Director of Security Terry Gorman ordered Carnegie Hall to be closed just before 11 a.m. last Friday on the advice of the St. Paul Fire Department’s Hazardous Materials Response Team (Haz Mat) after Sociology Department Coordinator Christine Scarlett discovered a “white, powdery substance” in the building’s stairwell. Gorman, Scarlett and the hazardous materials team were afraid that the powder might be anthrax or some other bioterrorist agent. {more}

During its Tuesday night meeting, Macalester College Student Government’s Legislative Body passed a resolution stating that Macalester should keep its football team. {more}

On Sept. 11, Cammie Downing ’03 was preparing to depart for her semester abroad in Senegal when her plans were abruptly changed. “I was driving to the airport when the second tower was hit and all planes were grounded,” she said. “Needless to say, I never took off that day.” {more}

At the MCSG Legislative Body meeting Oct. 16, the charter for Macalester College Against Drugs was denied by one vote.

The charter was denied by a 13-12 vote, though all members of the Executive Board, which includes the President, Vice President and the FAC, SSC and AAC chairs voted to approve it.. {more}

Speaking in blunt terms about the future of the college, President Michael McPherson said that Macalester will be forced to make “compromises on educational quality” over the next 10 years unless it can attract a wealthier student body.

In an interview with The Mac Weekly, McPherson painted a less than rosy picture of Macalester's financial future. He said that, given the rising costs associated with offering a top-quality education, the college can not realistically continue to dole out need-based financial aid to fully two-thirds of the student body. {more}

Since the cafeteria moved from Kagin Commons to Café Mac in Feb. of this year, students have been eating more and may face a price increase as a result.

According to Bon Appetit’s Gary Lensing, the move was followed by a drastic increase in food consumption. Eating this semester has not been as high as it was last spring, but overall students still eat more now than they did in Kagin. Bon Appetit will observe how much students eat over the entire year before it comes to a decision about pricing. {more}

Noted bioethics professor LeRoy Walters spoke to a nearly full John B. Davis Lecture Hall about the ethical problems of human embryonic stem cell research on Tuesday.

Walters, a professor at the Kennedy School of Ethics at Georgetown University, served as a consultant with the National Bioethics Advisory Committee and to President Bush on the issue. His articles have appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Science and Nature and he is co-author of several books on the subject. {more}

The conservative candidate, Enrique Bolanos, assumed the presidency of Nicaragua on Nov. 6. His opponent Daniel Oretega, from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), has publicly recognised Bolano’s victory.

Despite some violent incidents during the electoral process, a vast majority of Nicaraguans attended the polls to enforce their right to vote. The Army was guarding the Centro Nacional de Computo where the votes were being counted. {more}

Have you ever heard about the Telecommunications Act of 1996? Probably not. There’s a reason for that: the act affects the media, and they don’t want you to know. {more}

Corporations are influencing the lives of billions, for better or worse. The massive spread of globalization is not only a topic of hot discussion but also a striking reality. Corporations are shaping the lives of workers, affecting the environment, and evolving as key players in the global political arena. Human destiny is in the hands of mighty multi-national corporations. Many Macalester students end up working for these corporations around the world. But how much do we really know about these corporations, their motives, their policies, their sinews, and their inadvertent impacts?

These are the main rationales that finally caused us to charter Corporate Platform (C-Plat), a newly formed student organization at Macalester focusing on various corporate issues. This is an attempt to provide a meaningful platform for the Macalester community to gain an insight into the corporate environment and relevant developments.

We have weekly meetings in the Campus Center, Room 215 every Tuesday at 7 p.m. All Macalester students are encouraged to come. We hope, as a group, we can make a significant difference. See you all there.



Israfil Khosru ’04

Bibek Pandey ’04

{more letters}

I read with interest the “Sex…or is it?” pamphlet STARSA (Students Together Against Rape and Sexual Assault) distributed recently to campus post offices. The first three “statistics” were especially intriguing.

*There were three reported accounts of rape at Macalester in 2000.

