King Downing, attorney and coordinator of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) nationwide Campaign Against Racial Profiling gave a speech entitled “Axis of Evil: 9/11 and Hate Crimes at Home” in the Weyerhaeuser Chapel on Friday. The speech was the first of a series of events for the fourth annual Diversity Weekend.
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St. Paul residents cast their votes Tuesday in the local city council and school board elections. Macalester students voted in Wards 1, 3 and 4.
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Pad Thai Grand Café will move into the Macalester-owned restaurant space below the Grand Cambridge Apartments in mid-January. Seafood restaurant Red Fish Blue, which formerly occupied the space, closed over the summer on the brink of bankruptcy.
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St. Paul’s initiative to cut down on underage drinking, “Zero Adult Providers” (ZAP) has lost its Minnesota for Public Health (MIPH) grant. The St. Paul Police Department will cover the deficit to allow the program to continue.
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November 6, 1941—The Macalester cross-country team ended its season with an exciting victory. “The Macalester cross country team won the state championship for the second year by splashing five men into the first six to finish the 2.3 miles of snow and slush covered course at the University last Saturday morning.”
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When Assistant Director of Campus Programs for Multicultural Life Anita Doddi announced her resignation she prompted conversations in Campus Programs and elsewhere on campus about staff workloads.
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Joshua Bertsch ’03, who pleaded guilty in August to 19 counts possession of child pornography and one count distribution, was sentenced to a 6 1/2-year prison term Tuesday. Ramsey County District Judge Joanne Smith, who handed down the sentence, said her decision was one of the most difficult evaluations she has made in her twenty years as a judge.
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With the introduction of the Interdepartmental Program in African Studies next semester, Macalester students will have the opportunity to pursue an in-depth course of study on Africa.
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A straight person recently told me that, due to my bisexuality, I will have a “harder time” committing to a relationship because if I ever have a problem with one person, I will just dump him or her and start dating someone whose sex/gender is the opposite of the dumped.
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I heard rumors of a bike club at Macalester when I accepted—I even saw it listed as a club on one of the many pieces of coaxing literature I received from this school. Its presence definitely served to increase my attraction to Mac. However, upon arriving on campus, I sorrowfully discovered that this club was hibernating. In fact, it had been out of commission for several years. But this is no longer the case… Mac Bike has been awakened from its hibernation; indeed, it is in full swing. We began our weekly meetings over a month ago, and have been going strong ever since.
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Many ask the senior questions along the line of, “So, did you like Macalester?” I consider my current relationship (since we haven’t broken up yet) with Macalester one of love, given its contradictory existence. I am lucky to be at Macalester because it indeed offers me a space to learn more about people from all corners of the world. I don’t claim to now know it all, but I have gained from many opportunities to interact with different cultures. In my first weeks here, I found myself welcomed into the Macalester community with more enthusiasm than I would’ve believed. In this regard, the Macalester brochures actually understate this reality. Being a citizen of Ghana, I was constantly reminded of my contribution to the genuine manifestation of internationalism at Macalester and that always somehow feels good to know. I love to represent. In my equally international (in an African sense, though) high school, I had never been accorded this level of acknowledgment by virtue of just being Ghanaian. I say this, though, with a tinge of sarcasm.
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Last week’s Mental Health Awareness week was a student-led effort organized by a coalition of campus organizations and provided an opportunity for education, reflection, and community support. In addition, it also provided a timely opportunity to memorialize the late Senator Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash a year ago along with his wife, Sheila, their daughter, Marcia, and five others. In 1996, Senator Wellstone and Senator Pete Domenici, who both have families affected by mental illness, introduced the Mental Health Parity Act to Congress. It was offered to Congress in the hopes of ending the widespread insurance company discrimination faced by people with mental illness that denies them equal access to medical care. Common discriminatory practices include higher co-pays and deductibles for mental health patients, limitations on doctor visits and debilitating lifetime spending limits. Without adequate health coverage, many people with mental illness face unemployment, failure in the education system and homelessness. What parity legislation aims to do is eliminate this discrimination by requiring that insurance plans cover expenses related to mental illness to the same degree that they would cover physical health concerns. Four states (Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota and Vermont) have parity laws that apply to all mental health disorders under private insurance plans. It is our responsibility to see that Congress passes the re-named Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act, giving parity rights to families and individuals across the nation.
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The women’s soccer team thumped rival St. Thomas 5-0 on Tuesday to reach the finals of the MIAC playoff tournament, outshooting their hosts 11-5. Annie Borton ’07 opened the scoring in the fourth minute. Macalester followed with three more goals in the half from Meghan Leahey ’06, Sarah Marsh ’05 and Jessica Bullen ’05.
