New York Times

We’re sure you’ve come across some strange articles in your lifetime that make you seriously wonder… WTF?! However, it’s pretty rare that these articles come straight out of the highly acclaimed New York Times.

On December 30^th, 2010 one journalist must have had a pretty bad day. Either that, or someone tampered with his morning coffee.  Whatever it was, it helped him produce a rather interesting and questionable article about the slush that continues to plague Manhattan this winter. I think that’s something that we inhabitants of Providence can definitely relate to.

“The snowman’s cheery gaze turned to one of grave alarm, for slush is to him what zombies are to man. Relentless, undead.” This is just one of the many bizarre passages of Michael Wilson’s piece.  Check it out… it’s bound to make you question if that day’s NY Times editor took a little snooze on the job.

Though you may still be trapped under a five-foot snowdrift, school is coming soon. To ease the pain of one of your many readjustment woes, the New York Times has provided a helpful list of all the places to purchase low-cost textbooks. Hint: The Brown Bookstore is not one of them.

Harvard Professor N. Gregory Mankiw — best known at Brown as the author of the ECON0110 textbook —  recently penned a column for the New York Times, outlining the course load he believes each of us need “for the game of life.”

From his vantage point, we should all learn “some economics,” “some statistics,” “some finance” and “some psychology.” So for those of you out there enrolled in ECON0110: “Principles of Economics,” SOC0110 “Introductory Statistics for Social Research” and ECON0710: “Financial Accounting,” you’re doing pretty well for yourself. Sadly for the professor, we don’t really have psychology anymore.

But Mankiw also says to “ignore advice as you see fit.” So although you may have to take him at his word when it comes to your first ECON0110 exam (seriously, read the textbook), the rest is up to you. The game of life has a few more variations than his outline might suggest.

Well, wedding fever has caught the nation, as people stalked and speculated on the wedding of one of American royalty.

So now you’ve gotten a little taste of wedding, you just can’t quit, right? Well lucky for you, there’s a website, WeddingCredential.com, where you can search wedding announcements for keywords. They could be schools, names, jobs, locations, hobbies – anything that might appear in an announcement. The site also suggests various terms, including “Goldman Sachs” and “keeping her name.”

A search for Brown came up with a bunch of alum marriages, but also a slew of people just named Brown.

Dip into the lives of others for a little vicarious romantic thrill.

Office of the President

President Simmons is expected to officially wash her hands of Goldman Sachs’ board of directors on Friday when shareholders elect a new director at their annual meeting. Simmons’ announcement that she would not stand for re-election at Friday’s meeting came on Feb. 12. In case you’re just tuning in now, click “more” to be brought up to speed on the issues behind the decision. [Read more →]

From the New York Times:

ON a spring morning in 2002, Michael Kerry Matthews, a history major and an aspiring filmmaker, watched as a beautiful young woman walked across a cafeteria at Brown University and put two pieces of bread in the toaster on her way to the omelet line. Mr. Matthews felt an overwhelmingly urgency to act.

“They rarely had this kind of good sourdough bread,” he said. “There wasn’t any left. So I guess I kind of took her toast.”

The woman was Sarah Staveley-O’Carroll, a junior history student. She had spotted Mr. Matthews, a freshman, who was “so cute.” But, handsome or not, he was a toast thief. …

This recipe begins with Sarah Staveley-O’Carroll ’03, Michael Matthews ’05, and a slice of sourdough bread from the Ratty.

Add a dash of old-school tactics, including “crashing parties that one knew the other was attending, signing up for a class or switching into a study section that one heard the other was in.”

Mix in one Hardball host, a stint in Rwanda, an aggressive mountain gorilla, and one French Huguenot minister and you get a classic NYT Vows piece.

Can we all say just say “aww”?

We don’t know if Damian Kulash ’98 spent a lot of time in Barus and Holley in between MCM classes, but the new OK Go video sure is impressive. The group’s new song “This Too Shall Pass” features various Rube Goldberg machines. Kulash was so concerned about mass Web distribution of the video that he took to the New York Times for help. Apparently, Bono isn’t the only rockstar who can write op-eds about global concerns.