D’Amelio Released on $75K Bail
Joseph D’Amelio, the MIT Police Officer arrested for drug trafficking on Sat., March 14, has been released on $75,000 bail. He is under house arrest with electronic monitoring, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s spokesman Jake Wark.
Prosecutor: Siddiqui Faked Mental Illness
A federal prosecutor in Manhattan said on Thursday that two government psychiatrists had concluded that a Pakistani neuroscientist charged with trying to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan had been faking her symptoms of mental illness.
Bennie and Delano Want to Improve UA Communication and Transparency
Many of the items on the agenda of Undergraduate Association president-elect Michael A. Bennie ‘10 and vice president-elect Margaret K. Delano focus on improving UA transparency and fostering communication between students and the administration. <i>The Tech</i> sat down with Bennie and Delano to discuss their plans for office.
Bennie, Delano Elected UA President, VP
Michael A. Bennie ’10 and Margaret K. Delano ’10 were elected Undergraduate Association president and vice-president, respectively, in a landslide victory last week. Bennie and Delano garnered 919 first-place votes, nearly tripling the first-place vote count of runners-up Ryan W. Jackson ’10 and Thomas W. Hay ’10.
GSC To Hold Elections for 2009–2010 Officers
The following are excerpts from the platforms of each candidate in the 2009 2010 Graduate Student Council elections. There are currently no nominations for the position of secretary. The new officers will be elected during the GSC’s April General Council Meeting tomorrow, April 1, at 5:30 p.m. in Room 50-220. Additional nominations may be accepted during the meeting, but only current members of the GSC are eligible to vote. For each candidate’s full platform and for more information about the election, visit the GSC election website at <i>http://gsc.mit.edu/index.php/prog-init/officer-elections</i>.
Single-Stream Recycling To Be in All Dorms by April
Single-stream recycling will be operational in all dormitories by the end of April, according to MIT Facilities supervisor Jarrod V. Jones Sr.
Shorts (left)
They are an extremely odd couple — he is short and hyperactive, she is dour and shy. He believes in the power of the state and big interventions; she believes in a softer role for the state, guiding and prodding the market. Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel don’t even get along very well, aides to both leaders say. He has made fun of her accent in private meetings, the aides say, and she says he is self-centered and impetuous.
Shorts (right)
Facing fallen endowments and needier students, many colleges are looking more favorably on wealthier applicants as they make their admissions decisions this year.
First Khmer Rouge Trial Opens a Torture House Door
Testimony opened Monday at the first trial of a Khmer Rouge official, with a detailed description of the internal workings and methods of interrogation in the regime’s central torture house.
President Gives U.S. Automakers a Short Lifeline
President Barack Obama delivered an ultimatum to General Motors and Chrysler on Monday, telling them to adopt radical changes in short order or face bankruptcy — a move that came after a series of somber discussions in which he concluded that a controlled bankruptcy might be the best way to reorganize the two ailing auto giants.
No April Fool’s Storm This Year
8 a.m., March 31, 1997: Rain began falling in Boston with temperatures in the low 40s°F (5°C). A Nor’easter was rapidly developing off the coast and slowly drifting northeastward. The rain changed to all snow in Boston by noon, and by sunset an all-out blizzard had overspread much of New England. Temperatures hovered slightly below freezing, and with heavy snow and winds gusting over 50 mph, visibilities were reduced to near zero. The blizzard conditions and incredible snowfall rates of up to four inches per hour pounded Boston until the early afternoon of April Fool’s Day. Clouds and winds quickly diminished during the afternoon, and the sun set vibrantly on a white landscape. Logan recorded a whopping 25.4” of snow, making this storm the third snowiest in recorded meteorological history, displaced only by storms during the Februarys of ‘69 and ‘78 (remember those?).
Letters to the Editor
Gary, I wholeheartedly agree with you, specifically concerning the three main disadvantages of obtaining a PhD (narrow job market, esoteric skill set, drain on passion). I was interested by the statistics regarding America’s loss of domestic applicants and what specific steps Obama and his new administration have done to build-up its STEM research focus. (The recent reversal of Bush’ restrictive stem cell research policy is a good sign.)
Chan: A Strong Leader for the GSC
Tomorrow evening, Graduate Student Council representatives will vote in a contested election for GSC President for the first time in three years. From among the three candidates, Alex H. Chan stands out in his experience, vision, and dynamism, and we believe that Chan is the best person to lead the GSC in the coming year.
Too Big to Fail. Really?
The too big to fail gospel has an aura of conventional wisdom and self evident truth that makes it very hard to debate. It is, however, one of the key assumptions behind the massive government intervention we have been seeing since last year. If these financial institutions were not saved, or so goes the gospel, the entire worldwide financial system would have collapsed and all hell would have broken loose.
An Unconventional Election
The UA election is over, and all candidates who ran should be congratulated for their efforts. Participation in student government is a crucial part of campus life. When more people show interest in on-campus affairs, variety of opinions increases, and it’s more likely we’ll find effective solutions to our problems.
Unions Are Irrelevant
The Undergraduate Association Senate’s recent talks with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 615 have been sold as a way to join two entities in pursuit of a similar goal: administrative transparency on the pending budget cuts at MIT. Certainly, this is an admirable objective, but it’s really just a means to an end. A call for transparency in the budget just adds an extra layer of review in ensuring that the best items remain funded and the right items get cut.