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Never been to a soccer game at Macalester? Prefer the warmth of the library on Friday nights? Never mind, you still have time to catch our men’s and women’s teams on Friday and Saturday respectively. Just so that you’re not lost, here are some of the cheers you are likely to hear. Enjoy.
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The Macalester men’s ultimate Frisbee team, the Blue Monkey, finished its season with a resounding championship performance in the B pool at the Halliwinona Tournament in Winona, Minn., Oct. 25-26. The championship was the Blue Monkey’s first in recent history. The team won each of its final-day elimination games convincingly, crushing Marquette in the championship game.
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They hadn’t won a game in two years. Their opponents had more players, bigger players, more experience and more backing both financially and with fans. It was their first game of the year on the road and they had only two substitutes. Every piece of logic said that they would lose, but one thing was left out: crazy beats big. With this as their rallying cry, the Macalester men’s rugby team defeated the Carleton Knights 10-5 last Saturday. It is just the beginning of what could be a breakthrough year for the team.
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Koby Hagen ’06 won the MIAC women’s cross country championship on Saturday, becoming the first Scot to do so since Julia Kirtland ’86 in 1986. Hagen placed first out of 282 runners with a time of 18 minutes, 46 seconds in the 5-kilometer race at Como Park Golf Course, helping the Scots attain a sixth-place team finish. Three other Scots broke 20 minutes: Anna Gordon ’06 placed 30th at 19:50, Renee Schaefer ’04 placed 34th at 19:54 and Anna Shamey ’07 placed 42nd at 19:59. Nathalia Brashear ’06, the Scot’s fifth finisher, just missed the 20-minute mark at 47th place with a time of 20:02.
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Dear Rock Hardy and Fleshy Fox,
When I was a first-year, a Macalester senior told me: “By the time you’re a senior, you can’t walk between the Campus Center and the library without seeing at least four people who you’ve had sex with.” Well, I’m a junior, and I’ve only seen someone who I’ve “done it” with during that special walk once – and it was HORRIBLE. How can I avoid this experience again? Please tell me some creative ways to avoid making that one night stand a semester-long game of hide and seek.
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I’d like to offer my gratitude to all the talented men and women at the U.S. Mint for their breathtaking new, more secure 20 dollar bill. Take a look; put it to your nose and smell humanity’s grandest artistic achievement. I’ve been shelling out 21 bucks apiece for these beauties. Color-shifting ink—looks like a goddamn Van Gogh. And how about that handsome bald eagle in blue? It’s almost as wonderful as wealth itself. Listen, with money this spectacular, who can question capitalism? I’d love to see the look on the faces of all the tax-and-spend liberals when they catch a glimpse of these brilliant new Jacksons. It’s a visual masterpiece and it offers a peek into the exciting future of legal tender. For poor people, who may not have had the chance to spot one, I will explain the changes.
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A few days ago I was reading The Mac Weekly, and noticed a wide variety of articles appealing to many groups here on campus. Liberals, conservatives, gay people, straight people, vegetarians, religious folks, sports fans, music nuts and cinemaphiles are all represented in this, the voice of Macalester. But one group was left out: the geeks.
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“A slice of heaven” is what Graydon Royce of the Star Tribune calls A Grand Night for Singing, the romantic musical that is currently on stage at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. If this description inspires thoughts of a huge moon and bright stars, or warm sunrays of yellow and orange, then you are getting the picture.
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Whenever an actor dies after filming a movie, a curious process takes place. A sort of movie-goer shorthand takes effect. Most of the significant aspects of that movie—the cinematography, the direction, the writing—take a back seat to the performance of the dead thespian. Even the title of the movie becomes irrelevant, as it will forever after be known as “so-and-so’s last movie.”
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There has been a lot of backlash from the New York retro rock movement of two years ago, with some citing the similarity of a lot of the bands and the pretentiousness with which they present themselves. The Strokes, being the leaders of the movement and primary targets of this backlash, had a lot to lose with their second album, Room On Fire. After trying to record an album with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, the band decided to scrap the sessions and opt for something else. The result is surely a much less pretentious and smarter decision. On Room on Fire, The Strokes spit in the faces of their critics and follow the same mold that made their debut, Is This It, a furious smash.
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The Mac Weekly is an entirely student-produced publication. The opinions expressed in this document are those of its authors and editors, not of Macalester College.
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