Editor’s note: John Stephen Dwyer, a contributing editor for Blast, has been writing about Occupy Boston and spending several nights a week in Dewey Square since the protest began on September 30.  He also reports on Occupy Harvard, the protest that began on November 9 and continues behind the locked and guarded gates of Harvard Yard.

CAMBRIDGE — On November 9, a group calling itself Occupy Harvard set up camp in Harvard Yard.  As the university has closed the gates to anyone without a Harvard ID, all of the occupiers are Harvard-affiliates (mostly students, plus some faculty and employees) and only a few have previous involvement with Occupy Boston or other occupations.  Their unofficial logo, as shown on the @Occupy_Harvard Twitter account, is the Harvard coat-of-arms with the word “Oc-cu-py” replacing “Ve-ri-tas” on the three open books.

They’ve been there more than two weeks.  Camille, a member of Occupy Harvard and a post-doctoral fellow who asked that her last name not be used, told Blast, “…we will be camping during Thanksgiving break. We will have our GA at the usual time (Thursday at 6pm) and will still be here next Monday.”

Tents and attention

The occupation has about 30 tents.  But unlike Occupy Boston, which supports dozens of people with no where else to go, no one can honestly call the Occupy Harvard encampment “home.” Instead, these tents are occupied between classes or other responsibilities — scholastic, social and otherwise.  Harvard’s occupiers donate considerable time to the business of the movement, and some do sleep in tents when they could be in beds just hundreds of feet away, but they make no claims about roughing it, much less mortification of the flesh.  The tents, say Occupy Harvard members, are a specific form of protest used as a gesture of solidarity with people living in poverty and with the Occupy Movement in general.

Idyllic compared compared to the ramshackle tent city of Occupy Boston, the cluster of tents in the Old Yard is new, clean, and safe at night under the constant gaze of both John Harvard’s statue and the Harvard Police.  The activists have the falling autumnal leaves of the Harvard elms and all the amenities of the university.  But undergrad and Occupy Harvard organizer Sandra Y. L. Korn shook her head at media accusations that the encampment consisted of Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean tents and answered “most of these tents cost forty-something bucks.”

But the tents aren’t the occupation, the people are.  Occupy Harvard has a decent-sized group of activists – around 100 – and they get attention.  They were featured in the national media just for walking out of a particular Economics class a week before they pitched tents in the Yard.  More recently, they stole the spotlight from Newt Gingrich when they mic checked the presidential hopeful at the Kennedy School and caused him to cancel a book signing at the Harvard Coop.  And they’re definitely on people’s mind around campus.  Last week, before “the Game,” student entrepreneurs having nothing to do with the protest were outside the Science Center selling $20 t-shirts that said “Occupy Yale” on one side and “We are the 6.2% (referring to Harvard College’s acceptance rate) on the other.

Harvard’s occupiers seem to have leveraged this attention effectively.  “Theoretical issues are important, but we here can make a difference in the next week in the lives of hundreds of janitors,” said Gabriel Bayard, 18, when the Occupy Harvard encamped on November 9.  Bayard’s prediction seemed to come true last week when SEIU Local 615, a union representing many of the janitors working at Harvard, avoided a strike and won a new, five-year labor contract with competitive wage increases and benefits improvements.

Closed gates

The shutting of Harvard’s gates has determined the character of the protest and the criticism made against it.  Whereas Occupy Boston has attracted all kinds of wild characters, the atmosphere at Occupy Harvard is calm and polite.  The occupiers are almost invariably well-groomed and articulate.  The donation jar took in $130 one day, most of it in $20 bills, and it didn’t disappear when no one had their eye on it.

It is, to use a word popular in Dewey Square, “bougy” (fancy, bourgeois).  Many holders of Harvard IDs have a decent shot of joining the 1% if they weren’t already born into it.  The occupiers in the Yard say this privilege – earned through hard work in many cases, inherited in others – gives them more obligation to try to fix the system rather than less.  Despite the difference in character between the two occupations, bad feelings towards Occupy Harvard seem absent at Occupy Boston; full-time inhabitants there tend to shrug and say “if they’re with us, great.” There’s also some overlap between the two groups, as well as a thread of associations starting with Harvard Divinity School students who went to Occupy Walls Street when it was new, formed the Protest Chaplins upon their return to Massachusetts, became involved with Occupy Boston, and now frequent the very civilized GA’s (General Assemblies) behind Harvard’s guarded gates.

