Predictably, this first week of classes was a blur of syllabi, underheated RTS buses and overpriced textbooks. But you made it!
Drama abounded this week both on a national scale and on our humble campus. We reported this week that the controversial proposed Student Senate resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, which was hotly debated and tabled at Fall’s final Senate meeting, was removed from the agenda by the authors. We’re not sure how they plan to iron out the mess they created when they introduced the resolution since they volunteered no education campaign to let students know about it — which calls for a halt of financial partnership with Israel due to the nation’s human rights violations against Palestinians. Check back with the Alligator for updates when the resolution is reintroduced.
Anyway, here it is: Your I-went-to-class-in-the-28-degree-weather-and-all-I-got-was-this-stupid-syllabus edition of…
Darts & Laurels
Yeah, I know, you’re sick of hearing about it, but this first DART goes to Chris Christie — or, more specifically, his aides who authorized a two-lane closure on a major New Jersey roadway, the George Washington Bridge, a few months ago. According to The New York Times, emails and texts from a few of his top-ranking aides revealed that the closure was authorized solely to punish Fort Lee’s mayor for choosing not to endorse the governor for re-election.
That’s certainly one way to reinforce New Jersey’s Mafia stereotypes — causing gridlock on a high-traffic road is mob intimidation behavior if we’ve ever seen it. Christie denies knowledge of the closure, which resulted in school buses full of children being stuck for hours in traffic and delayed response times for emergency vehicles. Ugh. Those aides better watch out — now that their names were released, they may find themselves sleeping with the fishes soon.
In more positive news, a LAUREL to teen heartthrob and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden for donating $50,000 to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Philadelphia-based Women Against Abuse on Tuesday, a month after winning the money at Pennsylvania’s biggest annual political gathering, according to philly.com.
No wonder Leslie Knope is so smitten.
Until this week, Utah wasn’t known for anything except the 2002 Winter Olympics, creepy polygamy with Mormon child brides and a booming meth industry. Now, the state is in the public eye for putting a halt on gay marriage within the state, according to the Los Angeles Times, which is really just a gross thing to do. For heaven’s sake, people in love just want to get married. This legal limbo is unfair and cruel to gay couples. So to Utah, we give a DART.
Finally, a LAUREL to our cool — literally — readers for making it through the first week, Arctic temperatures and all.
May your semester be relatively stress-free, and may the hotties in your class stay after drop/add.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 1/10/2014 under the headline "Darts & Laurels
