Bring the U.S. out of the Dark Ages
Every four years, the United Nations undertakes a review of member nations’ human rights situations. The United States was recently evaluated, and one conspicuous recommendation was that the country abolish the death penalty.
Mankind is made for giving
Our society is provided with numerous examples of high-profile individuals who give a great deal. Among businesspeople, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet first come to mind. Among singers, Bono is arguably the most visible face of philanthropy. Yet they are not alone: countless other businesspeople, singers, actors, and actresses join them in making substantial gifts to charity with the hope of helping others.
UA UPDATES & ANSWERS
Last Wednesday, at the Exec meeting at Senior House, there was a strong discussion on summer housing. The general student input favored more available student summer housing at the respective dorms, especially when space and money permits. Following that was a more thorough discussion on Kendall Square changes and renovations. Various ideas, from grocery stores, boutiques, and coffee shops to live music, event space, and internship offices for startups or UROPs were presented. The UA continues to seek students who are interested in joining a committee that discusses the future of Kendall Square. Please e-mail ua@mit.edu if you are interested.
The President’s balancing act
SATURDAY, NOV. 6: President Obama arrives in Mumbai, India. Down the Air Force One jet ladders, he and his wife wave and smile. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh greets the president and first lady. Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan gives Obama a memento, Michelle a bouquet. Hands shake hands. Obama and his wife are led to the Taj Hotel where they will stay the first day of the ten-day visit in Asia.
SURVEY ANALYSIS Political preferences by gender
During the week of October 25, The Tech surveyed 2,145 graduate and undergraduate students, or nearly 20 percent of the student population at MIT, about their political views. On Election Day, November 2, we published a breakdown of some of the more interesting results, and promised to publish more in the coming weeks. Conspicuously absent from our original analysis was a gender breakdown, which is presented here.
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?