Since no one can enter the Yard without ID, everyone who wanders by the Info Tent is a Harvard affiliate.  Faculty and students stop by in about equal proportion; Harvard employees seem less apt to approach the desk.  The vast majority of these are sympathetic to the demonstrators, although many have specific reservations or questions about the movement’s methods and goals.  Those opening their mouths in opposition to Occupy Harvard invariably complain about having to show ID at the gate (although investigation revealed less than a minute wait during the busiest time of day).

An Abercrombie-ish jock came by one afternoon, waving a petition for stop the University to crush the protest and open the gates.  And there’s a Hugh Grant-esque grad student and self-identified member of the 1% who has come by several times on his bicycle to troll the undergrads.  When told stopping a war with a million casualties was more important than not inconveniencing people at the gates he sniped “that’s your opinion.” Another time, he advised a Haitian freshman his people should be better cab drivers.  This comment from “Go home” left at OccupyHarvard.net is a good example of criticisms made against Occupy Harvard.  Minus the f word, it’s similar to gripes heard in the Yard itself:

Seriously just get the fuck out of Harvard Yard. The only thing you’ve done is taken a space that used to belong to ALL Harvard students and made it the property of the 1 percent of them that are dumb enough to think that this is actually making a difference…Stop pretending like you’re not eating in the dining halls, sneaking back to your dorms for hot showers and sleep, and attending classes. If you don’t like this place, leave. There are plenty of other students who would be happy to be here without disrupting everyone else.  Stop ruining the rest of the ’1 percent’s semester, go home.

Occupy Harvard members say publicly and privately that the closing of the gates seems like a university ploy to turn opinion against the occupiers.  “What Are They Afraid Of?” they ask on the website, “Occupy Harvard has repeatedly reached out to the administration to end its absurd lock down of the Yard, but has been continually rebuffed. We want the lockdown ended.” But there are dozens of homeless people in and around Harvard Square.  Homeless people – or “houseless people” in the lingo of some who call Dewey Square “home” – are a big part of many occupations in the United States.  The Harvard occupiers and their supporters can’t deny that opening the gates would, at least, change the character of Occupy Harvard overnight.

Open letters

Befitting a place of letters, much of the most important dialogue surrounding Occupy Harvard is done in writing.  Approaching the Info Tent, one might be offered a slip of paper that says:

We are here in solidarity with the Occupy Movement to protest the corporatization of higher education, epitomized by Harvard University.  We see injustice in the 180:1 ratio between the compensation of Harvard’s highest paid employee—the head of internal investments at Harvard management Company—and the lowest paid employee, an entry-level custodial worker.  We see injustice in Harvard adoption of corporate efficiency measures such as job outsourcing.  We see injustice in African land grabs that displace local farmers and devastate the environment.  We see injustice in Harvard’s investment in private equity firms such as HEI Hotels and Resorts, which profits off the backbreaking labor of a non-union immigrant workforce.  We see injustice in Harvard’s lack of financial transparency and its prevention of student and community voice in these investments

The letter goes on to suggest that “a university for the 99 percent would offer academic opportunities to assess responses to socioeconomic inequality outside the scope of mainstream economics.” While visitors from Occupy Wall Street sometimes note Occupy Boston has a academic, “college-town” flavor to it, precise and relatively complex language like this characterizes Occupy Harvard to an even greater degree.

