Another Stupid Argument Against Sotomayor

She doesn't pronounce her own name like a real American!

Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent's simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to.

Mark Krikorian

Max Seibald's Week

Tom Pasniewski '98:

What an emotional ride - win player of the year, win midfielder of the year, win Lowe's Senior Class award, beat Virginia in national semi's, graduate, lose national championship game, get drafted, win Tewaarton. All in a week's time.

Response to the WSJ Article

Charles Star writes a good response to the Wall St. Journal article. It's worth reading in its entirety but here are some excerpts:

eLynah forum post

The real failing of the article was in describing the Ivy League's place in non-football sports. First, by overstating the past success of the basketball teams and second by understating the success in the rest of the programs.

I don't even know what to say about the lamentations about the title drought in hockey. The Ivies put three teams into the tournament this year and have gotten multiple bids fairly often in the recent past. The Ivies have only one Final Four team over the arbitrary period chosen but Cornell has been in the Elite Eight 5 times since 2000, and was an overtime goal away from getting the final four in both 2005 and 2006. In addition, an Ivy League team played in the women's championship every year between 2002 and 2005.

WSJ Article Sells Ivy Sports Short

The Wall Street Journal has an article today about how Ivy League sports are suffering because of various restrictions, and why some people want to see the Ivies become more competitive:

The schools don’t need the exposure of sports to attract students and alumni donations. But some of the league’s alumni complain that the schools offer their students the best of everything, except in this one area. “Why not give them the same opportunities and the same platform in athletics that you do in academics?” says Marcellus Wiley, a former NFL defensive end who played at Columbia in the 1990s. “I think they should revisit everything.”

As evidence of the Ivy League's decline, the author pulls some weak evidence.

In men’s and women’s basketball, the Ivies have not won a NCAA tournament game since 1998. The league that spawned the Princeton offense, a thinking-man’s attack that once brought death by deft passing, has lost by double digits in nine of its last 11 men’s tournament appearances.

As someone points out on eLynah, "they treat the 1998 Princeton team as if it were at all representative of the preceding decades of Ivy hoops rather than the anomaly it was." Cornell had a solid season this year, but received a #14 seed based on the computer rankings and had to face #3 Missouri. It's hard to expect that game to be competitive, even though Cornell stuck with Mizzou for most of the game.

In men’s ice hockey—long a point of pride for the six participating Ivies, especially Cornell—just one Ivy member has reached the Frozen Four national semifinals since 1995.

This is a little misleading. Cornell has made it to the NCAA quarterfinals three times since their 2003 trip to the Frozen Four, and lost twice in overtime. Talent-wise, there isn't a huge difference between the winning and losing teams in a 1-0 triple overtime game. Just this year, 3 of the 6 Ivy hockey squads made the 16-team NCAA tournament.

Besides, can we really blame league restrictions for the fact that Harvard sucks? Let's not forget Harvard's string of awful performances in NCAA hockey tournament first round games:

03/23/02: Maine 4, Harvard 3
03/28/03: BU 6, Harvard 4
03/26/04: Maine 5, Harvard 4
03/26/05: UNH 3, Harvard 2
03/25/06: Maine 6, Harvard 1

The ban on postseason football, which exists because the Ivies don’t want to take up players’ time, prevents players from competing for titles and gaining exposure.

Okay, so football isn't big in the Ivy League. I'm perfectly fine with this. Big time football means expensive coaching staffs, players who don't care about classes, and a further lowering of admissions standards for football players.

In sports like hockey, lacrosse (three Ivies in the tournament), and wrestling (Cornell 4th nationally), Cornell and other Ivies have been able to compete on the national level. There's no reason to sacrifice academics and other priorities to try to compete in basketball or football.

The Worst Arguments Against Sotomayor

These two are a little ridiculous. Enjoy.

1. Conservatives are concerned that Sotomayor's Latina diet will "influence her verdicts from the bench."

Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.” This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ tongue and ears — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Not that it really matters, but I'm pretty sure patitas de cerdo are pigs' feet, not tongue. Ah, well.

2. Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw says his deceased grandmother would be "shocked and appalled" that Sotomayor has not saved more money:

The Washington Post reports that the 54-year-old Sotomayer [sic] has a $179,500 yearly salary but

On her financial disclosure report for 2007, she said her only financial holdings were a Citibank checking and savings account, worth $50,000 to $115,000 combined. During the previous four years, the money in the accounts at some points was listed as low as $30,000.

My grandmother would have been shocked and appalled to see someone who makes so much save so little.

Nate Silver does a great job of debunking this argument here.

Painting Roofs to Save the Earth

When it comes to mitigating climate change, simple ideas are usually best. They don't require an advanced understanding of meteorology and cost much less than other methods. Hopefully this idea from U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will take off.

The science is simple: if the surfaces which face the sun are white, they will reflect more solar energy back away from Earth. So why not paint every roof white?

Making roads and roofs a paler colour could have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years, Chu said.

It was a geo-engineering scheme that was "completely benign" and would keep buildings cooler and reduce energy use from air conditioning, as well as reflecting sunlight back away from the Earth.

Outsourcing The News To India

The New Haven Advocate decided to see what it would be like:

We posted ads on Craigslist in Bangalore and Mumbai back in March seeking journalists to write this issue of our paper — news, arts, food, sex advice, the auto column, the horoscope, the whole pakora. In just weeks, we had over 100 replies from Indian freelancers willing to do just about anything for us. Some were journalists with impressive credentials — The Guardian, BBC, The Times of India — and others were "content writers" or technical writers hungry for any assignment we could throw them.

It's interesting to read the articles for this issue. I think they probably sound to me roughly how my Spanish essays sound to a native speaker. It's mostly correct English, but the style just isn't there.

