The 18 hunger strikers who have been camped outside California Hall at U. California-Berkeley since last Monday took down their tents and left this morning after being told by campus officials they would be arrested if they stayed.

The strikers and their supporters emptied their jugs of water and loaded their supplies onto UCPD trucks at around 6 A.M. after being told by campus officials they would be arrested if they did not leave the lawn in front of the building.

“This morning the university decided that you know, it’s time,” said UCPD Lt. Alex Yao.

Yao said the strikers and their supporters had been in violation of campus rules and regulations by lodging and violating campus curfew. Both can be punishable by arrest, he said.

The strikers chose to leave the lawn. Though strikers said they do not know where they will relocate, they will not stop fasting.

“We are going to continue,” said senior Horacio Corona, who has gone without food for a week.

Though the strikers’ belongings were moved by UCPD to Eshleman Hall, by 8 a.m. the protesters had gathered again in front of California Hall.

Ten more students and staff had joined the strikers in a “Solidarity Strike.” Marco Amaral, a freshman striker, said the coalition will hold rallies at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in front of the building.

The strikers are demanding Chancellor Robert Birgeneau publicly denounce a recent Arizona immigration law, make UC Berkeley a sanctuary campus and provide extended protections for undocumented students, drop all student conduct charges against activists, stop cuts to low-wage employees, suspend conduct procedures and initiate a democratic, student-led process to review the code, as well as commit to using nonviolent means to ensure safety at demonstrations.

Though the campus administration has produced three responses to the demands and have met with members of the coalition, the strikers said they will remain outside until they meet with Birgeneau.

According to Claire Holmes, associate vice chancellor of public affairs, two of the demands – regarding the rehiring of low-wage employees and the dismissal of student conduct charges – had not been settled.

Holmes said the strikers had spoken Sunday with Birgeneau and were unlikely to meet again until the hunger strike ended.

“I wouldn’t rule (a meeting) out, but I doubt it very much,” she said. “We have done everything we can to respond to them. We would like to continue the dialogue, but we really want them to end their hunger strike.”

The Pakistani-American man suspected of attempting to bomb Times Square earlier this month recently told investigators he was inspired by a former George Washington U. graduate student who has been linked with several militant attacks.

The former student, Anwar Al-Awlaki, attended GW as a part-time doctoral of education candidate and worked as an assistant to a Muslim chaplain on campus in 2001. Al-Awlaki, who has been linked to the 9/11 attacks, the Fort Hood shooting and the aborted Christmas day Northwest Airlines bombing, became the first American on the CIA’s authorized kill list.

Though Attorney General Eric Holder told several news programs Sunday the Pakistani Taliban was the force behind the attack, ABC News is reporting the man accused of parking a rigged-to-explode 1993 Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square included Al-Awlaki among his web of radical contacts.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was arrested at JFK airport moments before his plane was set to take off for Dubai. Shahzad, a Connecticut resident, is accused of filling the Pathfinder with gasoline, propane, fertilizer, and firecrackers and parking it on West 45th Street, according to the New York Times. The car failed to detonate and street vendors notified police, who evacuated the area. No one was injured.

Al-Awlaki, who posts militant lectures on the Internet, began counseling Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist, in 2008. In November, Hasan allegedly shot 32 people, killing 13, at Fort Hood, Texas, the biggest military base in the United States. Hasan was linked to GW as well, attending an event hosted by Homeland Security Policy Institute, located at GW.

Al-Awlaki is also linked to a Nigerian man who attempted to blow himself up on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. Though Al-Awlaki denied any connection to the attempt, he allegedly had communications with the man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, last fall.

University spokeswoman Candace Smith said Sunday in an e-mail the University had no comment or information about Al-Awlaki or his GW connection.

Former first lady Laura Bush discussed memories from her childhood, her courtship with former President George W. Bush and the causes she continues to fight for Thursday night in front of a packed audience at George Washington U.

Bush traveled to Lisner to promote her new memoir, “Spoken From the Heart,” which was officially released May 4. The memoir details her life before, during and after President Bush’s White House years.

To begin the evening, Bush read an excerpt from her book after taking the stage during a standing ovation from the full house. The excerpt described the short engagement of “Midland’s most eligible bachelor and the old maid” before the “31 steps down the aisle into the rest of [her] life” in November 1977.

