The Rude Mechanicals bring the Bard into the 1950s Arts, Page 5 Ann Arbor Michigan Friday, November 30, 2007 michigandailycom F Michigan Student Assembly Rep. Kenneth Baker was attacked for being part of a Facebook group making fun of a colleague. Under fire, MSA rep. resigns Baker was a member of the offensive Facebook group he made public By SCOTT MILLS Daily Staff Reporter Michigan Student Assembly Rep. Kenneth Baker said yesterday that he plans to resign his seat on the assembly. Since Tuesday night's MSA meeting, Baker has been under fire for being a member of an offensive Facebook.com group started over a year ago by MSA President Zack Yost. Baker brought the group to the attention of the assembly on Tuesday. The Facebook group mocked MSA Rep. Tim Hull. Its description contained a reference to Hull's Asperg- er's syndrome. "I'll give thatkid a fucking disability he can write home about," it read. Hull told The Michi- gan Daily on Wednesday that he wanted both Baker and Yost to resign from MSA because of their involve- See MSA, Page 7 Wtea O258m ethpr8ygs e y-eng t. Eaca ease ab iec .si2nm e n gee One tab ei daily as prescritbed, See pas~kage lese.t NIC PACKAGE r FOR RETAIL PHARMACY SALE K\ELLYT N JACK\SUN/DLaily The University Health System has some birth control drugs stockpiled, but that supply likely won't last beyond April. Once it runs out, birth control costs at the University will increase, due toa glitch in the Deficit Reduction Act. Congress working0 tfix price hike Funding formula change caused birth control costs to rise By MARA GAY Daily StaffReporter Politicians and activists are waging a campaign to reverse the spike in the price of birth control earlier this year. On some campuses the cost of many contraceptives has quadrupled, from about $15 dollars a month to about $60. This hasn't happened at the University of Michigan yet, but it will unless a law that caused the increase is changed. The higher prices are the result of a bill passed by Congress in 2005 aimed at cutting Medicare and Medicaid costs. The price increase is due to a small change in wording that ended up making it financially unattractive for pharmaceutical companies to sell birth control to college health centers at a heavily discounted rate. That meant a steep price increase for students. Relief might be on the way. Earlier this month, bills were introduced in both houses of Congress to change the language in the Deficit Reduction Actso that college health centers and health care providers like Planned Parent- hood Federation of America can once again receive the discounts many poli- ticians say they should. Many congres- sional aides say the bills seem to have broad support, but none are sure when they will be voted on. Both have been referred to committees. Twenty-two senators have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. The House version has 123 cosponsors. Lori Lamerand, president of the Mid-Michigan Planned Parenthood Alliance, said that Sen. Debbie Staben- ow (D-Mich.) has been "very vocal" on the issue. Stabenow is a co-sponsor of the Senate bill. Her office did notreturn calls for comment yesterday. Planned Parenthood is lobbying for the legislation's passage. Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) intro- duced the House bill. Rohit Mahajan, a See CONTRACEPTIVES, Page 7 Before closing, Pfizer donates paintings to 'U' Officials say context is key to display of Eisenhower-era art By JACOB SMILOVITZ Daily StaffReporter Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. has donated 45 paintings to the University of Michigan Health System. The gift comes just months before Pfizer completely closes its Ann Arbor research site. After the campany clases its Ann Arboerresearch center next year, the paintings will be one of the last vestiges of a relationship between the company and the community. The Museum of Art will play a role in deciding how and where the works are displayed in vari- ous University Health System buildings. No timeline has been determined yet as the Museum and Hospital system figure out the best way to "use them as an oppor- tunity to complicate the story" behind the history of the health profession, said James Steward, director of the University's Muse- um of Art. "This is a gift honoring the his- tory as well as the future of medi- ciee in the state ef Michigan," Pfizer spokesman Rick Chambers said. The paintings, created in the 1950s by Birmingham, Mich. art- ist Robert Thom, depict signifi- cant moments in medical history ranging