Drew Faust , President of Harvard, released an open letter on Monday to “to share more fully some of the principles and realities that have informed our decisions and actions.” She wrote, “As President, I am deeply committed to freedom of expression: it is a fundamental university value, defining our most essential purposes.” But Faust also justified the lockdown saying:

Our concern about the safety of our students has been greatly influenced by our observations of the behavior of outsiders who participated in the demonstrations on Wednesday, November 9, as well as by web postings from individuals outside Harvard urging confrontation and disruption on our campus.  Several hundred people converged on the Harvard campus that night.  The conduct of many of them was deeply troubling.  Some attempted to enter the Yard by force, assaulted at least one Harvard police officer, grabbing his gun belt and stealing his radio.  The crowd included individuals who, according to external law enforcement agencies, have engaged in violent behavior elsewhere with the explicit goal of causing disruption and with little connection to any particular cause.  Incidents of violence–including shootings and sexual assaults–have occurred at other Occupy sites…Sustaining both freedom and security always requires difficult and nuanced judgments, both in a university and in the wider world.

The next day, in an “Open Letter to Drew Faust from Harvard Faculty,” faculty from several departments (Romance Languages and Literatures,  Comparative Literature, Linguistics) and the Committee on Degrees in the study of Women, Gender and Sexuality expressed their opposition to the decision to lock the gates of Harvard Yard.  The academics politely explained to Faust:

We sympathize with your difficult position, but all of us agree that locking the gates is contrary to the principle of open inquiry for which the university stands. Historically, Harvard has never locked its gates (at least, not in recent memory), and we believe that security issues can be addressed differently.  We do not share the perception that the Occupy movement constitutes a threat to Harvard. To the contrary, we are in sympathy with protests against increasing inequality in the United States and believe that Harvard should welcome discussions of the issue.

Wednesday brought another open letter to Faust, this one from Francis X. Clooney, a Jesuit priest at Harvard Divinity School who is Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology and Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions.  In it, Clooney writes, “Dear Drew…I’ve had occasion a number of times in the past few days to walk through the Yard, most recently tonight at 7pm, and observe our students and colleagues in their ‘occupy’ activity – which I might think is better called a Vigil of concern and for justice. Just a few comments.” He continues to refer to the occupation as a “Vigil” throughout the letter and said:

I realize that one of your responsibilities is to maintain order and security at the university, and care for the well-being particularly of those who reside in the Yard. Some security is therefore necessary, and I appreciate your care for this matter, as the Vigil proceeds. But even to me as a member of the Harvard community, who knows much of what is happening, the security seems unduly strict, disproportionate, unnecessary. Indeed, it would not be appropriate to allow everyone and anyone to camp out in the Yard, but nevertheless it is also for the well-being of the university to make clear, as I stated above, that those keeping Vigil are dear and welcome members of the community, some of our best, and not a security challenge. Monitor the site yes, but soon enough, please re-open the gates.

Clooney’s suggestion, that the gates be open but “it would not be appropriate to allow everyone and anyone to camp out in the Yard” might be a unique one.  He doesn’t indicate any details of this idea, such as who would be allowed to occupy a tent in Harvard Yard and who would only be allowed to visit.

The greater good

Occupy Harvard members tend to be especially concerned with two specific things.  The first is a desire for a better relationship between Harvard and its workers.  The second is a call for Harvard’s $32 billion endowment to be managed with more transparency and social responsibility.  In the first area, this well-focused protest already claims one victory – the previously mentioned janitors’ contract.  If Occupy Harvard influences how the endowment is handled, they could credibly claim victory and voluntarily decamp with their heads held high.

But labor and the endowment aren’t the only issues.  Occupiers everywhere have a tendency to want to change the world, and 375-year old Harvard is a world unto itself.  Camille, the post-doc and occupier mentioned above, wants to “make the Harvard Corporation a more ethical and socially responsible institution…an even better teaching institution that is committed to the greater good.” She says the “goal is to reaffirm Harvard as a marketplace of ideas where all viewpoints are discussed and analyzed without regard to the amount of money supporting the different ideas.” Camille explains that occupiers “are cognizant of the role that ideas at Harvard had on the economic collapse” and remain committed to the idea that Harvard “can and should generate solutions that promote social justice and equality for all.”

“We stand in support of the global Occupy movement,” she adds, but doesn’t speculate if Harvard Yard will remain occupied as long as the movement itself.  “After Thanksgiving, the future of the camp is in discussion so we have nothing to say yet about what will happen after next week.”