*From 1997-1999 there were three reported accounts of rape at Macalester

*1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted during the four years she is in college.

A reader’s initial reaction to these statistics might be, “Wow, Macalester must be doing something right.” After all, according to the third “fact,” Macalester should be averaging over 200 sexual assaults a year, yet there have only been six reported rapes in the past four years. Even using the “only 1/3 of rapes are actually reported” guideline means there have only been 18 rapes in the past four years, or 4.5 a year. Truly, our tolerance credo must be working. {more}

For the past two years, I’ve worked as an investigator for the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), a municipal agency that investigates complaints of police misconduct. Our agency works closely with the NYPD, particularly its Internal Affairs division. On the morning of Sept. 11, I was sitting in an investigator’s training class in Internal Affairs headquarters. My class was composed of NYPD detectives, sergeants, a lieutenant and one other investigator from the CCRB. We’d been in class for almost 30 minutes when we were informed that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We all went to a window looking onto Greenwich St., which runs straight to the towers, which were 10-15 blocks away from the building we were in. We saw the south tower smoking and assumed, like everyone else, that what had happened was an accident. Approximately 15 minutes later, a sergeant came into our classroom and informed us that the north tower had been hit and that the Pentagon had also been hit. The realization of what was happening hit in a flash of pure, raw horror.

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For some reason, our American society has become increasingly apathetic to the great level of hunger and homelessness present throughout the globe. Everybody knows that hungry people exist, but no one seems to ask, “Why?” or “What can I do about it?” Homelessness hits a little closer to home, but its brutal scope is still seen by few. Everyone knows that inequalities exist in our world, but many might be amazed at how thoroughly ugly the reality is.

{more}

After recovering from an early-season injury crisis, varsity men’s soccer has made 2001 a record-setting season and enters the NCAA Division III championships

The Scots became the second team in MIAC history-along with the 1990 Macalester team-to win the conference with a perfect record, finishing 10-0-0 in the MIAC after last Saturday’s 4-1 win at St. Mary’s.

In Saturday’s win, Kimani Williams ’02 scored two goals, bringing his career total to 57 and breaking the career-goals record set by Mark Aboud ’92.

His season total of 21 is three short of Aboud’s record of 24 set in 1991. {more}

The potent offense of Gustavus Adolphus, led by all-conference quarterback Joe Thorvig and running back Andy Traetow, scored early in the contest and never looked back as they beat Macalester 47-21 last Saturday. Thorvig tossed five first half touchdown passes to four different receivers and his back-up Tim Nesvig added another in the middle of the fourth quarter. The Gusties move to 6-3 on the year and 5-3 in the MIAC and the Scots fall to 1-8 on the year and 1-7 in the MIAC. {more}

The Macalester Athlete of the Week is senior wide receiver Ty O'Connell (Helena, MT/Capital) from the football team. In Saturday's (Nov. 3) 47-21 loss at Gustavus Adolphus, O'Connell caught nine passes for 137 yards and a touchdown, setting a new Macalester record for pass receptions in a single season with 73. O'Connell leads the conference and is in the top 10 nationally in receptions this season and in his career at Macalester has caught 193 passes for 2,218 yards and 17 touchdowns-all school records.

Native Speakers of Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, and German reside at the language houses, teach five or more language labs, and play a student/professor role. See what they have to say about Mac. {more}

Smoke hands are choking babies, toddlers are walking through the ghosts of the elderly, Target Market is targeting their market, and fetuses with cigarettes in their undeveloped mouths take long and satisfying drags. Apparently the television does not want me to smoke. My parents tell me that I smell like a carburetor, that I will die, gasping for air, sucking like a White House intern on the tube of my respirator. Even the Marlboro man says I shouldn’t do it. So why not quit, right? Why not be the person that my parents, my T.V., the reformed rebel cowboy gum-chewer, and the Surgeon General want me to be? Why not take that four dollars and sixteen cents a day I would normally spend on “20 Class A Cigarettes” and spend it on something noble, like the whales or something? Well, all of this, in part, is what made me say “yes” to Health Services when they asked me to quit for a day and write about it. I only had two questions. Number one: Can I swear in the article? Number two: Can I start smoking again directly after I finish the article? The answers were both yes, so I said, “Cigarettes, fuckin’ bring it on!” The following is a slimmed-down version of my smokeless day in journal form. {more}