CD REVIEW An Irish Band Releases Another Album
To be honest, I wasn’t going to pick up U2’s most recent effort, <i>No Line on the Horizon</i>. When I was looking at Billboard release listings for the month of March, U2’s name didn’t even stick out. Yet, their album cover did. I saw it in a magazine, but recognized it as something else: <i>Boden Sea, Uttwil</i>, or a time-lapse photograph of Lake Constance taken by my favorite photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto. I wasn’t sure how the use of the photograph could have anything to do with the content of the music, so I delved a little deeper.
CONCERT REVIEW A Romantic Journey
Time seems to get distorted in musical history. Somehow, the past two hundred years of music are still very much with us in many different ways. At the very basic, instrumental level, Mozart’s piano is different from the one we play today, Haydn’s horn is much more curmudgeonly and Bach took on the challenge of writing six suites for the curious new cello. But Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and even Beethoven were writing during the very beginning of the industrial revolution, at the very inception of a period of novel metallurgy and mass-produced instruments. And all of this changed the way instruments were made. The standards provided by the technologies of the industrial revolution made it possible to write for a body of instruments that extends almost through today.
CONCERT REVIEW French Fare and All That Jazz
One of these days, when the bipolar weather gods deem Boston worthy of some warmth and sun, take a stroll across the Charles and meander your way to Kenmore Square’s Petit Robert Bistro, where customers munch on tasty French bistro fare at relatively affordable prices. PRB recently started its live jazz Sundays with the arrival of the spring season. On a recent sunshine-filled weekend, a friend and I decided to check this out and came away with both stomachs and ears satisfied.
CONCERT REVIEW A Fraction of Wilco
Northampton’s Calvin Theatre transformed into a dark, intimate living room as Jeff Tweedy took the stage last Friday. In a characteristically happy mood, though more talkative than usual, Tweedy sounded up close and personal, his voice naked with only a guitar behind it. Bringing an arsenal of guitars with him (arced around him on stage), he smoothly switched between different guitars, evoking a soothing palette of sounds for his meticulous set list selections. Early in the set he mentioned that he looked through his archives to see what he played the last time he was at Calvin Theatre just to make sure he didn’t play the same song twice.
Japan Defeats S. Korea to Win Second World Baseball Classic
Last Monday night, Japan beat Korea 5-3 in extra innings in the final of this year’s World Baseball Classic, defending its WBC title and bringing a fitting end to what sounds like such a great idea: bring teams from sixteen countries around the world together and have them go head-to-head in a grand tournament of America’s pastime, promoting national pride and giving the sport more exposure domestically and abroad…
MIT Sport Taekwondo Takes First Overall at Nat’l Championships
The MIT Sport Taekwondo team, coached by head instructor Dan Chuang and led by captains Corinna Hui ’09 and Christopher J. Han ’09, competed against the nation’s best teams at the National Collegiate Taekwondo Association (NCTA) Championships at Brown University on March 21st and 22nd. Although MIT was outnumbered by a large team from Brown (MIT: 40; Brown: 64), MIT still prevailed, capturing first place, and beating out Brown University by the slimmest margin of two points to win the overall National Collegiate title.
MIT Pistol Team Takes Third Place at Nationals, Behind 2 Military Colleges
The MIT pistol team captured third place overall at this year’s NRA Collegiate Pistol Championships, placing behind first place United States Military Academy (West Point) and second place United States Naval Academy. Two team members, Michelle C. Ma ’10 and Fuzhou Hu ’09, also took spots on 2009 Collegiate All-American teams. The national championships were held March 16-20 at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Michigan St., Connecticut, Villanova, North Carolina Make Up NCAA Final Four
After a week and a half of March Madness, the regional champions have been decided. The 2009 NCAA Final Four consists of Michigan State, Connecticut, Villanova, and North Carolina – here’s a summary of how they got here.
Brouhaha Rhythm
The extent to which one could consider me an avid video gamer depends a great deal on your definition of “avid.” On the one hand, I know the difference between Ico and Ecco, and I always invert the Y-axis on my controller. On the other hand, I’ve never played a Final Fantasy game, and survival horror gives me the heebie-jeebies. (I have weak nerves and weak aim — sue me.) I also try to keep up with what games are being released, so I guess that counts for something, although my laptop isn’t quite on par with what is required to play most of these newfangled computer games.
Ramblings From Hell
I have always had vivid dreams. As a child, my dreams would sometimes be so vibrant that I could not separate them from reality. I would insist to my mother that I had done something, get angry because I had dreamed something was in one place and in real life it wasn’t there, or I would be convinced that certain things had happened to me when they really did not. Man vs. dream: the story of my life.
Talk Nerdy To Me
I just got back from West Virginia. Whenever I’m home and run into a high school friend (which always seems to happen at Wal-Mart), I always ask 3 questions: who’s married?, who’s engaged?, and the big one: who’s pregnant? At least ten of my high school friends are pregnant or already have children. The scary thing is that most of them are my age, and I’m just turning 20 today. After spending time with a friend’s baby, I couldn’t help but wonder if I want kids.
