The semester has finally ended, and my decision to study abroad in the fall is bearing many rewards — not the least of which is a two-month long winter break. In retrospect, I’m glad that I made that decision.
We would like to thank Morgan Jerkins ’14 for raising her concerns in her article “ ‘diStracted’ or dispirited?” The reaction that she experienced was obviously not the intention of the piece in question or of the diSiac show. As the choreographers of “Eyes Watching Unseeing,” we would like to offer some responses and explanations that may help readers understand where we were coming from.
Just as in the greater world, tactics for news dissemination on Princeton’s campus are changing. If the courts refuse to acknowledge or protect new forms of media, we risk losing an important alternative to established news sources.
Let us not be afraid to bring our interests, inclinations, feelings, whims, senses and impulses to the table of discussion, but let us also not fool ourselves into thinking that the pursuit of knowledge stops there.
Simple, smart and clear: This is exactly how protests should work — Occupy Princeton has much to learn from the Russians.
HEI prides itself on some of the highest employee satisfaction scores in the hospitality industry, we fuel local economic prosperity by investing in the communities where we operate, and our commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability was recently recognized by winning numerous awards and by our inclusion in the Obama administration’s “Better Buildings Challenge.”
Even if we believe that the bill does not affect us personally (which it could), we cannot allow these perpetrations to continue. Already, we allow citizens to be monitored under the Patriot Act. Already we allow torture to take place in secret prisons. Already, we have allowed military law to carry on outside of due process, and now we are allowing it to extend to our own fellow citizens.
All of a sudden, I saw one girl walk onto the stage; she then jerked her neck to the side to simulate lynching. Then, “Strange Fruit” began to play. For those of you who don’t know what “Strange Fruit” is, this song was originally a poem written by Abel Meeropol to vent the horror of seeing a photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, two black men, in an almost carnival-like background. I couldn’t believe my ears — or my eyes.
Sports teams are not the only valuable extracurricular on this campus, nor are they more important than the other extracurriculars that the University sponsors. Therefore, they should not be the only ones with this opportunity — members of organizations like the University Band, the Debate Team and Mock Trial — groups that sometimes have events scheduled during finals week — should also have this option.
Our society already provides enough incentives, including financial ones, for college graduates not to take risks. The concept of leadership that we accept ought not further pave the road to inaction.
There seems to be a campus ban on appearing unworldly, uncultured or unintelligent, an unspoken agreement to position Princeton not as a place for learning but as a place for the learned. What is it about being among the often remarked “best and brightest” that makes us wary of ever admitting that in some areas we are the “worst and dullest”?
A global torrent of cliche and banality forever undermines what we truly believe. Anonymous commentators do something to highlight this consistent danger and diminish it; however, much more can and should be done.
I do not hyperbolize when I say that ethanol, or what we have come to refer to as alcohol, is a significant component of the American college, and therefore the Princeton, undergraduate experience.
Now that Princeton is well aware of allegations against HEI, the school ought to follow the example of Brown, UPenn and Yale and not reinvest with the company. This is a policy Princeton should follow whenever it is faced with clear evidence of wrongdoing on the part of its investees.
In late October I was averaging what I thought to be an impressive four hellos on my daily mid-morning walk from my dorm room to Italian class. They weren’t people I knew exactly, for “know” is a strong word to describe our poorly defined relationships. They were other freshmen that I’d met in passing, friends of friends or people who happened to have the same dining schedule as my own. In those early months of school, there was the idealistic possibility that each fleeting conversation of “What’s your name?” “Where are you from?” “What’s your major?” could yield some blissful friendship or, at the very least, another lonely soul to acknowledge your presence as you trudged from one class to the next.
