Get Out and Vote!
Every member of the MIT community should have an interest in next Tuesday’s municipal elections. While there is a lot of interest in the Boston mayoral race and this winter’s U.S. senatorial race to replace Ted Kennedy, it’s much harder to find information about the candidates running for office here in Cambridge. Cambridge had a particularly poor voter turnout of under 14,000 (around a quarter of registered voters) in the last municipal elections, held in 2007. If you’re registered to vote in Cambridge, it’s your job to make your voice heard and cast your ballot for School Committee and City Council. Remember: think globally, act locally.
Schrödinger’s Cat May Be Dead, but Your Love Life Is Not
“But isn’t it true that 80 percent of MIT students graduate as virgins?”
Corrections
An article last Friday about proposed cuts to MIT pension plans misstated the fundamental relationship between MIT’s defined benefit and defined contribution plans. MIT employees need not choose one or the other, they receive both.
I Wish I WereYour Derivative So I Could Lie Tangent to Your Curves
With pickup lines like this article’s title, I can’t see why anyone would be surprised at the major finding of <i>The Tech</i>’s sex survey: 42 percent of MIT students are virgins, as opposed to a national college average of 20–25 percent. Why might this be? According to the survey, 30 percent of virgins said that it was their choice. Right. Come on, every MIT student out there who thinks of sex purely in terms of biological processes and, hence, is clueless, is going to say it’s their “choice.” There should have been an option on the survey that said “I haven’t had sex yet because I still have to take 7.012 (Intro to Biology).”
UA Update
Senate met on Monday, October 26 and started with Barbara Baker, Senior Associate Dean for Students, as a special guest. Dean Baker was interested in ways to communicate better with students, discussed ways to improve Student Life online resources such as the Student Support Services website, and detailed the work of the Deans on Call program. The UA Senate passed 41 U.A.S. 2.1: Bill to Decrease the Minimum Meeting Requirement, which allows for flexibility in scheduling Senate meetings due to long weekends. Senate will be meeting again on Monday, November 2.
Viewpoints
The Tech interviewed students in Lobby 7 on Monday, Oct. 26 about their viewpoints on sex at MIT.
A Teachable Moment: Reflections on The President’s Visit to MIT
Friday was a typical MIT day. Typical in a very special sense: MIT showed the President of the United States what goes on here every day. But it often takes extraordinary events like a Presidential visit (or some equivalent unplanned crisis/opportunity) for those of us who work here to recognize the full power and capacity of the Institute. Friday was such a day and it is worth reflecting on why this event took place here, how the community mobilized to organize the visit on six days notice, and what we learned about ourselves in the process.
Obama at MIT
Amidst the concrete barricades blocking off Amherst Alley, snipers on the Z-Center, the motorcade hustling past our dorms on Memorial Drive, and of course, the Presidential podium in Kresge, it’s easy to forget that Barack Obama came to MIT to deliver a message. It may not have been a very profound message, nor something we haven’t heard before, but since it happened here its worthwhile to think about and ask: What did the President tell us? Perhaps more importantly: What <i>didn’t</i> he tell us?
A Defense of State Capitalism
Recently, the well-known liberal filmmaker Michael Moore released his new movie, <i>Capitalism: A Love Story</i>. As the sarcastic title suggests, this movie was produced in an effort to portray the American capitalist system as an illogical system that is based on an emotional attachment rather than reasoning. It blames capitalism for the recent economic collapse, skyrocketing unemployment, and widespread suffering in general. As a solution, Moore advocates socialism. No surprises there.
Corrections
A May 4, 1999 article about notable MIT alumni incorrectly said that Eastman Kodak Company founder George Eastman was an MIT alumnus. Although a George L. Eastman graduated from MIT in 1870, he is not the same as the George Eastman who founded Eastman Kodak. The Eastman who founded Kodak is of course the same one who contributed over $20 million in cash and stock to MIT in the first two decades of the 20th century; his gifts, mostly made in the name of “Mr. Smith,” helped MIT build its Cambridge campus. He did not attend college. A reader recently pointed out this error.
Letters to the Editor
The list of Nobel Peace Prize laureates includes some amazing forces for good, but as Justin Cannon correctly pointed out in an letter on Friday, some awards have been far more dubious. I am displeased to see Mother Teresa go without mention in Cannon’s summary of less-than-deserving winners. Her “work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress” (to quote the Nobel committee’s justification for her award) is largely misunderstood. She did not help cure the poor. She did not help the sick of India. All she did was provide rudimentary beds for the dying.
The Changing Face of Economics
Last week, the Nobel Prize in economics went to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson ’55, both non-theoretical economists. This spurred significant interest in the blogosphere due to the unconventionality of the recipients’ backgrounds. It is therefore worthwhile to consider their research in the context of the current economic landscape — this may help explain why Ostrom and Oliver in particular were chosen. Furthermore, because Ostrom is actually not an economist, but a political scientist, the judges have encouraged suggestions to change how we view the economics category.
Nobel Prize Simply Not Worth the Fuss
President Obama didn’t deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. We get it. A big thanks to Erasmus K. zu Ermgassen for regurgitating once more the week-long pat-on-the-back the media has been giving itself. “Look at us,” they seem to be saying. “We’re controversial. We can say bad things about Obama.” Fox News is, of course, in the corner wondering what all the fuss is about, slightly jealous that others are stealing his gig.
Letters to the Editor
It seems everyone is excited for President Obama’s visit to MIT today. Or should I call him Barack Hussein Obama, <i>de facto</i> President?
UA Update
Senate met on Monday, October 19 to discuss three pieces of legislation. Senate passed 41 U.A.S. 2.2: Resolution to Continue Transparency and Representation throughout the Institute-wide Planning Process, which seeks to continue undergraduate involvement in the ongoing budget reduction process. On a larger scale, this is part of a push for an increase in undergraduate involvement in Institute decision-making processes.
Condoms, Canoes, and Drunken Argentinean Men
Taxes, a necessary evil of our society, represent the means by which we fund our government. Or rather, the way our government charges us for its bills. Did you know that the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which established the income tax, was supposed to be temporary? Did those who ratified this amendment really think that the government would cut off funding to itself?
Letters to the Editor
MIT’s favorite individual donor, Jeffry Picower, is likely soon to be bankrupted. The Madoff Trustee Irving Picard has a $7.2 billion clawback suit against him (his lawyer has already said he’s ready to make a deal), and it’s likely the IRS will have big claims too, because Picower got billions in phony tax loss statements from Madoff.
The Brilliant and the Dangerous Ideas of The Institute-Wide Planning Task Force
One of the best characteristics of MIT is the freedom the Institute offers to its students. Of course, we all have to satisfy the GIRs, but from sports to UROPs, MIT students have options. In harsh economic times, when we must cut back, do we have to cut back by reducing these options?