ASA Releases Results From Space Processes; 39 Clubs Will Lose Out
The Association of Student Activities released preliminary decisions in student group space allocations last night. The process, which happens every two years, determines which student groups retain office space and which lose it, as well as which groups get storage space for equipment and supplies.
Kabelo Zwane ’12
Kabelo Zwane, a sophomore and MIT’s first student from Swaziland, died in Bedford, Mass. on Saturday, November 7, in an apparent suicide. He was 21.
Ten Students Organize ‘Community Tour’; MIT President Might Watch on TV—Later
A group of MIT students are planning an event titled the “MIT Community Tour 2009,” scheduled for next Thursday, December 10. Labelled “Show Susan Hockfield Anything!”, the event starts in front of Hockfield’s residence, Gray House, at 10:00 a.m. and will visit locations “that reflect the inner workings of MIT that often go unnoticed,” the announcement said.
H.M.’s Brain Dissection
Researchers at UCSD are dissecting the brain of amnesia patient H.M. and streaming live video of the process online. The process began on Wednesday and can be viewed online at <i>http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/</i> through today.
Two Students Win<br />Marshall Scholarships
Two MIT students are winners of the United Kingdom’s prestigious Marshall Scholarship, which funds 35 U.S. students in graduate studies in the U.K. Seniors Tanya S. Goldhaber ’10 and Vinayak Muralidhar ’10 are this year’s winners from MIT.
Did Not Reapply For Office Space Did Not Reapply For Locker or General Storage Space
Did Not Reapply For Office Space
Requests from Groups with Space X (Will stay in same space. Roommates may be swapped) (May move to similar space)
Requests from Groups with Space X (Will stay in same space. Roommates may be swapped)
Militants Face More Attacks By U.S. Drones
Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants of the Taliban and al-Qaida, and wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training.
Shorts (left)
Jason Timmerman coaxed a balky calf into a chute on his feedlot one recent afternoon and injected the animal with a new vaccine to make it immune to a dangerous form of <i>E. coli</i> bacteria.
Bernanke Defends the Fed In Confirmation Hearing
Under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike, Ben S. Bernanke PhD ’79 on Thursday defended his record as chairman of the Federal Reserve but conceded that the central bank’s lapses contributed to the financial crisis.
Web/TV Divide is Back in Focus With NBC Sale
As she prepared her daughter for college, Anne Sweeney insisted that a television be among the dorm room accessories.
Shorts (right)
It is anyone’s guess how the 32 teams in the 2010 World Cup will be grouped by the draw Friday in South Africa, but one thing is for sure: The event will elicit sightings of things as far-fetched as UFO’s and the Virgin Mary’s image on a potato chip.
A Focus on Jobs, But No Promises Of a Turnaround
After months of focusing on Afghanistan and health care, President Barack Obama turned his attention on Thursday to the high level of joblessness, but offered no promise that he could do much to bring unemployment down quickly even as he comes under pressure from his own party to do more.
An Abortion Provider’s Killing Sways a Colleague to Step In
The national battle over abortion, for decades firmly planted outside the Kansas clinic of Dr. George R. Tiller, has erupted here in suburban Omaha, where a longtime colleague has taken up the cause of late-term abortions.
From Record Warmth to Snow?
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the warm sunny day we had yesterday, because this weekend brings a return to more seasonable conditions. The preliminary climate report from the National Weather Service indicates that yesterdays recorded high temperature of 69°F at Logan Airport was a whopping 23°F above normal. It broke the previous record for December 3, which was 65°F set back in 1932.
Things That Are Political and Paradoxical
Ever since Obama visited MIT a few weeks ago, I’ve been feeling more politically charged. Was it because the President of the United States came to MIT? No. Was it because he delivered an address about MIT’s devotion to clean energy? No. Was it because we had an auditorium full of political giants? No. Because MIT scrambled in less than a week to prepare the campus for a presidential visit? Nope. It wasn’t that either. So what was it?
Making Orientation Better … for Less!
The Orientation planning committee will soon be evaluating options for making Orientation cheaper as MIT contends with an Institute-wide budget crunch. Some measures have been suggested that have potential to significantly detract from the freshman Orientation experience — including cutting the length of Orientation in half. We instead propose a couple of simple tweaks to the existing schedule that will both save the Institute money and improve the Orientation experience for students and the campus community.
UA Update
Senate met on Monday, November 30 for their second special budgetary session during UAS 41. The Senate discussed the budget for the Spring 2010 semester, which is available at <i>http://ua.mit.edu/finances/</i>. On Monday, December 7, Senate will be voting on the proposed budget. Pending legislation will also be discussed and voted upon at this meeting, which is the last Senate meeting of the fall semester.
Going Beyond Traditional Political Restraints
Criticism of the capitalist state does not equal support for totalitarian socialism.
CONCERT REVIEW Doomsday in Paradise
A New York City native leading a New Orleans-inspired funeral dirge, playing from the Sacred Harp and preaching doomsday at the hipster infested Paradise Club. Discombobulating? Circuitous? Consider it just another detour on the remarkable career of Elvis Perkins and his band Dearland.