Nancy Barry, 30, of Salem was identified by police yesterday as the victim of a tailgating accident at a Yale-Harvard football game in New Haven.

Barry and two other women, Sarah Short of New Haven and Elizabeth Dernbach, an employee of Harvard, were hit by a U-Haul truck carrying kegs of beer, which continued on to hit another U-Haul. Short and Dernbach were hospitalized and treated for injuries but were both released. The driver’s name has not been released.

No charges have been announced as of yet.

CAMBRIDGE — Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House (R-GA) and current Republican candidate for president, appeared at Harvard University last night to introduce a documentary he helped create, “A City upon a Hill: The Spirit of American Exceptionalism,” at John F. Kennedy School of Government. But was soon interrupted by members of Occupy Boston and Occupy Harvard using the “mic check” call and response popular throughout the Occupy Movement.

The conservative non-profit organization Citizens United Productions is producer of this documentary and was the lead plaintiff in “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,” the 2009 Supreme Court case which resulted in unions and corporations being allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on political ads. Citizens United produces a variety of media – from television ads to feature-length documentaries – and describes itself as being dedicated to “…American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security.”

The protestors interrupting Gingrich used sarcastic mockery and said, in part, “Mic check / mic check / we love you Newt / thank you for standing up for corporations / they have rights too / thank you for understanding / that simple point / we are / the ninety-nine percent…”

Gingrich is the latest in a line of Right Wing figures (including Karl Rove, Michelle Bachmann and Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin) who have been “mic checked” by members of the Occupy protest in recent weeks. The male demonstrator leading the mic check in Cambridge, whose words were repeated by fellow protestors, seems to have been ad libbing his lines. This stands in contrast to interruptions in other states where protestors seem to have been reading prepared statements. Gingrich, standing with his wife, Callista, remained smiling and composed throughout the interruption but another person in attendance admonished the demonstrators by yelling “go back to your tents.”

Harvard security guards quickly removed the protestors. No arrests were made. Newt and Callista Gingrich where scheduled to sign copies of his book about American exceptionalism, “A Nation Like No Other,” at the Harvard Square Coop following his appearance at the Kennedy School. The cancellation of this appearance was celebrated on Twitter for several hours by Occupy supporters who tweeted messages such as “rare yellow-bellied newt sighting in Boston” and “@newtgingrich enjoy this while it lasts- you’ll never be this popular again!”

CAMBRIDGE — Occupy Harvard, the latest local manifestation of the Occupy Movement, started with almost 30 tents last night in the Old Yard directly in front of the iconic statue of John Harvard. Police kept those without Harvard ID out of the Yard. Some protesters have complained about treatment by police, but no reports arrests or injures have been reported. Once the encampment was created, between 50 and 100 stayed there peacefully through the first night.

In the tense first moments of occupation, protestors scramble to erect tents in the middle of a protective circle of their comrades. (Blast Staff photo/John Stephen Dwyer)

This encampment took form after weeks of planning and appeared seven days after 70 Harvard students walked out of Greg Mankiw’s lecture after delivering an open letter that said “Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University and our greater society.”

Closing of the gates

Hours before the encampment was put in place, a reported 500 protestors assembled in Harvard Square but were prevented from entering Harvard Yard by police and security people who locked most of the university’s wrought-iron gates. Police and security positioned themselves at the few gates that were not padlocked and intermittently allowed either no one at all or only those possessing Harvard ID to enter. Several graduate students and a faculty member said they couldn’t recollect any time in the past when the university experienced such a severe lock down of the campus.

During one point in the night, a mass of people tried to force their way into the Yard as police pushed the gate closed, making for a chaotic scene. Hannah Hofheinz, 32, a student at Harvard Divinity School later described the police “slamming the gates on us and crushing people – a very violent response.”

More accounts of roughness emerged later including a Facebook post by Taras Dreszer that said “as we were trying to enter Harvard Yard, a Police officer grabbed me by my collar and forcibly stopped me from moving forward. I showed him my ID and he said ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ He then said ‘I want to sock you in the face but I decided not to.’”

