Plan for a Kennedy Successor Advances With House Approval
After hours of testy debate, the Massachusetts House of Representatives on Thursday approved legislation allowing Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
House Passes Bill to Increase Federal Aid For College Students
The House of Representatives on Thursday passed legislation that expands federal aid to college students while ending federal subsidies to private lenders.
Larger & Smoother Rush Sees More Frosh Bidded
As of Wednesday afternoon, 338 freshmen out of the 591 freshmen men were offered a bid to join a fraternity. A total of 437 bids were handed out, up from last year’s 405, said Interfraternity Council Recruitment Chair David B. Stein ’10. The biggest change in the this year’s Rush process was an overhaul of the Clearinghouse system, the software which tracks rushees.
First Planning Forum Draws 100
A hundred people showed up to 10-250 yesterday for a forum intended to involve MIT community members in the plans to fix MIT’s $150 million budget shortfall.
Feeling Sick? You’re Not Alone. Just Skip Classes and Order In
Michelle I. Slosberg ’12 first realized she was sick at the T station last Sunday.
Freshman Application Drops the Long Essay For Three Short Ones
Many MIT students remember writing their long essay on the freshman application. The class of 2014 will not. The application’s 500 word long essay has been replaced with three short essays between 200 and 250 words in length.
Shorts (right)
Two days after the execution of a convicted rapist-murderer was halted when technicians were unable to inject him with lethal drugs, a federal judge ordered Thursday that the inmate be deposed for a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Ohio’s lethal injection procedure.
New Missile Shield Inverts Old Cold War Thinking
The new plan that President Barack Obama laid out for a missile shield against Iran on Thursday turns Ronald Reagan’s vision of a Stars Wars system on its head: Rather than focusing first on protecting the continental United States, it shifts the immediate effort to defending Europe and the Middle East.
Lab Technician Charged With Murder of Yale Student
Before there was blood, the high-technology lab at 10 Amistad St. at Yale University was a model of efficiency. The mice and rats and rabbits stayed locked in cages. The technicians responsible for their well-being circulated like emergency room nurses. Researchers hunched over the cages for hours, intent on claiming a breakthrough.
China’s Economy Is Back, While U.S. Still Ails
Just eight months ago, thousands of Chinese workers rioted outside factories closed by the global downturn.
SEC Seeks To Ban Flash Orders
It is an obscure art of Wall Street, a technique that gives a scattering of traders an edge over everyone else and the Securities and Exchange Commission wants to stamp it out.
Italy Ponders Afghan Pullout After Deadly Blast
A powerful suicide bomb that killed six Italian soldiers here on Thursday prompted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy to declare that his nation had begun planning to “bring our young men home as soon as possible.”
A Break in the Clouds
Today’s weather will offer a reprieve from the cool, dreary weather that MIT has experienced over the past couple days. A change in wind direction means that warmer air from over land will blow in from the West, instead of cool ocean air from the East. As a result, temperatures will reach the high 70s°F, instead of hovering around the 60°F mark as they did on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Good, the Bad, and the Clever of The MIT Budget Task Force Report
As many are aware, MIT commissioned a task force to investigate how spending can be cut in response to last year’s global economic meltdown. In addition to the cuts already made, the Task Force has looked at a wide variety of ways for saving MIT even more money. Some of these ideas are common sense, some are quite clever, but there are one or two that are just plain bad. Not even moderately bad. Awful bad. Dining-system-reform-from-bad-to-worse bad.
Corrections
An article on Friday, Sept. 4 about MIT professors working in Washington provided incorrect information about Professor Deborah J. Lucas and her work, and omitted a word from a quotation. Lucas is a full tenured professor of finance at MIT in Sloan School of Management, she is not a visiting professor. Lucas’s work at the Congressional Budget Office does not involve providing budget estimates, but rather refining the methodologies used to produce those estimates. Lucas said she had noted in 2001 insufficient attention to “federal financial obligations,” not to “federal obligations.”
UA Update
The first Undergraduate Association Executive Meeting for the 2009–2010 academic year was held on Wednesday, September 9. Key issues that the UA will be tackling this fall were outlined. These issues included the Institute-wide Planning Task Force recommendations; communication with students, faculty, administrators, and alumni; and possible dining changes. The Institute-wide Planning Task Force’s preliminary report can be found at <i>http://ideabank.mit.edu</i>, and the UA welcomes your feedback (e-mail <i>ua@mit.edu</i>). Full minutes are available at <i>http://ua.mit.edu/exec</i>.
MOVIE REVIEW ‘Taking Woodstock’ Is a Lesson in Film Technique, American History
Ang Lee (<i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i>; <i>Hulk</i>; <i>Brokeback Mountain</i>) has once again proven his insight and versatility as a director. <i>Taking Woodstock</i> is a delightful comedy set in the Catskills in upstate New York, 1969. It tells the story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), a Greenwich Village designer who comes home to help out with his parents’ old, run-down motel in White Lake, NY.
THEATER REVIEW Gioia De Cari Searches for Truth
What is truth?” This is the question asked by one of Gioia’s professors in a sermon to a group of scholars. This is also the question that Gioia has to ask herself — what is <i>her</i> truth — as she presents to us an autobiographical portrayal of her time at MIT.
Sports Shorts
Emily Kuo ’13 had three assists and two goals in a 5-0 rout of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (3-3-0) today at Roberts Field. The loss snapped a two-game winning streak for the Corsairs, while the win extended MIT’s streak to three.
Community Deserves ESPN on MIT Cable
MIT Cable offers MTV, MTV2, MTVU, (though no guarantee of actual music with three MTV stations) Telefutura, China Central Television, and TVJapan; whether duplicates or foreign channels, MIT shows a desire to appeal to all students. It even offers the NASA channel for those Course 16 NASA dreamers who may watch in awe.