from ancient Egypt to the modern era. Dr. Jonathan Metzl, director of the University's Program in Cul- ture, Health, and Medicine, said the paintings are important his- torical artifacts because they were part of one of the first mass mar- keting campaigns for the pharma- ceutical industry. Metzl wrote a scholarly paper on the importance of the collection last year. "They were distributed every- where and were seen as a public serviceaby Parke-Davis," he said. "They are really quite samething to see in person." Steward said these paintings were shown to medical students See PFIZER, Page 7 FILE PHOTO Walker Hines, who transferred to the University of Michigan from Tulane University after Hurricane Katrina, was elected to the Louisiana state house earlier this month. Alum who fled storm now La. state rep. COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY H EALTH SYSTEM Photos donated tothe University Health System by Pfizer show key events in the history of medicine. Hines transferred to University of Michigan from Thlane after Katrina By ELIZABETH LAI Daily StaffReporter When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in late August 2005, Walker Hines was getting ready for his junior year at Tulane Uni- versity. The university closed for the semester and Hines came north to the University of Michi- gan. After graduating from the Uni- versity with a general studies degree in 2006, Hines returned to New Orleans. Now he's representing his home- town in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Ranlier this month, 23-year-aid Hines wastelected staterepresen- tative from the 95th district in New Orleans. In 2006, Hines told The Michi- gan Daily that despite loving Ann Arbor, he felt "a moral obligation to return" to New Orleans. Hines came in second in the original election for state repre- sentative, but he won in the runoff against Una Anderson, a member of the Orleans Parish School Board. Her campaign lost momentum when the federal government investigated allegations that she took bribes while on the school board. "The fact that he was running See ALUM, Page 3 Profs firm looks to stream live TV on web Computer science ize live television on the Internet professor's company has 1.2 million users in Europe By CHARLES GREGG-GEIST For the Daily Sugih Jamin, an associate pro- fessorofcomputerscience,istrying to redefine television-streaming technology. Jamin hopes that his small Ann Arbor-based company Zattoo will be the first to popular- in the United States. Zattoo has been available in parts of Europe since Jamin launched the company in 2005 and aims to reach the United States next year. So far Zattoo has rough- ly 1.2 million users, most of them in Switzerland. Jamin has expanded the project from a student's doctoral disserta- tion toa company with 22 employ- ees in AnnArbor and five overseas. All but two of the employees in the United States are University of Michigan graduates. Zattoo uses a peer-to-peer file- sharing system similar to BitTor- rent, a popular protocol used to exchange music, episodes of tele- vision shows and films. Jamin said the technology streams television from satellites to users' computers and then between computers "like a mesh." The technology is well- adapted to streaming live televi- sion because it's able to broadcast with a much shorter delay than comparable programs, Jamin said. Rackham Graduate School student Roy Arsan, who studies Internet media networking, said programs like Zattoo should pro- vide faster service than traditional video sites like YouTube.com. "YouTube just has a server and a client, as opposed to a peer-to- peer system," Arsan said. "(Zattoo) should be faster because you're dis- tributing between all the peers." Accordingtothe program's web- site, Zattoo becomes 10 times as efficient as current live-broadcast- ing technology when thousands of users are logged on. Its boosters also claim it switches from chan- nel to channel faster than compa- rable programs. Zattoo plays short advertising clips while the programs are being See TV, Page 3 HI:41 GOTANEWS TIP? LO: 20 Call 734-763-2459 or e-mail news@michigandaily.com and let us know. ON THE DAILY BLOGS Bowl picture begins to come into focus MICHIGANDAILY.COM/THEGAME INDEX NEWS......... Vol. CXVlII, No. 60 OPINION..... O2t07 The Michigan Daily ARTS.......... michigandailycom ............... 2 CROSSWORD ................6 .......................4 CLASSIFIEDS......................... 6 .......................5 S SP O R T S ................................8 0M