Journalist Cokie Roberts, who described herself as “an enormous Laura Bush fan,” interviewed Bush, asking questions on topics ranging from Bush’s love of reading to the car accident that occurred in Bush’s late teen years and that affected her for the rest of her life.

Bush, who had rarely spoken publicly about running a stop sign and the ensuing car crash that killed one of her best friends when she was 17, said she had to include details of it in her book because it helped her learn one of life’s important lessons.

“It was a huge tragedy. It was a life lesson that is a very hard lesson to learn that I learned early,” she said. “And that is that things happen to you or you cause things to happen. If you could take it back you would, but there is never anything you can ever do about it and you just have to accept with whatever grace you can accept it with.”

Bush spoke fondly of the early weeks of her relationship with President Bush. She said although the engagement may have seemed short or reckless to some, she and President Bush both knew they were right for each other when they met.

“We had grown up just blocks from each other. We lived in the same apartment complex. We had just never run into each other. But it was like we had known each other our whole lives,” she said.

Bush shared stories from President Bush’s early political career, as well as President George H. W. Bush’s campaigns for both the vice presidency and presidency. Bush credited politics for helping strengthen her relationship with her mother-in-law and former first lady Barbara Bush, particularly when they both lived in Washington when George H.W. Bush was vice president.

“Politics is a family business. When you have a family member in politics, you are all in it together. You have opponents, so it doesn’t have be against each other,” she said.

Bush said she was not worried about losing the presidency in 2000, because she knew losing a political campaign wouldn’t be the end of her life. She said her one hesitation was the negative media coverage, some of which she experienced when President Bush was governor of Texas.

“Running for governor is a big job, but the media and the scrutiny and the criticism and the attacks are not near what they are when you are running for president,” she said. “We knew that from watching Mr. Bush.”

Bush discussed her first year in the White House and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She was on Capitol Hill preparing to brief the Senate Education Committee on early childhood education and was with Senators Ted Kennedy and Judd Gregg when she heard the news. At a press conference announcing the postponement of the briefing, a reporter asked what parents should say to their children.

“And I said then, ‘What do we say to the children?’ And I said parents need to assure their children that they are safe and turn off the television and don’t let them watch over and over those buildings falling. It gave me the direction of what I needed to do in the days that followed,” she said, referencing the letters she wrote to schoolchildren around the country about the attacks.

Turning the discussion to current projects, Bush spoke of her continued support of literacy and reading, as well as her campaigns to help women in Afghanistan gain more rights and freedoms.

“I hope that the United States will stand with Afghanistan. It’s really important because if we don’t, I’m afraid they’ll go back to where they were before. And it’s especially important for the women,” she said.

Bush said the traditional press bias and public perception of first ladies as merely wives of their husbands is something she hopes will be proven false, citing examples of Lady Bird Johnson and Barbara Bush as strong advocates for different issues in their role as first lady.

“It’s a shame really that these stereotypes start and our first ladies are seen as so flat and one-dimensional because they are always so much more complex and so much more interesting than those views,” Bush said. “I hope and I think we’re slowly moving away from that.”

Four Aggie rings. Four caps. Four gowns. Four members of the Texas A&M U. Class of 2010. Four people born as quadruplets on Dec. 14, 1987, became best friends by the time they had taken the final semester of college courses. Agricultural economics major Daniel, communications major Kayla, agricultural leadership and development major Patrick and agricultural economics major Reagan Thompson came to Texas A&M four years ago, and all four of them will graduate Friday.

Each quadruplet has a plan after graduation, and though Daniel will be moving to another state, the siblings plan to keep in touch.

“I will be calling them, and I get some vacation time, so I’ll definitely be flying to see them,” Daniel said. “It will definitely be harder, but I’m planning on seeing them.”

Daniel and Reagan majored in agricultural economics. The two saved money by sharing books and studied together when they shared classes.

“We had a lot of the same classes so it was definitely nice to have a brother that was smarter than me and in the same major,” Reagan said.

The three men said although they lived together throughout college, but they made sure there was plenty of time to hang out with their sister, Kayla, especially during special Aggie events.

“We went to fish camp and impact camp together, football games, tailgates, muster and even all had a class together freshmen year,” Kayla said. “We are not the kind of siblings that are connected at the hip though. People are surprised at how different we are. It has been so fun joining different organizations and getting involved on campus and becoming individuals, while remaining close.”

Though they have found individuality, Patrick said they have grown stronger as siblings and as friends.

