Abolish the Electoral College
A new poll from Gallup confirms once again the widespread support for amending the Constitution to provide for presidential election by popular vote. For those unacquainted with the issue, in the United States, the president is not elected by direct popular vote. Rather, the framers of the Constitution saw fit to create a college of electors, appointed and regulated by their respective state legislatures, to choose the president by majority vote. While the procedure for the selection of electors has been modified in the intervening 200 years — for example, electors are now nominated by state political parties and elected on Election Day — the gist is largely the same. Currently, 48 states and Washington D.C. allocate their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis; only Maine and Nebraska delegate part of their votes on a district-by-district basis.
ON CAMPUS REVIEW A tumultuous year could be a new beginning
2011 was a big one for MIT students, particularly in the realm of student government. Depending on who you ask, there was some combination of victories and defeats resulting in the implementation of the long-fought dining plan, the dissolution of the Undergraduate Association (UA) Senate by itself and simultaneous creation of the UA Council, and the appointment of a new Chancellor, Eric Grimson PhD ’80, which gave hope for renewed trust in student-faculty relations.
EDITORIAL Focus on what’s important
Being an MIT student gives you a voice that few other people have. Like it or not, the MIT name makes you a representative of modern science and engineering. It’s no small secret that the world turns to MIT for its understanding of science, technology and related policy — just pick up the science section of the New York Times for proof. We’re not exaggerating, then, when we say that the pulse of MIT’s campus has a substantial effect on the world beyond the Institute.
2012 an opportunity for renewed diplomacy
To say that 2011 was a momentous year in international affairs would be a grand understatement. The past twelve months have been a potent testament to tenacity, to willpower, to rebirth, and to change.
The problems with the presidents
The Tech has covered the extremely high rate of attrition in the Undergraduate Association (UA) previously, with Senators and members of Exec resigning in droves. In fact, this was one factor that drove the UA to restructure itself this past semester, in hopes of preventing such large-scale resignations in the future. It is ironic that the first individual to resign under the newly formed government is the UA President (UAP) himself, who spent the fall working on the solution.
Sound and fury, signifying nothing
In his brief campaign for the presidency, Rick Perry uttered quite a bit of nonsense. Between the numerous debate gaffes, the self-contradiction of his hard-money populism, and, in his desperate endgame, the obscene groping for the support of social conservatives, Texas Rick was an inestimable source of I-winced-so-hard-I-laughed-style humor. I thought he was just as entertaining as Steve Carell’s character on The Office…so long as I could avoid stumbling over a grim reminder that Mr. Perry was running for real-life leader of the free world, not running a paper company in an NBC sitcom.
Sensitivity for Cynthia
Recently Cynthia Nixon, one of the stars on Sex in the City, has been under fire among the lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities for saying that she had chosen to be gay, as she noted in an New York Times interview:
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.