Cambridge Council Candidate Knocks For Votes
Have you seen Leland Cheung? As Election Day nears, the Cambridge City Council candidate and Sloan School student has been trying to talk to as many people as possible. He’s even made the rounds in some MIT dorms to ask for your vote.
MIT Donor and Madoff Investor Picower Had Pool Heart Attack
An autopsy shows that Jeffry M. Picower, a prominent philanthropist accused of reaping about $7 billion in profit from Bernard L. Madoff’s vast Ponzi scheme, drowned on Sunday after having a heart attack.
Tosci’s Gets a New Ice Cream Chef, 26 New Flavors
Churning out Toscanini’s newest flavors of ice cream is not a shiny new Cuisinart automatic, but local Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef Kevin A. Rafferty.
Clean Energy Is Our Future, Says Obama
President Barack Obama commended MIT for its “extraordinary energy research” and urged America to take leadership in cleaner technologies in a speech this past Friday at Kresge Auditorium.
Police Log
The following incidents were reported to the Campus Police between Sept. 16 and Sept. 25. The dates below reflect the dates incidents occurred. This information is compiled from the Campus Police’s crime log. The report does not include alarms, general service calls, or incidents not reported to the dispatcher.
Shorts (left)
The NFL and its doctors have consistently dismissed independent studies showing unusual cognitive decline in former players. They insist that a long-term study by the league’s committee on concussions, expected to be published in several years, will be the authoritative analysis.
Pilots Who Missed Airport Cite Computer Distraction
Any employee at a company that has gone through a merger knows how distracting it can be when the new owner imposes new rules. That distraction, not a nap, was what two Northwest Airlines pilots insist caused them to fly far beyond the Minneapolis airport last week, federal investigators reported Monday.
Ex-Chief of AIG Is Busy Building a New Venture
Maurice R. Greenberg, who built the American International Group into an insurance behemoth with an impenetrable maze of on- and offshore companies, is at it again.
Senate Leader Vows to Pursue Public Option
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, sided with his party’s liberals on Monday and announced that he would include a government-run insurance plan in health care legislation that he plans to take to the Senate floor within a few weeks.
Iraq Blast Toll, Worse Than Feared, Includes Children
Iraqi officials reached a tentative agreement on a new election law on Monday, even as workers continued to recover more bodies from the wreckage of Sunday’s bomb attacks, including an uncertain number of children from two day care centers.
Engaging in War Is Now Part Of Germany’s Afghan Mission
Forced to confront the rising insurgency in once peaceful northern Afghanistan, the German army is engaged in sustained and bloody ground combat for the first time since World War II.
Shorts (right)
The two-decade erosion in newspaper circulation is looking more like an avalanche, with figures released Monday showing sales down about 10 percent since last year, depressed by rising Internet readership, price increases, recession and papers intentionally shedding unprofitable circulation.
Peak Color
The end of October is usually when the Boston area sees the peak autumn colors, and this year is no different. Aided by the recent chilly nights, the transition to the colorful landscape that New England is so famous for has accelerated in recent days. It appears that peak color in the urban areas is approaching, and these next 7–10 days will likely feature the best combination of color and minimal leaf drop. If you have a chance, be sure to enjoy the colors before they fade. Popular spots that are a short distance from campus include the Arnold Arboretum, Middlesex Fells, and Blue Hills.
A Teachable Moment: Reflections on The President’s Visit to MIT
Friday was a typical MIT day. Typical in a very special sense: MIT showed the President of the United States what goes on here every day. But it often takes extraordinary events like a Presidential visit (or some equivalent unplanned crisis/opportunity) for those of us who work here to recognize the full power and capacity of the Institute. Friday was such a day and it is worth reflecting on why this event took place here, how the community mobilized to organize the visit on six days notice, and what we learned about ourselves in the process.
Obama at MIT
Amidst the concrete barricades blocking off Amherst Alley, snipers on the Z-Center, the motorcade hustling past our dorms on Memorial Drive, and of course, the Presidential podium in Kresge, it’s easy to forget that Barack Obama came to MIT to deliver a message. It may not have been a very profound message, nor something we haven’t heard before, but since it happened here its worthwhile to think about and ask: What did the President tell us? Perhaps more importantly: What <i>didn’t</i> he tell us?
A Defense of State Capitalism
Recently, the well-known liberal filmmaker Michael Moore released his new movie, <i>Capitalism: A Love Story</i>. As the sarcastic title suggests, this movie was produced in an effort to portray the American capitalist system as an illogical system that is based on an emotional attachment rather than reasoning. It blames capitalism for the recent economic collapse, skyrocketing unemployment, and widespread suffering in general. As a solution, Moore advocates socialism. No surprises there.
Corrections
A May 4, 1999 article about notable MIT alumni incorrectly said that Eastman Kodak Company founder George Eastman was an MIT alumnus. Although a George L. Eastman graduated from MIT in 1870, he is not the same as the George Eastman who founded Eastman Kodak. The Eastman who founded Kodak is of course the same one who contributed over $20 million in cash and stock to MIT in the first two decades of the 20th century; his gifts, mostly made in the name of “Mr. Smith,” helped MIT build its Cambridge campus. He did not attend college. A reader recently pointed out this error.
Letters to the Editor
The list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates includes some amazing forces for good, but as Justin Cannon correctly pointed out in an letter on Friday, some awards have been far more dubious. I am displeased to see Mother Teresa go without mention in Cannon’s summary of less-than-deserving winners. Her “work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress” (to quote the Nobel committee’s justification for her award) is largely misunderstood. She did not help cure the poor. She did not help the sick of India. All she did was provide rudimentary beds for the dying.
CONCERT REVIEW Bel Canto with Flair
For all of its expert craft, there are many non-trivial reasons Gioachino Rossini’s <i>Tancredi</i> isn’t one of his more popular operas. Large rifts gape in the plot line (Since when is Amenaide pregnant? Why doesn’t Argirio recognize the renown Tancredi when he joins his army? Why does Amenaide write a letter that is unaddressed and almost purposefully misleading?), while the drama portrays an affected and protracted moral code that holds very little in common with modern experience.
Football Falls to Salve Regina on Senior Day
On a dreary, rainy Saturday, the MIT Engineers stepped onto Roberts Field in Steinbrenner Stadium for the final time this season. The game’s final result was a loss to Salve Regina University 28-10.
Sport Taekwondo Opens Season With Dominant Victory at Home
In a decisive start to its season, the MIT Sport Taekwondo Club clinched first place at the first Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference (ECTC) tournament of the year on Sunday, October 18. Organized by the club and hosted at the Johnson Athletic Center, the tournament drew 319 competitors from 20 different schools, including 46 athletes representing MIT.
Sports Shorts
Kimberly A. Barker ’13 recorded her first career hat trick while senior Ekavali Mishra ’10 added a goal and three assists as MIT downed Mount Holyoke, 7-1, in a key New England Women’s and Men’s Atheltic Conference (NEWMAC) field hockey match-up Saturday. With the win the Engineers (13-4) improve to 4-3 in NEWMAC play and move into a four-way tie for third place, with one league game remaining.
Brouhaha Rhythm
The other day, I had the unique experience of trying to open a coconut for personal consumption. It began with a butter knife and misplaced optimism. It ended with three sharp cooking knives, a multitool saw blade, a claw hammer, multiple nails of varying sizes, and one still-unrefreshed columnist. Oh, and a lounge so covered in coconut entrails that it could probably have been used as a set for a tropical-plant remake of <i>The Silence of the Lambs</i>.
