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Author Archives: Spencer Gaffney

Top of the agenda this past week: Gen. David Petraeus *85 *87 is tapped to replace Gen. McChrystal as the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Which got us to thinking – what other Tigers found themselves on the rise this week? And, since we believe in a strictly zero-sum world, which Princetonians have seen their stock tumble faster than  BP’s? Here’s our run down of who had the best and worst weeks.

Best Weeks:

Gen. David Petraeus ‘85 ‘87

Gen. David Petraeus offers to pitch in for the war effort in Afghanistan

Gen. David Petraeus offers to pitch in for the war effort in Afghanistan

As we reported on Wednesday, Gen. David Petraeus *85 *87 will be taking over in Afghanistan (the Senate confirmation hearing is Tuesday, but it’d be a shocker if Petraeus wasn’t confirmed).

Granted, most people wouldn’t consider being put in charge of a complex, costly, and potentially unwinnable war a “good week.”  But David Petraeus is not most people. And from a political standpoint, the pick of Petraeus is furthering talks that there might be a presidential run in his future.

Of course, if a year from now Afghanistan is worse than ever and the General’s press office starts giving freelance reporters from Rolling Stone unfettered access, then we may look back on this week as somewhat inglorious. But for now, Good Week!

Heidi Miller ‘74

“Who?” you ask. Well, all you aspiring Wall Street types, listen up:

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon announced last week that Miller would head up the new Global Corporate Bank. Miller is described as Dimon’s confidant and a possible pick to someday run the giant bank.

So, yeah, Good Week.

Ellie Kemper ‘02

Ellie Kemper '02

Ellie Kemper '02

Arguments in favor of Kemper (known to the uninformed as merely Erin on The Office) being every literary nerd’s dream girl:

1. She writes for McSweeney’s.

2. And The Onion.

3. And she announced this week that she has a contract for a new book she’s writing with her sister.

Sounds like a Good Week to us.

And the unfortunate?

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What do you call it when Tiger Woods and his caddy argue about which golf club to use? It's multi-club bicker!

What do you call it when Tiger Woods and his caddy argue about which golf club to use? Multi-club bicker!

The Eating Club Task Force released its recommendations Monday afternoon, and as expected there are several calls for change (full list of recommendations here). One of its most interesting suggestions is an eradication of the current bicker process in favor of a multi-club bicker. Let’s go to the documents!

The Task Force recommended that the Eating Clubs:

  • Consider an alternative club selection process in which each sophomore interested in joining a club would submit a ranked list of preferences and each club that wished to do so could submit a ranked list of sophomores it would most like to admit. A computer program would make matches based on the preferences submitted by students and any preferences submitted by the clubs. The process would not preclude clubs (open or selective) from encouraging students to get to know them and list them as preferences.
  • This process would permit clubs to retain aspects of selectivity but would not require them to do so. By placing every student in his or her highest possible choice as part of a single process, it evokes a central feature of multi-club bicker. This method provides for greater privacy in the selection process and is much easier to describe to potential applicants and admitted students.
  • Encourage all bicker clubs to pick up new members at 1879 Arch (as Cottage and Cap and Gown did this year) or at the clubs, and to consider new or improved sections related to pick-ups and bicker in the clubs’ Best Practices Handbook.

Multi-club bicker?! Radical! But not necessarily new. It turns out the current system of only bickering a single club was only put in place during the 1980s. So really bicker would be going old school (except with women this time).

So what happens now? According to President Shirley Tilghman, “the ball is in everyone’s court.” Like you, we weren’t totally sure what exactly this meant, but here’s what we’ve come up with: the recommendations are meant to be the start of a discussion, on issues from financial aid to the role of Greek life in bicker clubs. Have an opinion? Read the report and let us know what you think in the comments section.

(image credit: http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/xtTYm5jvYoG/AT+T+National+Round+Three/1fSS7dXjLSo/Tiger+Woods)

The latest weapon in the fight against grade deflation (and some lovely shag carpeting)

The latest weapon in the fight against grade deflation (and some lovely shag carpeting)

Do you know what our first, and to date only line of defense is against the fire-breathing academic dragon of grade deflation?

A form letter. A piece of paper that earnestly explains why Princeton GPAs are lower than other GPAs, and encourages potential employers and graduate schools to visit the helpful online booklet Grading at Princeton: Frequently Asked Questions. The University mails out a letter with every transcript.

It may not be much, but it’s what we’ve got, and the USG hopes to propose a new draft of the letter to Dean Malkiel.

So what’s better in the new letter?

“The new letter is much shorter,” says Becca Lee, Academics Chair. Lee co-wrote the new draft with USG President Mike Yaroshefsky and 2012 Class Senator Julie Chang.

Brevity! Makes sense–who’s really going to read two pages about Princeton’s grading policy? What else are we telling the world?

“Its most important message is that grades at Princeton [are] earned differently than at other schools,” says Lee. “GPA does not necessarily provide a reliably standardized point of comparison.”

