, el primer hombre abiertamente homosexual que sirve en la asamblea del estado y un patrocinador principal de los proyectos de ley sobre el matrimonio homosexual que fueron aprobados en la cámara en 2007 y 2009. "Ellos viven en temor de perder su asiento. Ningún legislador del estado en el país ha perdido su asiento después de votar para la igualdad del matrimonio, jamás". O'Donnell, cuyo distrito incluye el campus de Columbia, parece hacer eco de la frustración de muchos en la audiencia cuando criticó al Senado del estado­—que cambió democráticamente en 2008 por primera vez en décadas-—a "no funcionando". Quinn, la primera mujer presidenta y abiertamente homosexual del Consejo de la Cuidad de Nueva York, reconoció los avances en los derechos LGBT y la aceptación, pero últimamente ella lamenta la falta de progreso politico adecuado. Según Quinn, una demócrata quien representa la mayoría de Lower Manhattan, los individuos pueden hacer una diferencia poniéndose en contacto con sus representantes elegidos y por demandar cambio. Ella dijo que participará en una marcha de protesta importante en Washington, D.C. el próximo mes para protestar el apoyo de la Casa Blanca de la Defensa de la ley sobre el matrimonio (o the Defense of the Marriage Act para los angloparlantes) y la negación de revocar la política militar de "no pedir, no decir" ("Don't Ask, Don't Tell" en inglés). O'Donnell dijo que encauzar energía de base podría pagar grandes dividendos. "Los senadores del estado de Manhattan [incluyendo Bill Perkins, un demócrata que representa West Harlem] son buenos," él le dijo al Spectator después del evento. "Pero todos pueden hacer prensión sobre los legisladores afuera de la ciudad. Los políticos escuchan a sus electores". Lax, un profesor asociado de ciencias políticas, habló durante el evento de las dinámicas cambiantes de la opinión pública en todo el país. Él presentó varias gráficas que indican que los jóvenes son mucho más receptivos a los derechos homosexuales que los mayores, añadiendo que los políticos usualmente siguen los números de las encuestas cuando ellos dicen sus posiciones en relación al matrimonio homosexual. Lax afirmó también que los estados y comunidades con valores conservativos sobre la cultura casi siempre "reciben lo que ellos quieren" en los asuntos que afectan a los homosexuales, y por eso los liberales necesitan acumular grandes mayorías electorales antes de que sus representantes presten atención a sus deseos. Él espera que Nueva York eventualmente permita el matrimonio homosexual, si no en el actual ciclo de elecciones quizás antes de 2012. Lax, quien escribió un reportaje con el profesor de ciencias políticas de Columbia Justin Phillips este verano pasado titulado "Los derechos homosexuales en los estados: la opinión pública y la receptividad política," para publicación en el American Political Science Review, últimamente expresó un poco de optimismo. "Lo que ha ocurrido hasta este momento es un retraso menor, pero el retraso no será infinito, él dijo.

In the first week of January, nine-year-old Anthony Maldonado was fatally stabbed by his 25-year-old cousin at the General Grant Houses. This news broke just a few weeks after the New York Police Department announced a record-low murder rate for 2009—with the fewest homicides in a 12-month period since the current tracking system was created in 1963. With murder and overall crime rates declining significantly throughout Morningside Heights and West Harlem, as well as the rest of the city, the murder at the public housing complex on Amsterdam, just north of 123rd Street, reminded residents that serious crimes still occur, despite changing trends. The changes within the Police Department's 26th Precinct, which encompasses the Columbia campus and much of West Harlem, are equally dramatic as citywide declines. CompStat, which the Police Department uses to track crime citywide, reports that in 1990, 15 murders occurred within the 26th Precinct. Last year, there were only two. And while 339 robberies took place in this region in 1998, only 197 were reported within the precinct in 2009. Other comparable neighborhoods have also shown dramatic decreases, with Washington Heights jumping from 103 murders in 1990 to only 2 in 2009, and the South Bronx decreased from 72 murders in 1990 to 14 last year. Jeffrey Fagan, co-director of Columbia's Center on Crime, Community, and Law, said that these trends reflect nationwide changes. "The homicide rates have been going down for a long time. It is a broad historical ... decline across the board in cities as diverse as Milwaukee to, say, St Louis," he said, adding, that the major decline in Harlem and New York dates back 15 years. At Grant Houses though, some of the recent crimes—two instances of animal abuse and a major drug bust, along with the murder—have raised some questions about the historical trends. "There's crime on every street, every corner," Robert Exorphe, a resident at Grant Houses, said. "People have been shot a lot. People do get stabbed, and people do drugs. I do see it, the police see it, what's going on every day." But James Harper, the community affairs officer at the 26th precinct, explained that the recent Grant Houses incidents are fairly common and do not suggest that crime is on the rise. "To me, these incidents do not seem unusual," Harper said. "Crime is down overall, but this kind of thing is not unusual for this type of neighborhood. Stabbings are not uncommon at all. They happen all year round, especially in a place like the Grant Houses. Generally people are happy with the situation, though." Fagan agreed that the recent crimes are not statistically meaningful. "Things spike ... Very rarely is anything flat. If it spikes up and stays up, then I'd be worried," Fagan said. Sarah Martin, president of the Grant Houses Residents Association, explained that the January murder is not indicative of the general nature of crime at Grant Houses. 