A diamond to incoming President Christina Paxson, who told an audience in Sayles Hall last Friday that she realized the effects of spending time at Brown when her formerly "clean-cut, studious" brother "had long hair," started "listening to new music" and debated "the ethics of eating meat" after coming to the University. President-elect Paxson, we can't wait to watch your transformation.
Cubic zirconium to the senior who originally thought the naked masturbator recently spotted on John Street was wearing skintight, nude-colored pants. In case you were wondering, students on Brown Bares aren't wearing those either.
A diamond to past leaders of the Undergraduate Council of Students and the Undergraduate Finance Board who described the relationship between the two groups as "rival," "bitter" and "overly dramatic." Call Bravo, it looks like we've found the next hot reality show: "The Real Student Government of Brown University."
Coal to the junior who started Meatless Mondays, an initiative to abstain from eating meat on Mondays, at Brown and said, "A lot of the time, food is there, and we just eat it." Yes, but why else would we stomach the Ratty's cheese and corn strata?
A diamond to the University for planning to introduce academic offerings for mid-career professionals, a move one graduate called "exclusively for making money." Why stop there? We want to be able to get our modern culture and media studies degree and scuba diving accreditation in the same place.
Coal to Chandan Reddy, who said in a lecture Monday about the nature of violence that we need to "undo this pedestrian understanding of the relationship." Funny, that line didn't go over so well when we used it in our last breakup.
A diamond to the member of Brown for Providence, a student group created to advocate increased payments to the city, who said of the debate over the University's contributions to the city, "The whole world is really watching what we're doing." Sounds like what the naked masturbator must have muttered to himself when he was up and about Wednesday night.
Coal to President Obama for omitting President Ruth Simmons from his shortlist for candidates to head the World Bank but including former Harvard President Larry Summers. Your previous president may have been director of the National Economics Council, Harvard, but our future president used her economics expertise to conclude that tall people are usually smarter than short ones.
A diamond to Ruth Rosenberg, the new ombudsperson, who said at Tuesday's faculty meeting that she is open to all suggestions about improving the University. We applaud her spirit and suggest that she start with, in the oft-misquoted words of former President Herbert Hoover, "a batch of Jo's mozzarella sticks in every pot and an exit sign for every Keeney freshman."
