Opinion

Zigazig ah

One of the things I’ve always loved most about Princeton is the way in which conversations here can flow so smoothly from a discussion of presidential hopefuls and political climate to Paris Hilton’s foray into pop music. On the whole, I think we strike the balance nicely with friends at our dinner tables or over late meal. But throw us in front of our less intimate acquaintances, parents or a general public, and we lose that ease and comfort with our decisions. Through no fault of our own, we feel that we — as students or as adults — ought not to enjoy the less impressive examples of pop culture, television or movies.

Monitoring student groups

America is confronting a real challenge to its security in the form of terrorism carried out in the name of Islam. But to meet that challenge by indiscriminately monitoring Muslim students from across the nation is to contribute to the legitimization of the al-Qaeda narrative while failing to secure the safety of our country. 

Beyond Annual Giving

We all know that Princeton is not in dire need of cash. The endowment is making money, and there is no shortage of funding earmarked for causes such as international programs, student organizations, the creative and performing arts and financial aid. The University doesn’t really need a few dollars from graduating seniors. Instead, the strongest arguments in favor of Annual Giving are ideological. Like Brodie’s column, they suggest that it is morally good to donate to Princeton, and, furthermore, that spending four years here — and benefiting from its riches — entails an obligation to “give back.”

The Street in flux

Whether it’s gradual change or punctuated evolution brought on by Cannon, the now 11 clubs need to change and evolve.

Keypads quandaries

Remove the codes to women’s bathrooms and communal spaces. Doing so would immediately benefit a large portion of Princeton’s population with minimal cost to the University.

Cartoon: Linsanity

Editorial: Let's lose WebMail

The Editorial Board applauds OIT for taking this first step toward adopting a new email service. After the pilot program ends, we encourage the University to act quickly to implement a more powerful and cost-effective email solution.

Hope for the humanities?

Last friday, I broke out my one decent business skirt, printed out 50 — yes, 50 — copies of my resume and headed to Dillon Gymnasium for the Career Services Internship Fair, confident that my depressing losing streak of applying to internships was about to reach its end. My two friends, both prospective computer science majors, hoped that Mark Zuckerburg would be manning the Facebook table. Turns out, he wasn’t. I, a prospective English major, hoped that someone would be looking for an intern with a passion for writing and reading. Turns out, they weren’t. 

Cartoon: Political apathy

Letters to the Editor: February 23rd, 2012

The recent editorial, “Expanding Career Services,” contained misleading information that may create misperceptions among students about the resources and services available to them through Career Services and the way in which we establish relationships with employers.

Editorial: Increasing accessibility

Class lectures delivered by professors should be posted online for public viewing.

Bottomless pit

If you had told me a year ago that I would be volunteering for Annual Giving ’12, I would have laughed at you, and told you to please stage an intervention. I am a senior, and let’s face it — between writing my thesis and writing Facebook statuses about my thesis, I am really busy. But when a close friend asked me to help out, I was in dire need of some good karma and happily obliged. So now I have a stack of materials on my desk, a list of names and every excuse in the book for why we should not donate.

Cartoon: Junior year in perspective

I'm not done yet

There is little reason to embattle the extremely limited terms we occupy in college organizations. Still, I challenge all Princeton students, whether in your first or final months on this campus, to take on an awareness of these limitations — an awareness that equips us to fight the urge to quit when we have only just begun.

The myth of campus apathy

Where does the label of ‘apathy’ come from? Most of my friends at Princeton care about politics; they follow the Republican primaries, watch The Daily Show and identify with certain political philosophies just as much as the next college student — which is to say, not obsessively, but not indifferently either.

Protecting internet creativity

The Internet is a valuable tool whose potential has not yet been fully discovered. PIPA/SOPA risked so many unintended consequences that their burial, even if only temporary, is a comfort. Something will be done about Internet media piracy, however, and I believe it will happen soon. The legislators that oversee this process ought to take great heed to devise a plan that minimizes any impact on the Internet. Understandably, this is hard for our elected officials given the tremendous lobbying pressure from large media corporations.

Making it better

The homophobic bullying that we see in places like Ridgefield High School is a witch-hunt. There is no response to the accusation of homosexuality, no hope for “conversion,” not even a fake one. These kids — both the bullies and their victims — view homosexuality as biological, genetic and irreversible. Lady Gaga says you were born this way and should embrace it. For young people, you were born this way, so you are irredeemably cursed. You are doomed long before you’ve even committed the sin of homosexual sex, often even before you know you want to commit that sin.

Princetonese

Thesis Research

Training for excellence

TFA is a contentious issue. The program maintains that it sends the best and brightest into the field to close the achievement gap, nurturing an interest in education and educational policy that turns corps members toward those fields later in life. TFA’s opponents argue that it places unprepared and under-qualified people in the very positions that require the most experienced, most dedicated teachers.