While some students with ID had to wait before getting in, throughout the night there were a few people with no Harvard ID who successfully made it inside the Yard by climbing over (or, at one specific spot, under) the fence without being observed. It was reported that one move obvious fence climber was seized by police but was released without being arrested as protestors chanted the questions “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” to the uniformed law-enforcers. Security also prevented media from entering the Yard, but Blast was able to get inside.

Assembly at the Law School

“Adrenaline was present for a good portion of the night,” Hannah Hofheinz later described, “we heard that Harvard was closing the gates at around 5:30…the question was ‘What do we do? Only Harvard people can come inside, but occupations are about openness.’” After meeting inside the gates the group decided to move. “The choice was made to gather outside the gates where we could all talk. So we did so, and we started to march in order to get out, then they closed all the gates,”said Hofheinz, “but we were able to go out, and we walked up the street, and ended up over at the Law School.”

Around 8 p.m., with hundreds of protestors in attendance, Occupy Harvard held a General Assembly at Harvard Law School (which stands near but outside the university’s iron gates). The meeting was heavily Tweeted about and was broadcast over a live feed creating interest and drawing more supporters to Harvard Square as the night went on. The General Assembly discussed the idea of erecting tents at Harvard Law School but the group ultimately remained committed to occupying the Old Yard location that had been previously discussed and decided upon during a series of meetings over past weeks.

Occupying the Old Yard

Those protestors who made it inside the Yard assembled in front of the statue of John Harvard. This group was mostly made up of those with Harvard ID (student, faculty or staff) but did include a few people who gained entry to Harvard Yard by stealth. One woman, who asked not to be identified but is associated with the Direct Action working group at Occupy Boston, said “Harvard police seemed to have some issue with our right to assemble. I’m not sure what that is. That’s their issue. But we got in. We managed it.”

Around 10:30, as if on cue, about a dozen people suddenly and hastily began erecting tents in front of the statue while protected by a circle of about 100 of their fellow protestors. The people in this human barrier were initially tense and stood with their arms locked but they relaxed when it seemed apparent that police and security would not interfere with their efforts. They also got assurance from the presence of Suzy M. Nelson, Dean of Student Life and overseer of the Harvard College residential system (Harvard College is the division within Harvard University in which full time undergraduates are matriculated).

Nelson participated in the General Assembly that then took place. The dean, like all who spoke, used the repetitive call-and-response technique of the “people’s mic” so as to be better heard by the circle. Expressing a desire to minimize the negative impact on students’ efforts to sleep and study, Nelson asked the protestors to move their tents from the Old Yard to Tercentenary Theater, an adjacent area (framed by Widener Library and Memorial Church) that is not so closely surrounded by student residences. Some questioned the validity of the noise concern. Through consensus, the General Assembly decided not to comply with Nelson’s request but will discuss it again when it meets today, at 5 pm, with more of the student body in attendance. Nelson promised to help publicize this assembly so that as many students as possible might participate.

By the time the General Assembly finished after 11 p.m., almost 200 people (perhaps a dozen of them bystanders) were gathered in a wide ring around more than two dozen tents. An ad hoc group made mostly of Harvard College students gathered on the stairs to the left of the John Harvard statue to compose a press release while the last few tents were being set in place. Later, some students took a sign that said “Welcome, we’re glad you’re here,” propped it on John Harvard’s lap, and took pictures with him.

Response and reaction

While the above events were unfolding, Harvard University released a statement that said, in part, “speech and the free exchange of ideas are hallmarks of the Harvard experience, and important values for the university community to uphold…(but) it is important that we assure the safety and security of our students, particularly those who live in the Yard.’’

However many members of the Harvard community expressed displeasure at the way in which the situation was handled. Rick Heller, an alumnus of Harvard Kennedy School of Government, microblogged “where you stand depends on where you sit…In other words, the office you hold biases your perspective. I believe this accounts for the defensive and bureaucratic decision of supposedly progressive Harvard leaders to lock its students out of the Yard…Harvard is mostly progressive on social issues. On economic issues, it promotes the theories and behaviors that caused the crash of 2008.”

