CORRECTIONS
A Feb. 1 article incorrectly stated that the total applications received by MIT for the Class of 2016 increased by 1 percent from the previous year. MIT received 18,088 total applications this year, a 5.84 percent increase from the 17,090 applications received last year.
CORRECTIONS
A correction that ran on January 25 gave the class year of C. Scott Ananian as ’07. He received a PhD in 2007, not a bachelor’s.
Don’t let ‘Charlie’ get stranded!
Over the past few years, the MBTA has made great strides in reducing costs and improving service, making Boston’s system the envy of other Northeast cities. However, Forward Funding legislation, which requires the MBTA to borrow against future revenue to pay for capital projects, is dedicating increasing fractions of the annual operating budget to interest payments. This benefits no one except capital markets that are collecting interest on the debt. No amount of fare increases or service cuts can solve the MBTA’s deficit alone.
GOP Primaries take an interesting turn
Something happened in South Carolina last weekend that few people expected. While many figured that current frontrunner Mitt Romney would have difficulty in South Carolina, most people, including myself, did not expect the results to be this shocking. In a stunning turn of events, Newt Gingrich placed first in the South Carolina primary with 40.4 percent of the vote, far ahead of Romney who placed second with 27.8 percent of the vote.
KEEP PRAYING, SANTORUM
I’m glad to see that none of the critics took the recently released movie, Machine-Gun Preacher, seriously. The premise of the movie is, “You may not fear God, but you best fear Sam Childers.” Sam Childers, played by Gerard Butler, is the ex-con turned missionary turned warrior-of-God, finding himself in war-torn Sudan, saving orphans from warlords by gunning them down with AK-47s, Rambo-style. Had the director been Sylvester Stallone, or even Quentin Tarantino, I’d know what to expect: an action-packed movie of odd with crazy wrapped in great. But Machine-Gun Preacher takes itself seriously in its mission to save African children, unfortunately, through the eyes of a Spartan muscleman. The movie’s contexts of somber Sudan, and style of Yosemite Sam-showdown, disagree, making the film a recipe for a wreck.
Romney vs. Obama
The 2012 political horse race hasn’t disappointed so far. We currently have Mitt Romney (the “moderate”), Ron Paul (the “libertarian”), Newt Gingrich (the “Newt”), Rick Santorum (the “true” conservative), and Rick Perry (the “if-elected-President-I-would-reinvade-Iraq”).
CORRECTIONS
An inshort that ran on January 11th stated incorrectly that La Verdes is open until midnight during IAP. They close at 11 p.m.
Romney is the nominee
In October, State of the Race declared Mitt Romney the heavy favorite to become the Republican 2012 candidate for president of the United States. Since then, much has changed in the Republican field, but the most important change is this: Mitt Romney is no longer the heavy favorite to become the Republican nominee; he is the prohibitive favorite. His polling numbers against other candidates, his polling numbers against Obama, his institutional support, his campaign funding, his superior organization, his wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, and the political positioning and messaging of his campaign have given him a virtual lock on the nomination.
CORRECTIONS
A Dec. 9 Campus Life article about coffee facts plagiarized from several online sources. Some of the wording found in this article is identical to content from cocoajava.com, cofei.com, and bp.com, though this list is not necessarily exclusive; there is no clear original source of this content. These sources are not credited in the article. Other facts in this article very closely follow the structure of coffee facts presented in a webcomic on theoatmeal.com, which is also not credited.
Reflections from the campaign trail
“It was just before midnight when I left Cambridge and headed north on U.S. 93 toward Manchester … back on the Campaign Trail …” So began Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary coverage of the New Hampshire primary in “Fear and Loathing,” the 1972 Rolling Stone essay that changed political journalism forever.
EDITORIAL Towards further engagement
Student-administration relations have seen progress this year. We’ve taken particular notice of Chancellor Eric Grimson PhD ’80’s efforts to foster more frank discussion between students and the administration, and those efforts should be lauded. However, substantial work remains to restore a sense of trust and partnership, and to build a shared vision of a better MIT.
Why the Occupy movement failed
Sparking up all over the world, the Occupy movement was one of the most popular trends of the second half of 2011. Starting with Occupy Wall Street, the movement soon spread to more than 95 cities around the globe. Before getting to its shortcomings, let’s first reexamine what the Occupy movement really is.
Google and others cyber-arming protesters
As I surfed the web exploring the Internet’s role in the Arab Spring for a cyber politics class, I stumbled upon the website . The site’s homepage immediately grabbed my attention with a large advertisement for a “How to Bypass Internet Censorship” guide. Not typical of the average political blog, I decided to investigate further. I was amazed to find Google-owned YouTube, CBS News, Pepsi, MTV, Facebook, MSNBC, and National Geographic listed as sponsors of the site. Moreover, the co-founder of Movements.org is Jared Cohen, the current Director of Google Ideas.
CORRECTIONS
An article published last Friday on Nightline misquoted Isabella S. Lubin ’12 as saying, “but often we feel that students should reach out to peers as a first step.” Lubin actually said, “but often we feel that students might want to reach out to peers as a first step.” The same article misquoted Tzipora R. Wagner ’12 as saying, “students won’t always need to go to a doctor or psychologist first.” Her comment was actually “students won’t always need to go to a doctor or psychologist.” This article also incorrectly listed Nightline’s hours as 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. — they are actually 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
No bang for your buck
At long last, MIT finally has a real dining plan. As all of you should know, unless you’ve lived under a rock all semester, MIT has finally revamped the old dining protocol, so we no longer have to pay absurd a la carte prices for meager portions, chosen from a limited selection. We now get to eat all we care to! It’s a shining beacon in the midst of the darkness that is vicious time crunches and carnivorous problem sets.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE: The headline for this letter, “SCEP does not make policy,” is ambiguous. UA SCEP is involved with making education-related policy at MIT, but not the specific end-of-term policies referenced in this letter.