State Sen. Rob Kane, R-Watertown, says an overwhelming majority of U.S. people favor capital punishment... While many will argue that the death penalty is hardly a deterrent to murderers, each heinous incident has certainly affected public opinion regarding the death penalty. A November 2007 poll conducted after the Petit family murder showed a 63 percent support in favor of the death penalty.

Rep-Am Makes Front Page Error

Yeah, yeah, I know they were putting this together on a Sunday night. But still, you'd think someone might have caught onto the fact that Lidge is actually the closer for the Phillies, not the Yankees.

More quality work from the Waterbury Republican-American.

Big Red Heartbreak

Hockey and lacrosse have emerged as Cornell's big sports, but unfortunately, it seems that every season for these two sports ends in a heartbreak.

In both sports, Cornell faces inherent disadvantages. Due to Ivy League policy, Cornell cannot offer athletic scholarships. For lacrosse, Cornell-bound recruits often pass up scholarships to powerhouses like Syracuse, Duke, Virginia, and Johns Hopkins. For hockey, Cornell-bound recruits often pass up scholarships to powerhouses like Michigan, BU, Minnesota, Maine, and North Dakota. Cornell even faces a disadvantage within the Ivy League, since schools like Princeton and Harvard have more competitive aid packages which can effectively amount to a partial scholarship.

Other factors also work against the Big Red. In hockey, due to Ivy rules, Cornell must start practices and games late in the fall, so our teams have considerably less experience heading into the first part of the season. In lacrosse, Cornell must play the weaker Ivy teams every year, while teams like Duke can load their schedules with enough strong opponents to virtually guarantee them a high seed in the NCAA tournament, regardless of which games they win or lose.

Yet, nearly every year, despite these factors, Cornell manages to establish itself as a top-tier team. Cornell's hockey and lacrosse teams have been able to make runs in the NCAA tournaments, yet invariably fall just short of their goals, breaking the hearts of their fans.

In hockey, it's become a regular phenomenon. The stacked 2003 team losing a bullshit game to UNH in the Frozen Four. The 2005 team losing a 2-1 overtime game to Minnesota in Minnesota, falling one win short of the Frozen Four. The 2006 team losing a 1-0 triple overtime game to Wisconsin in Wisconsin, falling one win short of the Frozen Four. The 2009 team losing to upstart fluke team Bemidji State, falling one win short of the Frozen Four.

In lacrosse, it's also turning into a regular phenomenon. The 2007 team made a fantastic run through the season, going undefeated, with wins at Syracuse and at Duke, before that amazing-then-awful national semifinal game against Duke down in Baltimore. Coming back from a 10-3 third quarter deficit to tie the game at 10-10, only to lose on a goal with 3 seconds remaining.

I had almost gotten that loss out of my head. This year's magical run had restored my faith in Cornell's ability to win on the big stage. Just on Saturday, Cornell had demolished the top-seeded Virginia squad, 15-6. And today, in the final against Syracuse, things looked to be going the same way. A 9-6 lead with 4 minutes remaining. A 9-8 lead, and the fucking ball, with 28 seconds left. Then, the heartbreaking goal to tie with 4.5 seconds left. And then the game winner after yet another Cornell turnover in overtime.

The odds are against the Big Red, but nearly every year they prove that they can make it to the big stage. They just haven't proved that they can win once they get there. Looking back at this year just frustrates me...the only thing standing between Cornell and the Frozen Four was Bemidji State, a low seed. The only thing standing between Cornell and the NCAA Lacrosse championship was 4.5 seconds.

Maybe one year, maybe even within my lifetime, we'll get that win and break the curse. Until then, it'll be another rough offseason.

Dems Line Up Behind Dodd

Last week, during his speech in Woodbury, Ned Lamont made it very clear that he had no intention to challenge Sen. Chris Dodd in a Democratic primary. The knocks on Dodd are plentiful: moving his family to Iowa for his pointless presidential campaign, allowing the financial system to collapse when he was supposed to be overseeing it, doing nothing to stop the AIG bonuses. But Lamont still says Dodd is a good Senator.

Then, on Friday, President Obama personally takes the time to type out an email on his BlackBerry to his Connecticut supporters in which he canonizes Sen. Dodd:

Today -- thanks to the extraordinary efforts of your senator, Chris Dodd -- I signed a bill that restores a sense of fairness and transparency to the credit card industry.

As Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Dodd was the driving force behind this bill. He's the one who built the bipartisan coalition that passed this crucial reform by a huge margin -- 90 to 5.

Will you take a moment and join me in thanking Senator Dodd for his outstanding work on behalf of families in Connecticut and across the country?

This certainly sends a clear message that Obama likes Dodd and doesn't want anyone to oppose him.

If this isn't enough to get the point across, the Obama administration seems ready to send White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel over to break a few kneecaps. Just look what happened to NY Rep. Steve Israel when there were rumors that Israel might challenge Sen. Gillibrand in a primary.

So Israel was given an ultimatum [by Emanuel]: if he proceeded with the Senate race, the White House would go to great pains to shut off every dollar in the state. With Schumer’s help, the administration would make sure all the big Democratic donors and institutional players kept their distance. They would show no restraint, even campaigning against him and raising money in Israel’s own home turf. Obama himself would come out to campaign in New York City, cutting off at the knees the downstate, Manhattan-focused appeal Israel would have needed to run to Gillibrand’s left. And perhaps most damning of all, given whom the math dictated Israel would have needed in his column, Emanuel indicated that the nation’s first black president was prepared to barnstorm through New York’s black neighborhoods hand-in-hand with the junior senator, employing his appeal to African-Americans to a political degree he usually avoids.

Sheesh. Israel is denying that these threats occurred, but it's clear that Obama doesn't want people messing around with Democratic Senators.

