Posts from — March 2010

Sofia Castello / Herald

Marshall Miller ’96 and Dorian Solot ’95, who presented on female orgasms this March to several hundred Brown students, are on their way down south to Tennessee, and to some very mixed reactions!

“We have a tendency here on campus to be very structured in what we say and what we don’t,” Carol Oglesby, coordinator of student civic engagement and physical health education said. “These folks from Brown University speak the way the students do and they talk about everything from the female orgasm to a male erection, to how you entertain your significant other sexually. And these are things we haven’t ever been able to talk about on this campus.”

On the other hand:

Chris Cahill, a Memphis junior, said he has heard about the program, but is a little uncertain about it.

“I’m convinced that the whole presentation is a lie, just like Bigfoot and the 19th Amendment.” Cahill said. “I’m just going to have to see it for myself.”

Cahill said in some instances it is better for students to figure things out for themselves instead of attending sex education programs.

“Students in the wild are in their prime, and think much more openly about sex with their friends,” Cahill said.

Just can’t get enough e-mail? For everyone glued to their iPhones and BlackBerries, here’s an alternative: a t-shirt that lights up with every new message you receive.

Unfortunately, this ruins the ability to fake your invisibility.

But still — gives new meaning to getting inbox like Gmail.

Most Brunonians are now back home or relaxing at a sunny vacation spot for spring break.  But back in Providence, a record amount of rain has fallen. Providence has received over 7.9 inches of rain in a 36 hour period, according to the ProJo 7 to 7 News Blog. Rainfall across New England has led to flooding, home evacuations and school closures. But the end is in sight. The high in Providence is supposed to approach 70 degrees this weekend and will be in the 60s for our return next week.

While Brown students are lounging at home or partying it up on Spring Break, it seems that our compatriots still can’t get over how hard life is. What is it this time? The Daily Princetonian’s three-part examination of “stress as a way of life.”

After jump-starting their career with a Herald interview in February, frontman Damian Kulash ’98 and OK Go are in the news yet again — this time on the front cover of Billboard magazine.

OK Go were featured for their recent decision to leave EMI and form their own label.

“We just sort of figure that if we put out a big ball of creative ideas, one of them’s going to spit back some money,” Kulash told Billboard.

Here again, in case you aren’t one of the 10 million viewers, is the latest music video from the band famous for their music videos.

Even though we no longer need to bother with the SAT, this is interesting just to note, and may be especially useful for those of you with younger siblings or who work as SAT tutors: Apple has new SAT practice “games” for iPods. They are under the “iPod Click Wheel Games” section in the iTunes store.

It may sound silly, but when I was studying for the SAT I had an SAT vocabulary list on my iPod and would study it on the way to school in the morning. Maybe it’s a generational technological obsession, but it actually really helped me.

Courtesy Justin Ide / Harvard News Office

World-renowned Brown Professor of Africana Studies Chinua Achebe did an interview with the New York Times that ran earlier this week. Here are a few highlights:

Interviewer: As a professor at Brown University, in Providence, R.I., you yourself live in exile, as do many other Nigerian writers, including the playwright Wole Soyinka and the young novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Achebe: If you were in Nigeria and had cause to go to a hospital or to see a doctor, you would then immediately understand why so many people are abroad.

Interviewer: You’ve been wheelchair-bound since 1990, as a result of a car accident that left you paralyzed from the waist down.
Achebe: Yes. I was in Nigeria when the accident happened. I was flown to England for treatment. They tried to put me together, then they recommended that I go to America for a follow-up, and that’s why I came to America.

Interviewer: How old are you now?
Achebe: I’m approaching 80. I don’t care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

Interviewer: What do you consider the most important thing about yourself?
Achebe: Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don’t expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room. There is this complexity which seems to me to be part of the meaning of existence and everything we value.

Passover humor: Something all the Jews and wish-they-were Jews can enjoy.

Plus: an explanation.

Friday Fashion is a new weekly feature for Blog Daily Herald written by Brown’s most fashionable blog, College Hill Rags. College Hill Rags features a sartorialist perspective on the outfits of stylish College Hill denizens, along with other fashion-related articles. Friday Fashion will be posted exclusively on Blog Daily Herald and will showcase trends on campus!

This week’s post: Jackets, especially military jackets

The weather this time of year is just enough to keep you from throwing off your sweater and running out in flip flops – you still need a substantial jacket to keep you warm as you walk past the windy corner under the shadow of the SciLi. Military jackets in olive drab and weathered khaki match everything and provide a trendy bit of edge with their tough silhouette. They flatter every skin tone and look great on guys and girls alike. Here are a few picks that you can get on Thayer or at Providence Place (click for larger image):

1. Cropped utility anorak by Gap; 2. Genuine surplus military jacket, available on Amazon.com or at the Army/Navy surplus store!; 3. Cargo linen jacket by Forever21; 4. Men’s twill military jacket by Old Navy; 5. Military 4-pocket parka by Uniqlo; 6. Cropped surplus jacket, available at Urban Outfitters

Keep reading to see what your friends wore last week:

[Read more →]

Rep. Peter Palumbo is supporting the introduction of a bill to the Rhode Island House that would require drug testing for people on welfare and their immediate adult family members. Recipients who test positive for illegal substances would lose the ability to receive welfare cash. Palumbo says the bill would save the state money, but some social welfare advocates say the measure is unconstitutional.

The Cranston School District, which last month cut funding for music and athletics and eliminated many high school sports teams, will be able to restore most of those sports programs thanks to a donation from the New England Laborers’/Cranston Public Schools Construction Career Academy, a public charter school. The sports coming back include tennis and the girls cooperative hockey team (a team consisting of players from both Cranston high schools) and exclude freshman baseball, basketball and football. Another residents’ group is hoping to find money to help save the music program as well.

Those NCAA visitors last week at both the Dunkin’ Donuts and Rhode Island Convention Centers brought the state more than 500 grand. Yet another reason to love arena food — the Dunkin’ Donuts Center sold over 4,000 hot dogs, just one of the ways the venue made money!