Dining changes a long time coming
In 2007 the Institute convened a Blue Ribbon Committee to study dining at MIT. Last spring, the students and faculty Housemasters of the House Dining Advisory Group (HDAG) issued their final recommendation for a new dining program in the residences with dining halls. And last week, the director of Campus Dining issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to food service companies to operate this system.
MIT – poetry = a travesty
Ever felt out of words? Been so angry you went mute? Been in love?
Letters to the Editor
In his November 2, 2010 Opinion piece “The intimate civic duty,” Russell Rodewald misuses a Guttmacher Institute statistic — that half of women having abortions used contraception in the month they became pregnant — to make the claim that birth control is ineffective in preventing unintended pregnancies and abortion. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the statistic.
Derail high speed rail
We all have policy crushes. For Republicans it’s ending earmarks — you can point out a million times how inconsequential earmarks are in the grand scheme of the federal budget, but if your audience is John Boehner or Tom Coburn, you might as well be speaking to a wall. For myself, it’s nuclear power — so what if natural gas is currently so cheap that nuclear has no practical hope of being economical? It’s the principle of the thing, and the principle of nuclear power is that it’s the sexiest way of generating electric charges ever conceived by man.
A good answer
Firefighters, this article is for you. Thank you for coming to our dorms nearly every week to say, “Hi.” Thank you for the forced study-breaks. And thank you for making sure we are all safe. In return, we voted to keep your jobs intact. The defeat of Question 3 ensured this.
TEAL is a step in the wrong direction
More controversial than Obamacare and Lady Gaga’s meat dress combined, TEAL (Technology-Enhanced Active Learning) has been the education choice of MIT’s intro-level physics courses for nearly a decade. The program pioneered a new way of learning physics, a glittering Shangri-la away from the abstract equations and faceless 300-plus person lectures, and into a more intimate setting, focusing on hands-on evaluation of physical principles. At its inception, TEAL faced criticism from students (who petitioned to keep it out of the school) and professors alike, a trend which continued as it moved from the experimental stages to widespread usage. A recent <i>Tech</i> article sang TEAL’s praises; allow my commentary to be the antithesis to that article.
A fundamental right for women
For as long as the United States government has existed, it has been shirking a critical moral obligation. We are talking, of course, about our nation’s failure to protect the right of every woman to receive an affordable abortion on demand.
HDAG fails to represent
The resignation last week of UA representative to the House Dining Advisory Group underscores its shortcomings. HDAG members have repeatedly defended the current dining plan by pointing to student input throughout the process, with the students on HDAG often being some of its loudest supporters (see this issue’s letter to the editor, “Misrepresentation of student HDAG members” by three house presidents).
The intimate civic duty
The Declaration of Independence states that man is endowed by his Creator the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This recognition of universal, sacred, and unalienable rights defines us as the American people and dictates what functions the state should provide. Further, the Declaration orders these rights: without life one cannot exercise liberty, and without liberty one cannot pursue happiness.
The case for Iran: moving toward mutual diplomacy
Both the historic diplomatic accomplishments that took place this spring between Brazil, Turkey, and Iran and this summer’s imposition of strict economic sanctions upon the latter nation signal a dire need for a new diplomatic strategy between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The fundamental right to life
In his article “Abortion: A question of values,” Keith Yost arrives at the conclusion that an embryo is a human life and has a right to life, but that the mother’s right to liberty may supersede the embryo’s right to life. We find his logic deeply flawed, and condemn the fundamental disregard for human life introduced by the application of relativism to human rights.<b></b>
Don’t vote!
Your vote doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. You can do the math yourself — imagine a close House race in which each voter has a 51 percent chance of voting for one candidate, 49 percent for another, and around 300,000 voters are expected to turn out. What are the chances that the marginal vote matters, i.e. without your input, the race would split exactly 150,000 to 150,000?
Letters to the Editor
I read your article about the redevelopment of the 181 Mass. Ave. Analog Devices by Novartis with great interest. This site had a sophisticated microfabrication facility that easily could have been transformed into a new nanofabrication facility for MIT’s use. Having a state of the art nanofabrication facility is essential to achieve excellence in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
Why TEAL works
In the years leading up to 2000, the MIT Physics Department realized it had a problem. Despite great lecturers such as Walter Lewin, attendance at physics lectures fell 40 percent by the end of the term. In addition, an average of 10 percent of students failed 8.01 (Mechanics) and 14 percent of students failed 8.02 (Electricity and Magnetism). So MIT did what it does best: It solved the problem.
The strength of the Latino vote
The political stage has been tarnished, and the politicians greased up by the yearlong mudslinging. Mean words have been exchanged. Feelings were hurt. Losers will go home crying. This is better than ESPN — this is politics at its dirtiest. Incumbent Democratic Senator Harry Reid will face off against the menacing newcomer Republican and Tea Partier Sharron Angle in the upcoming Nevada Senate race.
Letters to the Editor
I was pleasantly surprised the other day to find that the Smoot marks on the Harvard Bridge had been repainted. Some markings died off (3OH!3 which popped up last year didn’t last) while other clever new ones like the “214 Smoots” mark appeared. Also, an unappealing bit of vandalism near the 60 Smoots mark has been kindly painted over. However, as I was walking to class, a few things stuck out to me. All the characters had rough outlines, the font and size was wildly varied, and instead of an interesting variation of yellow, purple, and green markings, there were simply three blocks of a single color along the bridge. By the time I reached campus, I was slightly disappointed to find myself thinking that the repainting of the Smoots had been done with less care than in the past.
MIT Investment Management Company disregards the City of Cambridge
<i>Editor’s note: This was an open letter was addressed to MIT President Susan Hockfield.</i>