Making the first move is nerve-wracking, but where else do you find cute nervous boys that don’t come breathing down your neck? I’m sure, that there are some of those nasty macho boys around, but Violent Vixen’s experience has been that the effeminate boys are the boys you should have around. They may not know exactly what’s up with being smooth or making the first move. In fact, such a boy may spill his coffee all over you or start to call you by his mom’s name, but once your burn heals and you get the stain all washed out, you’ll think it was pretty cute. I would much rather make the first move to be with a boy who is respectful and cares about his mom but must start making notecards to remember YOUR name, than the boys who are just hunting for prey.

The evening that Knight got off from his hangar duty, he was feisty. The smell of rowdiness wafted through and around his stringy body. What was Knight going to do? “Maybe I could go to the bar and drink ‘till I find my next ex wife,” he thought. Our hero embarked on his journey, and much like any other evening, Knight’s journey led him to Timmy’s Tavern, a local establishment that he enjoyed visiting. The building had this big red fox figurine at the top, the exterior was like one of those Lincoln log houses you make when your parents are too busy to take care of you and you and you.

Upon entrance, Knight was fascinated with how the velvet paintings hung so carefree from the walls. “Who would have thought that Elvis could ever look so good,” he always thought to himself as he walked down the creaky steps to where the real action was. The smell of Seagram’s was rank in the glares of the dirty ol’ patrons. It kinda smelled sweet to Knight. It wasn’t really a big deal though, he was used to it. It smelled like the time he was peeing in the bathroom trough and Barnard Spinx came in and vomited on his new wool pants. It was a sweet smell. No more reminiscing for Knight, it was time to fly to the land of disregard, the land of easy speak, the land of heady wine and headier whiskey. {more}

I wish I could write my own biography. Then I could tell everyone about how cool I am, and a few years later, I would have them make a movie about me, maybe starring Catherine Zeta-Jones or Julia Roberts. I would write about how I am almost perfect (with just a few flaws to make it look realistic, but cute, forgivable flaws) and I would make everyone else except my best friend and my kid look like jerks (just to stress the fact that I am perfect). And thus would I talk about how I overcame all of my trials and tribulations with a cute little kid in tow. {more}

Two Macalester students were arrested for providing alcohol to underage drinkers,and dozens of underage students were ticketed at two separate parties last weekend.The busts were the latest, and perhaps most severe, evidence of the Zero Adult Providers(ZAP) program, which provides the police with funds and staff to respond to morecomplaints of noise and underage drinking. {more}

Superchunk rolls into town next Thursday, and judging by their latest venture in infectious pop musicology, Here’s to Shutting Up (Merge), First Avenue should be expecting to party serious.

I remember first reading about Superchunk in some dippy teen-girl magazine circa 1993. It might have been Sassy before it actually became dippy, but you get the point. What’s worse, these kids originated in the 1980s. It is a testament to Superchunk’s craft and skill that the band has survived the It-lists of Seventeens and Sassys alike into 2001 while maintaining enormous shreds of pop-cred and dignity. {more}

Los Angeles isn’t exactly known as a breeding ground for great rock bands. Maybe the weather’s just too nice for people to get all mopey and brooding (always key ingredients for quality rock). Given that fact, the strong debut of L.A. based Rilo Kiley is even more laudable. The recently released Take Offs and Landings (Barsuk) finds the indie-pop quartet clicking on all cylinders, producing a buoyant blend of chiming guitars and cooing vocals. The band-vocalist/keyboardist Jenny Lewis, guitarist/vocalist Blake Sennet, bassist/guitarist Pierre de Reeder and drummer Dave Rock-are alarmingly consistent for being so early into their careers. {more}