Marissa Medansky
Marissa Medansky
Recent Stories
MEDANSKY: Sticking in time
Sidewinder
I sometimes think I learned everything I know from Kurt Vonnegut.
MEDANSKY: Presidents and precedents
We ask ourselves: What would the Founding Fathers say about this or that? Would they approve of the individual mandate? Of contraceptive coverage? Would Benjamin Franklin have made pizza a vegetable?
Watch the Whiffenpoofs perform Robyn with Jesse Tyler Ferguson
Video posted to YouTube channel. No performance by the Whiffenpoofs will ever be as transcendent as their recent performance of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" with Modern Family star and three-named phenom Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
MEDANSKY: Forgetting birthdays and buying cupcakes
Sidewinder
Unlike the eighteenth birthday — that due moment of pomp and circumstance that triggers the right to vote for office and die for country — the nineteenth birthday confers no particular responsibility. It passes relatively unnoticed.
MEDANSKY: Abraham Lincoln: Hunting for more than vampires
Sidewinder
The great Illinois poet Carl Sandburg—the scribe of his big-shouldered city—published “Chicago Poems” in 1916. A prolific non-fiction author and poet, Sandburg wrote volumes upon volumes chronicling the childhood and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln—a fellow man of the Midwest—fascinated him, and Sandburg’s fascination spawned one of his most unassuming poems: a mere quatrain entitled “In a Back Alley.”
MEDANSKY: In defense of Dutch
Small languages aren't that bad. While I found myself agreeing with guest columnist Gavin Schiffres’ assessment of the requirement as a whole, I also found myself frustrated that he chose to single out specific languages as especially useless, languages that exemplify two fascinating civilizations.
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.
How to Train Your Internet
Politician, Yalie feels Internet's wrath. We’ve all heard the cautionary tales: colleges doling out rejections to bright-eyed seniors sporting age-inappropriate Facebook pictures, businesses nixing qualified applicants due to some scandalous online paper trails.
MEDANSKY: Running away from the glass ceiling
Sidewinder
In 1872, Victoria Woodhull ran for President of the United States. At least, she tried to run. A newspaper-publishing, stock-exchanging and pot-stirring advocate for sexual liberty and women’s suffrage, Woodhull nabbed the nomination of the historically dubious Equal Rights Party. Her bid was questionable, and, ever the rabble-rouser, Woodhull spent Election Day behind bars.
Connecticut dumps $22 mil into re-branding
We give ideas for campaign. Last week, the state of Connecticut launched a two-year, and $22 million marketing campaign in order to “aggressively” promote the state as a go-to destination for tourism, enterprise and family fun. (This is incidentally also the plot of a “30 Rock” episode.)