Jesse Watson '06 was elected President, and Monica Arduini '06 Vice-President, in the WSA elections last week for the '05-'06 academic year. Five days of voting last week also yielded class representatives for '06, '07, and '08. Watson beat the other Presidential candidate, Arijit Sen '07, by a close margin, with 523 votes compared to Sen's 495. "Arijit did very little advertising, it was mostly word of mouth," Watson said.
Rainy weather on Saturday didn't stop the Buttstock festival, which included a barbecue, student bands, demonstrations, guest speakers, T-shirts, and plenty of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. "[Buttstock] was awesome last year, just because it wasn't raining and there was a better turnout," said Alon Hafri '07. "I'm a little disappointed, but I'm surprised there's this many people here."
For many students at Wesleyan, North Korea is only known as a repressive society that has been arbitrarily designated as a member of the Axis of Evil. On Thursday evening, Helie Lee went beyond this formulaic view in her lecture by describing the human anguish suffered by her family as a result of the brutal reign of Kim Jong Il. Lee personified the suffering of North Koreans by retelling her first encounter with an uncle caught on the wrong side of the Yalu River.
Middletown Mayor Domenique Thornton visited state officials on Monday, Apr. 18 to reiterate her opposition to the creation of an adult jail on the Connecticut Valley Hospital campus, located off of route nine's exit 12. The proposed site for the jail is the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a high-security center for boys, which may close imminently.
Over spring break a group of twelve Jewish students, five Muslim students and the Jewish and Muslim Chaplains traveled to Turkey on an interfaith trip designed to stimulate discussion about religion and politics. The group left Mar. 6 and visited both Istanbul, regarded as the country’s cultural capital, and Ankara, the political capital. The endeavor was the brainchild of Muslim Chaplain Imam Abdullah T. Antepli, and Jewish Rabbi David Leipziger.
Three people who had recently returned from western Sudan spoke during Saturday's Darfur awareness event at First Christ Church in Middletown. The speakers included Visiting Instructor of Arabic Yasir Hamed, Catholic Relief Services humanitarian worker Scott Schaffer-Duffy, and an asylum-seeking refugee from Darfur. They all gave first-hand accounts of the turmoil and political instability they witnessed in the Darfur region of Sudan.
When listing the sports offered at Wesleyan, equestrianism is probably not the first one that comes to mind. But the little-known and little-funded Wesleyan Equestrian Team, WET for short, has a lot to brag about, especially after sweeping the top two spots at the regional finals of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) held at the University of Connecticut this season.
This week’s campus celebrity is Joe McGuire. We talked about a variety of things—from cereal to serial [killers]. Have you ever thought girls are like Lucky Charms or Corn Pops? Have you been confronted by a serial killer? This guy has done it all. Best of all, he knows how to make fun of himself. And he has some funny WesStories to tell. He is a classic example of how first impressions can be lasting ones.
On the wespeaks page of this paper on Friday, the WSA made clear their efforts to publicize and clarify their recent work. With voting turnout still under 50 percent, WSA members dropping out of the committee in high numbers, and not enough representatives from the Class of 2006 to even fill the allotted space, though, it seems clear that transparency is not all that is needed.
Let's face facts here. Graduations are a bore. It doesn't matter who is speaking at the graduation, it's always dull for the students graduating and only halfway interesting to the people attending. Graduation speakers tend to say the most cliche phrases about beginning new phases of your lives, blah, blah, blah, you are the leaders of the future, blah blah. Those speeches all start to resemble classroom lectures after a while, which invariable leads graduates to wonder if they are even really leaving school at all.
Yesterday my boyfriend and I broke up. We did it lying down on the grass between Fountain and Pine Street. The whole time, my eyes were fixed on this weird little shack in middle of the courtyard. On the side of the shack two things are written in graffiti: the word "DUMB" scrawled violently over a heart, and then words "GOODBYE HOME." In middle of breaking up, a strange voice repeated something one of us had just said. "There are layers to everything."
The liberal arts college, as a bastion of uncensored thought and engaged discourse, is often portrayed as the purveyor of social hope and liberation, as a Socratic gadfly to a lethargic and provincial populace. It remains, however, in act if not in name, a stalwart participant in one of this country's greatest misconceptions, namely, in its attitude toward alcohol.
If Wesleyan University's professor, Cecilia Miller, knew what I did today, she would be floored. Today I celebrated the 400th anniversary of the publishing of Miguel Cervantes' "Don Quixote." And, if you are anything like my younger sister, you are probably shaking your head and thinking: this kid needs to get out more. As a student in Professor Miller's Intellectual History Class, I was forced to read the 988 pages of "Don Quixote."
"Che is dead, and so is his relevance," proclaims Sacha Feinman in last Friday's Argus. Sacha makes the excellent point that a healthy movement must develop new strategies and tactics. But his willingness to reject decades of anti-imperialist experience is just another example of the shortsightedness he laments.