“I think coming into college we relied upon our parents a lot for different things — major decisions,” Patrick said. “We’ve matured individually as a quadruple unit. We’ve definitely become closer throughout all our college experience. Their opinions definitely weigh more. They are the first three people I go to.”

The Thompsons expressed appreciation for the bond that comes along with being a quadruplet, but Kayla said there is something extra special about having three siblings her same age.

“We get to experience things together, unlike having an older sibling’s footsteps to follow in,” she said. “So every big moment we get to share, from getting our drivers license, to getting our Aggie rings.”

The siblings said they enjoyed spending time at A&M with each other, but they each mentioned one particular experience they said they will never forget.

“The most special night was the night Reagan got elected as senior yell leader,” Patrick said. “We all huddled up together, talking to one another, pumping Reagan up. I think that kind of symbolized a part of that college experience together and how we grew as individuals and as a family.”

Patrick said seeing his brother named yell leader was one of many great experiences he shared with his siblings.

“Who else can say they got to share the college experience with three other siblings?” he said. “This is a real special time for us. Experiencing such a vital point in our lives together, and growing as a person and having such influences as brothers and sisters is pretty incredible.”

Reagan said getting to spend his time at A&M with his three siblings was rewarding.

“Having the opportunity, getting to go to college with my siblings was a blessing in itself,” he said. “We’re best friends, and that made it so much better. I think every day and everything we got to do together was just awesome.”

George Mason U. economics professor Don Boudreaux has recently been making the case against Arizona’s controversial new immigration law in the blogosphere and other online contexts.

The fact that Boudreaux is doing so does not make him unique. His approach and proposed solution, however, put him in the company of a small minority.

Boudreaux introduces his position as follows: “It’s true that the traipsing of Hispanic immigrants across Arizonans’ backyards at 3 a.m. is an intolerable problem. But this and other problems are artifacts of the severe restrictions that Uncle Sam currently places on immigration.”

What the professor is driving at is this: Laws such as Arizona’s are instituted by people facing situations created by the federal government’s totally wrongheaded (and immoral) stance regarding immigration to this country.

That stance is one that does not recognize people’s right to freedom of movement, which is implied by the rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness championed in the Declaration of Independence.

It is also one that inhibits both foreigners’ and Americans’ right to freely associate and do business with each other.

Our country’s current immigration policies do these things by placing a limit on the number of immigrants who may legally come to this country from certain nations of origin and by preventing employers and prospective employees from engaging in mutually beneficial trade.

Arizona’s new law is particularly egregious in this respect. Boudreaux notes that it is primarily focused on preventing undocumented immigrants from finding work in the state, which, he emphasizes, casts doubt on arguments that the law is intended simply to protect the people of Arizona from violence.

Boudreaux proposes that, in order to stem the flow of immigrants through America’s proverbial back doors, this country should revert to the prevailing immigration policy of the pre-1920s era, when immigration was almost completely open and only people who were carrying communicable diseases were kept out.

Philosopher Harry Binswanger shares Boudreaux’s desire for a return to open borders and argues for the same on the basis of natural rights.

Binswanger writes, “A foreigner has rights just as much as an American. To be a foreigner is not to be a criminal. Yet our government treats as criminals those foreigners not lucky enough to win the green-card lottery.”

He argues that all people who wish to enter the United States should be allowed to do so but is careful to distinguish between “freedom of entry and residency” on the one hand and “the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship” on the other.

Binswanger argues rightly that any regime in which people are not free to employ, rent to, or sell to willing foreigners is one that denies not only the rights of foreigners but also the rights of citizens because it prevents the two from engaging freely in trade to mutual benefit.

He also challenges the argument that restricting foreigners’ access to this country is defensible because it is “ours” by making the vital distinction between jurisdiction and ownership.

His point: the fact that the U.S. government has jurisdiction throughout its territory does not mean it owns every square inch of said territory. Rather, much of this territory is owned privately by people who should be left free to choose how they use it and with whom they associate on it.

Both Binswanger and Boudreaux are right to advocate open borders without shame or equivocation, as they are defending the principle that all people, regardless of their national origin, should be allowed to live and work where they choose and to engage in trade with those they choose.

By way of emphasizing the fact that having observed one good or positive event does not mean all is well, the Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “One swallow does not make a summer.”

Applied more broadly, this adage means an isolated event should not be taken as indication of a trend.