At this point, Dodd's only challenger is someone no one has heard of:

Merrick Alpert, a businessman who served as an Air Force officer in Bosnia, pledged on his Web site Monday to formally file paperwork with the Federal Elections Committee to challenge Dodd for the Demcoratic Party's nomination.

Still, the Obama administration might be hurting itself by trying to scare away primary challengers for Dodd and Gillibrand. Dodd is very unpopular these days and could feasibly lose the general election and give the GOP a Senate seat in deep-blue Connecticut. A Democratic primary election (or Dodd's retirement) would pave the way for a stronger Democratic candidate to carry the party's flag in the general election, hopefully keeping the seat in Democratic hands.

Unfortunately, if Obama wants Dodd, then it looks like we're stuck with him.

Which Team Is The Winning Team?

Out of twelve lacrosse experts, how many picked Cornell to win today?

Zero.

The Underdogs Won

I've been writing recently about why Cornell shouldn't have been considered a huge underdog against UVA, and the team proved me right today.

Don't celebrate yet; the expectations are already being lowered for the final on Monday against Syracuse:

In 1988, the last time Cornell played for a national championship, it did so by beating Virginia, 19-6, in the semifinals. In the championship two days later, it lost to – guess who? – Syracuse.

The Orange already own a 15-10 win over Cornell on April 7, they looked great in Saturday’s 17-7 semifinal rout of Duke, and they have the experience of last year’s national championship to guide them.

See you back at Gillette Stadium on Monday for the Central New York showdown.

XXIV

I agree with most of what Colin McEnroe wrote about Angels & Demons (and I'm stealing his title):

It's tough to miss the influence of Jack Bauer on the second entry in the Dan Brown franchise. There's a digital clock ticking down and a fast-paced series of events playing out on an otherwise momentous day. I kept thinking about how useful Chloe O'Brien would have been to Robert "He's a Symbolologist Who Doesn't Play By the Rules" Langdon. "Chloe! Pull up the schematics for the Basilica Mozzarella Profunda. Now!"

McEnroe highlights the film's problems, but I don't think Angels & Demons was a total waste of time. It's a fun ride, even if completely implausible.

Underdogs Underdogs Underdogs

It's coming from the team, too. From junior Pierre Derkac's blog post for the Times:

I am so jacked up right now, but everybody on the bus is asleep with their Oakley’s on and their Bose noise cancellation headphones blasting one of Schwoopa’s (Pat Kirwan’s) great finds. I have to settle for giving myself a slight grin, realizing that my 45 brothers and I will soon be battling as an underdog on the stage that all other way.

Elsewhere in the Times, this bizarre assertion:

While Duke and Cornell have flirted with the top echelon of the sport lately, they will not be considered true members of the present-day elite until they win [another] national title.

Right, because in basketball, no one thinks Pitt is any good because they've never won an NCAA title. Ohio State sucks, too; they haven't won since 1960.

Some interesting tidbits from the Annapolis paper:

Standout midfielder Max Seibald and his classmates planned [to miss graduation]. Cornell's seniors were so confident the team was headed to the Final Four, they declined to order caps and gowns for the ceremony.

But they also had this Sun-like mistake:

Cornell also advanced to the semis in 2007, falling to Duke 12-11 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Silly us for driving to Baltimore, then. Let's go red tomorrow.

Senate Reads My Letter, Abolishes Death Penalty

Letter to the editor today in the Republican-American. They made a few small changes, but otherwise it's pretty much what I submitted.

Capital-punishment law is ineffective

I encourage Gov. M. Jodi Rell and state legislators to support the death-penalty-abolition bill, which the House approved last week.

The law is ineffective and pointless. Since Connecticut reinstated the death penalty in the early 1970s, only one person has been executed. That was serial killer Michael Ross, and he had waived his appeals, essentially asking the state to kill him. In almost 40 years, we have been unable to execute any criminal who has not actually wanted to die.

The law serves neither retribution nor deterrence. If Gov. Rell and others believe in capital punishment, they should reform our statutes so the worst criminals face actual death sentences. Otherwise, they should recognize our system is pointless and support the House bill.

Life imprisonment without parole is an acceptably harsh punishment for the most heinous crimes.

[Me]
Middlebury

Meanwhile, at 4:11 this morning, the Connecticut State Senate voted 19-17 to repeal the abolish the death penalty. Clearly, my letter must have persuaded them.

Some interesting commentary over on My Left Nutmeg:

Many of us wondered during the debate where the church was on this. It seems as if some are very eager to rally against marriage equality, or against provisions to make it easier to hold church officials accountable for misdoings, but when it comes to the Death Penalty, we don't hear much from the church.

Like Gov. Rell, I'm an Episcopalian, so I'll refer to our church's position on the Death Penalty. In 1988, the Lambdeth Conference passed Resolution 33, which "Urges the Church to speak out against...all governments who practice capital punishment". Gov. Rell should respect the position of the church on this issue and sign the bill repealing the Death Penalty. However, most people do not expect this to happen.

Writing Clichés Since 1865

Maybe our slogan-writer took the staff buyout package.

Come back next year for "Class of '10: Be All That You Can Be."

Cornell

Every Vote Counts

Headline of the day: "Tiebreaking Vote Cast by Dead Man; Runoff Required"

This was for a school board election in Ogdensburg, N.Y.

The tying tally came after an absentee ballot from [candidate] Peo's brother-in-law, Franklin "Peanut'' Bouchey, was ruled invalid because he died three days before the election.

Only in upstate.

Beware "Big Bicycle" and "Bicycle Buffoonery"

I'm on my way out the door, but I just had to pull a few lines from today's column by "D. Dowd Muska." Honestly, sometimes I wonder where the Waterbury Republican-American finds its columnists. In Muska's case, maybe he draws inspiration from "searching the woods of Connecticut for the mountain lions wildlife bureaucrats say aren’t there." Right then.

