Danny Forster ’99 just finished filming his first season as host of the Discovery Channel show "Extreme Engineering," which took him all over the world to visit the sites of exciting design and construction projects. "The show is very comedy-based," Forster said. "It’s very much about my experience on the site."
The Board of Trustees approved a five percent increase in tuition for the 2006-2007 school year this weekend, which brings the tuition cost to $34,630. Coupled with an eight percent increase in the average cost of a room and a five percent increase in board, the overall base cost to students next year will be at least $44,384.
The Group for Independent Analysis, a think tank founded by four Wesleyan seniors, unveiled its first major project this week. Its website, beyondpartisan.org, is dedicated to open, independent "town hall" discussion of current events and issues.
This summer, as for the past 50 years, the Wesleyan campus will not be quiet or empty. Classrooms and halls will continue to buzz with learning as the University holds its 50th annual Writers Conference, scheduled for June 18 through 23.
The competitors were cold but the competition was hot this Sunday at Tuscany Grill's Fifth Annual Ice Carving and Chowder Competition. Teams of ice carvers began hacking, chipping, sawing, shaving and even ironing blocks of ice at noon, working until 4:30 p.m. The theme of the competition was "Disney In Ice."
Buddy, you got it all wrong. Literally, like every phrase you put to paper in that last Wespeak of yours was flat-out incorrect. Your thickheaded, self-centered conclusion - "Those of us who are dedicated to seeking truth and defending morality must ask, then, what’s wrong with the Muslim World?" - smacks especially of ill pride and prejudice that should make you feel embarrassed.
While I was not able to attend the Mohamed caricature-related discussion to which you refer, I nonetheless feel compelled to respond to your Wespeak. I must first of all confess that I was shocked by the prejudicial and reductionist generalizations in your argument.
Though it is always important to minimize generalizations in discourse, it is especially important to avoid them during heated times. Such an environment fosters harmful stereotypes, a degradation of complex ideas which have rational explanations, and pain beyond words. By looking at Evan Carp’s Wespeak, "Question Islamic Radicals," we can examine the consequences of generalizations in the continuing aftermath of the Muslim response to the controversial Danish cartoons.
Dear Mr. Carp: What is the purpose of your Feb. 24 Wespeak? You state that you are unsurprised by the lack of criticism from the student body, so you’re familiar with the general perspective at Wesleyan, but you then frame your argument in unusually offensive language. Were you writing this as a call to arms? Why use words that you surely knew would antagonize? Is your piece intended to be a meta-critique on "the right to be insensitive"?
In response to Evan Carp's tactfully-worded Wespeak: We feel that if you send in any sort of asinine commentary to The Argus, you must immediately activate a Facebook account (if you have not done so already) so that we may passive-aggressively stare at you without you knowing. We're all members!
Dear Ms. Goldblatt, Is it really necessary to write a Wespeak on such a minor bone of contention as a grammatical error, especially two weeks after the fact? Is it, in fact, even an error? To be honest, you don't appear to be very good at spotting errors, even when they appear in your own writing.
Part of an editor’s job is to make corrections, not incorrections. My open letter to Sam Fleischner, which ran on Feb. 24, should have contained the following sentence as submitted, here quoted in part: "...he fondly speaks of being preserving of Old Wes - presumably as preserving as..." An editor changed it to read "...he fondly speaks of preserving Old Wes - presumably as preserving as..." That change is syntactically incorrect.
I agree with Evan Carp's assertion that Wesleyan students should oppose the violence perpetrated by Muslims. Change can only occur in the Muslim world once the small liberal arts institutions half-a-fucking-world away take a stand.
We, the people of the Chinese-Indian-Jewish alliance (and perhaps some mix thereof) write this Wespeak to call out an egregious oversight on the part of one of our fine dining establishments. If one enters WesWings, this individual will discover a menu item on the wall that irks the soul of any racially/politically/socially conscious Wesleyan student.
Evan Carp's editorial last Friday was more of a Witch hunt than a Wespeak. Though I have many concerns with his comments, here I want to address his rendering of Islam.
If, as you state, "part of an editor’s job is to make corrections, not incorrections," is not the other part of an editor’s job to make incorrections? If indeed incorrections were a word, I would be glad to make a few every now and then, just to spice things up.