And especially in recent years, those who are concerned about environmental issues such as climate change have gotten plenty of practice reminding people of this principle.

Every time a major wintry weather event occurs and is seized upon by skeptics of climate science, proponents of the theory are quick to remind the public that weather and climate are different things and that a single weather event whose occurrence seems unlikely in a warming world does not constitute a reversal of the long-term worldwide warming trend.

It is strange, then, that environmental activists who oppose offshore drilling have been so quick to exploit the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico by making the case that this spill proves the danger of extracting oil from beneath the sea floor.

As Aristotle might have told them, just as an April blizzard does not prove the existence of a climate change conspiracy, so a single oil spill does not make drilling an environmental hazard.

In fact, although the spill might yet become the largest in U.S. history, it will nevertheless contribute to a surprisingly small chunk of all oil leakage into oceans.

Oil spills coming from offshore wells or tanker ships might be the best-known sources of oil leakage, but they are actually among the least significant.

A NASA study found that most oil that ends up in oceans comes in the form of runoff from cities and industrial areas, which accounts for some 363 million gallons per year.

The second most significant source was ship maintenance (137 million gallons per year), and natural seepage from oil deposits beneath the ocean floor accounted for about 62 million gallons per year.

For all the hype they generate, spills from offshore drilling accounted for just 15 million gallons per year, according to the study.

This means that, given the dramatically higher rate of leakage resulting from natural factors, those who want to rid the seven seas of the scourge of oil should be clamoring for drilling in order to deplete the deposits that leak so much every year. This, of course, seems unlikely to happen.

But what a welcome change it would be if environmental activists reevaluated their consistently anti-oil rhetoric for once and considered whether they would even be doing the world’s oceans a service by eradicating offshore drilling.

Murder is a shocking crime in the most typical of cases. But when a child kills another child, all sense of morality seems to be distorted, and no reaction is unequivocally justified. At the age of 10 years old, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson were each sentenced to eight years in prison for their gruesome murder of two-year-old James Bulger. Now, nine years since his release, Venables is back in custody, and the public demands to know the reason. The questions that surface query the criminal’s right to anonymity as well as appropriate prison sentences for those so young. The attention and high emotion that surround such cases certainly destroy notions of impartiality and make the potential for a fair trial extremely difficult.

In 1993, Venables, together with Thompson, committed a horrific and motiveless crime when they coaxed a two-year-old away from his mother and ultimately murdered the boy alongside railway tracks. After the trial, the judge ruled that the criminals’ identities should be revealed, and so their names and hauntingly vulnerable mug shots were splashed across every newspaper. Ever since then, considerable work has gone into hiding the identity of Thompson and Venables; upon prison release, they were given new identities, and laws banned anyone from revealing their true names. However, last month it was revealed that Jon Venables is now back in custody, and the public is crying to know the reason why.

James Bulger’s mother claims that, as a relative of the original victim, she has a right to know what offense Venables has committed, and, indeed, a typically transparent justice system would condone revealing the nature of the crime. Others claim that Venables’s rehabilitation clearly failed, so he no longer deserves the protection awarded by his veiled identity. However, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has refused to reveal the offense, for fear of revealing Venables’s identity and preventing the opportunity for a fair trial. The case is not typical of any justice system, and should Venables’s new crime be revealed, the resulting hype will likely limit the possibility of a fair trial by an unprejudiced jury.

Demands to know Venables’s new crime reek of hysterical persecution and desire for revenge. The 1993 murder sent a jolt throughout Britain, and disgust at the event lead to adults crowding around the court, where they banged on the children’s van, thirsty for retribution. Similarly, the desire for information about the new crime of an ex-convict seems to be a product of natural but legally unreasonable anger. Comparably strong emotions affected the original trial, and the European Court of Human Rights later ruled that the high scrutiny and “incomprehensible and intimidating” adult court structure for a child of 11 meant that the trial was not a fair one.

The distress that surrounds a crime committed by a supposedly innocent child can create pressure for an unusually harsh sentence. However, such emotion, triggered for example by video evidence of Venables sobbing inconsolably for hours on end, can also create sympathy for excessive lenience. Despite such strong and opposing beliefs founded upon Venables’s and Thompson’s young ages, the legal age for criminal responsibility in England is 10 years old, and psychiatrists ruled that both the children could distinguish between right and wrong. In spite of general cries for vengeance and dismay over the seemingly lenient eight-year sentence, many murderers do not in fact serve much longer, and life sentence is far from the ubiquitous punishment. Although a 10-year-old, according to the legal system and psychiatric analysis, is considered old enough to be responsible, it is also important to consider the purposes of prison: punishment, protection, and rehabilitation. Children have a greater chance of rehabilitation and are also more helplessly embroiled in a traumatic home life (both were from lower-class, violent families) than most criminals. As such, 10-year-olds should face the same trial structure as all criminals, but as with all mitigating factors, their age and social vulnerability should be taken into account.

