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Kelvin Kay, en:user:kkmd

Kelvin Kay, en:user:kkmd

Ah, the wonders of the holiday season: a tree in Palmer Square that’s approximately ten trillion feet tall, a barrage of simply lovely end-of-term assignments, and, of course, the eternal quest for some cute Inkblot to kiss under the mistletoe.  Never fear, Tigers!  Former USG President Josh Weinstein ’09 has the site for you.

Goodcrush.com, which Weinstein started earlier this year (with some start-up help from Joseph Perla ‘09), provides Princeton’s resident lonely-hearts with a prime chance to rhapsodize about all their geeky missed connections, and, with luck, connect with that soul mate who looked oh-so-suave sitting in Lewis Library at 2AM.

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(source: princeton.edu)

The proportion of “A” grades received by undergraduates finally dipped under 40 percent last year, the Faculty Committee on Grading reported happily today. A smashing success! Welcome back to school!

“A” grades made up only 39.7 percent of undergraduate grades given in the 2008-09 academic year, down more than eight percent from 2002-03, before the grade deflation policy took effect.

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This is, hilariously, what you get when you Google "whooping cough." (image source: abcnews.com)

This is, hilariously, what you get when you Google "whooping cough." (image source: abcnews.com)

Thanks, all of you who didn’t get the Tdap booster before coming to college.

“When we actually look at our student records, (we) found that not all of our students received the booster,” Cliatt said.

The Times of Trenton reports that nine students at Princeton — not four — have been diagnosed with whooping cough so far.

University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt told the Times that five new cases of whooping cough were confirmed this weekend.

Besides the e-mails telling coughers to avoid circultaing in public Princeton also notified local health officials, the article said. If this were 1918, the entire school might be isolating itself, instead.

In the mean time, Princeton (and the rest of the student body) wants you to sprint to McCosh if you are feeling like you’ve got a case of swine flu. The rest of the country would appreciate it as well. We stopped by the Duane Reade in Penn Station on Monday –the entire shelf of hand sanitizers was almost gone.

ban-ki-moon

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at McCarter Theatre

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed the urgent need for a new multilateralism during his address on Friday morning to an audience of nearly 1,000 people in McCarter Theatre.

”We need a new vision, a new paradigm and a new multilateralism,” Mr. Ban said. He defined this multilateralism as one that delivers “a set of global goods,” recognizes intercollaboration and has necessary authority and resources.

Mr. Ban traced this idea of multilateralism to former President Woodrow Wilson’s mission to create a League of Nations after World War I.

”He called for the nations to come together to ‘make it safe for every peace-loving nation,’ “ Mr. Ban said, quoting President Wilson. “Justice can be maintained to promote social programs and better standards of life with larger freedoms,” Mr. Ban added.

Read entire article at the Princeton Packet here.

(image source: princeton.edu)

The Princeton community has received two Campus Safety Alerts from Public Safety since yesterday morning about reports of lewdness and sexual contact. The first report is, well, hilarious. But the second incident, not so much.

The first incident:

In separate incidents at approximately 2 and 2:39 a.m. on Saturday, April 18, 2009, two Princeton University female students reported a male was masturbating and exposed his genital area to them while they were walking alone across campus. The first incident took place as the victim was walking on McCosh Walk toward the University Store and the suspect was on the steps between Buyers and Witherspoon halls. The victim said she also saw the suspect earlier in the evening near 1879 Hall and the School of Architecture, where he was masturbating as he walked behind her. The second victim reported that she saw the suspect near the first entry of 1879 Hall, where he exposed himself. The victim said the suspect ran toward Washington Road toward Nassau Street. The suspect did not come into direct contact with either victim.

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US-ISRAEL-ANNIVERSARY-BEINISCHDorit Beinisch, the equivalent of the Chief Justice on the Israeli Supreme Court, talked about balancing security and human rights in the age of terror.

And while the topic was no doubt fascinating, we found ourselves more distracted by some of the differences between the American Supreme Court and the Israeli model. For example:

  • The US court hears 60-80 cases in a given year. The Israeli Supreme Court hears 5000 (!)
  • US justices serve for life, while Israel has a max age (we kind of like this idea, having spent time with people in the 70 and over demographic. Good for half-moon cookies, bad for precedent augmenting legal decisions)

Full article here

nytimessmashcraftThe New York Times profiles Smashcraft Heroes, Princeton’s videogaming club. Its members? “Mostly Asian, mostly male” engineers. Classic. (Our latest 21 Questions is on Mona Zhang ‘12, the president of the club.)

The reporter describes a recent match of Starcraft against Tsinghua University in Beijing. Of course, being Princetonians, one participant felt the need to relate the game to international relations and geopolitics:

Ke Wan, a graduate student from China who is studying operations research, detailed each world’s character traits: Zergs are prolific and fast, Terrans are sophisticated strategists, and individual Protoss units are extremely powerful. Wan drew a geopolitical analogy. “Zerg is like China,” he said. “It depends a lot on its large population. The U.S. is Protoss because it emphasizes the value of the individual. And Terran is Russia or the former Soviet Union, a huge high-tech war machine.” He plays as Terran.

Read the article, reflect upon on what Princeton has become, and shed an emo tear or two for Old Nassau.

(image source: nytimes.com)

The Prince reported this week that “tweeting” has increased in popularity recently, and has attracted the attention of a few big names on Princeton’s campus, namely Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Cornel West. Not mentioned was Peter Singer, who also updates his Twitter quite frequently.

It’s to be expected that these update-streams from noted scholars at a prestigious institution should be self-referential, yes, and perhaps even a bit introverted. But these three take it to a new level.

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lorin

Lorin Maurer, one of the victims of the Continental flight that crashed en route to Buffalo, played an integral role in the University’s athletic department, albeit one that was largely behind-the-scenes.

An article in tomorrow’s New York Times shows Maurer’s impact on the Princeton community (Ceremony to Rename Princeton’s Court Is Also a Sad Reminder). She was organizing the renaming ceremony of Princeton’s basketball court to Carril Court.

An article from The Trentonian reveals some of her Princeton coworkers’ thoughts.

“We are stunned, grief-stricken and angry that someone so young and full of promise and vitality was taken from us so suddenly and unexpectedly,” Princeton Director of Athletics Gary Walters said. “We can only think that we never appreciate what we have until it is taken from us.

Maurer’s friends have turned her Facebook.com profile into a messageboard of sorts, a forum for their messages of support for the Maurer family and a place to share memories or say their goodbyes. One post reads, “Lorin you were the most positive person I have ever met in my life…”

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