In this space last week, we reiterated that a Wesleyan education is among the most expensive in the nation. This past weekend, the Board of Trustees approved a five percent increase in tuition for the 2006-2007 academic year, bringing tuition to $34,630. With room and board costs included, the base cost for a student will be at least $44,384…and that's not including all the textbooks, white boards, and Film Series tickets another year at college requires.
I was pleasantly surprised when, a couple weeks ago, a Wesleyan alumnus wrote in with some comments on my first health care column. I was reminded of two interesting things — one, that people who show up injured at an emergency room cannot be refused treatment under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), and two, that alumni actually read the Argus.
Bea Lake, on Feb. 7 in "WSA should be worthwhile," you reaffirmed your right to complain about things. Now you are complaining that the Argus should not have printed Evan Carp's "Question Islamic radicals" Wespeak. Why? Because you view it as hate speech rather than an opinion with some valid points and some misguided points. If I decided not to publish Carp's Wespeak, I would have blocked his opinion from publicly reaching the Wesleyan community, and consequently blocked the varying responses to his opinion.
In response to both Jake Gold's and Vazquez' and Fish's stances on the quality of Argus comics, I've got this to say. First of all, it's true, the comics quality has been steadily declining since the disappearance of Gus the Hamster. However, it's pretty obvious that The Argus is not Newsday or The New Yorker, and that the majority of Wesleyan students are too time-crunched, artistically self-obsessed, crazy, stoned, and/or embarrassed to submit comics that are relevant to what's happening in people's lives, in this community, and in the world outside of Middletown.
Mr. Carp, as a woman of Muslim and Arab descent, I thought I'd write just to clear up a few misconceptions you appear to have about Islam. I am glad you included cold hard facts ("many, many, MANY") in your piece last Friday, but I think my personal experience may offer valuable insight.
Maybe Muslims would not be so angry if they could write Wespeaks
To Martin Benjamin ’57: This being at least the second time you have written to this fair paper of ours, I had imagined that I had a pretty good idea what to expect from you. Imagine my surprise when at the end of your diatribe, you lashed out at my very own major, Film Studies.
In his February 24 article, Chris Patalano recorded how my former classmate, Ariel Levy, worries that in our society "women appear sexy at the expense of being sexual." Yet she seems ignorant of how female sexuality manifests itself for the vast majority of women in this country. Levy wants women to go ahead and be libertines, to emphasize "pleasure and hedonism," but apparently only if they can do so in a masculine mode.
Hey, I'm right there with you, man. When are these uncivilized savage Muslims gonna learn that the proper venue to express disagreement with another nation is to carpet bomb the crap out of them, fund and train death squads to rape and pillage, starve whole populations through economic sanctions, and then force water privatization? Seriously.
Approximately 17,000 residents in the state of Connecticut- including the wealthy and the poor, the old and the young, and people of all races- are now facing the overwhelming challenge of living with HIV and AIDS. In relation to its total population, Connecticut has the eighth highest incidence of AIDS in the United States, and is ranked the single highest for transmission through injected drug use, 2nd highest for women infected with the disease, and 3rd highest for Latino carriers.
What is wrong with the Muslim World? Mr. Carp, I'm not much of a theologian or a historian either; but if my seven years at Episcopal school have taught me anything, it's that violence and religion have shared a long history together. You wrote, "we cannot suggest that it is ALL Muslims who are hateful and violent" but throughout your Wespeak you make generalizations that suggest this is indeed the case. You want to know why "so many" Muslims are violent but I think a more important question is why religious fundamentalism, in general, leads to violence.
The new policy against caged pets in the dormitories is not just annoying, it's unethical. To force students to forfeit their pets to "good homes" is a naïve request. Millions of pets are homeless in America and countless have abusive or negligent owners. Forcing students to, within months, find good homes for their beloved creatures is a call for students to place their pets in the questionable care of others.
Dear Evan: Since I’m sure I’ll be one of many responses to your incendiary and misinformed Wespeak, I’ll try my best to be brief. For starters, you are making generalizations about Arabs while using the term "Muslims." In fact, of the world’s billion plus Muslims, only about 1/3 are Arab. That you called my family and friends "savages" and "animals" does not upset me so much as your total lack of willingness to question your culture’s savage exploitation of the Middle East and the Third World in general, not to mention your own role (that’s right, YOU, Evan Carp) in creating the conditions you speak so callously about
Evan Carp: We couldn’t possibly agree more with everything you wrote in your Wespeak, "Question Islamic Radicals." But watch out that a local imam doesn’t call a fatwa on you. We just can’t trust these people. Who knows what they could be hiding in their turbans? We, as quiet, blond-haired, mild-mannered flag bearers of Christendom, must fight these primitive and barbaric savages.
