Brandeis University's Community Newspaper — Waltham, Mass.
Debbie Swarz 03 saved a life. When she walked into the Gift of Life bone marrow drive four years ago as a photographer for The Justice, she didnt even intend to participate. She simply came to cover the event for the paper and to take a few pictures. She certainly had no idea that by going there she would end up saving a life.
Thank God its over. After the two most stressful weeks of my Brandeis career, I have in my hand the product of countless hours of debate, deliberation, screaming matches, and political maneuvering: my housing confirmation for the 2005-2006 academic year. Before starting my freshman year last fall, a current student warned me about the three worst aspects of life at the university. For all Brandeis has to offer, she disclosed, food, registration and housing are not its strong suits. So to some extent, I anticipated a rough housing selection process, but never did I dream it would turn into the disaster it was for my friends and me.
A new exhibit entitled Israel: On the Cutting Edge is on display in the Shapiro Campus Center this week. The exhibit, sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Combined Jewish Philanthropies, demonstrates how technology developed in Israel influences our daily lives.
These past few weeks Ive come to find myself in another happy middle-of-a-Waltham-winter rut. I have watched every episode of Sex and the City more than three times and eaten my way through too many packs of those chocolate-vanilla swirl Jello snacks (which, by the way, I highly recommend;
what genius idea those were). But this morning I woke up and I made a resolution: today I would try to do things the Italian way more relaxed, more hopeful unsullied and fresh.
I want Chief Operating Officer Peter French to keep talking about management of the Universitys finances. But I also want a French Department, I said at the March 3 university faculty meeting. The rejection of Dean Adam Jaffes proposals, and their subsequent withdrawal by the administration, were in turn a kind of French Revolution.
In an uncomfortable crisis of competing visions for the University, one advocated by the citizens of the faculty, and another by the executive managers of the administration, the citizens prevailed. Now, like the French Revolution, historians revisionist, apologist, and activist are trying to figure out what happened, and what it meant.
Fair Trade Certified products, a market-based approach to sustainable development, are an easy and effective way of alleviating poverty. Next Wednesday and Thursday, all of us will have a chance to vote on a poll to let Aramark and our Student Union know that we care about this issue and want more Fair Trade coffee available on campus.
I knew this would be a tough assignment. What do I know about fashion? What would it have to do with the shows stated purpose of countering stereotypes about Asian-Pacific Americans? With these doubts I sat down to SKIN/InspirAsian last Saturday in the Levin Ballroom. It didnt matter that the audience was small. They connected.
I have always taken great pride in the fact that I am from Boston. This is obvious, based on the notion that when choosing a college to attend, I just couldnt seem to tear myself away from the state;
not to Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, or even Rhode Island. None of the tri-states would do. There was something about Massachusetts of which I simply couldnt let go.
The Brandeis Ensemble Theaters performance of The Underpants last weekend was the first time that the show has been performed in the New England area. The comedy was written by Carl Sternheim and adapted by Steve Martin. The whole series of events starts when several men getting a glimpse of a woman after her underpants miraculously fall down, and are enraptured by her enough to rent a room in the house that her husband is trying to lease out. What follows is a series of chaotic and hilarious events.
Sometimes I feel guilty for enjoying rap. I dont want to pay a rappers salary and promote the appreciation for shiny things and senseless violence among poor kids. In recent years, much of mainstream rap has degenerated into such messages being aimed at blacks and sponsored by whites. Yet the smooth poetry flowing from Mos Def and many other loyalists of New Yorks lyricist lounge (including Talib Kwali and Hi Tek) are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also potent reminders of an imperfect system. People get better when they start to understand what makes [them] valuable, Mos Def proclaims in Fear Not of Man.