'It was an isolated issue," Martin, resident for 50 years, said, adding, "I think that our biggest crime here is drug-related. There are many people out there that are jobless and for other reasons are trying to make a dollar." And in January, 11 people were in fact indicted for selling cocaine in and around the housing complex. For many residents living at the Grant Houses, these isolated crimes in the first month of the decade are not cause for alarm. "I've been here 52 years and I've never had a problem because everybody here knows me," Rose Rodriguez, a Grant Houses resident, said. For some local officials there remains much room for improvement in public safety, despite larger declines in crime. "We can't get comfortable," Reverend Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, Community Board 9 chair for health and environment issues, said. "It's an ongoing task that we have to be vigilant about," she said. But City Councilman Robert Jackson, a Democrat who represents parts of Harlem and Morningside Heights, said that better communication between the NYPD and residents has helped reduce crime. "When you build a relationship between community and police, when police know about what's going on in a certain area, people are able to communicate directly," Jackson said. "That helps to keep the neighborhood safe. We should be positive about what's happened here." "There really has been a gallant effort on the part of police," Morgan-Thomas said. Jackson added, "As a member of the city council, the most important thing is the safety of the people I represent." news@columbiaspectator.com

A plethora of politicians and journalists converged on Columbia Monday to commemorate the launch No Labels, an organization that promotes bipartisan solutions to the nation's fiscal woes and ongoing recession. With a roster of speakers that included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), Senator Joe Manchin (D-W Va.), retiring Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), and the co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program Joe Scarborough, some elected officials called for taking a harder look at open primaries and open elections. Even hip hop star Akon was scheduled to participate and perform his new single called the "No Labels Anthem." A snowstorm in the Midwest, however, prevented him from appearing. Many of the New Labels supporters are hold centrist views, and politicians who spoke on Monday said they have distinguished themselves by rejecting much of their party's bedrock ideology over their careers. In a series of four panel discussions, they expressed a mixture of pessimism about problems currently facing the country, and optimism that their message was resonating with the public. "This might be the only chance we have left," said Manchin during a panel discussion with Bayh, Scarborough, "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski, and CNN political analyst David Gergen. During his 10 years in the Senate, Bayh sided with Republicans or moderated Democratic proposals on numerous issues. "There is a material chance that one of the parties will get it," he said during the forum. "An exogenous event is most likely to make people realize their duty. We would not have a United States if our Founding Fathers were unwilling to compromise. It's not a four-letter word if you have a principled compromise. Join the raging center. " Just a day after Bloomberg an independent, definitively shot down rumors that he was considering a run for the Oval Office in 2012, he led a rallying cry for open primaries, an initiative he's tried and failed to get off the ground in New York. "I tried when I first came into office, I supported, with a lot of money, an attempt to change New York City's primaries to an open election. We were resoundly beaten. Given the results, it was hard to find anyone who was in favor of it other than me," Bloomberg said. Still, Bloomberg stressed that American voting has come a long way, even if he'd like to see it continue to be pushed forward. "It's not clear that the average voter wants what I think all of us are advocating," Bloomberg said. "It's not clear that the average person feels themselves disenfranchised. Things are an awful lot better today when virtually everyone in theory is franchised." A diverse crowd gathered to celebrate the organization's launch. While No Labels promotes the idea of youth involvement in public affairs and the legislative process, the audience was a mix of attendees that had come from across the country to express their solidarity with the movement's primary goals: backing moderate candidates willing to compromise with their colleagues across the aisle. The event also gave audience members the opportunity to discuss their own frustrations with what they said was a divisive party system, though attendees said the event encouraged them to be firmer in seeking bipartisan alternatives. "We know we have to work across the aisle," said Lesia Liss, a Democratic state legislator from Michigan who traveled to New York expressly for this event, said in an interview. "I cannot wait to bring No Labels back home to Michigan." Columbia students in attendance said they were enthusiastic about the prospect of changing the discourse in American politics by what they said was encouraging a more civil tone in Washington and agreements that break partisan barriers. Diana Rastegayeva, BC '11, an economic history and education major from Massachusetts, served as a New Labels volunteer Monday. "It's a word-of-mouth movement," said Rastegayeva, who was inspired to join New Labels after her experiences in the prestigious women's leadership-focused White House Project. "There was so much energy after the 2008 election. It hasn't really gotten anywhere. Hyper-partisanship has been an obstacle. I'd like to get it [the spirit behind No Labels] from an idea to something that can be implemented." news@columbiaspectator.com An earlier version of this article referred to Senator Joe Manchin (D-W Va.) as senator-elect. Spectator regrets the error.

