Burning the bridge to nowhere

By Tim Murphy / November 15, 2007

Everyone reacts differently to winning a championship. Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon dances. Argentinians riot. The U.S. National Bridge Team makes empty political statements. After inspiring millions with their victory at the World Bridge Championships in Shanghai last week, U.S. team members donned their shiny gold medals and smiled in front of a note written...

Giuliani’s existential crisis

By Steve Michalkow / November 15, 2007

He is a sick man—an angry man. He is a brutish man. He is an elusive and ambiguous man. He is an endlessly contradictory man. He is the ultimate politico. He is Rudy Giuliani. But who the hell is that? Perhaps cribbing from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground is a bit out of hand for...

Co-Op fails to produce

By Maroon Editorial Staff / November 13, 2007

For years, the Hyde Park Co-Op Market has given new meaning to the term “bad apple.” The Co-Op, which has slimmed from three locations to just one in the past three years, has combined low-quality produce, exorbitant prices, and almost farcical mismanagement, sending many residents elsewhere in search of better grocery options. Now, with the...

Grading runs counter to U of C’s educational values

By Ryan McCarl / November 13, 2007

Most students come to the U of C because they want to be part of a community where intellectual exchange is a significant part of daily life. It is this basic commitment to education—education as something more than just a diploma—that gives the University its distinctive character. With that in mind, we should seriously consider...

Pulp affliction: Why I don’t want a Fanta Orange

By Max Rubinstein / November 13, 2007

People today care about all the wrong things. “Oh my God, did you hear about what Michael Vick did to those dogs?” Yeah, I did. Did you hear about the 20-cent price increase of the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger? Indeed, it’s issues like these, issues that affect our daily lives, that more people should be concerned...

Empty shelves, empty promises

By Alec Brandon / November 13, 2007

If ever there were a place that a cooperative could thrive in, Hyde Park is it. Our community is composed of long-time residents still bitter about Walter Mondale losing in ’84, liberal professors, and a few thousand college students. We’re like Berkeley, except without the good weather or the wealth. All the ideological sympathies in...

Bad company

By Maroon Editorial Staff / November 9, 2007

Houseguests shouldn’t overstay their welcome. So either the residents of Hitchcock House are unusually hospitable, or a serious lack of communication allowed John Daniel George, a college student from Michigan, to stay for over a month in a two-person U of C dorm room. During George’s extended stay in Hitchcock, Resident Heads (R.H.s) Ben and...

Post-grad odyssey offers new hope

By Zack Hill / November 9, 2007

As a fourth-year, you come to realize several important truths: a) You’re graduating in several months, b) you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing with your life, and c) that schmuck who wore a business suit every day to Sosc has a job lined up at Credit Suisse and will be making $300,000 next...

Republicans hearing populist echo

By Matt Barnum / November 9, 2007

In the 1964 presidential election, the Republican Party offered up, as conservative author Phyllis Schlafly put it, a choice, not an echo. This “choice,” Barry Goldwater, was roundly defeated—America chose Lyndon Johnson instead—but in defeat Goldwater effected a conservative change in the Republican Party. In 2008, Republicans are at a similar crossroads: They must once...

Road to hell paved with Nobels

By Nathan Bloom / November 9, 2007

It is revealing that in 1938, Adolf Hitler was on the shortlist of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Before faulting the committee for its lunacy, however, it’s worth keeping in mind that a dangerous shortsightedness is built into the very institution of the Prize. It is thus profoundly troubling that so many commentators in the...

Admin at fault in contract talks

By Alex Moore / November 9, 2007

In Tuesday’s unsigned editorial (“A Union Divided,” 11/6/07), the Maroon Editorial Board chides union workers for not coming to a consensus on the administration’s most recent contract offer. The Board argues that the workers, and not the administration, are to blame for the impasse in negotiations. But of course workers are divided. The administration has...

A union divided

By Maroon Editorial Staff / November 6, 2007

A week after negotiators representing campus clerical, service, and maintenance workers voted 8–1 to accept the University’s latest contract proposal, the two sides are about to find themselves at the bargaining table yet again. In a first for University labor relations, 58 percent of voting union members opposed a contract that their own negotiators recommended....