"Che is dead, and so is his relevance," proclaims Sacha Feinman in last Friday’s Argus. Sacha makes the excellent point that a healthy movement must develop new strategies and tactics. But his willingness to reject decades of anti-imperialist experience is just another example of the shortsightedness he laments.
It disheartens me that for the second year in a row the Argus has either chosen not to or failed to cover in its reporting Mabuhay, one of Wesleyan's most significant and well-attended events of the year - and certainly one of the highlights of [April] Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
As a graduate student and teacher at Yale, where our anti-union administration's refusal to recognize our union has forced us out on strike this week, I write to express my support for and solidarity with the Aramark workers of Local 217 ("Tentative agreement reached with Aramark and workers," 4/19). Keep up the good fight!
With all respect to Miriam Gottfried's weekly Restaurant Review, I feel that I must disagree with her last (generally unfavorable) review of Fiore II on Main Street. In my opinion, Fiore II is a fine Italian restaurant that is extremely, almost unfairly affordable, compared to places that provide food of comparable quality. Of course, Miriam is a critic and it is her job to be a critical culinary judge, but, as with all critics, I think we should question the authority of Miriam's opinion.
Passover is the holiday celebrating the Jews’ exodus from slavery in Egypt, which you would know, if you weren’t such a stupid idiot. I am supposed to tell you about Passover because apparently you are an idiot who doesn’t know anything. Every year, Jews get together on Passoverand have dinner. That is called a seder. Did you seriously not know that? Oh my God. What an idiot!
Two Jews, a Catholic, a Unitarian, a Protestant, and an atheist walk into a newspaper office. "Let's make fun of Passover this week," says the atheist. The Catholic says, "I'll do it if the Pope says I should." The Protestant shrugs and says, "I'll do it if the Pope is against it." "Well, I don't know," says the Unitarian. "All religious beliefs are equally valid expressions of the universal love spirit." Turning to the Jews, she asks, "What do you guys think?"
Yes, Passover. I'm sure it's very exciting. And I hope you all have fun. But in case you were too busy eating your matzah, something important actually happened here in the real world: a new Pope was installed. And it was totally awesome. And so, partially in celebration of the new Pope, partially because I am bitter that I have to study for my comps instead of getting drunk at a Seder, and partially because the world can never have too many Catholic school girls, I've decided a polemic is in order.
In today's world of presumed racial and religious egalitarianism, where the segregating injustices of the past have been wiped out by the gyrations of white girls' bu-donk-a-donks and the Rastafarian rap skills of a Chasidic Jew (his name is Matisyahu, and his Hebrew is more off the hook than foreskin is off his schlong), one can easily believe that ethnic oppression is a thing of the past.
So one time, the Jews were being oppressed in Egypt, much like your Jewish hall/housemates are oppressed today. Then Moses, who hadn't even had to build pyramids because he got pulled out of the Amazon by Pharaoh when he was a baby, decided to use his white guilt and privilege to be a hero. So Moses called in a favor from God, and dude brought 6 plagues on the Egyptians, which the Jews were somehow protected from.
There are intimidating colors, and then there's purple. Athletic directors at Amherst and Williams are cursing the day they ever chose such a pansy color scheme, as the men's lacrosse team captured the Little Three title by beating both teams of purple-clad clowns. After beating Amherst 10-8 last week, the Cards went on to dominate Williams 7-5 at home on Saturday.
With its most impressive outing in nearly four years, the Wesleyan golf team placed ahead of four teams in the competition at Williams. The Cards received several solid individual performances this past Friday, led by senior Adam Stone, who accomplished the unthinkable as he shot a 79 to lead the squad, and junior captain Hal Tift, who shot 83. With a team score of 338, the Cards showed remarkable improvement over previous years as all four members managed to break 90 strokes.
An important three-game series for the baseball team against division rival Middlebury was cut short due to inclement weather on Saturday. Before the rains came, Wesleyan was inundated by a Panther offensive attack that accumulated 13 hits en route to a 9-1 rout of the visiting Cardinals.
After a rough start in a cold and rainy first half, the women's lacrosse team was able to briefly scare the Polar Bears of Bowdoin. But then, the defense softened, and Bowdoin was able to sneak by 11-9. The loss continues a four-game losing skid and puts their playoff hopes into serious doubt.
The men's and women's crew teams were handily defeated by Trinity on Saturday at Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Mass. Having trained throughout the spring, the general consensus among the Cardinals is that the Trinity Bantams are simply a dynamite team. "In my four years as the men's varsity coxswain, I have not come across a more dominant boat than this year's Trinity varsity eight," said David Wyant '05.
Six members of the men's track team and one woman finished in first place at Saturday's Little Three meet in Amherst, as the men's team finished second and the women placed third. Matt Moss '05 led the way for the Cardinals, finishing first in the 800m race (1:57.33), less than one second ahead of the second place finisher, Nik Gavelis '08 (1:58.17).