Portugal's Prime Minister José Sócrates celebrated his country's achievements in reducing dependence on fossil fuels and developing alternative energy sources during a Low Library Rotunda address Thursday evening. This World Leaders Forum program, titled "Energy Policy and the Portuguese New Growth Agenda," drew a capacity crowd—part of a week in which several heads of state visited Columbia. Sócrates focused on the "pragmatism" and "strategy" of his administration's economic and energy policies. Sócrates, introduced by School of International and Public Affairs Dean John Coatsworth, repeatedly stressed the links between developing renewable fuels, "going green," and strengthening Portuguese society. Unlike some other speakers this week, Sócrates rarely mentioned his nation's place on the European scene or described his outlook for Portuguese-U.S. relations. The prime minister was first elected to office in 2005, and won re-election in 2009, even as his Socialist Party lost its legislative majority. He could run for a third term in 2013, but has not yet declared his intentions. "It's possible to make structural reforms, important reforms, in a short period of time—see the situation in Portugal," Sócrates said at the opening of his address. He went on to explain how Portugal had reduced dependency on fossil fuels during his five years in office. This "transformation" resulted in Portugal enjoying an energy trade surplus and reducing the nation's overall deficit. Sócrates projected that by 2020, 60 percent of Portugal's energy will be derived from local, renewable sources. Student questioners expressed admiration for the prime minister's commitment to sustainable development, but also had other matters on their minds. In response to an inquiry about Portugal's approach toward Iran, Sócrates only noted that Portugal respects "international law." Fielding a question about education, Sócrates guaranteed that a greater proportion of Portuguese young people would be able to attend college in the next few years. Sócrates also commented extensively on Portugal's recently liberalized drug laws, saying, "We changed from an ideological policy to a pragmatic policy." One issue that did not factor into the address was corruption—though experts say it has been a major problem. "Although some efforts have been made, tackling corruption has not been a major priority [for Sócrates]," said João Gama, a tax law and public finance professor at Lisbon Catholic University, currently based at New York University. "Much more can be done." Fiscal and economic issues remain the number one concern of many Portugal watchers. One attendee Thursday evening was left somewhat unsatisfied by the program because her questions about Portugal's economy were not addressed. "There are a lot of political tensions in Portugal right now, especially with respect to different budget proposals," said Rachel Roosevelt, a part-time SIPA student. "I wanted to hear about them. I wished [Sócrates] had touched on some of his budget proposals." Kevin Puhlmann, GS, was simply grateful for the chance to pepper a head of state with questions. "I come out to as many World Leaders Forum events as possible," said Puhlmann, who waited patiently to speak with Sócrates after the address. "This is a phenomenal opportunity to actually be able to ask questions verbally without any filter." aaron.kiersh@columbiaspectator.com

If Mayor Michael Bloomberg's preliminary budget for fiscal year 2011 is a predictor of the finalized budget, Community Board 7 may not fare too well. That's what some CB7 members said at the Steering Committee's meeting on Thursday evening, where the committee discussed Bloomberg's budget plan, released last month. The Department of Parks rejected several construction and renovation projects that Community Board 7 members had proposed. A handful of proposals—such as infrastructure upgrades for a branch of the New York Public Library on 100th Street—were approved. But the Department of Parks denied many more requests for refurbishing parks and playgrounds, according to an itemized inventory of projects released by the mayor's office. The explanation cited for most of the rejections was "insufficient funds," resulting from budget cuts due in large part to the city's fiscal losses in 2008. Steering Committee Chair Mel Wymore said before the meeting that these rejections reflected the difficulties brought on by the city's $4 billion deficit. "Fiscal difficulties made us extra clear in terms of the ordering of our priorities," Wymore said. "For example, schools are an immediate priority for us right now." Despite what Wymore said were reduced expectations for the city's capacity to fund projects, she was disappointed with the Parks Department's refusal of the board's requests, especially after the board participated in consultative sessions with city agencies in the fall. "It's a long series of rejections that don't provide explanations and context," Wymore said. "Our role is to justify the proposals we've already set forth, and make the case for each priority. It's great for the democratic process but a bit onerous because we have to restate our priorities over and over again." The board will send local elected officials—including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Councilwoman Gale Brewer, and State Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell—responses to the mayor's budget. The board will join City Council hearings in March, although they will not be able to "negotiate actively," according to Wymore. Three months after the hearing, the City Council will vote on the mayor's budget. Wymore said that the council contacts Brewer "nearly every day," and that she is familiar with the board's concerns. And while some say that local priorities tend to go unrecognized by city authorities, Columbia is directly represented on CB7. Louis Cholden-Brown, GS/JTS '12, was named CB7 budget director in January, after joining the board in 2009. While Cholden-Brown is new to the budget process, the board is trusting him to compile the budget responses that will be distributed to elected officials. Though Cholden-Brown was somewhat disappointed with the budget released by Mayor Bloomberg, he said that he was optimistic that substantive revisions would be made. "This is in no way the final budget. The budget that comes out of the City Council should be drastically different," Cholden-Brown said. "We hope that the Council will take it upon themselves to restore funding. We will not accept the way it is now—we want it to better reflect the concerns of the community." aaron.kiersh@columbiaspectator.com