While the campus was under lock down, some students not involved with the protest complained about Occupy Harvard subjecting them to inconvenince. Most protestors, conversely, place that blame squarely on the actions of law-enforcement.

The ninety-nine percent

Hannah Hofheinz, when asked about what Occupy Harvard might accomplish, said “I think occupations are not about demands…My guess is this occupation will be like the many others in which various voices will raise various concerns and expect that they’re answered. And there will be actions that spin out from this site. But I think the main point is…to set up tents here and say ‘the ninety-nine percent are here, and we’re living together – we’re really human.’ She added, “what I care about is people realizing how deeply our system is hurting, and how deeply people are hurting, even here, at Harvard….at this point Harvard is admitting a good number of people that come from everywhere, and anywhere, and all kinds of backgrounds, whose families may not have homes anymore and that’s a hard reality…the Harvard population is part of the ninety-nine percent.”

Gabriel Bayard, 18, one of 70 students who walked out of Greg Mankiw’s Economics class last Wednesday, agreed that Occupy Harvard should address society-wide concerns. But he also expressed keen interest in the occupation addressing Harvard-specific issues such as labor contracts and said “I definitely think this occupation has the ability to make an impact directly on the ninety-nine percent. Theoretical issues are important, but we here can make a difference in the next week in the lives of hundreds of janitors. I think that immediate impact is really important. I think we should keep that in mind as we go forward.”

Another student who participated in the class walkout, Rachel Sandalow-Ash, 18, added, “I would agree that union contracts are very important, especially since they don’t come up for negotiation very often and this is a real, immediate and pressing issue. I also think that Harvard’s use of its 32 billion dollar endowment – that makes it the largest university endowment and the second richest non-profit in the world after the Vatican – is important because where Harvard puts its money has a huge effect. Right now Harvard invests in [HEI Hospitality] hotels, which are basically the worst places for labor. They invest in land grabs in Africa, denying people’s basic human rights…Harvard, like many other very rich corporations, does a lot of harm to people in the ninety-nine percent in the United States and around the world. I think we have the power to change that, here.”

Gates still guarded

As of this morning, only about three of Harvard’s gate were unlocked and each of these was guarded by a group of police and security people. A Harvard cop guarding the gate from Quincy Street told Blast that this state of security would be in affect indefinitely. When asked how they would deal with Harvard Extension school students (who take evening classes but don’t have Harvard ID unless in a degree program) the officer laughed and said “I won’t deal with it. I’ll be home in bed then so it isn’t my problem.”

The simple building blocks of the universe can be utilized to construct practical inventions that could make war obsolete, end hunger, solve the looming environmental crises and save spaceship Earth.

If you want to learn how, head to Harvard—not to a lecture hall, but to the American Repertory Theater, where a play is running that marries art and science in a way that would make its subject’s heart swell with pride. Buried in nearby Mount Auburn Cemetery, Buckminster Fuller, at least as he is imagined in this remarkable one-man show, embodies the best virtues we associate with Cambridge: brilliant innovative thinking derived from scholarship and employed for the benefit of mankind. I hope very much in fact, that current Harvard and M.I.T. students, and professors, will see this play and leave inspired to dedicate their gifts to service ahead of profit.

A Milton native, Fuller himself was actually kicked out of Harvard twice, once for cutting his finals to entertain a Vaudeville troupe he’d met in the Square, and a second time for simple lack of interest in his classes. He didn’t like memorizing things, he didn’t like how disconnected academic disciplines were from one another in the academy, and he didn’t believe half of what was being taught to him.  Like all great minds, he questioned everything.

At one point in his eccentric career, “Bucky” as he was often called, largely stopped speaking for almost two years. He read, studied and thought. He then immerged from this meditative chrysalis as self-appointed guinea pig. His experiment was to see how much one man with focus, discipline and drive could contribute to society. He began tempering his visions about the power of simple ubiquitous geometric shapes to designs for architecture and vehicles that could “do more with less.” His inventions were largely rejected by the industrialists who could have made them wide spread, but they influenced designers, engineers and—because of their emphasis on sustainability—environmentalists, immeasurably.