Muska's anti-bicycle column moves from one ridiculous assertion to another:

Most of the greener-than-thou pedal pushers and Lance Armstrong wannabes on Connecticut’s roads can’t be bothered to obey stop signs, keep to the right, or ride single file. It might be because they’re too busy daydreaming of how to force you to pay for their hobby.

Right, because obviously the goal of bicyclists is to push cars off the road. This column is probably the first time I've ever seen someone make an economic argument against bike riding.

Predictably, this legislative session, bicycle buffoonery is at work in Hartford. S.B. No. 735 would create the “Connecticut Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board,” require both the state and municipalities to spend 1 percent of highway funds on “all users” (translation: bicyclists), and establish “Share the Road” license plates, the proceeds of which are to be used to “enhance public awareness of the rights and responsibilities of both motorists and bicyclists while jointly using the highways of this state.”

I just don't understand what's wrong with any of these things, except maybe some issues with interpreting "all users." Why shouldn't we encourage bike riding?

It’s time for an annual bicycle registration fee. (How’s $300 sound?)

Is this a joke? I'm sure families with two children would love to spend an extra $600 every year paying for their kids' right to ride their bikes around the neighborhood.

Non-cyclists worried about energy use and air pollution shouldn’t be fooled by Big Bicycle’s propaganda.

I just thought "Big Bicycle" was hilarious. Also beware their evil sister lobbies, Big Tricycle and Big Unicycle.

The only other reference I can find to "Big Bicycle" is in a comment to a blog post by Matthew Yglesias. Either Muska borrowed the phrase from this commenter, or maybe there are two people in the U.S. silly enough to believe this.

Impressions of Ned Lamont

Since I've blogged recently about bad political choices, I'll admit that in the first election in which I was eligible to vote, I supported Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont for U.S. Senate. I disagreed strongly with Lieberman over foreign policy, but I respected what he'd accomplished in the Senate and I believed him when he said he'd work to support Democratic candidates in 2008. On the other hand, Ned Lamont seemed to be to be completely out of touch. Yes, he said the right things, but he's an heir to the JP Morgan fortune who attended Exeter, Harvard [Sucks], and Yale, lived in Greenwich, etc. I regret my vote for Lieberman, but Lamont simply wasn't a compelling candidate at the time.

Tonight, I saw Lamont in person for the the first time. The Democratic committee for the town next to us brought him in to talk about the economy. Honestly, the most exciting part of the evening was trying to find this damn building. Woodbury is one of those Connecticut towns in which its entire town center was constructed before 1850, and zoning laws require that all signs be just small enough so that you can't read them as you drive past.

Anyway, it wasn't a big deal, because Lamont started speaking 20 minutes after the event was supposed to start. As you'd expect, he gives a good speech, but he's a little lacking on the personal side. When Lamont speaks about policy, he gets the same look in his eyes as Cornell students do in class discussions when they seem to be a little too interested in the material. You know, like when you're having a class discussion about some event which happened hundreds of years ago and you can't help but think that no one can feel this strongly about the topic. With Lamont, this is especially odd when he stumbles with some difficulty through details about health care policy, yet conveys the idea that it's a life or death issue for him.

When Lamont was asked what he thought the Obama administration could have done better so far, he answered that he thought Paulson and Congress rushed too much in designing the first bank bailout. He then qualified this statement by saying that he understands why they worked so quickly and that he doesn't hold it against them. What he didn't mention in his (non-)answer was that Bush was still in office at this point.

In another odd statement, he labeled universities as places of excess which could do more to reduce costs (and therefore tuition). He made a snide remark about "professors who live like Queen Elizabeth, with two houses, three cars, and four research associates." This was perhaps the most hypocritical comment he made all night, given his elite education and his daughter's recent graduation from Harvard. After the speech, I told him that Cornell has a very positive relationship with the state of New York, in which much of its research goes towards improving the upstate economy. I said that with Yale in New Haven, and UConn, that the state could do more to cultivate economic development from these academic centers. Lamont mentioned something about the Route 128 corridor near Cambridge and asked what my name was.

If Lamont decides to run for governor against Rell, I will obviously support him. But being a strong candidate is about more than simply holding the right positions. Policy stances are what earns a candidate support from other parts of the country, but the ability to speak sincerely and say the right things are qualities which earn respect among voters.

The 12-3 Underdog?

The Ithaca Journal had an article today about former Cornell lacrosse coach Richie Moran and his continued close relationship with the program.

The article is full of quotes from Moran which make Cornell out to be some sort of unheralded, underdog team which no one expected to make it this far:

The key to Cornell winning two games this weekend, Moran said, is to get timely production from "unknowns."

"In all honesty, if you asked a lacrosse fan to name some names on that team, you would hear Moyer, Seibald, Glynn, and maybe a little Pannell. So really it is a team of unknowns, and the unknown and the underdog - that is beautiful chemistry. Beautiful chemistry. I love it."

Remember that Cornell is ranked #4 in the polls and was seeded #5 in the NCAA tournament. They topped unseeded Hofstra in Ithaca in the first round and then won a minor upset over #4 seed Princeton on Saturday, which was not really an upset if you consider that Cornell defeated Princeton earlier in the season.

They defeated #3 Duke earlier in the season and hung close to #1 Virginia through three quarters of the game at UVA. It's hard to label Cornell a team of unknowns when they've been a top-5 team for most of the season.

Virginia is the favorite on Saturday, but it's not like Cornell came out of nowhere to reach the Final Four. I'd hope that Moran doesn't really hold such low expectations for this team.

See also my earlier post about the media's obsession with "Cinderella" teams.

