Staff Columns
Staff Columns
ZELINSKY: The great big sinkhole
On Point
You have to give Mayor John DeStefano credit for consistency. Without fail, he sticks to three basic principles of economic success: Tax, spend and tax again.
STERN: Lift the Cuba embargo
A Stern Perspective
When you own a cow in Cuba, you can drink its milk, but you may not slaughter it, said Patricia Alejandro ’12, who was born in Cuba and is a member of Yale’s Cuban American Undergraduate Student Association.
GRAVER: Happy birthday, President Reagan
Gravely Mistaken
The last week has seen its share of particularly biting partisanship among undergraduates. Some of the most prominent have been the protests at the Harvey Mansfield Master’s Tea and True Love Week’s “The Person as a Gift” lecture, and the alleged sign-taking at Occupy New Haven has sparked widespread controversy across campus.
ROSS: Curb prostitution demand
Gangbuster
It’s Sex Week, so it seems a fitting time for a crime column to turn to a discussion of sex crimes. Argh! Isn’t there anywhere we can escape discussions of sex? you might be groaning to yourself . I sympathize, but nope, sorry, not this week. The least I can do is offer up a one-liner to ease you into it.
LASMAN: Acting, nationally
Beartrap
Most of us support free speech and artistic expression. As enlightened, creative and (largely) liberal young people, we value the right of artists to produce whatever they want. Should this prove awful, objectionable, even offensive, we trust that wider cultural forces will react accordingly, contesting bad art and relegating it to obscurity or infamy.
SCHWARTZ: Sex Week and sensibility
The Gadfly
We are, of course, in the middle of Yale’s legendary Sex Week. Remembering that evening two years ago when half of participants in a meeting I was attending disappeared for a massive “how-to” workshop on oral sex (titled “Babeland’s lip-tricks: blowjobs and going down”), I found myself dreading this week. This year, however, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The tone just seems more normal. I’m not quite sure how, but the organizers seem to have reasonably navigated the perilous path between prurience and Puritanism.
ZELINSKY: ER&M’s got problems
On Point
Last week, Yale got a new major: Ethnicity, Race and Migration. It was already a possible double major, but students now can take ER&M as their sole course of study. This development should raise eyebrows for several reasons, some of which the department may be able to address.
SCHWARTZ: Masters and role models
The Gadfly
Yesterday morning, Pierson Master Harvey Goldblatt sent an email to the students of his college explaining his decision to host Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield for a master’s tea on “Manliness.” Last night, Branford College unveiled a new portrait of its long-serving former master Steven Smith and hosted a reception in his honor.
MERCER-GOLDEN: The right questions
Parenthetically
As I look at the recent headlines in national newspapers and in the Yale Daily News, two words come to mind: sex and responsibility. The two are, of course, profoundly connected, and each is devastating in its own way.
MEDANSKY: Limited autism discourse
Sidewinder
“Touch,” a new television series premiering this week on Fox, centers on the experiences of Jake, an enigmatic eleven-year-old boy endowed with dazzling mathematical abilities and a profound sense of isolation. He doesn’t talk, either; Jake’s father must navigate his son’s world in silence. Previous descriptions of the show explicitly described Jake as autistic, but no more: Fox seems to be moving away from an explicit diagnosis. Even so, the implications surrounding Jake and his condition remain clear: Jake is autistic, and his autism has endowed him with an unique understanding of the world around him.
ROSS: The end of the Esserman honeymoon
Gangbuster
Well that didn’t take long. Like many marriages, the union between the city and its new police chief is going through a rocky patch just after the honeymoon, and the relationship’s future is not clear.
O’ROURKE: Moon base not so crazy
Space Cadet
Newt Gingrich’s up and down campaign to be the GOP presidential nominee is likely to flame out today in Florida.
STERN: Needle exchanges work
A Stern Perspective
For six and a half years, Margaret Lippitt, a student in the Yale Graduate School of Public Health, worked for an organization with a slightly surprising name: Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS). HIPS provides services including disease testing and support groups to prostitutes, intravenous drug users and other at-risk people.
ROSS: Restoring real community policing
Gangbuster
Bringing back what many people call community policing will not cure New Haven’s crime problem. Because it never really left.
SCHWARTZ: Contemplate the Christmas trees
The Gadfly
Although the weather seems determined to ignore the calendar, Christmas is around the corner. The commercially decreed holiday season began weeks ago, and in the last few days, holiday displays have appeared in our college dining halls.
Previous Next