September 18, 2008

Hi, my name is Tom. I’m a freshman, and I’m from Kansas. Yeah, really. If you must know, I’ve never met Dorothy and don’t live on a farm (though I do like to joke about riding a combine to school). I’m not a redneck, I don’t have a “country” accent and I have never been […]

As bookstores across the nation compete with the quick access and discounted prices offered by online retailers, some independent outlets in the city are emphasizing using their space for what the Internet cannot offer: face-to-face discussion. “Political movements started when local community members could get together to talk,” said Don Allen, general manager of Busboys […]

After a primary and election season that has already lasted longer than most of the good shows on Fox – I’m looking at you, “Arrested Development” – I’m sure that most of you have heard something about this “presidential election” we seem to be amid. I promise not to bore you with yet another “I […]

Free tours will launch from 18 different locations around the city this weekend, exposing the rich culture behind many of D.C.’s neighborhoods and landmarks to District residents. Cultural Tourism D.C., a non-profit tourism organization, will sponsor the biannual Walkingtown D.C. program this Saturday and Sunday. The outings will explore the lesser-known points of interest in […]

Thanks goes out to Gelman research librarians Paola Ceccarini, Caroline Crouse, Elizabeth Edwards, Deborah Gaspar, Randy Hertzler, Tina Plottel, Mark Yoffe and Shmuel Ben-Gad for the Lou Reed reference, among other choice tracks. 1. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – S. Rachmaninoff 2. New York, New York – Frank Sinatra 3. Goods – Mates […]

David Foster Wallace, American novelist and essayist associated with the literary movement hysterical realism, hanged himself last Friday evening. Hysterical realism, a genre based on use of detail and at times absurdist prose, was publicly condemned by literary critic James Woods as work that could “know a thousand things but not.a single human being.” It […]

The University’s highest-paid professor earns more than most administrators and hundreds of thousands more than most faculty. But Shahram Sarkani is not your average professor. Sarkani, a professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, spends up to 200 days a year on the road, crisscrossing the world to teach engineering courses to a […]

While soaring textbook prices have sent some students to discount online retailers, other students across the country are opting out of paying for textbooks altogether. Textbook Torrents, a Web site that allows users to illegally swap digital copies of textbooks with one another, has about 95,000 members and is growing by close to 1,000 members […]

The words “Obama” and “McCain” remained unspoken until the end of the program, but the five former secretaries of state assembled in Lisner Auditorium Monday afternoon had a lot of advice for whichever candidate becomes the next president. Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell shared their decades of foreign policy […]