Plagiarism

There used to be a "quiz" floating around Facebook or LiveJournal a few years ago. You'd answer a few questions about your politics and personality, and it would tell you which New York Times columnist you were. I remember that I was ecstatic when it told me I was Maureen Dowd, because at that point in my life I ate up her shrill diatribes against the Bush administration.

In her column yesterday, Maureen Dowd plagiarized. This isn't one of those "gray area" times when it seems plausible that these could have been her own words.

Dowd's column on Sunday:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Blogger Josh Marshall on Thursday:

"More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq."

Dowd's explanation defies logic:

josh is right. I didn't read his blog last week, and didn't have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent -- and I assumed spontaneous -- way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we're fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

So instead of directly plagiarizing Marshall, she plagiarized her friend who plagiarized Marshall?

Most liberal arts professors include a link to Cornell's Code of Academic Integrity on their syllabi and inform us that these rules apply to everything we write for the course. Plagiarism is not tolerated, and the penalties are serious.

Why should there be a different standard for professional writers? Dowd's explanation wouldn't save a Cornell student from failing a course, so why should Dowd keep her job? Maybe this sounds like an overreaction, but I think the same rules need to apply to both professional and student writers.

Cornell Sports Update

It's been a slow Sunday around here, so let's catch up with our Big Red sports teams.

No. 5 Cornell lacrosse defeated No. 4 Princeton, 6-4, to advance to the Final Four next weekend in Foxborough, Mass. Even though Cornell had beaten Princeton in Ithaca earlier in the season, the Tigers were seeded ahead of the Big Red. Cornell faces No. 1 Virginia in one national semifinal, while fellow central New York powerhouse Syracuse faces Duke in the other. The games are on ESPN2.

Cornell softball, Ivy League champions, ended their season with losses to UMass and Sacred Heart in the NCAA tournament. Cornell finished 42-13.

On the hockey front, it was encouraging to read an article on the Oilers website about Riley Nash. There's been speculation that Nash might leave Cornell early, but the article implies that Nash will be back for at least one more year:

“We don’t want to turn him pro when he’s not ready to turn pro,” [Oilers Assistant General Manager Kevin] Prendergast emphasizes. “We’ll have our prospect camp in July and we’ll have a pretty good idea of where he is at that point. If we feel he’s getting stronger, that’s great and we’ll think about it at the end of next hockey season, and if not, then we’ll wait the four years.”

Also, the Cornell Chronicle's blog (they have a blog?) confirms the earlier report that Dave the Zamboni Guy has taken the employee buyout package.

The 67-year-old- Nulle, whose career at Cornell has included stints as rink manager, skating instructor and even ballroom dance teacher, is stepping down this summer. He will take a few months to relax, he says, but he’ll be back on campus for concerts and other cultural offerings that he had to pass up during his many years of working nights.

Connecticut's (No) Death Penalty

This past week, Connecticut's House of Representatives voted to abolish the death penalty. The vote moves next to the Senate, but Gov. Jodi Rell (R) has indicated that she will veto the legislation if it passes.

Connecticut's death penalty serves no purpose. Since the state reinstated the death penalty in the 1970s, one person has been executed. Serial killer (and former Cornell student!) Michael Ross waived his appeals and was executed in 2005. For 36 years, Connecticut hasn't actually managed to execute anyone who hasn't wanted to die.

Supporters of the death penalty argue that capital punishment serves two valuable purposes: retribution and deterrence. By this view, the families of victims deserve to see the harshest punishment brought on those who killed their loved ones, while capital punishment deters would-be murderers because they know they might be killed for their crimes.

Of course, having the death penalty without killing anyone does not achieve either of these goals. There is no retribution because no one dies. There is no deterrence because the odds of a Connecticut murderer being executed, even if handed a death sentence, is nearly zero.

So, what purpose does the Connecticut death penalty serve, aside from helping Governor Rell to strengthen her tough-on-crime credentials? Essentially nothing.

The House bill would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. This is an adequately harsh sentence for our state's most heinous criminals, and it's too bad that Governor Rell is placing ideology before common sense.

You Forgot Grande Prairie, Alberta!

Another well-written article from the Waterbury Republican-American:

"An Eagle to the Rescue"

By Rick Harrison

WOODBURY - To get from Woodbury to Kodiak, Alaska, by car would take nearly four days of straight driving. The 4,793 miles run past Scranton, Youngstown, Chicago, Fargo, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Anchorage.

Nonnewaug High School senior Joe Amabile[,] Jr.[,] won't be traveling to Kodiak by car this summer, but his route there has been both long and direct.

Amabile, a 17-year-old Woodbury resident, will train in Kodiak to become a

U.S. Coast Guard helicopter rescue swimmer.

What a terrible lead. Since when does searching on Google maps substitute for actually thinking of a decent way to begin an article?

And yes, I just checked -- that's the exact mileage and route offered by Google maps. How many readers are actually going to make it past that first paragraph? Congratulations and good luck to Mr. Amabile, but I'm not sure that Rick Harrison's fantasy four-day Google-inspired road trip is the best analogy for what he has accomplished.

"Barack Obama Elected President"

By Me

WASHINGTON - To get from Honolulu to Washington, D.C., takes 16 days of straight driving and kayaking. The 5,566 miles run past the Pacific Ocean, Amarillo, Terre Haute, and Lexington.

Newly elected President Barack Obama won't be traveling to Washington by kayak, but his route there has been both long and direct...

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't trust Google's directions for getting from Hawaii to Washington. From Google maps:

Hockey Game at UNH is Confirmed

One month ago, we gave you the scoop that Cornell hockey was planning a game at UNH. We even correctly guessed when it would occur.

Now, we have confirmation from the UNH website:

UNH will leave Hockey East ... with a single game against Cornell on Jan. 3 (4 p.m.) at Whittemore Center...

