Checking in with reality

By Maroon Editorial Staff / January 15, 2008

One would think that a trade that is beneficial to both sides would get done without much hassle. Unfortunately, reaching a meeting of minds between Hyde Park community members and University administration has never been that simple. In the latest example, Ward 5 Alderman Leslie Hairston has blocked the U of C’s proposal to build...

A fruitless search for the immaculate concession

By Tim Murphy / January 15, 2008

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney stood confidently behind the podium, thanked his dutiful wife and campaign volunteers, and proceeded to turn reality squarely on its head. “There have been three races so far—I’ve gotten two silvers and one gold,” he began, shortly after flipping away his notecards and announcing his intention to speak from the heart....

A call to arms in the fight for tighter gun control laws

By Zach Werner / January 15, 2008

Last quarter I left the United States to study abroad in Paris. To my surprise, this experience taught me as much about our red, white, and blue as it did about theirs, pâté de foie gras notwithstanding. Traveling creates distance, and distance creates perspective. Viewed from afar, America’s hustle and bustle appears remote; only her...

Silent majority finds its voice in Co-Op debate

By Alec Brandon / January 15, 2008

I owe the residents of Hyde Park an apology. Over the past year this column has had more than its fair share of philippics against Hyde Park residents. I’ve denounced their selfishness, myopia, and ignorance. This hasn’t been very hard. We’re talking about people who have consistently blocked development on 53rd Street, fought to save...

Taking the next step

By Maroon Editorial Staff / January 11, 2008

At a time when most students were still sleeping off finals-week blues, the Co-Op Market’s shareholders delivered a blow to protectionism’s stranglehold on Hyde Park. Sixty percent of ballots cast favored dissolving the grocer, persuading the board to submit to the community’s demand. A new University-backed grocer is scheduled to arrive by mid-February. This is...

Cultural protectionism breeds unfair prejudices

By Matt Barnum / January 11, 2008

A little over a year ago, Facebook decided to expand beyond college and high school students. At the time, the planned change was met with stiff opposition from many users. The rationale, despite Facebook’s relatively stringent privacy settings, ranged from fear of curious parents to fear of creepy child molesters. Cooler heads prevailed, and now...

News and noise mesh as media worlds collide

By Ethan Stanislawski / January 11, 2008

If you haven’t heard it from your parents (or your grandparents), you’ve probably heard it from columnists across America: Bloggers are irresponsible, unqualified “journalists” who are wasting their lives blogging. Whether it’s Michael Skube, who called blogs “all the noise that’s fit” in the L.A. Times, or Michael Wilbon and Stephen A. Smith of ESPN,...

After college, follow your heart, not your wallet

By Ryan McCarl / January 11, 2008

For students finishing college this year, the search for graduate schools and entry-level jobs is well underway. We are accustomed to imagining ourselves in a variety of future situations, and the fact that we will soon have to close some of these options off forever is disturbing to us. I never imagined how much of...

Generational drift? It’s all about context

By Frank Lin / January 11, 2008

To appreciate an experience like that of the University of Chicago, all you need is a bit of context. Context is what separates the coldness of the grey neo-Gothic architecture from the pill-bottle sanguinity exuded by many an orange cylindrical campus center found on universities across the country. Context is the diploma at the end...

After caucuses, Iowa must go

By Claire McNear / January 11, 2008

After the conclusion of the American Civil War, a four-year crisis that cost the country 620,000 men, devastated the economy, and even went so far as to disrupt the construction of the gaudy ego-stroker that was the partially completed Washington Monument, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1869 case Texas v. White that the secession...

Uncommon Fund lacks common sense

By Maroon Editorial Staff / November 27, 2007

Giving the same thing a different name doesn’t make it better; it just makes it easier to forget how bad it was in the first place. In an attempt to make us all forget what a flop last year’s New Initiatives Fund was, Student Government (S.G.) has now dubbed it the “Uncommon Fund.” Last year,...

Objectivism requires dose of humility

By Ryan McCarl / November 27, 2007

I discovered Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as a curious ninth-grader looking for something to read. I stumbled across the book randomly; my mother had an unread copy from her college years in a box in the basement. Atlas Shrugged, despite the scathing reviews that greeted its publication, remains in print after 50 years and will...