To this end, the extreme emotions that surround child criminals should not be allowed to impact legal proceedings further. The vengeful desires to know Venables’s crime and identity are unjustified; whether better or worse, the post-adolescent Venables is not the same 10-year-old who was tried 17 years ago. We may have had a right to know Venables’s crime then, but the public no longer has the right to know the details of the rest of his life. Venables’s identity is veiled in order to protect his life, and there is no just reason to change this policy.

Unfortunately, regardless of whether information about Venables’s re-arrest is revealed, it’s uncertain whether a fair trial is possible. Past criminal activity is often pertinent to court cases, and, if the jury learns of his true identity, it seems unlikely that an impartial trial will prevail. According to legal justice, Venables’s previous murder should be taken into account upon new offences but not his shocking age at the time it was committed. The realistic truth is that child criminals shake the bedrocks of society, and typical legal lines don’t necessarily adhere.

– Olivia M. Goldhill is a Harvard U. junior.

It’s happened to everyone, be it when you fill out a survey for a thesis writer, send in a missing form, or remind someone about tomorrow’s meeting. The responses come uniformly back: “Thanks!!!” You have to wonder: is the responder really as excited about answering as they sound? In any case, ending ordinary e-mail or text message correspondences in this manner has become increasingly normal. However, it illustrates a dangerous trend in punctuation: the overuse of the exclamation point. Although the more frequent use of this point may appear to just be a better representation of our own exuberance, the consequences of this trend include misrepresentations of our meanings and emotions.

Exclamation points are an important piece of our written language, and they are perfect when we want to describe something that we would say in a raised voice. Dickens used it quintessentially when the Ghost of Christmas Present bellows, “Come In! And know me better, man!” as did Orwell when he described the chanting of the sheep in “Animal Farm.” However, in simple dialogue we rarely need it. But because the practice of using exclamation points in casual e-mail and text conversations has become so common, now, not adding this punctuation mark to the end of a message makes it seem sullen and ungrateful. Simply ending with “thanks” no longer cuts it, although in most cases such an ending would most accurately describe our emotion; we rarely scream the word “thanks” when an act being rewarded is less-than-heroic. The misuse of this punctuation mark has spiraled even beyond the single exclamation point; since one represents the standard suffix to a message, you now have to put two or three extra points to show actual excitement or pleasure. Indulging this cultural norm incites a positive feedback system, with more and more exclamation points needed to show the same level of emotion, akin to an addict needing more of a stimulant to get the same lift.

Although using more exclamation points may not drastically affect us, it does provide an example of the growing body of ways in which we misrepresent our feelings through writing. How often does a response of “LOL” actually correspond to laughing out loud, or “OMG” to a legitimately shocking event? Taken together these phrases indicate a pattern of falsely self-representing oneself as being in a heightened emotional state. Perhaps overcompensation of emotion in these electronic messages stems from the lessening of actual human contact we experience over digital mediums. In any case, our communications, in almost every occasion, become more exclamatory than the real life interaction would be. Rather than having writing serve as a true means of expression when we are physically out of reach, these threads operate with different meanings and usages, providing a picture of a different self.

So the next time you are writing an e-mail and want to throw on some exclamation points for good measure, consider what that real-life situation would entail. Would you yell your response the same way you are writing it? Thanks!

– Marcel E. Moran is a Harvard U. junior.

Former Dean of Harvard U. Law School and Solicitor General Elena Kagan has been nominated to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court by President Obama.

Obama announced his appointment at 10 a.m. this morning with Kagan by his side.

Kagan, who is 50 years old, would be the youngest Justice on the Court. She would also be the first Justice since William H. Rehnquist without any prior judicial experience.

Kagan clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, who previously served as Solicitor General.

Law School Professor Mark V. Tushnet, who also clerked for Marshall, noted that experience as Solicitor General will have exposed Kagan to a wide variety of legal issues.