Amen! Now let’s hope someone (anyone) takes the time to read it.

Wanna see what the letter looks like? Full text of the new draft after the jump!

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John Grisham: piercing blue eyes and a voice like a certain southern whiskey

John Grisham: piercing blue eyes and a voice like a certain southern whiskey

PRINCETON BOROUGH — Author John Grisham first heard about Princeton’s Centurion Ministries in 2005 when he was visiting attorney Mark Barrett in his Oklahoma office. They were talking about Barrett’s late client, Ron Williamson, a wrongfully convicted death row inmate whose trial and 1999 exoneration became the basis for Grisham’s nonfiction book, “The Innocent Man.”

The files Barrett had collected for Williamson’s case included a few boxes marked Centurion Ministries, and Grisham asked Barrett about them.

“He said, ‘Those guys only take the toughest cases,’” Grisham said Tuesday night at a benefit at Nassau Presbyterian Church for Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit organization that has freed 44 innocent people either on death row or serving life in prison.

“Most people do not believe that innocent people go to prison,” said Grisham, the headline speaker for the fund-raising event. “Almost every wrongful conviction could have been prevented,” he said.

Read the full story at nj.com.

The Musical!

The Musical!

Bummed about the Street shutting down? Looking to escape the prefrosh? Really, really bored? Then the new musical version of This Side of Paradise might be just the thing for you!

The show goes up this Wednesday a quick train ride away, at the (Off-Broadway) Theatre at St. Clements.

Will it be any good? Who knows, adaptations of Fitzgerald’s work have met with decidedly mixed results. The Robert Redford movie was widely panned, but it did win two Oscars (for film score and costume design).

According the the website, the play seems to be less a direct adaptation of the novel and more a depiction of his rocky marriage with the sublimely named Zelda. And whomever put up a poster for the show at the Nassau-Witherspoon kiosk clearly understands the intended audience (Princetonians who will watch anything, so long as it features Princeton somehow).

There’s always hope for greatness, so we’ll leave you with perhaps the triumph of modern Fitzgerald adaptation: The Great Gatsby, the OPERA! (If you do go see the play, tell us how it is in the comments section.)

Sejima and Nishizawa, feeling the excitement!

Sejima and Nishizawa, feeling the excitement!

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa will be the next recipients of the prestigious Pritzker Prize (pretty much the Nobel Prize of architecture). The pair currently work for the Japanese firm SANAA but used to lecture at Princeton, so we’re still counting this as a victory for Old Nassau. Full story here.

(image courtesy of SANAA)

Goofy Ivy Leaguers Celebrating

Goofy Ivy Leaguers Celebrating

Back in early February I wrote a blog post in response to Cornell Basketball’s ascension into the top 25 in the coaches’ poll. The gist of the argument was that while Cornell may have been enjoying temporary success the glory of their program it couldn’t hold a candle to the historically decorated Princeton Tigers.

Fast forward to yesterday, when Cornell absolutely demolished the Wisconsin Badgers in the second round of the NCAA tournament. This was a different win entirely than their first round victory over Temple (considering Temple’s head coach, former Penn coach Fran Dunphy, has made in to the NCAA tournament 12 times and been knocked in out of the first round 11 times). This was a game Cornell was not meant to win. But it wasn’t even close; Cornell was up by 12 at half and won by 18.

This is the first time an Ivy League team has been to the Sweet Sixteen since Penn in 1979. And watching Cornell’s historic run has made me reconsider my earlier blog post. Traveling back to Princeton this past weekend, I noticed people gathered in bubbles outside the bars and restaurants in airports and train stations, trying to watch the tournament. Normal people cared about an Ivy League sports team.

For the first time in my life, I was jealous of Cornell.

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Steve Forbes, Boxer. Not a graduate of Princeton University.

Steve Forbes, Boxer. Not a graduate of Princeton University.

Forbes Magazine recently named Princeton one of the world’s most beautiful college campuses. And, frankly, we’re inclined to agree with them. It is really pretty here, especially now that the weather’s getting nice and the snow is melting. So, thanks for the shout out Forbes!

Here’s what the mag had to say:

This classic American campus is “straight out of central casting,” says architect Natalie Shivers, who has been guiding the prestige Ivy Leaguer through an ambitious expansion plan. Princeton’s style is pure Collegiate Gothic; most of it executed in gray stone covered in, yes, ivy. As imposing as these old stone structures are, the campus keeps life on a “human scale” by preserving green spaces and “walkability,” says Shivers. “Everything on campus is within a 10-minute walk.” Sinuous footpaths, archways, plazas–all are designed to inspire spontaneous discussion and learning.

What’s this? You have a video for us? Aww, you shouldn’t have!

(Note: after watching the video, they actually shouldn’t have. The music is super cheesy and the thesis seems to be that Princeton is special because we have arches and courtyards. But watch it anyways after the jump!)