This game is certainly more exciting than the Niagara series which we've had over the last few winter breaks. A win at UNH would be a great way to kick off the second half of the season.

Cornell Hockey In 2009-2010, Updated

I know, it's been a while since I did a hockey post, right?

Two college hockey media outlets released their preliminary top-10 lists for next season. They might be a little too optimistic at this point, but we thank them for the respect.

CollegeHockeyNews.com
1. Denver
2. Notre Dame
3. Miami
4. Cornell
5. Boston University
6. Michigan
7. Princeton
8. Minnesota
9. North Dakota
10. Umass-Lowell

InsideCollegeHockey.com
1. Miami
2. Denver
3. Boston University
4. Minnesota
5. Notre Dame
6. Cornell
7. Princeton
8. Michigan
9. UMass-Lowell
10. St. Cloud State

Most of the analysis is pretty superficial at this point. A few highlights:

CHN: If [Greening and Nash return], this could be another one of those seasons like 2005 and 2006, where the Big Red get a couple key non-league wins, roll through the ECAC, and get a very high seed in the NCAAs.

INCH: They've got enough talent available to come back and plenty of experience to make another run at ECAC Hockey titles and a Frozen Four trip to Detroit in 2010.

It also looks like we'll have a pretty good strength of schedule next season, with 2 games each against Princeton and North Dakota, and the BU game. That could be 5 games against top-10 teams.

Maybe He Watches GRΣΣK, Too

The current governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, announced yesterday that he's running for U.S. Senate. He's hoping to replace Sen. Mel Martinez (R), who announced earlier this year that he won't be seeking reelection.

Crist, of course, has gotten plenty of attention in the last year. His endorsement of John McCain before the Florida primary helped McCain win the Republican nomination, so Crist's name was batted around as a possible VP pick.

For years, Crist has denied rumors that he's gay, and Wonkette had a field day when Crist suddenly announced last summer that he was engaged. Some people believed this was merely a stunt to make himself more eligible to be chosen as McCain's VP.

Regardless, McCain went with Sarah Palin, and Crist did actually get married over the winter. Now, he seems like the favorite to win next fall's election for Senate.

There's really no point to this post, except to share these wonderful pictures of Crist from his days as an undergrad.

Maybe my generation should think about the kinds of pictures we have up on Facebook -- would we really want someone digging them up 20 years from now and using them to embarass us? Not that Crist's pictures are that embarassing, certainly not as embarassing as some themed mixer pictures that we Cornellians have on Facebook. Just something to think about.

(Pictures taken from Wonkette)

The Cornell Chronicle Stops Printing

The twenty people who picked up copies of the last issue must be heartbroken.

Good riddance; what a waste of paper this thing was!

The Chronicle, unlike the Ithaca Journal or student-run Daily Sun, was never meant to be objective. It serves as the mouthpiece of the Cornell administration, and runs puff pieces about what's going on around campus.

In its printed form, this thing had no market. No one read it. The Chronicle's delivery staff clearly knew this, since they often just dropped full stacks around campus without actually untying the bundles of newspapers. Two weeks later, they'd pick up the unopened stacks and drop off new ones.

Despite the lack of print readership, the Chronicle was eager to claim success in the online market:

David Brand, Chronicle director, noted the increasingly important role that the well-established Chronicle Online will play in bringing campus news to a growing audience. In the second week of April alone, more than 1.5 million "hits" on stories were recorded on Chronicle Online, with more than 80,000 unique users. Brand said that many of the paper's features likely will continue online.

Let's think, why are there so many hits? Because Chronicle articles are prominently linked on the cornell.edu homepage! If my crappy blog had links from cornell.edu, you could bet that I'd have tens of thousands of visitors each month.

The Chronicle will continue to be a convenient source for University press releases written as news articles, but not much else. It's good to see that they're no longer masquerading as a newspaper.

The View From the Library

I tend to study in the Uris stacks. They're dreary and isolated, but that's usually what I need to keep myself focused. If I need a distraction, I can look out the windows facing Willard Straight Hall and, off in the distance, Ithaca College.

Most days, I'll see groups of prospective students shuffling around on a campus tour. The tour groups give me an arrogant sense of accomplishment, since I know that I'm ahead of these kids. I've already been at Cornell for three years, while these high schoolers (or sometimes younger) are just starting to look at colleges. As I look down at them (literally), I can't help but get a bit of an ego boost.

Today, it was the opposite. After this afternoon's law school graduation, the new JDs led their families around campus -- to show them the libraries, the views of Ithaca, and everything else within pointing distance. Clad in crisp red robes and ringed by adoring family members, they were everything I wanted to be in 4 or 6 years. As I'm stuck in the library studying for my undegraduate finals, they're jumping into the real world with an advanced degree.

Congratulations to the graduates, and I hope to be doing the same in a few years' time. For now, it's back to studying.

CBS Announcer Says U.S. Troops Would Murder Reid, Pelosi

Why hasn't this guy been fired yet? What a moronic thing to say:

CBS Sports commentator David Feherty drew criticism Friday for suggesting any U.S. soldier would murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) if given the chance.

"From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death," Feherty wrote in an a D Magazine piece welcoming former President George W. Bush back to Dallas.

Another question: why hasn't this been reported? I would hope that any sensible person on either side of the aisle would be shocked by these comments. Keep in mind that this wasn't an off-the-cuff rant on talk radio, but a magazine article!

More Good Publicity for John Edwards

George Stephanopoulos reports that some of Edwards' closest advisers knew about the affair and would have sabotaged his campaign if it looked like he might win the nomination:

Several of them had gotten together and devised a 'doomsday' strategy of sorts. Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards' staffers have told me. They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.

Just keeps getting better for JRE.

