Wyclef Jean’s newest album, From the Hut, to the Projects, to the Mansion, is Jean’s self-proclaimed return to hip-hop. Over a decade after the breakup of the Fugees, Jean has admittedly become somewhat unknown as an artist, and it is clear that he is anxious to change this.

Dashboard Confessional fans: have no fear. The band’s sixth album is not the deviation in style the title seems to suggest. The songs follow Dashboard’s traditional themes of heartbreak and anguish, relying heavily on vocals and acoustics. As always, Dashboard manages to blend deeply personal and emotional lyrics with an upbeat tempo.

Today, thousands of student activists from around the country are cheering loudly — and for good reason.

A nation-wide alliance, the United Students Against Sweatshops, drove a persistent group of protesters to fight for the rights of sweatshop laborers who had been stripped of their jobs at a Russell Athletic factory after workers tried to unionize.

“Who says I can’t get stoned?” The opening line of the first single “Who Says,” on John Mayer’s new Battle Studies, is an accurate portrayal of the album: Downbeat tones over scoff-worthy lyrics that you would only expect to be sung by a self-admitted douchebag.

Beneath the white-capped surface of Ithaca’s music scene, a whale has been swimming around our campus, gathering steam as it prepares to unleash a torrent of hip-hop innovation the likes of which will flip the space between your ears. A musical collective that combines minds from all of Ithaca’s corners, Time Out Club is more of a harmonious think tank than a group of musicians.

White privilege. Despite my pale, freckled, Irish and Swedish skin (trust me, it doesn’t get much paler than this), it’s not something I really think about on a regular basis.

At least until I go home to Massachusetts. My aunt, whose skin is just as pale and freckled as mine, is a professor at Tufts, teaching classes such as “African American History since 1865” and “Class, Race and Gender in the History of U.S. Education.” She dedicated her education and career to learning about the events that have created white privilege (she acknowledges, ironically, that she occupies a position of privilege as a professor at a majority-white university).

So every time I come home, I am reminded — reprimanded, almost — of the white privilege that my life has been steeped in. My family not only acknowledges our white privilege, but constantly points it out to each other so that we do not take our opportunities for granted.

News broke last week that the U.S. government had moved to seize four U.S. mosques and a skyscraper on Fifth Avenue, which are owned by an Iranian Muslim non-profit organization. The Alavi Foundation, the non-profit organization in question, provides many extremely important services to the Shiite Muslim community in America. Because of this, the Alavi Foundation has a lot of influence in this community.

At the first in a series of six public forums that address selected strategic planning task force reports, the co-chairs of the student enrollment task force presented their findings yesterday and discussed with the audience how Cornell could host the additional hundreds of students should the University decide to increase enrollment to alleviate its strained budget.

The men’s polo team may have a case of triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13, as the Red held its second chukker goal total against UConn this past weekend to a mere 12, not wishing to invite any misfortune, especially on, you know, Friday the 13th.

As the economic downturn has forced some colleges to cut jobs, Cornell has used these tough times to concentrate its recruiting agenda. The Dual Career Program, a service created eight years ago in Cornell’s Recruitment and Employment Center, has proved a key recruitment tool, offering job-search assistance and career counseling to the spouses and partners of University employees.