As recently as February 17th, in Matt DiBlasi’s "Editor’s Notebook," you reaffirmed your right to screen, withhold, and reject Wespeaks, as a matter of policy and editorial discretion. Given this recent declaration of editorial rights, your decision to publish Evan Carp’s Wespeak on Friday sends a very clear message.
For 16 weeks, Wesleyan students have been trading in their backpacks for teachers' briefcases, their seats at desks for standing positions at the front of the classroom, and their student stationery for sticks of chalk.
Jen Alexander '88 co-founded a dance studio, but you might not guess it by the way she talks. She insists she is not a "great" dancer, and instead prefers the term "learning." It wasn't until she danced her heart out to a swing band with her husband Mark Masselli at her 2000 college reunion that the two became fascinated with the idea of making dance more accessible to the Middletown community.
This is my mother's recipe for drool-worthy pancakes. Enjoy! Makes about 6-8 pancakes You will need: 4oz flour 1 large egg Pint of milk A pinch of salt
Evan Simko-Bednarski '07 says he's trying to keep a low profile these days, but with the Argus and WESU sharing office space, we at least get to see plenty of him. As the new president of WESU, he's busy trying to run the station through archival research (seriously), but is also finding time to examine the Wesleyan artistic community, start a campaign called Bring Back the Awesome, and use the word "revolution" at least twice over the course of one interview.
The men's swim team's exciting season came to a fitting end this weekend, as the Cardinals took fourth out of 10 teams at the NESCAC Championship, held at Williams College. Leading the Cardinals throughout the weekend was Ben Byers '07, who had three All-NESCAC performances in the long-distance freestyle events.
This past weekend was bittersweet for co-captain Ashley Mastrangelo '06. Although the senior reached the coveted milestone of 1,000 points, a feat only nine other Lady Cards have attained, the women's basketball team fell to Bowdoin in the second round of the NESCAC tournament, 61-46. However, the Lady Cards will have another opportunity to prove themselves, as they were one of the 63 teams that qualified for the elite Division III NCAA Tournament, slated to begin this Friday.
The women's squash team was in many ways victims of its own succes at the National Squash Tournament held at Harvard this past weekend. Because of their increased success this season, the Cards moved up to the more competitive C-Division. Also called "The Walker Cup," the division is for teams ranked 17th to 24th nationally. Throughout the tournament, the women fought hard but struggled against higher-ranked teams.
The men's hockey team suffered a disappointing first-round loss in the NESCAC Tournament to top-seeded Middlebury College 7-0 on Saturday. It was the team's first trip to the NESCAC postseason tournament since the 1999-2000 season. The Panthers used a five-goal second period to put the game out of reach and end the Cardinals' Cinderella season.
I mean, we don’t expect to win Best Editor’s Note again! We won last year. It would hardly be fair to win two years in a row. They can’t just keep giving the award to us.
It was a big night for retards everywhere Sunday when Anjelica Huston's directing debut Riding the Bus with My Sister took home Special Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Star Rosie O'Donnell took home the coveted Best Performance in a Retarded Role, shutting down Timothy Treadwell's hopes for a posthumous award for his role in Grizzly Man.
Brokeback Volcano Good Morning, and How Was That Thing You Had? Munich 2: the Reckoning Crash, But the One David Cronenberg Made in 1996 Truman Capote, Re-Animator Paradise Later
I can't stand that Tom Cruise was robbed once again, this time for his performance in War of the Worlds, in yet another example of Hollywood's bias against Scientologists. Scientologists are hard-working, perfectly sane people. Personally, I think that the Academy was scared away by the reports repeatedly labeling Mr. Cruise as "crazy."
Guess what? Because you will never guess what. I am going to the Oscars. You may not think it is true, but it is. Because I got a card in the mail today and it said I could go to the Oscars if I wanted. Because I am a film critic. Film critics go the Oscars. It's true. You can ask anybody.
Movies I Saw in the Theater This Year: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Rumor Has It The Perfect Man Must Love Dogs The Family Stone Ice Princess
"Cinderella Man is exactly what it sounds like: a Cinderella story about a man." "Meet the Fockers has received unbelievable ratings and reviews... I was laughing the whole three hours." Must Love Dogs: "While the title indicates otherwise, it is not actually necessary to like dogs to enjoy this movie."