Writers from Thucydides to George Orwell have observed that, in political disputes, the meaning of words is often the first casualty.

As a student worker at Yale Recycling, the agency that coordinates recycling on campus, I’ve recycled everything from solo cups to furniture. But the piano was a first.

Poor Barack Obama. Whether or not you support him, our president has been dealt a pretty tough hand.

Last month, on this page, John Scrudato ’11 praised the candidacy of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman for New York’s 23rd Congressional seat (Politics of revenge, Oct. 29). He wrote, “The hope is that Hoffman’s success will encourage voters across the country to stop looking at politics as red versus blue and take a chance on something truly different.”

Gridiron glory is so last century. Today, the real battlefield is Google, and the weapon is autocomplete, which attempts to predict your search by proposing commonly used terms to complete your query. The cooler the school, the more flattering the autocomplete.
Below, real Harvard and Yale-themed searches face off is one for the ages. The school with the better autocomplete gets the points. The typed-in portions are in bold; Google took over from there.

The Yale University Press’s publication of Emmanuel Faye’s “Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy In Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935” has sparked debate about whether the practical implications and historical context of a philosophic work should color our view of the work and, if so, whether it should be removed from philosophy departments. But, is this a discussion we want to be having? And, what is it about Heidegger’s work that we really fear?

We all know one when we see one. We all hate one when we see one. We know what they look like, what they dress like, what they sound like, what they smell like.

James Cersonsky raised several ideas for Dwight Hall to become more active in promoting community service and social justice (“Step it up, Dwight Hall,” Nov. 13), Our experience is that a passion for making the world a better place is thriving at Yale.

What is gray and blue and a senior and freshman at the same time?
This Eli Whitney student at Yale.

On the eve of the release of Sarah Palin’s new book, the consensus is that she’s a nut.
I have a dirty secret. I’ve tried to hide it, tried to keep it in. But now I have to let it out.
I like Sarah Palin.

Food safety is essential to public health, consumer confidence in the food supply and the success of the food sector of the U.S. economy.

A case now standing before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom bears with it the future of Britain’s relationship with its Jewish community, and the court has no attractive options

At a time when the United States is slowly slipping behind other nations in technological innovation, students at Stanford and Harvard universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are buzzing around launching startups that will be the next big thing.

Civics often refers to the constellation of rights and responsibility which emanates from citizenship, and that constellation is, by now, well rehearsed and familiar to many. Yet, can we talk about global civics?

Last Thursday, on a sunny Texas afternoon, a mentally unstable army psychiatrist walked into his office and sat down at an empty table.

In a recent article, the News noted that there are not many students from Africa enrolled in Yale College (“Admissions officers travel to Africa,” Oct. 21). In the diagram of Africa highlighting the number of students from each country, there was a “2” superimposed on the West African country of Nigeria.

President Obama has just begun the first Asian tour of his presidency, arriving in Japan today with plans to continue on to Singapore, China and finally South Korea. While he has been criticized both for leaving the home front with the tenuous health care bill on the line and for using this trip as justification for not going to Berlin last week, he is right to make relations with Asia a priority.

Returning to Mexico this past May after the wonder years at Yale, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Initially, it didn’t seem too different from what I remembered. All my best friends from before were still around and still hung out together, mostly in the same places; some were even dating the same girls. Save for some turbulence when I came out to the rest of my friends, readjusting was smooth sailing.

Broadly measured, Connecticut does better than most other states in terms of the overall health and wealth of its residents: The state boasts the second highest median family income in the country and it ranks fourth in terms of health outcomes — a composite measure that takes into account access to healthcare, disease burden and behavior among others. The statistics, however, don’t tell the whole story; when it comes to health, there are significant health disparities between racial and ethnic population groups.

This is my first Veterans Day since leaving the United States Army after almost five years of active duty. While the nation enjoys a federal holiday, I’ll be attending class with the rest of the student body. But today still begs a moment of reflection.