CORRECTIONS
In last Tuesday’s issue, the interview with photographer Nora Vrublevska incorrectly stated that the print of the MIT boathouse was developed in a darkroom, when it was only printed in a darkroom. Also, the article stated images were inject printed, when they were inkjet printed. Vrublevska would also like to thank Jennifer Recklet Tassi, whose name was originally printed as Jennifer Recklet.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear President Reif, Acting Provost Schmidt, and Vice President Zuber:
When the artist’s brush catches the censor’s eye
One of the defining characteristics of art is its ability to affect people in strikingly different ways. Some might find a painting inspirational; others might find it poignant; still others might find it offensive. As the Supreme Court explained in Cohen v. California, “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.” This is particularly true when an artist attempts to push boundaries. A society dedicated to freedom of expression ought to welcome such work and the potential for thoughtful provocation that it offers. But when unorthodox art triggers controversy on the modern college campus, administrators often take dramatic measures to suppress it.
CORRECTIONS
The arts events calendar in Friday’s issue provided incorrect times for LSC’s Despicable Me 2. The showings were Friday and Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
MIT should divest from fossil fuels
4,000: The number of people confirmed killed by Typhoon Haiyan, perhaps the most powerful storm ever to make landfall.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Tuesday’s issue on MIT’s Athena clusters misstated the title of Jonathan D. Reed ’02 and neglected to include his middle initial and class year. He is the IS&T Special Liaison to the Students. The same article also listed the incorrect room number for an Athena cluster (37-332 is a cluster, not 36-332). Additionally, the Building 37 clusters have already closed permanently.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
In his letter to The Tech last Friday, Gregory Kravit ’15 presents our community with a profound challenge. He describes with gratitude hearing an MIT professor take a principled stance on financial ethics in research. But Gregory goes on to explain that his own education at MIT has not given him clear ways to think about the moral, ethical and societal context of the advanced technical work MIT is preparing him to do.
CORRECTIONS
The arts events calendar in Friday’s issue provided incorrect or incomplete information for four events. The Chamber Chorus concert occurred twice on Saturday, Nov. 16, at both 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. The Ellipsis Trio’s Boston performance was on Sunday, Nov. 17, not Saturday. Musical Theatre Guild’s Young Frankenstein performance on Sunday, Nov. 17 was at 2 p.m., not 12 p.m. Mariel Roberts’ performance on Thursday, Nov. 21 was at 8 p.m., not 7 p.m.
Mens et Manus … but what else?
I was waiting in line to pay for my food a few days ago when I overheard a conversation between two people whom appeared to be a professor and a researcher. They seemed to be catching up. Among other things, the researcher asked about a company in which the professor had some financial stake. Receiving a positive response, the researcher then asked if the professor ever receives any research money from said company. The researcher received a strong rebuke. The professor answered that he could not in good conscience advise a graduate student’s research while he had a financial interest in his or her work.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Tuesday’s issue incorrectly reported pin-up photography site SuicideGirls’ founding year as 2011. It was founded in 2001.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Friday’s issue on the Chancellor search mistakenly referred to President L. Rafael Reif as Rafael L. Reif. The same article also quoted Reif saying “he has to be a good educator” of a new Chancellor — the intent was rather “he or she.”
The deathbed of the Grand Old Party
On my 18th birthday, I registered to vote as a Republican. As a proud Massachusetts native, however, I naturally disagree with the party line on certain issues. Opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is one of them.
CORRECTIONS
The Arts Events calendar in Friday’s issue listed the incorrect date for the Folk Dancing with Live Electric Balkan Music event. It was on Sunday, Nov. 3, not Saturday.
Butt out
In a characteristically paternal fashion, late last month, the New York City Council raised the minimum age to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products. To purchase a pack or even an electronic cigarette, consumers must now be 21 years of age. The justification provided by the City Council rests on the claim that by making the purchase of tobacco nominally more difficult, fewer young people will start smoking in the first place. The data suggests the move might be effective, just like stop-and-frisk. Still, there is a fine line between maintaining public health and trampling on the individual rights of Americans, and the Bloomberg administration has again chosen to jump right across it.
The benefits of multilingual education
Language is a bridge between cultures as much as it is a tool for communication. The complex role of language has led to controversy over whether it is better to provide education in a minority language (a language spoken by the minority of a population) or simply educating students in the dominant language of a given region. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem: 20 percent of the population of the United States speak a language at home other than English, 56 percent of Europeans are bilingual, and it is believed that over half of the entire world’s population is bilingual.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Friday’s issue on the new variations of the biology General Institute Requirement misrepresented the content of 7.016. Despite the description in the course catalog, 7.016 teaches the same amount of biochemistry as the other biology GIRs.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I take strong exception to A. J. Edelman’s recent column on the shutdown and his view that “in the current liberal climate,” Democrats are being hypocritical and indulging in “whining,” while the President “refuses to even sit down and negotiate,” even so being “assigned absolutely no blame.”
CORRECTIONS
In an article from last Friday’s issue about the funding of the student humor magazine Voo Doo, an informal harassment complaint about recaptioned comics was mistakenly referred to as a “Title IX complaint,” and a subheading mistakenly said that the Undergraduate Assocation (UA) investigated whether the magazine had committed Title IX violations. The UA only discussed whether to continue funding the magazine. The article also incorrectly said that the Association of Student Activities (ASA) brought the complaint before the UA’s Finance Board (Finboard), when in fact Finboard, some of whose members are also part of the ASA, acted unilaterally.
CORRECTIONS
An article in Tuesday’s issue on HackMIT misstated Julian Ceipek’s name and did not specify which Olin College team he led. Ceipek was on the same team as Stephanie Northway.
‘Free speech for me but not for thee’
Imagine a scenario in which Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, as well as the presidency. In their haste to preempt the arrival of a newly elected senator they pen a bill that almost none of the legislators read. It is a massive tax cut with all sorts of measures that Democrats believe will hurt the middle class and the economy. The bill passes, but years later, before it is implemented, Democrats, who still believe that this tax cut will be economically harmful, ask for a one year delay in implementation. They pass a measure to keep the government funded with but one caveat—that there be a delay in the implementation for one year. Republicans refuse and the government shuts down, saying that Democrats are “holding the country hostage” and “acting like spoiled children because they didn’t get what they wanted.”