Kagan is considered a relative moderate, but is expected to be challenged by Republicans for her opposition to military recruiting at the Law School in response to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The Law School no longer bans military recruiting on its campus.

But speaking yesterday before the announcement was made, Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz said that the recruitment issue was “very center to moderate” and that he does not believe that it will bar her from the Court.

“She is a very strong person and she is a strong advocate,” said Professor William P. Alford before the announcement was made.

Kagan was confirmed as Solicitor General in 2009 by a vote of 61-31 in the Senate.

At the Law School, Kagan was known for bridging gaps between liberals and conservatives.

“I think she was appreciated by the faculty of the right, the center, and the left,” Dershowitz said.

“I think she would be a welcome presence on the Supreme Court.”

If confirmed, Kagan, who is Jewish, will replace the Court’s only Protestant, and the court will be made up of six Catholics and three Jews.

But Dershowitz said he did not think religion would figure in her potential confirmation. “It’s long past the time that we will care about religion,” Dershowitz said. “That’s an issue of the 20th century.”

Several professors noted that they thought Kagan ran the Law School in the style of a government agency.

Kagan expanded the Law School faculty by about 10 percent during her tenure. She also pushed forward the building plans for Northwest Corner, and oversaw major curriculum overhaul with now-current Dean of the Law School Martha L. Minow.

Dershowitz said he believes that the institution improved under her term.

“She ran it like a university should be run,” he said.

Obama passed over federal appeals court Judges Diane P. Wood and Merrick B. Garland, a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, the other frontrunners for the position.

Kagan’s youth may also have been a significant factor in Obama’s choice, as Wood, 58, and Garland, 57, might have served shorter terms as Justices.

Friends and family of Florida State U. graduate student Vincent Binder will gather to honor his memory at a wake in Brooklyn, N.Y. on the afternoon of May 10.

Binder, a former teaching assistant in the School of Communication at FSU, went missing during the early hours of April 2 after leaving a friend’s house on foot. His friends and colleagues reported him missing on April 8 after he failed to report to work. With the help of law enforcement, they spent the following weeks on a state-wide search for Binder.

On April 28, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement located what they believed to be Binder’s deceased body in a field near I-95 and State Road 16. Two days following the discovery, the Tallahassee Police Department held a news conference where Police Chief Dennis Jones indicated that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had in fact confirmed the identity of the body to be that of Binder’s, thus concluding the month-long search.

“He was one of ours,” said FSU graduate student and close friend of Binder’s, Beth Frady.

Frady said she felt it was important to keep the FSU community informed on the most current information regarding Binder’s case.

She met Binder in her first year of graduate school at FSU, where they quickly became friends. The first class they had together was a communication theory class, said Frady, and any time she struggled, she made sure to consult Binder.

“He had that uncanny ability to take complex issues, twist them and put them in layman’s terms to where you understood them,” she said.

Frady recalled instances where not even a dictionary could help her more than Binder could.

“I would look up (a word) in the dictionary, not understand it, circle it and literally write ‘Vince’ next to it,” she said. “I’d ask him and he would explain to me very simply what it is — he just had that ability.”

Frady said she, among others, was quick to befriend Binder, but that the depth of his friendships did not just include shared intelligence.

“You try to surround yourself, when you are in graduate school, with really smart people, because that makes you seem really smart. So we surrounded ourselves with Vince because he was so smart, but then we got to know him and love him, and we were like, ‘This works out really well.’”

Binder completed a few years as an undergraduate at FSU before attending U. Florida, and eventually graduated from U. West Georgia in Carrollton, where his talent for debating warranted a “seventh best team in the country” award, leading him to receive an automatic invitation to national competitions, according to helpfindvince.com.

“He was brilliant,” said Frady. “He was a debater, so anything you brought up, whether he cared about it or not, he would research it and he would debate you on it.”

Binder, a debate coach at FSU, had just returned from Berkeley U. with his debate team about a week and a half before his disappearance, a trip that inspired him to continue on as a teacher, according to Frady.

“He wanted to go to Berkeley and get his Ph.D. to teach debate and public speaking.”

Frady is among many friends of Binder’s who hope to have another memorial service sometime in the near future, so that his students and others close to him in the Tallahassee area can honor him as well. They also hope to solidify plans for a walk in his memory, titled “Binder’s Buddies,” aimed to encourage a buddy system for students while walking at night. As a teaching assistant at FSU, Binder was, according to Frady, devoted to his students.