As his ideas began to come together he became a prodigious communicator, filling volumes with his thoughts and lecturing for stretches of up 48 hours at a time.  Playwright/director D.W. Jacobs had the opportunity to witness some of these talks as a student at U.C. Santa Barbara. Years later, he began his own monastic quest to create a theatrical experience that could give audiences a taste of what it was like to hear this great thinker free-associate on his far reaching ideas in a hypnotic examination of life from the particle level to the societal level, tying principals of physics, geometry and biology to human behavior and spirituality.

Jacobs’ achievement is immense. So is that of actor Tommy Derrah, who seems to have swallowed Bucky’s writings whole. Derrah finds the humanity, wonder and grace in the eccentric engineer and makes a two-hour lecture as compelling and emotional as any of the great dramas to have graced the Loeb Center’s stage.

R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe, plays through February 5.

A study appears in the Annals of Internal Medicine conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical school purports to show that people’s alcohol consumption habits are the direct result of the people they associated with.

The study, which analyzed the drinking patterns of 12,000 people, concluded that people are 50 percent more likely to drink heavily if they have friends or relatives who are heavy drinkers also.

The study also shows that even if you’re just surrounded by heavy alcohol consumption, your drinking will go up by about 70 percent, while your drinking will drop in half if you’re around people who aren’t drinking.

This weekend Justin Timberlake was named Hasty Pudding Man of the Year during a ceremony at Harvard University, the BBC reports. Hasty Pudding is the oldest collegiate theatrical organization in the US. Each year, the society picks a famous actor and actress to honor and roast; an ongoing tradition since 1951. Timberlake became the first male singer to win the award, joining previous honorees that read like a "Who’s Who” in Hollywood: Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and more, reports Rolling Stone.

“This is cooler than any Grammy or Emmy or anything I could have ever thought of. Thank you,” said Timberlake. Members of Harvard’s Hasty Pudding theatrical troupe poked fun at the Grammy winner by having actors impersonate Britney Spears and other ‘NSync members. The pop singer, songwriter, actor and producer was named by the group as “an accomplished artist who is now widely considered one of pop culture’s most influential entertainers.”

Timberlake donned pink high heels and a bra with tiny presents on each cup, a nod to "Dick in a Box," by the end of the ceremony. “This year’s Man of the Year is a triple threat," the Hasty Pudding troupe announced at the ceremony. "He sings, he dances and he goes straight to DVD." Timberlake hasn’t released an album since 2006′s FutureSex/LoveSounds and starred in the almost-straight-to-DVD “The Open Road,” so the reason he got chosen is most likely the fact that Timberlake plays Napster creator Sean Parker in the upcoming David Fincher-directed and Aaron Sorkin-penned film "The Social Network", which is based on founding of Facebook and was mostly filmed in Boston and Cambridge.

CAMBRIDGE — The voice of dissent echoed through the streets of Harvard Square Friday afternoon as protesters rallied in front of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. They chanted “fascist” and “paramilitary,” referring to Colombian President ƒlvaro Uribe Vƒ©lez, who was in town to speak at the school.

The president, a former Harvard Extension student, was invited by the university to host an open-ended forum with college students. The protesters represented those disquieted by the possibility of a referendum that would allow Uribe to run for a third term in 2010. Students at Harvard also presented the president with a letter encouraging the president to cede his position in the name of democracy, arguing that a third term would go against the fundamentals of the country’s constitution.

“We believe that such a decision will weaken the rule of law, as well as threatening the separation of powers of the Colombian state,” the students wrote in their letter.

While Uribe did not formally announce his intention to seek a third term, the actions of the legislature clearly suggest that he could follow the growing trend of Latin American leaders amending their Constitutions in order to extend their time in power.

Students tried from every angle to get him to disclose his intentions, but Uribe asserted that what he ultimately seeks is a competent leader for his people. “My own destiny does not depend on me, it depends on the constitutional court, on the people and on my God,” Uribe said. “Of course, I consider that it’s much better for my country to have many leaders committed with the general principles that we are fighting for, but, at the same time, … we have lived (through) many, many years of weak governments.”