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iphone-unicorn-wallpaper

Such a majestic creature

Stop reading this post right now if you want to get any work done this week.

Seriously, stop reading. Close the browser and do something else.

Still here? Ok, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Robot Unicorn Attack is the single most addictive game on the planet. We discovered it around 3:30 a.m. early Sunday morning. We didn’t go to bed until 6. We just couldn’t. Stop. Playing.

The game designers describe their creation thusly on the website:

Jump into the steel hooves of a robot unicorn, prancing freely amongst the lush purple grasses and rainbow-strewn backdrops of your wildest fantasies.

Right. Anyways, the game’s delightfully simple controls and game play make it a pleasure to spend five hours at a time playing. Z makes the robot unicorn jump. X makes him (her?) crash through stars. And if you hit anything, you lose.

But the highlight of the game is the original song that accompanies the game play, performed in the style of the great power ballads of the 80s. The opening line: “Open your eyes/I see/Your eyes are open.” Poetry!

So why are we posting a flash game on a blog about Princeton? Because we’re college students. And we have stuff to do. And we need other, funner stuff to do while we should be doing the original, less fun stuff. That’s why.

(P.S. Personal best as of Monday afternoon: 45,756.)

(P.P.S. Monday night: 56,486. 87,884. Fear me, mortals. And post your high scores in the comments section!)

Princeton's other (better) basketball team

Princeton's other (better) basketball team

Well, after all the excitement around the Princeton men’s basketball team possibly going undefeated in the Ivy League, we lost to Cornell and Brown in a span of three short games. There are still a few games left in the season, but Princeton has been all but eliminated from winning the Ivy League title.

But lost in our otherwise obsessive coverage of Princeton basketball has been this year’s real story: the women’s team is good.

Like, really, really, really good.

How good, you ask? Hold on to your socks:

How about a 21-2 overall record, including an undefeated 9-0 in the Ivy League?

How about their 21 wins being the most ever by the women’s basketball team. And they still have 5 games left on the schedule!

How about the only two losses on the year coming to perennial national powerhouses UCLA and Rutgers?

How about all of this coming from a team that went 14-14 last year?

But if you want to know if a team’s really good, listen to the way its coach talks after a blowout win. Following Saturday’s 64-38 drubbing of Brown in Providence, head coach Courtney Banghart said, “That wasn’t our best game, but it was a win. We will regroup and be ready for Cornell and Columbia next weekend.”

God help Cornell and Columbia.

In other words, this is our mea culpa basketball blog post. Yes, it was fun and exciting to write about a team that Pat Forde talked about on ESPN. But at the end of the day, only one Princeton basketball team has played this season in a way that’s truly transcendent, and that’s the Lady Tigers. Sorry it took us 23 games to figure that out.

(image and statistics from goprincetontigers.com)

Woodrow Wilson: Wearer of Fascinating Glasses

Woodrow Wilson: Wearer of Fascinating Glasses

Today didn’t feel like a Monday. The line for PJ’s was out the door; people seemed happy and chipper to just be out and about in the sunshine. What’s going on?

Wait a minute! Happy Presidents Day!

Normally this would be the point in the blog post where I rant about how Princeton doesn’t give us the day off for Monday holidays. But as a college student with a three-day weekend and a grand total of eleven hours of class every week, it feels a little disingenuous for me to be complaining about, well, anything.

So instead, here’s a tribute to former Princeton and American President Woodrow Wilson, the man Nerve.com just ranked the 16th sexiest US President. (Teddy Roosevelt just beat out JFK for the number one spot. If you ask us, Taft got robbed.)

Here’s what Nerve had to say about Wilson:

Tall, fatherly and only a little bit creepy. He might be a bit too Mr. Rogers for some people, but he has some good bone structure.

And, if the above picture is any indication, a rocking pair of rimless glasses.

Should we be proud? Probably not. Are we? Yep.

In tangentially related news, applications for Woody Woo are due tomorrow at 1 p.m. Maybe someday Nerve will say that you, too, are really, really, ridiculously, sort of good looking.

(Hat tip to Daily Intel for posting the Nerve story.)

(image source: http://royalromania.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/president_woodrow_wilson_po.jpg)

Keep the faith Pat Forde!

Keep the faith Pat Forde!

Pat Forde, ESPN.com columnist, actually mentioned Princeton in his most recent edition of the men’s basketball column “Forde Minutes”! Not only that, he thinks we could go undefeated this year!

Well, only kinda sorta. He thinks we could go undefeated in Ivy League play, since, at 4-0, it’s still technically possible. But we’d have to beat Cornell twice, who’s also undefeated in the Ivy League.

How does PF Flier (Pat Forde needs a nickname!) handicap the odds? Umm, well, he gives Cornell an 80% chance of going undefeated and Princeton, err, a 1% chance.

Jim Carrey, bring it on home!

(image source: http://assets.espn.go.com/media/motion/2008/1201/dm_081201_cfb_forde_bmoc.jpg)