OPERA REVIEW Love and Loss in Arcadia
Of the fifteen books of Ovid’s <i>Metamorphoses</i>, the story of Acis and Galatea occupies less than two hundred lines of a single book: the mortal Acis and the nymph Galatea are in love, but the cyclops Polyphemus (yes, that Polyphemus, the one from the <i>Odyssey</i>; he, like most everything else, also has a back-story) is in love with Galatea too. As these things go, Galatea rebukes him and Polyphemus, understandably upset, expresses his rage in the only way he knows how: he crushes Acis with a boulder. Ovid completes the metamorphic tale on a light note, where Galatea, in her grief, immortalizes her lover by turning him into a river. The story, the plot all imitate dozens of others in the work, enough so that it seems like this one was another in a series of filler material Ovid had prepared to pad his tome.
CD REVIEW Digital Primitives: Playing ‘Out’ with a Compass
The world of free jazz can be a harsh place, a radical, norm-destroying battleground, with the players, in their attempt to create something original, spending a lot of time focusing on tearing down the old. All that chopping and carving and shaping can turn a collaboration into a pile of dust if you aren’t careful. The solution: focus on the basics.
CONCERT REVIEW Sonic Youth’s Relentless Rocking
Sixteen albums and twenty-seven years after the release of their first, self-titled studio album in 1982, Sonic Youth has made a career of wowing crowds all over the world in the promotion of their newest work. Last Sunday, Sonic Youth rocked the older crowd at Boston’s strangely arranged Wilbur Theater out of its argyle socks, and proved that having appeared in a tour video named <i>1991: The Year Punk Broke</i> does not prevent a band from contemporary greatness.
CONCERT REVIEW Falling Out of Love, Italian Style
Far more than being in love, falling out of love seems to be a popular topic of music. Various iterations of the break-up song have been written for nearly two thousand years and set to music for a far shorter time, never more cleverly and expressively than the Italian masters nearly five hundred years ago. The MIT Chamber Chorus provided a glimpse into the panoply of techniques and expositions of these musicians.
MOVIE REVIEW ★★ ½ / 4 After End of Time, Father and Son Follow ‘The Road’
Scrawled in spray paint, “Behold … the Valley of Slaughter” serves as an ominous warning before the director lowers his lens into the desolation of bleak hopelessness and human depravity. <i>The Road</i>, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name written by Cormac McCarthy (<i>No Country for Old Men</i>), focuses on an unnamed father (played by Viggo Mortensen) and his son (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they struggle for survival after a previous cataclysmic event wipes out most of the life on Earth. Those remaining must scrounge around for supplies as they encounter impending perils, such as dwindling health, the unforgiving elements, and cannibals. The father is driven to lead the pair to the coast, hoping there will be other “good people” like them.
MOVIE REVIEW ★★★ ½ / 4 ‘Red Cliff’ — An Epic of Chinese Philosophy
Blockbusters these days run on one platform. There are heroes and villains, honesty and deceit, escalating action and affection, and a grand purpose at stake. Flashback to the summer of 2008: America’s box-office triumph <i>The Dark Knight</i> was China’s record-breaking <i>Red Cliff</i>. The Joker could be Cao Cao, the power-hungry chancellor war-mongering in an otherwise content land. Batman and Harvey Dent could be Zhou Yu and Liu Bei, the morally righteous leaders trying to stop Cao Cao. The characters trick and threaten, manipulate romance, and the fate of Gotham City translates into the fate of the Chinese Kingdoms. There is really no point in concealing the ending: in either film, you learn that there is no winner or loser, but only a volatile society and uncertain peace. You might ask, then, what’s the point? No doubt, <i>Red Cliff</i> delivers the same edge-of-your-seat gutsy thrill and suspense <i>The Dark Knight</i> does, but this film’s unique value comes from its insight into a lasting Chinese school of culture and philosophy.
Rubino, Doyle Named CoSIDA Academic All-Americans for 2009–10
Alex F. Rubino ’10 and Brian P. Doyle ’11 were named as <i>ESPN The Magazine</i> College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-Americans. Both received All-NEFC accolades for their performances on the field and being named to the first team All-District for their success in the classroom last week. Rubino, a third-year starter, is receiving the award for the second time, this year on the first team, while Doyle finds his way onto the second team for the first time in his career.
Upcoming Athletics Weekend Will Showcase Winter Sports
MIT will be hosting an Athletics Weekend this weekend to emphasize Tech’s winter sports. Headlining the event will be the men’s and women’s basketball teams. The MIT basketball programs have been able to raise the school spirit and unite the student body, creating some much needed athletic buzz across campus.
Tech Sport Taekwondo Team Takes Second at ECTC Tournament Sunday
On Sunday, November 22, the MIT Sport Taekwondo team traveled to Princeton University to compete at the third Eastern Collegiate Taekwondo Conference (ECTC) tournament of the season. Despite the smaller roster compared to rivals Cornell and Brown, the MIT team, coached by Master Dan Chuang, took second at what was thus far the largest tournament in league history.