Uribe also spoke of how his administration has improved the country on many fronts, including his record on human rights, health care, labor laws and public safety.

“This is the government that has recovered freedom in Colombia,” Uribe said. “During our administration, we have received over 51,000 terrorists members who have demobilized.”

He encouraged people to visit Colombia, ending the forum by saying that “the only risk of going to Colombia is wanting to stay.”

CAMBRIDGE — Sure, we’ve evolved, but there’s still a lot we can learn from our primate relatives. When it comes to the evolution of our sex lives, researchers have been taking notes on what separates man from ape. The human approach to sex may be different, but there are still lessons we can take away from a primate’s way of handling business. (Insert your own Curious George reference here.)

Zarin Machanda, a Harvard biological anthropology graduate student and resident primate “sexpert” shared her thoughts on sexual evolution at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on June 18. Her lecture, “Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know about Primate Sex but Never Wanted to Ask,” covered some lessons to be learned from the sex lives of our closest links.

1. Be a lover, not a fighter

Our DNA may be 98.6 percent identical to chimpanzees, but their relative bonobos take a more human approach when it comes to the value of sex. According to Machanda, if two bonobos become anxious about sharing a resource like food, they will engage in sexual activity to relieve anxiety and then share the goods. “Let’s reduce tension with some sexual behavior, and then we’ll share some fruit,” Machanda explained. Bonobos will use this tactic for conflict resolution and stress reduction. So the next time the stock market crashes or rent is due, take a note from the bonobos.

2. Size matters

The need to compete and exert their sexual dominance has made male primates much larger than their female counterparts. For a male primate to survive and pass on his genes, bigger is always better — in more ways than one. “What would be your reaction,” Machanda asked, “if I told you a chimpanzee brain is the same size as a chimpanzee testicle?” The ability for chimps to reproduce frequently is just as important as their ability to think. According to Machanda, human males compete less, which changed these proportions. (Although some females who attended the lecture strongly suggested this was up for debate.)

3. Sometimes quantity is just as important as quality.

Quality can never be overrated, but when it comes to chimps, the good, old-fashioned quickie is key. Not that it doesn’t take a certain amount of patience. According to Machanda, who videotaped chimpanzee interaction in Uganda, male chimpanzees are experts in persistence. “He’s been shaking that tree for half an hour waiting for her to come down,” she said, showing a video of a male chimp coaxing a female from a tree. Eventually, his patience paid off. But when all is said and done, chimpanzee sex lasts a whopping eight seconds– less time than it takes to read this paragraph. This time frame allows females to have sex up to 50-60 times per day.

4. Don’t rule out the cougars.

According to Machanda, both human and chimpanzee males discriminate by age. “Human males are really interesting,” said Machanda. “It is almost always the younger, the better.” Chimps on the other hand, prefer to put age before beauty. “If you are a male chimp,” she said, “the oldest, sagging breasts female– that is your Venus.” Why? According to Machanda, the oldest females have proven their fertility, which makes them more desirable mates.

5. Attraction makes us civilized.

The defining factor between primate and human sexual interactions rests in the hands of the females. “One of the biggest differences with humans is that human females are permanently attracted to the males,” said Machanda. Instead of only desiring companionship during ovulation, human females are attracted to their mates at any point in the month. According to Machanda, “That has a lot of implications for our social system.” And our sex lives. It is this difference that allows humans to bond in pairs for life, and what makes our sexual practices distinct from our primate kin. “The human condition is very interesting in terms of sexual behavior,” Machanda said. “That is really, strikingly different.”

Machanda’s lecture was the first of three on evolution, as part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s, “Summer Nights at the Museum.” The next event, “Life’s a Niche,” will be held July 16. For more information, click here.

The First Ever Boston Graduate Student Party — billed as the hottest party for Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Emerson College, MIT, Northeastern, Suffolk, Tufts, etc., grad students — will be held April 30 from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the Roxy Nightclub on Tremont Street.

Email boston-party@mit.edu to get on the list if you’re a grad student!

This is one of the most exciting social mixers in the area for students. All graduate students are welcome, and it’s only $4 at the door!

21+ and bring your college ID!