Via Taegan Goddard

Ithaca is Isolated

Beginning June 11, Continental Airlines will no longer fly from Ithaca to Newark. Ithaca Journal

As the article points out, people who fly on this route aren't really interested in flying to Newark, but rather to the international destinations which can be accessed through Newark.

This change will certainly have an impact on Cornell, since the route serves as a portal from Ithaca to other countries. When Cornell brings in foreigners to deliver lectures, or to serve as visiting professors, these academics most likely fly to Newark and then connect to Ithaca. Now, they will either have to take a taxi from Newark to Laguardia to fly to Ithaca, or else try to go through Philly.

The discontinuation of service to Newark reinforces the fact that Ithaca is isolated.

Maybe I'm just a highway elitist. Growing up in rural/suburban Connecticut, it was routine to hop on the interstate to drive to friends' houses. Ithaca has no nearby highways. Coming from the east, you have to drive 30 miles on Route 79 to get to Ithaca. From the north or west, it's Route 96. From any direction, you drive through a whole lot of boring countryside before reaching the oasis of Ithaca. New York City is a 4-hour trip by car, and much more by bus. Airfare from Syracuse is expensive, and most students who live outside of driving distance find that it's easier to just stay in Ithaca over breaks than try to negotiate a trip home.

There have been rumors of a possible Amtrak line to Ithaca, and this would make it easier to get to New York City and the rest of the eastern seaboard. Regardless, Ithaca's location in "central" New York isn't central to much of anything.

The Edwards Fallout

I'll admit it: I fell for John Edwards. I believed in him. In a field of strong Democratic candidates, I chose JRE.

I made my first political contribution to the Edwards campaign. I taped an Edwards rally sign to my wall. Even though JRE was basically a lost cause by that point, I mailed in my absentee ballot for the CT Democratic primary with the bubble next to Edwards' name filled in. (Of course, Edwards dropped out several days after I mailed the ballot, and I was one of only 7 Edwards voters in Middlebury.)

Although he fell well short of winning the nomination, Edwards shaped the agenda of the 2008 presidential election. The Nation:

Obama's rhetoric has grown more powerful and effective as he has borrowed Edwards's policies as well as his populist phrasing. And when Clinton tells urban audiences she is campaigning to help Americans "lift yourself and your family out of poverty," it is impossible to miss the Edwards echo. Even Republicans like Mike Huckabee sounded like they'd been reading Edwards's position papers on trade policy.

When he withdrew, I had been in the Edwards camp for almost a year. We mourned. This diary over on DailyKos made me tear up a little when I read it last February:

I was a disillusioned Dem, a former Nader voter who couldn't get excited about a party that had become almost as plutocratic and corporatized as the GOP. Senator Edwards, you made me proud to be a Democrat. You inspired me. And of course I'm not alone. I belong to a mass of activists who are proud to call themselves Edwards Democrats. We will work to create the kind of populist movement that can sustain the next Edwards or Edwards-like campaign. Senator Edwards, your fight is our fight and it carries on.

In retrospect, I was naive. Why would Edwards have transformed so quickly from the sunny centrist of 2004 into the progressive activist of 2008? Did the wealthy trial lawyer really mean everything he said about poverty? With the groups who should have formed Edwards' base (progressives, young people, unions) flocking to Obama, did he really have a chance? (In my three months of conducting polls at Quinnipiac in the summer of 2007, I talked to one person who said he planned to vote for Edwards.)

When the scandal broke last summer, I was devastated. Forget the morality aspect; how could Edwards have jeopardized his party's chances in this way? If he had won the nomination, and this scandal had broken over the summer, then we would be a little over 100 days in the McCain presidency.

Edwards is back in the news. Edwards is being investigated for having perhaps steered campaign funds to the woman with whom he'd had the affair. We're learning that most of his top staff members for the 2004 run didn't return for 2008 because they knew about the affair and didn't want to work for him. Some encouraged him to not run.

His wife, Elizabeth, just released a book in which she reveals that she, too, tried to prevent her husband from running. From the looks of things, his campaign was more of an ego trip than Chris Dodd's adventures in Iowa. It was irresponsible and deceitful of Edwards to run, and it's led to nothing but disillusionmnent for former supporters like me.

This whole ordeal has helped nudge me away from politics. I'm looking towards law, and not campaigns, as a possible future. Two years ago, I would have said that my dream job would be to manage a campaign. Now, it might be to work for the Federal Elections Commission. But who knows. Maybe someone else will come along and inspire me.

Cornell Law Prof. Criticizes Obama's Condiments

William A. Jacobson, an associate clinical professor of law at Cornell, has been raising hell on his personal blog. When President Obama ordered a burger yesterday, he asked for dijon mustard. Jacobson seems to think this choice of condiments says something profound about Obama's decision-making.

Jacobson has already updated his blog post 10 times as he locates more obscure references to Obama's taste in mustard -- is there nothing better for professors to do during finals week?

Obama ordered his burger with DIJON MUSTARD! Bet he had to seek John Kerry's counsel on that.

Dave the Zamboni Guy Retires

Via MetaEzra:

We have the inside scoop from reader EP that David Nulle, also known as 'Dave the Zamboni Guy' has chosen to accept the University's buy-out package and retire from his duties at Lynah Rink.

Dave is one of the reasons why every game at Lynah is so special, as he personifies the history and traditions which unite generations of hockey fans. For some background, check out a profile of him written by the Sun back in 2006:

Nulle celebrated 25 years of service with Cornell back in 2002, but his roots on the East Hill run farther back. His father, Richard Nulle ’33, played hockey for the Red back when games were still played on Bebe Lake. David’s mother, Claire Denise Couch was also a Cornellian, graduating in 1932. She met Richard at a dance in Willard Straight Hall, and the rest, as David recalls, was history.