“One part of Vincent’s family — and by family I mean his figurative family — that people tend to forget are his students,” said Frady. “We don’t want to forget them. They have been struggling with this just as much as all of us, and they deserve to have their time as well.”

Every handout Binder put together, he signed, “Brought to you by the letter V.”

Binder’s fellow graduate assistants describe him as a teacher that was easy-going, but who always made sure to stress the importance of what he was teaching.

“He just kind of had this self-confidence, kind of self-awareness, that he knew what he was going to say and he knew that what he was going to say most likely had weight behind it,” said Philip Crowe, Binder’s fellow public speaking teaching assistant. “He would give his students the opportunity to grow at their own pace, but he kept them to a standard.”

Crowe said he met Binder when they both became TAs in the fall of 2009.

“He was always willing to share some good advice, some Pokey Sticks and kind words,” said Crowe.

Crowe was among the first people in charge of one of the several Facebook sites created to raise awareness of Binder’s disappearance. Later, Crowe and Binder’s classmate, Chase Porter, created helpfindvince.com to spread information to as many outlets as possible. According to Porter, the Web site reaches a nationwide audience and, at first, featured a money-raising campaign towards a $5,000 reward for information regarding Binder’s disappearance.

When word spread regarding the discovery of Binder’s remains, everything changed.

“The primary goal (of the campaign) now that Vince’s body has been found is to serve as a memorial to him and continue to raise funds toward a $25,000 debate scholarship in his name,” said Porter.

In a span of eight days, the Web site collected over $5,000, while the Facebook page had almost 1,000 new members a day during the first 12 days of its existence. As of May 5, helpfindvince.com lists a total of $8,307, with 139 donors total.

“The scholarship is aimed toward helping young debaters get their foothold in the debate circuit, because debating was Vince’s passion,” said Crowe. “It was that one thing in his life that he kind of grabbed onto and he knew the impact of that.

“The community outreach he has received on the site really speaks to the kind of person Vince was. People don’t go out on a limb for someone that was not a caring, heartfelt person.”

At the FSU graduation ceremony on Friday, April 30, speakers took time to honor Binder.

“We are deeply saddened by the recent events,” said FSU President Eric Barron. “He will be deeply missed.”

Following his disappearance, an initial search of Binder’s apartment on the day he was reported missing was unsuccessful. The next day, investigators from TPD’s Special Victim’s unit reviewed Binders financial and phone records, which led investigators Anne Johnson and Greg Wilder to Miami on Friday, April 9.

As investigators continued their work in Miami, TPD received notification from the South Florida U.S. Marshal’s Task Force about the discovery of an abandoned black Chevrolet pickup with evidence that linked the car to the Tallahassee area.

The task force had been searching for the car because it was believed to have been involved in the escape of three inmates from Avoyelles Parish, L.a.

It quickly became apparent that the three fugitives might have been involved in two robberies in Tallahassee, and possibly the disappearance of Binder.

Inside the car, U.S. Marshalls discovered a Florida I.D. card belonging to Chris Pavlish of Tallahassee, maps of Tallahassee and an ATM receipt from Binder’s account in the car.

Pavlish was robbed earlier on the same day of Binder’s disappearance around the same area where Binder was last seen.

Further investigation listed in the TPD report and reported by the Tallahassee Democrat indicates that Binder’s credit/debit card was used at ATMs and gas stations in Tallahassee, Madison, Jacksonville and various locations along I-95 South. TPD worked closely with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and U.S. Marshals Service, aiding the South Florida U.S. Marshals Task Force in the arrest of the three escaped Louisiana inmates in Miami. All three escapees, Kentrell Johnson, Quentin Truehill and Peter Hughes, were arrested without incident and later interviewed by investigators from the Tallahassee Police Department.

At the April 30 news conference, FDLE Special Agent in Charge Don Ladner confirmed that the case had become a homicide investigation. All three men have been charged with Binder’s kidnapping.

Ladner added that the investigation is ongoing, but once the investigation is completed, his team will turn over its findings to the State Attorney’s Office, which will then determine what other charges to file.

Meanwhile, Binder’s friends continue to share the impact he had on their lives.

“He was brilliant, he was charismatic, he was hilarious and he was caring — anything you needed, he would do it, anytime you needed to talk, he’d talk,” said Frady. “I called him my big brother.”

For more information, visit www.helpfindvince.com.