column
November 20, 2008 - 12:00am
By Harrison D. Sanford
Let me ask you a question. If I was to, say, go out with one of my friends, race two cars around the neighborhood for 50 or 60 laps, would you call that a sport? How about if I did 200 laps? Or what if I got a small group of people to watch? And I promised to do a back flip after I win? Would you call that a sport? I thought you wouldn’t.
Weiss-a-roni
November 19, 2008 - 12:00am
By Rebecca Weiss
1. Wear sweatpants for an entire calendar year.
2. Embrace tie dye, and people who wear tie dye, unless they have unruly facial hair, are wearing bells, speak in rhyme or a fake british accent, or blow bubbles. That’s how you distinguish the benevolent hippies from the ones who will cause you corporal harm.
I'm Going To Hell
November 18, 2008 - 12:00am
By Nathan James
Like the majority of Cornell seniors, I have begun developing ulcers from anguishing over our uncertain futures. Yes, I am deeply concerned about the present job market, but that is not all.
College is almost over. Living off our parents’ money will be a thing of the past.
Overheard
November 13, 2008 - 12:00am
By Jessica Stitt
State St. Diner Waitress: She’s about as useful as tits on a nun.
— State Diner
Flamboyant Boy on Cell: I need to black out tonight. I totally deserve it.
— Outside Olin Library
Math Lecturer: So I can do orthogonal vectors in 2-D ... I can't do it in 3-D ... Not without being obscene anyways ...
— Engineering Quad
Rebel Freshman: I slept through my first class today ... I feel like a badass ...
— Goldwin Smith
November 13, 2008 - 12:00am
By Danielle Schaub
“That organic eggplant hummus sandwich may be good for you, but it’s bad for our books” — warns a small sign sitting on the desk clusters in Mann library. My “ooh, yum” reaction might not be echoed by the person next to me, but neither of us find the sandwich to be anything out of the ordinary.
After all, this is a university well known for the diversity of foods available in our various dining locations. But beyond this cold and cloudy sphere we call the Cornell bubble, that sandwich order might elicit a very different response.
Oddly Enough
November 13, 2008 - 12:00am
By Lauren Herget
If there’s anything I like better than a one-fer, it’s a two-fer.
For you folks not hip to my slang (and there could be a great lot of you … I have been known to make up a word or two), a “two-fer” is a “two-for-one” deal; i.e. I pay for one awesome thing, and, due to the “magic” of Capitalism, I get two things at a roughly-equal-but-let’s-be-realistic-never-more-than-one-and-a-half-times-more-expensive-than-usual price.
Noses Up
November 13, 2008 - 12:00am
By Maurice Chammah
For several years now, the Cornell Concert Com-mission has attempt-ed to balance between a demand for two very different kinds of musical acts on campus. It would be silly of me to try to come up with names to categorize these two genres, but suffice it to say that they can be represented by the opposing cultures of the Decemberists and Yo La Tengo at one end and on the the other, T-Pain and Twista.
76 Trombones
November 12, 2008 - 12:00am
By Julia Woodward
Raise your hand if you’ve seen the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus, directed by Stephen Herek. Raise your hand if you liked it, and if you thought there was a salient message about the arts embedded therein.
My hand is up. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, which — since it’s a rather dorky thing to see — I’m guessing is most of you, Mr. Holland’s Opus is about an inspiring music teacher, Glenn Holland.
Weiss-a-roni
November 10, 2008 - 12:00am
By Rebecca Weiss
The many times that my family gathered on Friday nights after TGIF to watch 20/20, I often thought about the question of nature vs. nurture. There would be segments about long lost twins and the studies done to show that their similar behavorioral aspects are indeed from nature and not simply because they were raised together, because they weren’t.
November 6, 2008 - 12:00am
By Harrison D. Sanford
First and foremost, I’m feeling good right about now — presidential almost. It didn’t really set in until I talked to my mother Tuesday night. I haven’t heard my mother that joyous in a while, if ever. Even if Barack Obama doesn’t work out how everybody hopes and assumes he will, his election means so much in terms of how far we have come as African Americans and as America as a whole.
And for that alone, Tuesday was a great day in America.
But seeing as this is on the other side of the newspaper — which is the better side — I have to keep this column sports-related.