We'll miss you, Dave.

This link has some pictures of Dave on Flickr.

Asher Roth Reflects on Visit to Cornell

Rapper Asher Roth was around last Friday to perform on Slope Day. Here are his profound thoughts on his first visit to Cornell, courtesy of Twitter:

Everyone Loves BDL

Our great state of Connecticut is roughly sandwiched between Boston and New York, both of which are serviced by large yet efficient airports. Meanwhile, we suffer through flying out of Bradley International Airport, which is a wholly different experience.

Hartford Courant blogger/columnist Colin McEnroe, writing about his trip to Japan, has a Bradley anecdote which makes perfect sense if you've ever had the displeasure of flying out of BDL:

I have pretty much the usual set of of travel stories, most of them having to do with the problems created by Bradley International. No matter how much they dress it up, BDL is still, at its core, a dusty airstrip in Honduras with a little palm-thatched hut adjacent. Yesterday, moments before I started the first leg to Detroit, a gate agent made one of those announcements that doesn't make any sense (but it doesn't matter because you have no say, anyway). "Because of the wind conditions [there weren't any] and because they are painting two runways, the plane can not take off at its usual full weight so we're considering asking 30 people to stay back or maybe taking off with less fuel and then flying somewhere else for more fuel and ..."

Huh?

Even she didn't really seem to know what she was trying to say. Only at BDL could air travel be substantially incommoded by "painting the runway."

At Bradley, it's pretty standard to wait 45 minutes for your bags to come out. Once, when we were coming home after visiting my grandparents in Florida, we sat around the baggage claim area for 90 minutes before our bags came out. And this was around 11pm, when there were no other flights arriving. I was very young at the time, but I knew Bradley was terrible.

Of course, not everything is the airport's fault. In an effort to improve passengers' experiences, Bradley constructed a new parking garage which was connected to the terminal by a covered walkway. The garage was completed in 2001, but was immediately closed after the 9/11 attacks due to security concerns. So, the new parking garage sat unused for a couple of years until the Department of Homeland Security granted a waiver.

For more on Bradley's problems, see this Courant story...

State police have arrested 10 baggage handlers at Bradley International Airport on charges they stole everything from laptop computers and cameras to 5-foot wooden African masks from checked baggage and air cargo.

One of those common sense things

Let's play a game. I'll give you some background facts, and then you decide what you would have done, assuming you were a Connecticut State Senator.

Last October, an 8-year-old Connecticut boy accidentally shot himself in the head with an Uzi when he was at a gun show in Massachusetts. The boy's father, who ironically is the director of emergency medicine at a Connecticut hospital, was supporting him from behind as the 8-year-old was firing the machine gun.

Last week, the Connecticut State Senate voted on a bill which would prevent anyone under 16 from firing a machine gun. How would you have voted?

Probably not with Sen. Witkos. Here's one of those lines which should reasonably amount to political suicide:

"I think the legislation’s useless,” said Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-Canton, one of two to vote against the measure...

If you don't vote for this bill, what bill will you vote for?

The First 100 Days of Obama's News Feed

Slate did a very good job with this. Head over to their site for the full experience.

A sample:

TCAT Route Changes Don't Affect Students

I spent a few minutes trying to decipher the route changes approved yesterday by the TCAT board of directors. The Journal has basically no coverage of this and the Sun is done printing for the semester, so this might be an exclusive story...

Anyway, Cornell students won't be affected too much by the changes. The #10 bus, which goes between Central Campus and the Commons all day, is unchanged. The board initially wanted to switch the routes of the #30 and #32 buses through Cayuga Heights, sending the #30 on Triphammer and the #32 on Highland, but relented after public opposition. The #30 will no longer stop at the mall after the mall has closed for the night. (Makes sense, right?) The #30 will also follow its normal route on weekends, as opposed to its current weekend route which bypasses my house.

In a welcome move for those of us who enjoy drinking in Collegetown and catching a bus back to North, TCAT is adding more "drunk" buses. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, there will be a bus departing every 15 minutes from the Schwartz Center to head back to West and North.

If you're motivated, you can sort through all the versions of route changes here and try to make sense of what they actually approved yesterday.

Slope Day Recap

Once again, sorry for the lack of posts. It's been a hectic few days. I had a term paper due today (yes, on Slope Day) which stretched to 26 pages. I haven't written anything this long since my senior year of high school, when my AP Government teacher decided that because he couldn't find a comparative government review book which met his standards, it would be better if everyone in the class wrote his or her own review book. Most of us ended up writing somewhere in the 40-100 page range. Somehow, that class still convinced me to apply to Cornell as a Government major.

I'm just going to jot down a few quick thoughts about Slope Day and then get some sleep.

The good:

-The weather. Not as hot as the last two years', and the clouds burned off in time for plenty of sunshine on the slope. It was pouring rain by the time we got home, but it felt refreshing.

-The Pussycat Dolls. PCD and Gym Class Heroes, the headliners for the last two years, have proven why it can be better to have a fun show with shitty music than a boring show with good music. They dressed and danced like skanks, but came with plenty of energy to entertain the crowd. The dance remixes at the end of their hit songs were a nice surprise.

-The food. More interesting options (veggie lo mein!) and short lines.

The bad:

-Asher Roth. Everyone had fun with "I Love College," but the guy released a quality album 11 days ago. Roth barely played anything from his album, and instead chose some party-type tracks and a long freestyle about college.

-Scheduling. It seemed like Apples in Stereo (the first opener) played forever, and we still needed to sit through lengthy breaks while the stage was set up. I know artists are picky, but we should really be able to move things along more quickly.

-Bathrooms. I was too dehydrated to really care about this, but I heard that the lines were long.

Wish list for next year:

-Cam'ron and Guster open for The Killers.